Mark

Cheryl, you were right when you said this would spark good conversation. I’ll try my best to answer all the questions starting from the bottom.

1. In relation to ‘God’ meaning Godhead rather than Father I disagree. Yes you say that Godhead could fit the rest of 1 Corinthians 11 but so can Father. I challenge people to search the Pauline epistles and see what the word is that Paul uses for Father and what he uses for Christ. You will soon see that ‘God’ (Theos) is Paul’s preferred term for ‘Father’ and so it is not wrong to assume that is his meaning here. It would actually be less weighty to assume it means Godhead over Father.

2. Now in relation to ‘kephale’ I am a bit perplexed. I think once Cheryl posts my other paper which does show that kephale can mean authority it might help. But until then, since the issue at hand here is between ‘people’ and since anytime kephale is used between people it denotes authority it is easy to see it working here. I have shown how the passage is in fact dealing with the concept of authority between a husband and a wife, so why are people saying I have failed to show how this passage is dealing with authority. Maybe Cheryl or gengwell can be a bit more precise in their meanings or questions.

3. In relation to head covering- since the passage has nothing to do with mourning and is clearly dealing with husband/wife relationships it is easy to make the parallel. There is no benefit in bringing in all these other non related topics when the context of the passage is not dealing with those.

4. Now about verse 11 and 12. It is important to remember Paul’s injunction at the beginning of verse 11 (plen) which corresponds to his previous argument. Since this is the case, and if the previous verses are dealing with authority (which I think they are) one must read verses 11 and 12 in attachment to the rest. They are not a separate unity. That is why the argument flows through in my opinion. Not to mention he qualifies it with the natural and churches of God arguments…it fits nicely.

5. Please don’t read too much into my comment about the relationship between Chapter 7 and 11. If we just play semantic games with my words it will never help our discussions. My point is that Paul does make a connection with Chapter 7 therefore that is one reason why I see this as dealing with husband/wife. However the context is not the same, nor his argument so it is not a problem to see this as husband/wife over men/women. If we deny that this could be dealing with husband/wife on the grounds of application to everyone we not only miss the point of Paul’s argument but we must then ignore a lot of other passages in which Paul deals with certain people e.g. Eph 5 and 6 do not apply to everyone.