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Knowing Faith
Should Women Wear Head Coverings in Church?
00:25:10
Jen Wilkin, JT English, and Kyle Worley discuss whether women should wear head coverings in church today.
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A
This episode of Knowing Faith is brought to you by Crossway, publisher of the Grace Laced Bible Journaling Edition. This Bible showcases the beauty of God's word alongside artist Ruth Chow Simon's signature watercolor art. Featuring 50 full page verse illustrations, 250 illustrated verses and lined writing space in the margins, this elegant journaling Bible is ideal for personal reading and reflection, small group study or taking notes during sermons. Pick up a copy of the ESV Grace laced Bible wherever books are sold or visit Crossway.org ESVGracelaced to learn how to get 30% off with a free Crossway plus account.
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B
In a world that tells us to
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A
stand out by being successful, admired or impressive, God calls us to something Holiness and set apart. For more, Bible teacher and women's minister Tasha Calvert invites you to rediscover what it really means to be set apart. Not as unreachable or rigid, but but has transformed from the inside out through biblical teaching and practical tools. This book helps you identify what's holding you back. Offer your whole life to God and faithfully walk in who he already says you are. Holiness may not come naturally to you, but it comes naturally to God and He's ready to do the work in you. Visit setapartformore.com to learn more.
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B
This is Kyle Worley and I'm joined by my co host Jen Wilkin and J.T. english. And none of us have hats on right now, huh? Caps. None of us. For the listeners, Jen has put a workbook on top of her head. Yeah, that's a screenshot for sure. Go and capture that. Jt. Good day. It'd be great for the friend. Text message and I'm removing it. You know, there are. We have a lot of photos of ourselves, you know, in these moments where it just feels like, you know, not our best look. Not our best look. Hats and caps. We've had this debate before. Jen calls them ball caps, right?
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C
Lots of people call them ball caps.
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B
No, no, they don't call them ball caps. Maybe baseball players. No, not.
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D
No, I think maybe the, the population with the least amount of people who call them.
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C
Lots of people. Like people younger than me.
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D
Yeah.
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B
This sounds like ball caps is what somebody calls a hat if they live in 1935 Chicago.
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D
And their name is Curly.
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B
Yeah, and their name is Curly. Well, today we are. Even though, for me, no, even though our heads are uncovered. Now we are going to ask the question, should women wear head coverings in church? Should anyone wear head coverings in church? I guess we could say, but specifically Women. Because that's what the Bible looks at. So listen, the goal of all of these episodes for this season and last season are to explore tricky and thorny questions. Sometimes we have disagreement. I'll go and spoil it for you guys. We don't have any disagreement on this one. But we. We do want it to be helpful for you. I mean, it just doesn't. I don't think anybody who's been listening to our is about to think we're gonna come in here and go, guys, we've been doing this for nine years, but now is the time to really start talking about how passionate we are about head covering. So I don't think our audience is unfamiliar, but we do want this to be helpful for you because we want you to learn how to think biblically and theologically about everything. So you should also go look at these passages. You should explore them. You should read some commentaries. You should talk with the people in your local church. You should do theology and community with one another and say, hey, what's really going on in First Corinthians 11? And I wonder what it means that's
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C
having a good snack. JT Is that something?
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B
JT Is munching? Literally picks the worst time. I clicked record.
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D
I'll mute. I'm sorry, what is it? Time zone here? It's lunchtime.
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B
I know it's not lunchtime. I know what time zone I'm in, and I know what time it is. You don't eat lunch.
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D
Kyle, you recommended these protein bars. The barbell bars.
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B
Oh, the barbell bars.
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D
They're so good.
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B
They are exceptional.
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D
Sponsorship right here. We need a sponsor bars.
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B
They taste like candy bars.
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D
Okay, they do.
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B
They have 30 grams of protein in them. They are exceptional. Okay. Wow. We took a hard right turn for J.T. munch, and this is last episode of the day. We've done four episodes. God bless the listeners of Knowing Faith. Okay, Jen, should women wear head coverings to the church? JT Go.
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D
What you just said, Jen.
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I changed my mind halfway through. It's my. It's. I'm hosting. I can do that.
