Debunking Head Covering: It’s Just A Tradition

Some of you that have been reading my blog for quite some time, may remember that I started wearing a headcovering in 2007 per the instructions found in 1 Corinthians 11:2-16.  I covered for 2 years and stopped in 2009 when my husband told me that he didn’t like it.

For me, it was a test, will I do what I want to do based upon my own limited knowledge and discernment of what the scriptures say or will I do what God through the Bible tells me to do??  That is “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto The Lord….as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.” ~Ephesians 5:22, 24

For me, the choice was obvious.  I only wore the silly thing on my head because based upon my own understanding at the time I felt that is what the Bible said…that I should wear it as a symbol of submission to my husband.

But if my husband didn’t like it, then what was the point??  If I continued to wear it after he expressly said that he did not like it, it then became a symbol of rebellion and disobedience, did it not??

And this became my quandry…for a long time I was perplexed over this.  If this truly was a command of God, that women should cover their head with a piece of cloth, wouldn’t that be in direct opposition to what Jesus taught??

Jesus who said to the Pharisees (the religious establishment of his day, no different than the one of today…different time, same spirit) “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness.” (Matthew 23:27)

OR “…Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition.” (Matthew 15:6)

And I believe that is what we have here, a tradition that makes the higher deeper spiritual teaching of authority within the family “of none effect” by having an outward show of obedience and submission yet being “full of dead men’s bones” meaning that the heart has not changed, and is as ever willful as Eve was in the garden….

Because when you look deeply into it, you realize that Paul WAS NOT talking about a piece of cloth on the head, but the foundational TRUTH of “Proper Authority” within the household…whitewashed and simplified, made of none effect for possibly thousands of years, by the “church tradition” of covering one’s head with a piece of cloth.

We shall put a little piece of cloth upon her head and that shall be the sign of her submission…she’s “covered” now, and it’s ALL GOOD!

NOT! 🙄

I understand that this may not make sense at first, but bear with me 🙂

1 Corinthians 11:2-16

2.  Now I praise you, brethren, that ye remember me in all things, and keep the ordinances, as I delivered them to you.

3.  But I would have you know, that the Head (meaning authority, like the “head” of a company for example) of every man (husband) is Christ; and the Head of the woman (wife) is the man; and the Head of Christ is God.

4.  Every man praying or prophesying, having his Head (meaning his God-Given Authority) covered (by whom or what??), dishonoureth his Head (who is Christ).

5.  But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her Head uncovered (meaning not under the authority of her husband) dishonoureth her Head (her husband): for that is even all one as if she were shaven (here Paul is referring to the cultural norm of the time that women taken captive from vanquished enemies or caught in acts of adultery or harlotry often had their heads shaven…their “glory” stripped, so to speak).

6.  For if the woman be not covered (if she refuses to be under the spiritual authority that is her husband), let her also be shorn (let her be counted as a harlot, a woman “in rebellion” and treated as such): but if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered (if it be improper for her to be treated as such then let her be under her husband’s authority…meaning let her husband deal with it as he sees fit for God has given him the authority to do so…it’s NOT the concern of the church).

7.  For a man indeed ought NOT to cover his Head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man.

8.  For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man.

9.  Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man.

Paul is, of course, referring back to The Garden Of Eden, the creation of both man and woman…man was created first in the glory and image of God, woman created in the image of man, from man’s “rib”and as a helper to man.

Woman of the man, for the man, as the “glory” of man…meaning that the full manisfestation of his God-Given Authority is made self-evident in his woman (and also his children) and he will answer to God for his care over them.  Just the same as Jesus’s full manifestation of his God-Given Authority is made self-evident in HIS woman…His Bride, The Church….she is His Glory, just the same as woman was made as “the glory” of man…

Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.

So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.  For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church. (Ephesians 5:25-29)

The purpose of marriage is not just for procreation, honestly if God had wanted to he could have come up with a much more efficient means of reproduction…maybe like amoebas who are asexual and just replicate themselves, that would have been far easier!  But he didn’t, because marriage is symbolic of the relationship that is to exist between Christ and His Church, God and His People.  And from the beginning BOTH male and female FAILED to live up to their symbolic role…but that was already a given…

When Eve was tempted by the serpent Satan (a fallen angel) she failed to act in accordance with and under the authority of the husband whom God had given her as a protection for her.  The proper response would have been to go to Adam and say “There’s this snake over there whose trying to get me to eat of the tree that God said not to eat of.” and Adam would have killed that mean ol’ lying snake right on the spot!  THAT is how it should have happened.

