CHAPTER 11:
BUT WHAT IS A WOMAN TO DO IF SHE DOES NOT HAVE “LONG HAIR?”
POCKETSERMONS.org
By Rick Cutter (contact me)
Probably just about everyone knows that there are cases when a Christian woman’s hair simply does not grow enough to be considered “long”—even if she desires to have it long.
In other cases, medical conditions or treatments (like chemotherapy) can make it impossible for her to have long hair.
So, when a woman cannot have long hair, is she released from the instructions to “cover her head” when she prays? And is it therefore impossible for her to honor her spiritual head/Heads?
Obviously not.
As has been stated repeatedly, Paul plainly implied the solution in verse 15, which says:
1 Corinthians 11:15
…if a woman HAS LONG HAIR (koma), it is a glory to her; for her (long, implied) hair is given to her for (anti: instead of, in the place of) a covering (peribolaion).
In other words, LONG HAIR is a woman’s God-given, natural covering whenever she would pray/prophesy (teach). It has been given to her FOR (instead of, in the place of) an artificial covering. This strongly implies that if a woman did not have long hair, she would need to be covered by means of a “peribolaion,” which is “a (head-covering, implied) wrapper; a (head-covering, implied) mantle / a veil.” So a peribolaion is an artificial head covering. For more on peribolaion, and first century examples of them, please see Chapter 9, point #3.
I believe that whether the “covering” is a woman’s natural descending long hair—or an artificial head covering (peribolaion)—it needs to literally cover her head similarly. In other words, a woman’s natural long hair, if descending, would typically come down to cover both sides of the face; in other words, not just be down from (and throughout, see Chapter 9, points #1 and #2)—but also around the head, leaving basically the face exposed. Similarly, any peribolaion (artificial covering) would need to mimic a woman’s natural, descending, mostly unbound hair, that comes down beside the face, covering everything around the head except the face. A woman humbly worshiping God with a Scriptural, down-flowing veil is a beautiful thing; and even more so if she is head-covered with her God-given, natural down-flowing hair.
Peribolaion should not be confused with the English word “covering” that’s used earlier in this passage, which comes from katakalupto, a totally generic word that could refer to any kind of covering in the world, depending on the context. However, peribolaion specifically refers to an artificial head covering of some sort. It could secondarily mean “a veil.”
Finally, the peribolaion head-covering is not limited to veils, but any artificial covering that is fitting and respectful. Today, I believe that there is a wide variety of Scriptural artificial head coverings.
(By the way, respectfully, I believe that Veil Position advocates generally believe wrongly that anti in v. 15—where it says that a woman’s long hair “is given to her FOR [anti] a covering”—has been incorrectly translated. For more details on why this assumption is wrong and the translators are correct, please see: APPENDIX A: FACT-CHECKING THE “VEIL POSITION”.)
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