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D
JT Starts, no, they shouldn't. They shouldn't. But let's kind of give, like, why they should. I don't think they should, but let's see if we can give a good case. So Paul talks about this in 1st Corinthians in 1 of the things that Paul does that I do think gives some. Some level of credence or reasonability. The argument that they should is he's grounding everything that he does in First Corinthians. This is a. When you think about First Corinthians, and we just talked about this in a previous episode, it's a very disordered church. Their. Their services are disordered, their worship is disordered. The practice of the spiritual gifts is disordered. Spiritual discipline, sexuality is disordered. So Paul is trying to ground his ethic for the Corinthian church in God's created order. He.
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C
He.
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D
He's not guessing. He's trying to show them that you shouldn't be pragmatists as it relates to ethics. You should ground the way that you behave as a church as. As. As it relates to God's overarching created order. So one of the things that people will do who do make the claim that women should wear head coverings is they're saying that what Paul does in First Corinthians is appeal to a created order, specifically that God is the head of man, man is the head of Christ. And then, sorry, God is head of Christ, Christ is head of man, man is head of the woman. And then that order is then used to say, and here's what women are doing. They're not wearing their head coverings, they're taking it off. And so one of the things that is believed that the Corinthian that was happening in Corinth specifically is that one of the things that men and women did to distinguish themselves was to wear head coverings. And that then, therefore, is a cultural way of talking about or demonstrating the created order of male, female relationships. And so what Paul is doing is he's saying, when they take their head coverings off, they're subverting the created order. Now, where I would disagree with this argument is I would argue that was a cultural way in Corinth to distinguish between male and female and to demonstrate God's created order. And so they were subverting the creative order. What you. What the three of us would say is, is if there is a cultural thing in our city that demonstrates what a male is and what a female is, what shouldn't be done is a subversion of that cultural norm to go against God's created order. And that's what's going on in Corinth. And so the reason we. I would say you don't need to wear a head covering is because that isn't the cultural norm in Arvada, Colorado, to demonstrate what a male is or what a female is. Does that make sense?
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C
Yeah.
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D
And so I think what Paul is doing here is he's grounding ethics in the created order. He's grounding the church in the created order. But this is not a cultural norm that we need to maintain because this isn't the way that men and women distinguish themselves from each other.
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Yes, I think that is a large part about what's going on. Just for our audience who maybe hasn't spent a lot of time in Corinth, I think it is a really important. Just note that Corinth is a, like, it is the melting pot of Greco Roman cultures in a, like a very unprecedented way in the ancient world. Like, there's. I'm blanking on the New Testament scholar, but I heard a scholar one time say that if you were looking for like the clearest representation of Greek and Roman paganism and the melding of it, that synthesis would be Corinth. And in Corinth was the temple of Aphrodite. It was a central part of Corinth culture. This is not a world in which religious practices and every other segment of society were siloed away. Like the markets were in the temples. Everything was on top of one another. And so it's hard for us to imagine this kind of melding and overlap of religion and sexual taboos and economic implications and political factors. And like, it's hard because we live particularly in the modern global west in a time in which society is very segmented and siloed. This is not what's happening in Corinth. Every. It's a melting pot of the, of, of money and religion and sex and politics. All of these things are just crushed together. And so when you read something like this, it's. You kind of have to. You're like, okay, well, Paul's addressing a Corinthian audience. When these people leave, wherever they're gathering, it's not like they're stepping into a world that's like your subdivided neighborhoods. They're not having to drive to, to where the cult priests are. They're not having like, it's all around them. It's in the air, the sounds, the visuals, everything is there. So it could seem like he's giving them some strictures here that are culturally contextual. But why is he having to draw these lines? It's because everything there was so dotted line everywhere that the church is expected to be some living representations of what is good. And that is going to have a visual component to it.
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C
Yes. And I think this, like, I think maybe it would be helpful to give some modern day examples of how this might play out. So let me Let me just lay out my. My vast knowledge of gang culture for everyone listening.
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B
Whoa.
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D
There's not what I thought you say. Let's say that what's going to come after this sentence, gang culture was not it for me.
