# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1956_S558 # Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration) 558 INTERSYNODICAL AND DOCTRINAL MATTERS 3. The real trouble in Corinth was a theology of fanaticism that had taken hold of certain church members who, like their successors in history down to our own days, having heard some- thing of the Order of Redemption, acted as though the time of final consummation had already come and regarded the Order of Creation as annulled. One of the instances of this fanaticism was that certain women, to assert their equality with men, “prayed” and even “prophesied” with uncovered head like the men (v. 4). To check this fanaticism,! before discussing the “custom” itself, Paul set up the principles of judgment to be applied, principles that never must be disregarded by the church until the Lord comes again. In verse 3 Paul sets up a graded order of “headship”: GOD — CHRIST — MAN — WOMAN, each member of the order super- _serdinated to the succeeding member, or reversing the order: Ww OMAN — MAN — CHRIST — GOD, each member of the order subordinated to the succeeding member. Paul finds an essential distinction between the position of man and woman grounded in the will of God as expressed in the creation account, to which he alludes in v.7b-9: “Man... is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man. For man was not’made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.” But lest women feel in this a sense of inferiority and degradation, they need but note that also the Mediator Christ acknowledges a headship, that of God (John 14:28; 1 Cor. 3:23; 15:24 ff.). It is not degradation but nobility to take one’s place in the position assigned by God and through faithful and loyal service in that position, following the example of Christ, to seek supremely the glory of Him whose headship extends over all. And lest men put on airs over against women as though they were some “second class of being of lesser worth,” they should consider (vv.11,12): “Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man nor man of woman; for as woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman. And all things are from God.” The offices of man and woman in the mundane economy are not competitive, but concordant and counterpart. Each sex is incomplete without the other. Men must reflect that in the heavenly economy, in the Lord, “there is neither male nor female,” the wife is “joint heir of the grace of life” with her believing hus- band (1 Peter 3:7). (Nore: further remarks on the subordination of woman and an answer to the question whether Paul speaks here only of the conduct of married women or women in general will be found under II, F, 2, 3.) 4. The reference to “women who prophesy” (v.4f.) has proved troublesome to interpreters. Some think that it conflicts with “6, = enrmumodcm a