A Case Study in the Truth

John Lawton

The issue of whether or not women who are in Christ should wear cloth head coverings has been at times a divisive issue among God’s people. I do not wish to argue about this issue with anyone, nor do I wish to try to compel someone else to not wear a cloth head covering. Many people know, however, that my wife and daughters used to wear head coverings, and are no longer doing so. People want to know why the ladies in my house put them off. So this little paper is an explanation of where we have been, where we are, why we have made the changes that we have, and, especially, how we justify what we have done in light of I Corinthians 11:3-15.

Actually, the first three points (where we have been, where we are, and why we have made the changes) I have dealt with sufficiently in previous communications. I will, however, briefly summarize (in very simplified form) these points in this paragraph for completeness. Starting in 1996 we put the head covering on for love’s sake because of the brethren we were fellowshipping with at the time. We did not mind laying down our lives, in order to be able to fellowship without hindrance with these precious souls. As time has gone by, however, and as we are more broadly ministering around the United States, it seems no longer appropriate to be doing so. As we minister the Word, our lives would be (potentially anyway) saying that sisters should be wearing head coverings – something that we do not feel called of God to say. So we realized that the head coverings had to come off.

As for how we justify what we have done in light of the Scriptures, let me first explain that I believe I Corinthians 11:3-15 is basically cultural. Paul is applying spiritual reality (of God being the head of Christ, Christ the head of every man, and the man being the head of his wife) to the local situation in Corinth. I can possibly hear some of my precious brethren in Christ gasping at the thought of “explaining away” something in the Scriptures as cultural – isn’t that what the liberals do, explain away the Scriptures with arguments such as cultural arguments? Actually, I am not trying to explain anything away, but am rather trying to understand my Heavenly Father’s heart on the issue.

Really, many of the things written in the Scriptures are written in a cultural setting, and have only a local cultural application.

One of the most important examples of a cultural passage is the whole of I Corinthians chapters 8 through 10 (immediately before the head covering passage). This whole section is about one thing – whether or not Christians should eat things sacrificed to idols. Obviously, here in the United States, this is not an issue like it was at Corinth. Yet these verses are full of meaning for us, as the Holy Spirit takes these verses and teaches us truth – especially the truth that those with the love of God working in their hearts will consider other people more important than themselves. Isn’t this Paul’s point? As he was free, and being called in a traveling ministry by the Lord Jesus Himself, Paul did not have to work to earn his own living (that is, he had a right to not work, and only concentrate on the ministry of the Word), yet he chose to work even while traveling in order to best serve those to whom he was ministering (I Cor. 9:6-19). His point is that the Corinthians should not use their liberty in Christ (they were under no law to stay away from eating things sacrificed to idols) as a reason for eating things sacrificed to idols, but rather should consider the conscience of other people in their decisions. Love should be what guided them. Paul sums it all up in chapter 10, verses 24-30 by saying, in short, (1) if no one tells you that a piece of meat is sacrificed to an idol, eat it freely without worrying about it; and (2) if someone does let you know that the meat is sacrificed to idols, then don’t eat it (for their conscience’s sake).

As we read chapters 8-10 all the way through, we can see the beauty of the wisdom God gave to Paul in Christ. This is not Paul’s wisdom, it is Christ’s. We can learn so much from this passage about practical love, and about how to apply the “law of Christ” (Gal. 6:2) to given situations. We are not under the law – not the law of Moses, nor the law of the New Testament Scriptures taken as law, nor any other kind of law of that sort (a law made of rules and regulations, lists of do’s and don’ts that righteous people follow in order to be right with God). We are under a different kind of “law,” called the law of Christ, as well as the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus (Rom. 8:2), the law of liberty (James 1:25), the law of the power of an endless life (Heb. 7:12, 16), and the law of faith (Rom. 3:27). In short, this law (and by law here we mean something that constrains us to be what we should be, and to do what we should do) is being in God, and experiencing God, with His life teaching, leading, and instructing us.

Furthermore, the Old Covenant law was chiefly about things related to the flesh – what you wear, what you eat, where you go and don’t go, special times and seasons, special buildings, etc., which were all things of the flesh which symbolized spiritual realities that we enter into in Christ. But now that we are in Christ, we are not under regulations that govern life in the flesh – what Paul called “carnal [fleshly] commandments” (Heb. 7:16, 9:10). In other words, when you are in the flesh, you need laws to govern the flesh. But by the cross of Jesus, we died to what we were (Rom. 7:4). We died to the flesh, so that it is no longer we who live but Christ who lives in us. We are alive in the Holy Spirit. And we do our thinking there, and have our emotions there, and our actions flow out of this place in the Holy Spirit. This is what Paul meant by “it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Gal. 2:20). The Holy Spirit leads and constrains us to know God and His ways, and transforms our heart to be just like Jesus’ heart – this is a “law” of the transformation of nature, from the nature that so naturally sins, to a nature that knows God and honors God in all that we do. And this is the “law” that Paul is applying to the question about eating things sacrificed to idols.

