It’s been many months since I updated you on the progress of my forthcoming book on head covering. In this video I let you know how close we are and I unveil (pun intended) the book cover.
The following article is a part of our re-blog series where we seek to give exposure to those who are writing interesting pieces on Complementarianism and head covering. We are not the author.
When I first told my husband I wanted to use a head-covering, and explained that the Bible tells women to do so as a sign of submission, he gave me a frown. Submission? The word was distasteful to him. It made him think of a brainless dish rag subjugating herself to every whim of her tyrant master. But, that’s not what he was! So, why submission? After we realized that the Bible uses the word submission to mean that the wife respects her husband’s leadership, we were back on familiar ground.
Similar to how my husband respects and “submits” to the authority of his boss at work, God expects me to respect and submit to the authority of my husband. It doesn’t mean he’s better than me; it means his role and my role are different. He has been given by God the responsibility of leading his family. I have been given by God the responsibility of respecting his opinions and “following through with his orders.” I don’t think submission is so hard to understand when put in those terms.
It’s fairly easy to follow through with orders when what your boss asks of you is something you also agree with. But what about when your boss asks you to do something you don’t agree with? What then? If my husband “disobeys” his boss at work, he could get fired! In the work realm, disrespecting your boss’s orders can get you into big trouble. In much the same way, when a wife disrespects her “boss’s” orders (or wishes), trouble is just around the corner. Marital problems develop. Finger pointing and blaming worsen the situation. Things might get uglier than that; things could end in divorce! That’s not a biblical solution, of course. But, if we don’t want that to happen to us, if we don’t want problems in our marriage, we need to think about how toprevent them before the situation gets serious. There’s got to be a better way of dealing with disagreement.
So, I’m going to throw out a few examples of how one might deal with differences of opinion in a marriage. Of course, these are my own opinions, and even though I will sometimes use quotations from the Bible to support what I believe to be the best solution, you are responsible for reading the Bible for yourself, and obeying God according to your best interpretation. Just watch out for those sneaky preconceived notions that can sometimes get in the way! In this post, I’m going to address head-covering. In subsequent posts, I will tackle other issues.
Name: Marie Valle | Age: 27 | Location: Alexandria, Pennsylvania | Starting Covering: Sept 2015
1) Introduce yourself to our readers.
Hello everyone. My name is Marie. After meeting and marrying the love of my life at our Assembly of God undergraduate college, I followed my husband on his journey to reformed Christianity during his years in seminary. A few months after he graduated, with a newborn in tow, we moved hundreds of miles from family and friends to a church that called Angelo to be their pastor in Alexandria, Pennsylvania. We’ve been in Alexandria for almost three years now and have since added another baby to the mix. I’m a stay-at-home mom to Jonathan (3) and Eliana (almost 1), along with all the responsibilities that come with being the pastor’s wife in a small county church. I love to cook & bake, especially with my son, tickle my daughter and watch lame superhero shows with my husband. Read more
Our sister Angela Dekker did a good job representing evangelical Christianity in the documentary “I’m a Non-Muslim and I Wear a Hijab” which was made by Ahlulbayt TV. It highlights non-Muslim women who also cover their heads and their rationale for it. We posted the trailer last week but today we have the full documentary for you to watch. We watched it and enjoyed it. It was really well done. We hope you’ll check out the whole thing but if you were just wanting to hear Angela watch the first 13 minutes and then check these timestamps: 18:57, 20:57, 22:46, 24:16, 26:09, 29:08, 31:34.
In case you missed it, you can read Angela’s headcovering testimony which we conducted with her here.
When you are first starting your head covering journey, stories from women who already cover are a great encouragement.
When you are struggling to maintain the practice of head covering or feel alone in your practice, testimonies can be the light in a very dark place.
Satan comes to discourage us from keeping the commandments of God, but the Bible says that we can overcome Him by the word of their testimony. (Rev 12:11) Since 2013, The Head Covering Movement has kept an ongoing record of blog posts, news articles and videos that support our view of head covering1) There are a few mixed in that aren’t supportive of head covering which were still relevant to this site’s readers.
. While those posts have been helpful on a weekly basis, we know it’s hard to comb through an entire blog looking for multiple posts. So, to make it easier we’ve combined over three years of posts and put them in one place for you.
Bookmark this page and visit it often when you need advice, encouragement or clarity.
In 1 Timothy 2:13-14 and 1 Corinthians 11:7-9, the Apostle Paul appeals to the creation order to explain and defend his teaching on gender roles in the church. Here’s what he says in each passage:
But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet. For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve. (1 Tim 2:13-14 NASB)
For a man ought not to have his head covered, since he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man. For man does not originate from woman, but woman from man; for indeed man was not created for the woman’s sake, but woman for the man’s sake. Therefore the woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head… (1 Cor 11:7-10a)
Since both passages appeal to the creation order, consistent treatment is needed. This means Complementarians should affirm that both practices and teachings are trans-cultural.
Dr. Benjamin Merkle (Professor, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary) believes in complementarian roles and affirms the truths taught in 1 Timothy 2. However, he believes that head covering was a cultural practice that women do not need to implement today. His paper is a defense for why holding to these two positions is not inconsistent treatment. Read more
[Guest Author:This article was written by April Cassidy. If you’re interested in guest writing for the Head Covering Movement please contact us.]
Externals are easy. It’s easy to kneel in a position of prayer physically for a few minutes and read a chapter of the Bible each day. It’s easy to go to church every Sunday and sit in a pew. It’s a simple thing to eat a little chunk of bread and drink a sip of wine or grape juice at church during the Lord’s Supper. It’s not even hard to put on a hat or scarf.
Some people think that the externals are all that really matters. If you look like you are doing the right thing, that is enough.
God does want us to obey Him outwardly – but He is even more concerned with the inward motives of the heart. God desires me to obey Him outwardly, yes! Absolutely. But He wants me to obey Him for the right reasons and with the right heart. I can go to church three times per week, read my Bible daily, pray, dress modestly, and even cover my head. These are very good things. In fact, they are commands of God for believing women. But why am I doing these things? It is sobering to consider that it is actually possible to do all of these things and to be far from God or to not even know Him. Read more
