Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary 1 Corinthians 11:16

"But if any man seemeth to be contentious, we have no such custom, neither the churches of God." — 1 Corinthians 11:16 (ASV)

Finally, Paul states that he and the churches follow the principle that in worship men come with short hair and women with long, and that the man exercises the position of authority (v.16). This, he implies, should deter those who would want to be contentious about the matter. In using “we” (meaning the apostles), Paul teaches that the Corinthians must take his statements given in vv.2–16 as having apostolic authority, and not as pious advice.

Summary of vv.2–16 The instructions given by Paul relating to the place of women in the church were addressed to the cultural milieu of the Corinthian believers in the first century A. D. Corinth was a pagan Greek city out of which God was calling a church of his redeemed. Apparently some Greek women in the Corinthian church were coming to worship services without a veil on. Also other women may have been going to church with hair disheveled and hanging loose (a sign of mourning or the shame of adultery). So disorder and unrest had begun to mar the services. The apostle Paul, of course, wanted to correct any such improprieties in that church. But his teaching in these verses goes far beyond the cultural conditions affecting the Corinthian church. Indeed, it was applicable also to other firstcentury churches (v.16b) and it is applicable to God’s people at any time. The principles Paul presents here that are to govern the church and individual Christians in their life and conduct are as follows: (1) Christians should live as individual and in corporate worship in the light of the perfect unity and interrelatedness of the persons of the Godhead. The Father and the Son are perfectly united , and yet there is a difference administratively: God is the head of Christ (1 Corinthians 11:3). So Christians are one, but they too have to be administratively subordinate to one another. (2) Christians must remember that God first created man, then woman (Genesis 2:21–23), and placed the man as administrative head over the woman and the woman as his helper-companion (Genesis 2:18). So in the Christian community, the man is to conduct himself as a man (1 Corinthians 11:4) and as the head of the woman (v.3), while the woman is to conduct herself as a woman with dignity, without doing anything that would bring dishonor to her (v.5). (3) Since Christians live in the Christian community of the home and the church, they must remember that God has established the man and the woman as equal human beings (v.12). So in the Christian community believers should treat one another with mutual respect and admiration as they realize each other’s Godgiven special functions and positions. (4) Christian men and women should remember that, though God has made them equal human beings, yet he has made them distinct sexes. That distinction is not to be blurred in their realization that they are mutually dependent (v.11)— the man on the woman and the woman on the man. It is also to be observed in their physical appearance (vv.13–15), so that in worship the woman can be recognized as woman and the man as man. (5) God is a God of order. This means order in worship and peaceful decorum in the church (v.16). Therefore Christian men and women should conduct themselves in a respectful, orderly way not only in worship but also in daily life.