Stepping Toward Equality
Day 229: 1 Corinthians 11:1-16
“Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man nor man of woman; for as woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman. And all things are from God.” - 1 Corinthians 11:11-12 ESV
Our reading for today will most likely cause us to cringe and stare blankly at the words, wondering if we really did just read that in the Bible. Feminists everywhere recoil at the repressive language!
Yet, as we dig deeper, we see that Paul is, once again, working on moving the Corinthian church into a place of otherness (holiness) and mutual equality in a city that was confused in every way.
Through archaeological findings, it has been discovered that it was common for ancient Romans to cover their heads when performing a sacrifice.
In short, Paul is looking to communicate two main themes in this section:
Making a distinction between maleness and femaleness is good and purposeful. We celebrate and declare our differences.
Men and women are equal in value, even when it comes to our times of worship on Sundays. We need everyone in the room to play their part, and we don’t need the world’s advice on how to proceed.
We would do well to end our time together with this insightful comment on our passage by Ben Witherington: “I would suggest that Paul places little stock in social or cultural conventions or social status and a great deal of stock in the way God has made human beings and is remaking them in Christ.”