logic?

 

I was recently visiting a friend (yes, I have one), and she asked about my headcovering habit. I mentioned 1 Corinthians 11 as being the “proof text” and she promptly opened up her giant KJV coffee table Bible and started right in. Good for her!

I don’t know if she was trying to change my mind or just explaining her views, but she exegeted the first couple of verses (3-5), saying that if a man “covers” Christ and tries to go to the Father without going through Jesus, he dishonours Jesus. OK, I’ll buy that. So, she continued, if you take that and apply it the same way to the next verse, if a woman doesn’t “cover” her head/husband and go to Christ herself, she dishonours her head. She stopped there and “clapped to” the book, as Howard Pyle used to say.

So, it makes sense. It would “dis-honour” (give the wrong honour to) Bob if I had to filter my prayers through him. I don’t know if I’d ever heard it put that way, but it resonates as a spiritual truth, and we left the conversation there.

However, even though my friend acknowledges that the covering is a separate item from the hair, she’s apparently happy to think of it as a purely spiritual/attitude “item.” I get it, I think. A lot of people sing “Standing on the Promises” while sitting, after all.

But…

There in the second half of 1 Corinthians 11 is the discourse on communion. A physical item is presented as a symbol of spiritual truth.

The point of communion is that without Jesus’ sacrifice we are separated from God; that His spirit fills us, and that we participate in His death and His holiness by “consuming” His “flesh and blood.” We don’t eat it because we are hungry. It’s a symbol. But I’m willing to bet that my friend participates in the physical symbol of communion, as well as the spiritual side of it.

So, what am I saying? In this single chapter, we are presented with two spiritual truths represented by physical symbols. Wouldn’t logic compel us to treat both in the same manner? Maybe it’s my brain type, but I don’t see the difference. I once heard a sermon – I think it was Alistair Begg – on the headcovering. He went through the chapter verse by verse, proving that the covering was a physical thing separate from the hair, and that it was certainly a Christian practice (not a Jewish or Corinthian one). All the way through I was silently cheering at his plain factual way of dealing with it, until the very end, where he asked if the women of his congregation ought to do this, and answered “of course not – it has no cultural significance today.” What?! Does eating a stale cracker and drinking a thimbleful of lukewarm grape juice have cultural significance? Or baptism, for that matter. No one outside of the Church would do any of these things, or understand why we do them. But that’s not why we do them! And again, where’s the consistency, when you pick some symbols to keep – not because of their scriptural or cultural significance, but because of your personal familiarity with it – and discard others?

Disclaimer: I don’t think headcovering is a salvation issue. For that matter (and I realize this wouldn’t fly with a great many churches), I don’t think communion or even baptism is – strictly speaking – a salvation issue (see the thief on the cross). Salvation comes by grace through faith in Jesus. Period. Obedience FOLLOWS (and sometimes precedes) salvation, but it doesn’t bring or cause it.

So, again, what’s the difference? The same Spirit, through the same author, says, “Let her be covered” and “take, eat.”