Is it actually wrong to eat meat that has been associated with idolatry, or is that just a local cultural tradition we can ignore?

Is it sinful to take a brother to civil court, or was that only a suggestion for Corinth?

Do we need to follow the instructions of Paul regarding marriage and divorce, or are those commands optional?

I think anyone who loves faithfulness to the words of Scripture would respond similarly to all the questions above. Scripture means what it says.

What then, of head coverings?

Are we finding a convenient loophole to make 1 Corinthians 11 something we can ignore because, well, we just don’t like it? If we need to remove unrepentantly immoral men from the church today (chapter 5), then do we need to put our bonnets on today (chapter 11)?

Answering this question requires us, as always, to approach Scripture with care.

We need to approach every passage with humility toward, and love of, God.

God’s Word must not conform to us. We must conform to it. It is a lamp for our feet (Psalm 119:105), and it is the insightful judge of our innermost being (Hebrews 4:12). Even if we acknowledge these truths, we still are in danger unless we also recognize that every word of Scripture comes from God (2 Timothy 3:16) and therefore ought to be the object of our love and delight even as God Himself is our love and delight (Psalm 19:7-11). In other words, we can’t arrive at a good interpretation if we have a bad attitude.

Once our heart is in the right place, and we have sought the help of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:10-16), we are ready to start grappling with the words of Scripture.

This is where we begin to employ our hermeneutics.

Even if that’s not a word you’ve seen before, it’s a concept we have all employed. Hermeneutics is the art and science of studying the Bible. It is often described as the rule book for playing the “game” of Bible study. When Jesus says, “I am the door,” do we need to update our paintings of Jesus to include wooden planks, hinges, and a handle? The answer to that question is determined by our hermeneutics.

In studying 1 Corinthians, we have been employing consistent principles of hermeneutics based on our convictions that (1) the Bible is God’s Word, (2) God is revealing, and not concealing truth, and (3) what God says is the final rule and authority for all of life and practice.

Some implications of these convictions include:

That Scripture can have no errors, for it is from God.

Scripture ought to be taken according to the natural usage of language in every genre (i.e., poetry would be approached differently than history), since God is speaking to us with the purpose of our understanding.

What God declares to be true is true whether we can fully understand it or are inclined to like it.

Which brings us to head coverings…

If we believe those principles, how do we arrive at the conclusion that head coverings are a tradition not necessarily binding on us today? The conclusion rests on applying our hermeneutics in the following ways.

First, what sort of passage or genre is this? Quite clearly, we are reading a letter written by Paul to a church. This means that we should understand it in the normal sense of a letter. We understand that Apollos in chapter 16 was a real fellow Paul was talking about, and not a metaphorical symbol of some secret truth. We also understand that Paul’s instruction to the church in Corinth, by the nature of it being inspired by the Holy Spirit, is not only for Corinth, but contains teaching and instruction for us today.

Second, what is the nature of Paul’s instruction? Again, there have been clear examples of Paul offering the Corinthians both explicit commands (“Flee immorality” 6:18) and personal suggestions (“I wish that all men were even as I myself am” 7:7). There is wisdom for our application today in both, but one is a command, and the other is an example of applying biblical principles to a situation. Neither can be dismissed as unimportant, but one demands our obedience, and the other demands our comprehension of the principles involved and our careful application of that wisdom to our circumstances today.

Which situation is involved in 1 Corinthians 11? The text itself gives us the help we need to figure it out.

Paul wraps this instruction in two words that help us identify what is being discussed. Those words are “traditions” (11:2) and “practice” (11:16). When we look up these terms we discover that they are never directly identified as commands. In fact, they are almost always used in contrast to God’s laws and commands – referring instead to the traditions and customs of men. What can we conclude? Paul is not introducing a new command or law, he is helping the Corinthians evaluate one of the traditions or practices he had introduced during his time there. What does that mean for us? It means we should lean in close to understand what unchanging biblical truths Paul is presenting, why Paul gives the advice he gives, and how we can imitate that wisdom in our context.

There are many truths in this passage – headship (vs. 3), image and glory (vs. 7), origination and creational purpose (vv. 8-9), spiritual audience (vs. 10), inter-dependency and mutual divine dependency (vv. 11-12). These truths, Paul explains, ought to be on visible display in Corinth. For them, the tradition of head covering was the best, indeed the only (vs. 16) tradition they had.

Is that tradition binding on us today? No. Because it is just that – a tradition and a practice.

What is binding on us today?

The need to make the same biblical truths Paul describes visible in our churches. This passage is no less applicable to us today because it is a discussion of tradition than if it were a command. The only difference is in how we ought to apply it. If it was a command, it would be easy – do or do not wear a head covering while praying or prophesying in church. The fact that it is a principled approach to tradition makes it more of a challenge. We must instead wrestle with how we may wisely demonstrate today the unchanging truths of God at our moment in the ever-changing stream of cultural norms and expectations. Thinking through what this might look like in our context should prove a fascinating and instructive conversation.

There may be no law concerning head coverings in 1 Corinthians 11, but there certainly isn’t a loophole to ignore it either.