The first verse is by its subject linked with the chapter just closed, rather than with the eleventh,
“Be ye followers of me” (or my imitators) “even as I also am of Christ”, should be read with verses 31, 32 and 33.
In the second verse, practically alone in the Epistle, the Holy Spirit in the apostle Paul could commend something in the ways of the believers at Corinth,
“Now I praise you, that in all things ye are mindful of me, and that, as I have directed you, ye keep the directions” (N. T.).
They had not then, as we have, the complete written Word of God, but the instructions they had received from Paul they had kept.
Fitly at this point the Holy Spirit introduces the subject of divine order in the conduct of believers. God has been pleased to make His Word full of instruction for the Christian; indeed He has left nothing to the activities of the human mind, though that has not kept back men, and believers too, from substituting their own ideas for what is written. As far as verse 16, the instructions set forth the divine order with regard to men and to women; after that, the Church or Assembly of God is in view through succeeding chapters.
In our day, there is not a little disregard of what the Scriptures set out as the place for women to occupy, but let us give close heed to the infallible Word of God; better far to have God’s Word to lean upon, than all the opinions of human kind.
Verse 3. Christ or “the Christ”, as it is in the original-viewing Him not as what He ever was, God over all, blessed for evermore, but in the place He took as the Anointed, — Christ is the head of every man, but woman’s head is the man; and the Christ’s head is God. Later verses make plain the wisdom of the divine ordering in so setting the positions of Christian women and men here on earth. This is not for eternity, not in new creation; for there, as we read in Gal. 3:28, 29,
“There is neither Jew nor Greek; there is neither bond nor free; there is neither male nor female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.”
“Every man praying or prophesying, having anything on his head, puts his head to shame; but every woman praying or prophesying with her head uncovered, puts her own head to shame, for it is one and the same as a shaved woman. For if a woman be not covered, let her hair also be cut off. But if it be shameful to a woman to have her hair cut off, or to be shaved, let her be covered. For man indeed ought not to have his head covered, being God’s image and glory; but woman is man’s glory. For man is not of woman, but woman of man. For also man was not created for the sake of the woman, but woman for the sake of the man” (verses 4-9 N. T.).
Here we are led back to what God instituted in the beginning. See Gen. 1:26, 27; 2:7, 8, 18-23. “Image” is in Scripture not likeness but representation. Adam was to represent God in the earth; he fell, and the race fell in him, but as another has said, however man may have fallen, divine order in creation never loses its value as the expression of the mind of God. And man keeps the place, though he has fallen in it, -the same place in which God put him.
The first man was the image of Him that was to come (Rom. 5:14), the Second Man (1 Cor. 15:47). And Eve, the companion and help meet of Adam, is very plainly a type of the bride of Christ, the Church for whom He gave Himself. It is striking how the angels are brought in, in the consideration of the subject of woman’s place. In Heb. 1:14 they are seen as ministering spirits sent out for service on account of those who shall inherit salvation; and in 1 Peter 1:12 we learn that they desire to look into the present dealing of God in grace with man but here in verse 10 they are spectators of the effect of those dealings in Christians. The Christian woman therefore should have authority on her head-should wear a covering-on account of the angels.
Man is not of woman, but woman of man; man was not created for the sake of the woman, but woman for the sake of the man. However (verses 11, 12) neither is woman without man, nor man without woman, in the Lord. For as the woman is of the man, so also is the man by the woman, but all things of God.
The subject believer, delights in these unfoldings of the mind of God, and seeks to walk in the light of them, but how contrary to what we have read, is the behavior of many women in this age!
In verse 13 comeliness calls for the covering of a woman’s head while praying (verses 14, 15). Even nature itself teaches that man, if he have long hair, it is a dishonor to him; but woman, if she have long hair, it is glory to her, for the long hair is given to her in lieu of a veil. The twentieth century has brought in many innovations, among them, in extreme cases, the cutting of women’s hair similar to man’s. In view of what we have in the Scriptures now before us, this cannot be of God.
Verse 16. At Corinth, it is evident, some Christian women were not following what is here revealed as of God for them; and it may be that some Christian men were at fault similarly.
“But if any one think to be contentious, we have no such custom, nor the Assemblies of God” (verse 16, N. T.). The Corinthian “custom” was an innovation, and neither the apostle sanctioned it, nor did the assemblies elsewhere.
Before leaving this section of the Epistle, it may be well to point out that the praying and prophesying of women referred to in this chapter was and is of necessity outside of the meetings of the Church (or Assembly). It could not have been in a public way, for in chapter 14, silence is called for in the Assemblies (verses 34, 35), and in 1 Tim. 2:8-15 further instruction is given regarding the place of women. Nothing in Scripture closes the door to service for them; an important work (among many) is teaching the young, or their own sex, in or out of Sunday Schools.
Philip the evangelist had four daughters who prophesied (Acts 21:8, 9).
Three women at Rome whom the apostle names in Rom. 16:12-Tryphena and Tryphosa, and the beloved Persis, labored in the Lord. What they did, the Holy Spirit has not recorded in the Scriptures.
Priscilla, the wife, is always mentioned with her husband, Aquila, and on occasion, before him (Acts 18; Rom. 16:3-5).
Prophesying, in the Scriptures, is by no means limited to the foretelling of what is to come; it is literally “speaking forth” a communication received from God.