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C
So let's say Kyle decides he wants to get a meaningful tattoo, and he is sad that his grandfather dies, so he gets a teardrop tattooed underneath his eye. As a pastor, you would probably say to him that probably not the wisest choice of location or theme for your tattoo, because that tattoo has a greater symbolism than what you want it to mean. And so you need to submit yourself to what that you know to. To the strictures of what that greater symbolism might communicate that you don't intend it to communicate. Is that a good illustration that I just gave?
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I think so, because I think Paul.
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I'm gonna need to see a picture to decide.
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I think Paul is less concerned with head coverings and more concerned with the story that people are telling.
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D
Correct? Yes.
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That, like, they're like. Again, we've talked about this a lot on the show. You're living in a story, and what you do, you're living in a symbolic universe. Yeah. And the Corinthian symbolic universe had some things that were attached to it. And Paul is saying, don't be like those people. And here is a way of clearly differentiating yourself from those people. Now, those. The symbolic universe in Arvada, Colorado, or in Dallas, Texas, has changed dramatically from the symbolic universe of Corinth. We should give attention to the principle at work here.
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Yes.
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Not necessarily the methodology, theological practice. I think Paul's work here is tied into a larger theological narrative. That is true. What Paul says here. We're not discounting the principles that undergird the position here. That's not what we're. None of us disagree that what Paul's saying here is, hey, you need to demonstrate that you are marked by a submission to an authority beyond you, which is coincidentally true for both men and women in this passage.
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C
Right. I actually have another kind of funny illustration for this, which is related to gangs as well. So Mary Kate, my sweet, sweet daughter, Mary Kate. And if you had known her as a little girl, like, she. Well, you did know her as a little girl. She was just the sweetest, most nurturing. And she loved to dress up like a pioneer from Little House on the Prairie. And she got super into wearing little headscarves. She loved it. She loved to wear them. And she showed up at middle school when she was a sixth grader wearing her little headscarf on her head, and she got called down to the principal's office because it was a red bandana and it was gang wear. Like, it showed that she was potentially affiliated with the Bloods and not the Crips. And so we have all laughed about this as a family for years. And so she could not wear. It was innocently done. It was not wrong, you know, that she would want to wear that. But it was something that, because of the greater considerations, she couldn't wear that anymore. And I think that's a similar. So this is something that we recognize the significance of just in general settings. So, like I'm an Aggie at Texas A and M. You remove your hat when you go into the Memorial Student Center. That's a particular expression of respect there. That wouldn't be necessarily the case everywhere else. You take your ball cap off before you go inside. So when we look at what Paul is doing here, I think what we can often do is say this is something that is. Just exists in a vacuum. And just like Kyle was saying, it doesn't exist in a vacuum, but it's also not uniquely Christian, necessarily, in what he's saying. It's a general recognition of the way the world works. And that while in a perfect world, Mary Kate can wear whatever headscarf she wants, we don't live in an imperfect world. And so therefore, we pay attention to cues that might do something to. To confuse the message of the gospel to. To the. The outsider who's looking. Looking on that.
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B
That's right. And I. And I think to even just continue to try to, like, cook this a little bit longer so that you can understand, like, Paul is saying that he thinks it's good for women to look like women and men to look like men.
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C
And to be honest with you, yeah,
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B
I think that's good. I think it's good that men present themselves as men and women present themselves as women. And that's not something we can take for granted at this current cultural moment. Right. The other side of it, too, is to know that some ancient Near Eastern scholars and some scholars of Greco Roman norms will suggest that the lack of a head covering was suggesting, at the very least, relational availability in Corinth and possibly sexual availability. And so to have the head covering here is probably closer to something like a wedding ring. It's just signaling to the men in that congregation and the men in that community, I'm married. I'm not available. I am not open to conversations about relational and. Or sexual availability. And so there's Nothing wrong with head coverings. I mean, if you really want to wear a head covering to church, like, go for it. But typically in this moment, that's more of a style choice. Like, nobody would see a head covering and think, huh, that person is not available relationally. They would see a ring and say, that person is not available relationally. And it's easy for us to read our modern norms back into Corinth and think, well, yeah, well, married women would clearly be signaling their unavailability by virtue of the fact they had a wedding ring on. And that presumes that our modern norms existed in an ancient setting. And they didn't. The head coverings were there to signal what often you find in rings.