Now the question is, “What would someone do if they become a missionary to somewhere where they did eat meats sacrificed to idols?” Let me tell you what we should not do in a situation like that. We should not reason within ourselves, “Well, the Bible talks about this. I Cor. 10:24-30 says that I should eat it if no one says anything about it being sacrificed to idols; but if they mention that they are offered to idols, I should not eat it.” Such reasoning would violate the New Covenant Law, the law of Christ! This is taking the Scriptures as law.

Rather, we are to follow the law of the Spirit. We are to pray, and ask the Lord Jesus what to do. And as we commune with Him, and search with our spirits how the Lord would have us respond, the Holy Spirit may bring back to our remembrance I Cor. 10:24-30, and may fill us with peace to just do exactly that. Such a use of the Bible is to use the Scriptures scripturally!

Or, in what may appear to us to be a similar situation, the Holy Spirit may speak a word within us directing us with some other wisdom for the situation at hand. In that case, our minds may even remember that same passage in I Cor. 10, but in the Spirit we may feel somehow that that passage is not what needs to be applied here. So we persevere in prayer and seeking the Lord until His wisdom fully comes out by the Holy Spirit. For example, in some situation He may have us boldly stand up and proclaim, “I know that you have offered this to idols and to demons. But, you have no right to do this. God is calling you to repent. God is stronger than these demons. You can be free from their power and dominion, free from their terrorizing you and subjugating you to their ways. Jesus is much more powerful than them. If you will believe in Jesus, confess Him as your Lord, and surrender your whole heart and life to Him, He will deliver you from the bondage you have been under to these demons. As a token of the power of Jesus, I proclaim that this food does not belong to those demons, but to Jesus. I bless this food in Jesus name, and eat it now before you – without any harm coming to me – as a demonstration that I am free from these demons, and that you can be free from them too.”

If that was the heart of God for that situation, then by being under the Scriptures as a law, we would have missed the heart of God and His mighty works entirely. We would have reasoned that that thought must not be of God, since the Bible says . . . . The problem is, there could never be enough laws written to cover all the situations we would encounter. This is why, as you read through Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, as time went on God gave more and more laws for the different circumstances they would encounter. We, however, have a living, dynamic law working in our hearts – Christ Himself!

More important than the fact that there could never be enough written code to guide our behavior, though, is that when we are under the Bible as a law book, we do not come to know the ways and thoughts of God. In Isaiah, God says, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Is. 55:8-9). Some people quote this as though it still applied today. But God continues, and tells us that the Word was going to come down, like rain comes out of heaven; so His Word was going to come down out of heaven and accomplish what God wants and what pleases God (vv. 10-11). This Word is Jesus (John 1:14, 3:13, 6:38). Jesus is that Word that came down, and through death and resurrection He writes inside of us the knowledge of God and His ways, and brings forth in our lives the things that please God, and the things that God wants. Really, a fuller picture is that Christ within lifts us up right into heaven, up right into the being of God (Eph. 2:6, Col. 3:1-3). What a Word! What a revelation!

Here is what is so critical about this. When Christ lifts us up into God, it is not like taking a fleshly person on a joy ride into spheres unknown. What really happens is that our thoughts, which were low, come up into God’s thoughts. Our ways come up into God’s ways of doing things. This is what Paul was talking about in Col. 1:9 when He is praying that they would have “spiritual understanding.” Another way to say this is “divine understanding.” We are partakers of the divine nature (II Peter 1:4). Paul is a wonderful example of this; he was transformed from be a carnal, religious person, to one whose whole life was bent on glorifying Christ and blessing people with the good news of Jesus Christ. He was full of mighty wisdom and revelation, which came from living his life in Christ.

An analogy better helps us understand this idea of the Word lifting us up into the divine thought and ways. One thing I have found in my life is that animals communicate. On our family farm, I learned this clearly by observing the farm animals. Chickens, for example, cluck and coo and make all kinds of different noises, each of them meaning something different. One noise means I am afraid; watch out, something is not right here. This is the kind of noise you hear when you slip into the chicken house after dark. Other noises mean, “I have found some food.” When others hear it, they come running.

Similarly, dogs have different growls, barks, etc., for different occasions. A dog owner can tell the difference between when a dog is barking in play, or barking in fear, or barking in hostility. Other dogs know the difference too. Those who hang around animals know that they think, also.

