But I want you to know that the head of every man is Christ,
the head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.
1 Corinthians 11:3
Spoiler alert!! Today’s meditation is clearly politically insensitive. You may want to skip over it if you are easily offended, or if you don’t want your preconceived ideas to be challenged.
Most other commentaries on the titles of Christ put a period where the first comma is and then leave off the whole rest of the verse. That way, they can avoid controversy and explain the phrase out of context without ruffling any feathers. They simply say that Jesus is everybody’s boss, whether male or female, and we all ought to obey Him. I guess I can’t argue with the conclusion, but that’s not what it says in this verse or chapter.
The section that the title comes from is dealing with male and female roles in the Christian home. The man and woman in the verse are husband and wife. The husband is tapped to be the spiritual head in the family and submits to Christ, just as Jesus submitted to the father when he said “…not My will, but Yours, be done” (Luke 22:42). When it says, “the head of every man is Christ,” it means that the father of the family is responsible for his household following the Lord and is directly accountable to Him. The part that says, “the head of the woman is man” means that the wife is to support her husband in building the Christian home by submitting to him.
Obviously, this teaching rubs people the wrong way, even to the point of having some churches teach that 1 Corinthians chapter 11 was the culture of the day and therefore is not relevant to our modern society. That’s interesting, because they still accept 1 Corinthians 11:1 where Paul says, “Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ.”
If somebody is your boss, you do what he says; you don’t just blow him off by saying, “We don’t do that anymore.” The bottom line is: the Head of Every Man is Christ.
March 27