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Are you tired of shallow discipleship in your life, the life of your church or small group? God is inviting you into deeper places. Real participation in his story, real understanding of who he is and what he has done in a more meaningful practice of following in his ways. For the last 10 years, JT, Jen and Kyle have been teaching a program called Deep Discipleship in their local churches and they have now worked with Lifeway to make this available to everyone, everywhere. Whether you're an individual looking to go deeper, a church leader looking for an accessible way to invite your small groups, classes and student ministry, or a homeschool family looking for curriculum for your high school students, go check out the Deep discipleship program@lifeway.com deepdiscipleship.
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B
But let's get to like a little bit of the, I don't know, maybe some of the helpful application of this, which is it's not just like, should women wear head coverings in church? Like, well, if they want to, they can, but it's not that they must. None of us believe that they must wear it. But it is important for us to remember that the way that we live our lives publicly as Christians, and I don't just mean this like spiritually and emotionally, but I do mean as Christians, we've been welcomed into a new story that has a different symbolic universe. And it's important that we give consideration to how we can live differentiated lives in the world around us. So what are maybe some contemporary applications of the head covering principle here that would be helpful to consider? We've given some illustrations of what not to do or of unhealthy illustrations, but what are healthy expressions of this symbolic differentiation that gives a picture of or a witness to the true story we're in? I don't know that we've ever explored this question, but I'm curious.
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C
Well, I mean, obviously women shouldn't wear leggings, right?
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Or men. But here, men can't wear leggings.
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C
I'll just be candid. I don't want men to wear leggings.
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Yeah, you and me both, sister. You and me both. On the leggings front.
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D
I mean, I think Kyle just highlighted one. I mean, married couples should wear wedding rings. This is a part of the symbolic universe that we're symbolic.
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C
Yeah, Our current symbolic universe. Yeah.
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B
Yeah, I think that's true. Obviously, that, like, I think we'd want to be careful with. I think we'd want to be careful with the kinds of body modifications that are made. Like, I think body modifications. Elective body modifications should probably be considered. Duly considered. Why are you giggling?
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D
I don't know.
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C
I just want you to say more and quit saying body modification.
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B
Nope, that's as. That's as specific as I'm going to be. Jim. I'm going to say elective body modifications two more times. No, I am talking about the full range of elective body modification. I think it's probably getting worse.
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C
Not bad.
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B
I think it's probably important to realize that there is a story attached. There's a symbolic universe attached to life in the global west. And it should not be lost on us that if you opt for any number of elective body modifications last time, I promise that you are signaling something. I just think that's true. I mean, I don't. I'm not bashing.
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C
You know, actually, you actually know that I agree with you.
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B
I just think it's important. I. We don't. I mean, I'm not saying, like, there's not grace, and I'm not saying, like,
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C
you know, our symbol. Yeah. There is a symbolic universe that competes with ours that is downright pornographic. Yes, that's exactly right. When I'll speak to the women, I'll save Kyle the. The. The trouble of potentially being a punching bag for saying this. When you look at the ways that women are encouraged to enhance their features, it almost always feeds into a pornographic symbolic universe. The things that you're supposed to enhance are always body parts that contribute to the iconography of pornography.
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B
Yeah, I agree. And, and I, it does seem to me that this is also true. I would say it should probably be soberly considered that we don't. That we don't communicate something that is infantile.
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C
Oh, this is good.
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B
Like, I hopefully, hopefully it is good. Hopefully I'm not headed in the wrong direction here and you tell me, oh, I thought you were talking about something different, but.
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C
Well, I will if you don't get there, but go ahead.
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B
I, I think that if you're an adult, you should probably present yourself as an adult and not in. This doesn't mean you have to wear a three piece suit every day. Lord knows that is not the life any of us are living. But it does mean dress for the job you want. Well, I mean, you should probably dress approximate to the age you are, you know. Yeah, I think that's probably important.
