Marcia said:
DHK, thanks for the post and information.
I agree that men have headship in the church, and that a virgin is under the authority of her father and a wife is under the authority of her husband.
What about a widowed woman or in my case, a divorced woman? Am I then under the authority of the pastor? Yet as a single mother, I was the head of the household. So does this effect anything regarding headcoverings? Does a divorced single mother, let's say, wear a headcovering to show her submission to......the pastor... Christ??
As for widows we have an example in Acts 6 where the church cared for the widows. The apostles were doing all the work and couldn't handle it. They then appinted seven Godly men to supervise that work. The church took care of it. Therefore they would submit to the authority of the church (ultimately the pastor), who is subject to Christ, as the passage teaches.
Historically, and I believe Biblically, this is only the case when the widow has no other place to go. Remeber this was a time of great persecution. The responsibility of elderly parents falls on the children--the extended family. When a "widow" often an elderly parent who has lost his or her spouse can no longer cope it is the responsibility of the family first and foremost to take care of their own. In a Biblical pattern the onus usually fell on the eldest son, but this need not to be so. The family needs to come together and take care of their parents in their old age--not just throw them into a nursing home and forget about them--but take care of them. Often the elderly in this age have Alzeimer's or Parkinson's, are confined to a wheel chair, or have many other disabilities that encumber their ability to fully take care of themselves. The headship of the home is then transferred to the son, who is taking care of his elderly father and/or mother. The elderly father/mother has become a dependent of the son. Then the widow shows her submission by wearing a head covering. Though extended families are not so common here, they are very common in eastern countries.
History tells an interesting story. I can remember 40-45 years ago (I know many here can't
), that in every church I ever attended women wore hats or head coverings. Without exception that was the "rule," or custom. I would dare guess that if you researched it out that would have been the custom from that period right back to the time of Christ.
What changed? During WWII many things changed. Women were needed to work in factories, even steel mills because workers were short. Women even joined the armed forces. I know, for my mother was in the airforce. She was in communications typing out morse code.
When the war ended attitudes had changed. Many men never returned leaving women with children and no means of support, but they did have a taste of working outside the home--something unheard of before the war.
Others now had "careers," and even when their husbands did return they didn't want to give them up. All of this began to lead to women's suffrage, women's liberation, and eventually the feminist movement and unisex. It was the moral downfall of America. Before that time you would have never seen a woman in slacks. That was men's apparel. Before that time women always stayed at home with the children and raised them on their own. It was their duty to do so. The man was the wage urner. If he didn't provide for his own he was worse than an infidel.
It was churches that helped out those in need not the government's social secutiy net. No one had locks on their doors. People didn't have to live in constant fear of rapists and other violence. Children could roam the outdoors, the woods, rocks, rivers, and hills freely. Now they are places of danger.
After WWII things changed drastically. It centered around the home. The home began to fall apart. Careers for women. Equality demanded. The feminist movement began. Modesty was done away with. Head coverings were discarded. And so on, until we come to the depraved society in which we live in today.
Before people harp on equality consider that it was God that set the rules right from the garden of Eden.
It was God that put the curse on Eve which has continued to this day--that she shall bear children in pain, and that she should be subservient to her husband. That has never changed. God has never rescinded that.
Man was to toil by the sweat of his brow. He was to provide for his family and be the head of the woman. Read Genesis 3 and find these principles out for yourselves. This is God's order right from The Fall. They have never changed.
They were the same order given again in the Law at Mount Sinai.
They were reiterated again by Paul in 1Cor.11:1-16, and in many other passages throughout the NT.
We are one in Christ:
First because we are all sinners.
Second because Christ came and died for all of us--male and female; Jew and Gentile.
Third, because everyone of us who have beleived are saved and are brothers in sisters in Christ. Before God we have equal standing. Before God we can go to him in prayer just as equally as any one else.
Fourth, there is no partiality with God. There is no person in the world that God loves any more than you.
But God is a God of order. He has set order in the universe.
He has set order in the world.
He has set order in government.
He has set order in the church.
And he has set order in the family.
If you reject the order that God has bestowed upon us, then you are rejecting the commands of God, which in effect would be God himself.
DHK
