Paul has spent several chapters now talking about meat sacrificed to idols— a practical issue with larger implications for community and belief. Similarly, in chapters 11 through 14, Paul goes over three important worship practices which have larger ramifications:
- women covering their heads during worship
- abuse of the communion meal
- spiritual gifts (especially speaking in tongues)
Because our understandings of gender have changed radically since the writing of 1 Corinthians, the first of these issues provides some controversy for us as modern readers. In Paul’s culture, women kept long hair and covered their heads in worship, while men prayed with their heads uncovered. There’s some confusion about what Paul means by head coverings —whether this meant a veil or shawl or the hair itself—, and Paul also speaks of men keeping short hair but doesn’t specify how short. (Just to be safe, I got a haircut prior to this lesson.) When speaking to the Corinthians, Paul chooses to uphold this cultural standard, but this puts him in conflict with one of his other core beliefs: faith in Christ makes us all equal and wipes away the barriers between us, including gender. Paul seeks a balance by allowing the cultural gender distinction but pointing out how men and women are interdependent:
For as woman came from man, so also man is born of woman. But everything comes from God. (1 Corinthians 11:12)
Notice how Paul is also encouraging women to participate in worship by giving them guidelines for doing so (which conflicts with a later section of chapter 14, but we’ll get there). All of this points to an important factor we should consider when reading Paul’s letters: 2,000 years later, we’re not always sure what is written specifically to the church at Corinth and what is intended for a wider audience of other churches who would have seen this letter. Does Paul intend for all women everywhere to cover their heads when praying and prophesying, or is this strictly a Corinth thing? Can Paul even fathom an era where men and women could be regarded as equal worship leaders, and if so, what would he say to us about this issue? It’s hard to know these things, so we have to remember the original setting of Paul’s letter: a culture where women were regarded based on their marital status. For a man of his day, Paul is quite progressive in how he stresses interdependence and invites women to pray and prophesy publicly (even if heads are covered).
From here, Paul moves to a criticism of the Corinthians.
Remember the Corinthian Christians had a major hangup with social class difference within their church, and this even bled over into their worship practices. The church at Corinth almost certainly met in the home of an affluent member, and it appears the communion meal was rather lavish, with some worshippers gorging themselves on bread or drinking wine to the point of drunkenness. Further complicating things, this church met at night, and many poorer members of this community no doubt arrived late from their long days of work. By the time some of these believers arrived, the communion meal was already consumed, leading to a whole class of Corinthian Christians feeling excluded from the rituals of this early church. Paul calls out the church at Corinth and, after a poetic explanation of communion still used every Sunday by many churches around the world (including San Marco Church), Paul gives a surprisingly practical piece of advice:
Seriously, just eat a snack before you get here. This shouldn’t be hard.
Yes, really. Paul’s advice in this letter is to eat before you gather, so no one feels the need to devour all the bread and wine set aside for worship purposes. The communion meal is one of the few rituals given to us directly by Jesus, and Paul encourages keeping it reverent. No one should have more than another, and the meal should be reserved for when all believers in the community are together— no one is to be excluded due to class or gender or work schedule or anything. It’s God’s table, and at God’s table, all are invited.
While head coverings and communion meals seem like practical issues, they reflect on the Corinthian Christians’ love for one another (or lack thereof). These issues show how different members of the community regard one another, and Paul seeks to adjust these aspects of worship as he pushes the Corinthians toward the deeper truth underlying their worship:
We all come to God’s table as equals,
and if we are truly one body, united in Christ,
we should take care of one another as well.