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C
I think we talked about this some because after I spent some time in South Korea, the whole concept of the kidult is a big cultural thing. You look at like the K pop stars and they are men who look like boys. And now some of this is just straight up a cultural difference between where we are and where they are. So I don't want to. Please don't hear me overstate the point, but there's something. Yeah, I would, I would affirm your point. I think that in our, again, in our pornified culture, for you to try to represent yourself as younger is very strange and potentially feeds some other super wacky narratives. Yeah, that's a really, that's a good point.
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B
And then I think the one that's clear in First Corinthians 11 is just androgynous presentations. Like Paul is being clear like men should look like men and women should look like women. Now that being the case, I think we should be very clear that styles of dress change culturally. None of us are dressing like the men at the church in Corinth are presently. So. And there are ways of dressing in the ancient world that we would look at now and go, well, that looks a lot more like a dress. I mean, these guys weren't wearing work walking around in chinos and denim. Okay, that just wasn't the case. And so I think it's important to realize, like, hey, some of these things culturally adapt, but when you're in that cultural moment, you know, like you Know what is masculine and feminine and what is deliberately and dubiously not either. And I think it's important for Christians to say, like, hey, maybe I'm, you know, maybe I'm wearing something that would be historically associated with masculinity, like a flannel shirt. You know what I'm saying? Like, I think about flannel and I think about, like, I think about a guy chopping trees, but it seems like everybody wears flannel now. And I don't get. I don't have any problem with people wearing flannel, you know what I'm saying? That's very different than me coming and wearing a skirt and being like, well, it's kind of like a kilt. It's like, nah, dude, you live In America, it's 2026, you're wearing a skirt. You know, sorry to any of our Scottish listeners. If that's culturally in your world, a masculine image, then God bless you.
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C
Well, I think a really broad application of this would be have some self awareness around how your appearance communicates certain things. Yeah, that's just a general principle because. And I'm. Which is not to. I do think that the, the passage is speaking specifically to some male, female issues. So I'm not trying to diminish that or overlook it. But I think for anyone listening who's like this feels like it could get broader and broader. Like, we could talk about whether you should wear rich dress, you know, like whether you wear things that signal wealth. And I would say to the listener who is feeling that, that expansive shoot, this could be about a lot of things. That yes, it could be about a lot of things, but for most of us at the individual level, it's about one or two of those things more than it is about other things. And to pay attention to your own conscience in this, to allow your conscience to explore the possibility that the way you present yourself may. Is always not just about you. Like the Christian doesn't get to say, individual expression trumps anybody else's concerns. The Christian recognizes themselves as part of something that is bigger than they are. And that's why the theme of submission is in that passage, because we're all attempting to submit ourselves to the Lord in the way that we present ourselves through our appearance.
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B
That's right. Jt, you want to add anything before I bring us home?
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D
No, I don't think so. I think what I've appreciated that you guys have highlighted, if I was summarizing, summarizing it, is what I've heard you say is you can't not communicate. That doesn't just mean with words, but it means with actions, dress, appearance. And I think that's what Paul's highlighting here is they were communicating something, probably both intentionally and unintentionally, that subverted God's created order. And so he's telling them, hey, don't do that. That isn't the case for us anymore. But there are like, you've highlighted other cases where we could be subverting God's created order because we're always communicating by the things that we wear, things we dress, things that we say. So I thought what you get the way that you guys. The symbolic universe idea, Kyle, was new for me, really, really helpful and that helped me. So thank you.
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B
Mm. Well, we hope that you also have profited from this. Again. The goal of knowing faith is to help you learn to think biblically and theologically about everything. So go look at First Corinthians, chapter 11, study it in the life of your local church. And if you're a church leader who's looking to try to create a culture of deep discipleship where people aren't just consumers, but they're collaborators and contributors to both biblical literacy, theological depth, and just Christian formation life of your congregation, then go check out the online course that we have built out for you@trainingthechurch.com if you click on the Ministry Cohort tab, you can see how there is a course there for you to go at your own pace with your own leadership team to explore scaling a vision for deep discipleship or contextualizing a vision for deep discipleship right in the life of your local church or ministry. So go check that out. We want to thank you for listening to the podcast today. Don't forget to check out our sponsors through our webpage link in the show notes or online@trainingthechurch.com under the know youw Faith Podcast webpage. We hope you enjoyed the discussion. Grace and Peace.