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“The Full Rights Of Sons” Simply Put 
 / K.E. Stegall
 
Chapter VI
-
“The
 
Head Of The Body:” I Corinthians 11:3
-16
39
 
 
“The Head Of The Body”:
 I Corinthians 11:3-16
Hats, veils, bonnets, shawls, or scarfs. Throughout history these have been a part of a
woman‟s clothing,
used for protection, for identification of status, for modesty, or just for show.
Today, hats don‟t seem so important, at least in our part of the world.
 The changing attitudes toward hats throughout the centuries of human history tell us that towear a hat or not to wear a hat is not a point of obvious truth or consequence to all people.
I was taught this attitude toward all outward appearance. “Man looks at the outwardappearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” (I Samuel 16:7) What people look like, or what they
wea
r isn‟t important to
God (Galatians 2:6; James 2:1-4; 1 Peter 3:3-4).Yet in spite of these Biblical teachings, at some times and in some places throughout thecenturies since Paul wrote this letter to the Corinthian church, one item of clothing has nurtured morecontroversy, debate, and schism in the church than any other
-
a woman‟s hat!
 
Is a woman‟s headcovering the crux of this passage? Or is a woman‟s “head” where the realmeaning lies? Now that we have an idea of what “head” means perhaps we can gain
some insight intothe meaning of the head covering too.
In the passages that we studied in the last chapter we concentrated on the metaphor, “the headof the body, the church;...” (Colossians 1:18,2:19; Ephesians 1:22
-23.4:12,13,15). This samemetaphor appears in Ephesians 5:23 proceeded by,
“For the husband is the head of the wife as...” The
original Greek words
1
used for “husband” and “wife” in this phrase are the same Greeks words usedfor “man” and “woman” in I Corinthians 11:3, “...the head of woman is man.” Consequently, these
two phrases are almost identical, and I will consider them as one, having the same meaning.These two phrases are also very similar:
“...the head of every man is Christ,...” (I Corinthians 11:3).
 
“...Christ is the head of the church, his body,...” (Ephesians
5:23).
I will also consider them to mean the same thing because:1) In Genesis when the creation is recounted, male and female together were created
“man”
2
(Genesis 1:27,5:1-2).2) In
close context to the phrase “...the head of every man is Christ,” Paul states, “In
the Lord, however, woman is not independent of man, nor is man independent of woman.
...everything comes from God.” (I Corinthians 11:11
-12)3) Each of these two phrases is paralleled to the one phrase which is almost
identically stated in both passages, “...the head of the woman is man.” or “...the husband is the head
of the
wife.”
 4)
The Greek word used for “man” in the phrase “every man”
is the same word which
is used in Ephesians 4:13 where the “man” described is obviously the church, Christ‟s body,
 
1
You can check my references to Greek words for yourself by using an interlinear Greek-English New Testament such as theone I used:
The Nestle Greek Text with a Literal English Translation
by Alfred Marshall, published by Zondervan Publishing House,1975; and or an analytical concordance such as those by Strong or Young which give all the translations of any given Greek word aswell as listing all the biblical references where the word is used,
2
The Greek word u
sed for man in “every man” of! Corinthians 11:3 usually accentuates the male meaning of 
 
„man.‟ But this is not alway
s as cut and dried as it might first appear. This same Greek word is used in Romans 4:8 where Paul quotesPsalm 32: 1 -2. The Hebrew word us
ed for „man‟ in these Old Testament verses means „human being,‟ meaning male
 and or female, as it is used in Genesis 1:26-27 and 5:1-2. Thus, at least at times, Paul himself, who was very ably acquainted with bothlanguages, thought the Greek word he used
in the phrase “every man” meant “human being”.
 
 
“The Full Rights Of Sons” Simply Put 
 / K.E. Stegall
 
Chapter VI
-
“The Head Of The Body:” I Corinthians 11:3
-1 6
40
 
 his fullness.
These four reasons taken together indicate that “every man” also refers to the churchwhich is Christ‟s body.
 
Through our study of “head” in the previous chapter we found three aspects of mean
ingfor Christ being the head of the church, his body: fullness, growth from, and holding together.
 Now let‟s apply these to this passage in First Corinthians Ii.
 It begins with a trio of 
 parallels, “Now I want you to realize that the head of every man is
 Christ, and the head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is
God.” (I Corinthians 1 1:3)
 The idea that man, woman, and Christ are the fullness of their respective heads is fullysupported elsewhere in Scripture.Just as Scripture teaches that Jesus Christ is the fullness of God (Colossians 1:18-20), andthat the church is the fullness of Christ (Ephesians l:22-23, 4:12-15; Colossians 2:9-10), it is alsotrue that woman is the fullness of man. That is exactly what Adam meant when he said of woman,
“This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.” (Genesis 2:23)
 
Paul expands the meaning of “fullness” in verse 7, “A man ought not to cover his head.since he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man.” (I Corinthians! 1:7)
 
