The great (late) R.C. Sproul speaks passionately as always in this
video clip about head-covering of 1 Corinthians 11:1-16. Is head-covering a
principal commandment which transcends all the cultures of all times and must
be obeyed; or is it a customary practice to show the submissiveness of woman unto
man, which in that case, submissiveness is the principal commandment to be obeyed
in all generations; or are head-covering and submissiveness both principal commandments?
You may not agree with R.C. Sproul (he argues for both to be principal), but
his explanation on Principal and Customs is quite edifying.
Below is the transcript:
(00:00-05:33)
. . . the panel is asked this question, “Can you comment on the method of
determining from Scripture and in Scripture what is strictly cultural in the
New Testament, and what is for today? The common examples are things like head
covering in 1 Corinthians, women in the ministry (is on the list here) and
comment on that 1Timothy, but how do you go about determining what is something
that is cultural and what is still for today?”
R.C.
Sproul: First thing you do is you go out and you buy a
book called Knowing Scripture because it has a whole chapter on Principle and
Custom, and how you deal with it because there's a biblical principle that
addresses that decision and that's whatever is not of faith is sin.
Now
obviously you admit it the first that there are certain things that are customs
you know when Jesus tells the people on the (inaudible) sends out the 70
throughout the villages of Israel, you know, not to wear shoes. This is not a
universal mandate, cross-cultural mandate for shoeless evangelism in every
generation. Obviously there are certain things that are clearly customs tied to
the culture of the time, and there are other things that are clearly principal
that transcends time.
But
what you have to do, there are times when it's not immediately apparent to determine
what is principle and what is custom, and I say this principle is, the burden
of proof is always on the one who says it's custom rather than principle, because
the principle applies that if I'm going to err I'd rather err on the side of
being over scrupulous of treating something that was a local custom as if it
were a transcendent principle rather than ever being guilty of taking a
transcultural principle of Almighty God and reducing it to a first-century
custom.
And
you know you take that business about the covering the head cover and I use
that as the illustration in there, and I'm a voice crying in the wilderness because
if you go and get 10 commentaries on 1 Corinthians you'll find 10 commentaries,
commentators that will quick to point out that in Corinth, which was a seaport
city of sin cities, the sailors coming there, big red-light district and that
the sign of the prostitute was the uncovered head, and so, Paul obviously gave
this mandate to the Corinthian community, for the women to keep their heads
covers there, was not to scandalize the community, and there is a case where
this New Testament scholar studies the (inaudible) the life situation in which
the letter was written and says aha this must be why Paul told the women to cover
their hair.
I
said no there's an exegetical principle here and the principle I would like to
suggest to biblical scholars is that when the Apostle Paul gives a reason, for instructions
that he imposes upon the church, you never never never never never substitute a
different one. And Paul in this case, doesn't say to the Corinthian community, “Have
the ladies cover their heads because the prostitutes are walking around with their
bare head.” And in fact he appeals to creation and if anything transcends local
customs and boundaries it’s creation ordinances. So, I said those are certain
things you look at.
Now
you take the whole question about covering the head, now the reason he gives
this for the woman to covers are glories and shows submission to her husband,
and covered in, you can say, covers, some text, so they covered by a veil or
whatever, so the question is, “Well, is the submission of the wife to the
husband, is that cultural, first-century only?” A lot of people think so, and
so they would say the fact that the woman is supposed to be submissive is a
custom, and you show that submissiveness, by the custom of the hair covering.
And the customary hair covering is a veil for the hair, whatever you however
you translate it.
Then
the next possibility is, No, the submissiveness of the wife to the husband is
transcultural, it's the principal principal matter, but it varies from culture
to culture how you display that willing submission. And in the first century
the way it was, was with the woman covering her hair. My mentor, John Gerstner
believed that the submissive, submission was principal, the hair covering was customary,
and so that that's it.
Or
you can go the whole hog and say it's all principal: that submissiveness is principal,
head covering is principal, and it should be with a veil not with a kerchief of
babushka or a hat even like had a hopper. It, I would say, doesn't matter what
the woman covers her head, and I think that, what type of covering is customary,
but I think the head covering is transcendal and principal and I'm probably the
only guy left it teaches that.