Instead, Eve, desiring to have position and authority and power separate from that which God had given her as a helper to Adam, obeyed Satan over God and ate of the tree.  She then gave of the fruit to Adam who ate also.  And that was Adam’s part in the crime, in that he obeyed his wife over God….in that he was more worried about displeasing his wife than he was about displeasing God.

Going back to 1 Corinthians chapter 11 verse 4…having his head covered by his wife he dishonored God…he passively submitted to his wife’s authority and in the process God was dishonored.  Adam failed to exercise his God-Given Authority over his wife in that he did not confront her concerning the eating of the fruit, he did not stand up to her and stand firm on The Law Of God.

This is actually a very common problem in the mainstream Christian church here in America…one that I see repeated over and over and over again.  It usually goes something like this…the wife, tending to be the more “spiritually perceptive” one (but of what spirit? for good? or for ill??) as most women tend to be, gets “saved” at a church and comes home to her man talking about “church this or church that”…you should really come to church honey (you should really try some of this fruit honey…) and at her behest he does so and becomes ensnared by, and spiritually castrated by, the so-called “church” when in REALITY God has given each individual man the authority to be the personal prophet, priest, and king of the family that God has given him.

Could you imagine Jesus allowing The Church to direct and command Him!?  hahahahahahaha!  😆  I mean, the imposter “church” tries to, but he CANNOT be moved…he only does that which he sees his Father doing, likewise the husband should only do that which he is led of CHRIST to do…not his wife!  Will we never learn from our mistakes!?

Many men passively negate this authority by simply failing to care enough about  what their wives are believing, leaving it “up to them” and leaving their wives completely open to possibly being taken advantage of by the lies of the fallen angels….as Eve was deceived by Satan.

Any man who covers his Head with a “spiritual covering” — a human, surrogate, intermediary “head” — is bringing reproach, dishonor, and disgrace to his Head, because, as Paul indicates repeatedly in this text, the man’s Head is Christ Himself.  PERIOD.

The mainstream “church” here in America seeks to take the place of that Head and determine the hows and ways in which the man is to have spiritual authority over his family…in so doing the so-called “church” fulfills the will of it’s master, Satan.  It then becomes nothing more than The Garden Of Eden all over again.

10.  For this cause (reason) ought the woman to have power (authority) on her Head because of the (fallen) angels.  (the woman ought to be under the authority of a husband because he is her God-Given Protection against the lies of the fallen angels)

11.  Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord.

12.  For as the woman is of the man, even so is the man also by the woman; but all things of God. (Paul is here just reiterating the fact that man is not above woman nor woman above man, neither is better than the other…they are both different creatures, though also the same, with different roles to fulfill in bringing about The Kingdom of God on earth.)

13.  Judge in yourselves: is it comely that a woman pray unto God uncovered? (Decide for yourselves.  Do you think it is proper for a woman to pray to God when she is in rebellion to the authority that He gave to her?) 

14.  Doth not even nature itself teach you, that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him? (if a man has his God-Given Authority covered by another man or woman, it is a shame unto him)

15.  But if a woman have long hair (but if a woman strives to keep herself under the authority that God has given her…which is as easy to rebel against as it is to cut ones own hair off, and has hard to remain under as it is to grow and care for long hair), it is a glory to her: for her hair is given her for a covering.

16.  But if any man seem to be contentious, we have no such custom, neither the churches of God.  (if any man disagrees, the church has no such custom of usurping a man’s God-Given Authority over his own wife/household.)

And the reason the husband is to cover the wife goes back to the purpose of marriage on earth, to show forth in a symbolic way the relationship between Christ and His Church….The TRUE Church, ekklessia, the “called out ones”…covered and protected by the BLOOD of the Lamb.  Jesus is the only TRUE covering, and just like everything else in scripture these verses point to HIM…for that is the whole purpose of every instruction in the Bible, to make sure that we don’t miss HIM! 😀