“Image” and
 
“glory” are words that the Scripture also uses to describe Jesus, “He is theimage of the invisible God,...” (Colossians 1:15), and just a few verses later Paul says that Christ
is also the fullness of God (Colossians l:19). Reflecting the image of the head is what fullness isall about.
Jesus is also the glory of God. “The word become flesh and made his dwelling among us.We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only,...” (John 1:14). “The Son is the radianceof God‟s glory and the exact representation of his being,...” (Hebrews 1:3; II Corinthians 4:4
-6).
“image” and “glory‟~ more completely describe “fullness.” Jesus is the fullness of God.
Jesus is the image and glory of God. This new dimension of fullness is also carried out in theparallel of Christ being head of the church.
“And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord‟s glory, are being transformed into
his likeness with ever-
increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” (II
Corinthians 3:18; John 17:9-10) The church is the glory and likeness (image) of Jesus.Now in I Corinthians 11 we see this elaboration on the meaning of fullness again in the
third parallel of man being the head of woman. “A man ought not to cover his head, since he is
the image and glory of God;
 but the woman is the glory of man.” (1 Corinthians 11:7)
 
Recently I read that “...women were created for man‟s glory...”
3
But that is not the biblical
 phrasing. At the very least, “...created for man‟s glory...”, has a completely different connotation
from
, “...woman is the glory of man.” The first sounds as if woman was made just for man‟s pleasure,
for his use, something to make him look good, serve his needs and purposes, belong to him. But thesecond sounds more like woman is the shining crown
4
of man, something radiating forth from him,his light, his vitality, his energy, a part of him.Which one of these connotations best describes how Jesus is the glory of God? We mustsay the second. Jesus is the glory of God, because he is the fullness of God, because everything
3
 Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood 
,
John Piper and Wayne Grudem, editors, Crossway Books,Wheaton,Ill.,1991, pg.130.
4
The word „glory‟ is often attached to a „crown‟ in Scripture. Many times there is a crown of glory on the hea
d of theChrist, the promised Messiah. (Psalm 21:3-5, 132:17-18, Zachariah 9: 16-17, Isaiah 62:1-3) Could this crown of glory be thechurch? (Ezekiel 16:8-14 reminds me of Ephesians 5:26-27) And at least once a wifc is described as a crown on her husband
‟s
head (Proverbs 12:4).
 
“The Full Rights Of Sons” Simply Put 
 / K.E. Stegall
 
Chapter VI
-
“The Head Of The Body:” I Corinthians 11:3
-16
41
 
 
that God is Jesus Christ radiates in a visible way. because he himself is God. “Anyone who has seenme has seen the Father.” (John 14:7
-11) They are one.In the same way, the church is the glory of Jesus because we explain Jesus to the world (IICorinthians 3:2-3). We radiate to the world all that Jesus is, because the church is the very presence of Jesus on earth, his body (I John 4:12).
In the Old Testament Ezekiel had a vision about the restoration of the temple, “...and the g
lory
of the Lord filled the temple.” (Ezekiel 43:1
-7)Now we see the fulfillment:
Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God‟s peopleand members of God‟s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prop
hets, withChrist Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together andrises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together tobecome a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. (Ephesians 2:19-22)This is what a body is, the physical manifestation of the spirit, the person who dwells within (ICorinthians 12:27; II Corinthians 4:7-11). They are one.In the same way woman is the glory of man. Everything that man is she reflects, shows, and
demonstrates, because she is man. “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh: she shall becalled „woman,‟...” (Genesis 2:23), that is, a feminine man. Adam was a masculine man and Eve was
a feminine man. They were one man.Woman is the glory
of the man because she was made for the man. “...the woman is the gloryof man. For...neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.” (I Corinthians
 11:7,9)
The Greek word translated “fullness” is related to the idea of completion. In fact, The Kin
g
James Version translates “fullness” as “complete” in Colossians 2:10, “And ye are complete inhim,...” (Colossians 2:10 KJV).
 Scripture also tells us that Christ came into the world when the times will have reached theirfullness (Ephesians 1:10). Here t
he meaning of “fullness” is a little bit easier for us to discern, eventhough it is not speaking metaphorically of a head and body. “Fullness” here means that the time had
been completed, brought to fulfillment, accomplished, so Christ came into the world.I do not find this aspect of completion to be a part of the fullness that is Jesus for his head,
God. But as we consider the incarnation of Jesus the idea of completion is present. Jesus‟ coming into
the world as a man, his life, death, and resurrection,
was the completion of God‟s plan for the
redemption of his creation. Many times the actions of Jesus were described as a fulfillment of Scripture. Jesus said,Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolishthem but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallestsetter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law untileverything is accomplished. (Matthew 5:17-18; John 17:4; Acts 3:18; Ephesians3:10-1 1)Through the incarnation of Jesus God finished his work of redemption. It was completed in Jesus.
All these ideas are found in the first chapter of John‟s gospel. Jesus was the “image”(John1:18) and “glory” (John
1:4,5,9,14)
of God, revealing all that God is, the visible representation of 
God (John 1:18). Through the incarnation of Jesus God‟s plan for the redemption of his people
 
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