Human thought and communication, however, is higher. My dog understands when I “speak his language,” like when I bend down, growl, and playfully start pushing him around. He then joins right in with the fun. But if I sit on the ground and say, “now, Peepers, listen to me. You have been laying in the flower garden. When you do that you make Mom sad; all her hard work is destroyed. You don’t want to do that do you?” then he will just yawn and lay down. He will not understand. Maybe I could take him through a training program of rewards and punishments, and he would learn to “obey” from external pressure, but it would be much better if I could give him a human heart to understand what I am saying, and the compassion of a human heart so that he could feel Mom’s pain when her flowers are destroyed. Then, he would gladly obey because his heart would comprehend the human nature, the human ways, and the human word. His low dog life would then be lifted up into our higher human life.

Similarly, this is what Christ has done for us. He has become the divine written into the human nature. And, in Him, our hearts grow up into the divine comprehension, divine understanding, divine compassion, the divine ways of doing things. So we are no longer under “dog training programs” of being under law which regulates the behavior of the flesh. In fact, when we come into Christ, we can start to comprehend the Scriptures for the first time. No one who is not in Christ can begin to comprehend the truths God expresses in the Scriptures – “the natural man” cannot comprehend “the things of the Spirit” because “they are spiritually discerned” (I Cor. 2:14). Carnal people looking into the Scriptures can only hear “yips, and barks, and growls” of the low life that is below the divine thought. But, in the Holy Spirit, we come up into divine comprehension.

There is nothing that God calls us to that can be done by the human nature alone trying to be good for God. God always calls us to the impossible. Then he anoints us, fills us, and causes us to do His divine will, in divine ways, by divine life. Consider, for example, how Paul said to the Corinthians, “Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment” (I Cor. 1:10). This is an absolute impossibility for the naked human life, apart from the power of God clothing us and operating in us. He was not saying, “Get together, work things out, and come to some kind of agreement.” He was saying, “Do the impossible. Come up, every one of you, into the divine mind by the cross of Jesus and by the power of the Holy Spirit (see verses 1:13, 17, 18, 23, 2:2-5, 16), and you will be one in Christ Jesus.”

In this context, I love what God told Moses, “But lift thou up thy rod, and stretch out thine hand over the sea, and divide it: and the children of Israel shall go on dry ground through the midst of the sea” (Ex. 14:16). God told Moses to divide the Red Sea! How could Moses possibly divide the Red Sea? He just obeyed God, and God did the work. So, this is written for you and me. He tells us to do things that are impossible for us to do. Then, as we believe Him, and abide in Him, His life within and through us does the works.

Maybe someone’s heart says, “Could I really hear God telling me to stand up to the idol and devil worshippers and boldly proclaim the Word of God? Could I find His will in a difficult time like that?” If someone thinks this way, then that person can be encouraged to believe what Jesus spoke: “I am the good shepherd” and “my sheep hear my voice” (John 10:14,27). He did not say, “Good sheep learn how to discern my voice.” No, rather, “we all like sheep have gone astray” (Is. 53:6). The Good Shepherd knows how to train His sheep to hear His voice. It is a promise of His goodness, and of the efficacy of the cross of Christ. Then, through His mighty work within us, the sheep become the “many brethren” in the image of their older brother, walking just like He walked. Our part is to believe Him, and hold fast to His promises, and fellowship with Him, and long for Jesus to lift us His people, in the fullest sense, into the fullness of His divine life.

So, back to the meat sacrificed to idols issue, we know we are not to take that passage as law, for that would violate the whole tenor of the New Testament Scriptures, and the many other teachings of Paul concerning the nature of the Christian life, such as not being “under law” (Rom. 6:14). In fact, it is interesting to compare this section of I Corinthians with Acts 15. In Acts 15, when Paul and Barnabas went down to Jerusalem in order to get the Jewish Christians from Jerusalem to quit telling the Gentile Christians to keep the law, God gave both Peter and James words to share, agreeing with Paul and Barnabas. In the end, the Holy Spirit gave James a word of wisdom. They exhorted the Gentiles that if they would keep away from meats sacrificed to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from fornication, then those were the only things necessary.

My understanding is that the first three of these are associated with idol worship. Drinking blood has long been associated with demonic religion. Also, strangling of the animals, as opposed to bleeding them out, would make for bloody meat, consistent with eating/drinking blood. I believe the reason the Holy Spirit gave this word of wisdom was, as it were, to jump-start these Gentile believers in their walk of righteousness. Fornication and idol worship (and a society whose daily lives were entangled in things associated with idol worship) were ubiquitous in Gentile society. The Jews, having had their consciences trained by the law, would find it quite easy as they came into Christ to understand that God detests fornication and idol worship. The Gentiles, not having the training of the law in their upbringing, would have had a harder time discerning God’s will in these areas until they grew up more in spiritual wisdom and in true understanding of holiness, as well as in their understanding of the Scriptures. So the Spirit gave them this jump-start to just stay away from these things, and walk with Jesus by faith, and they would be fine. As we travel with the Gospel into different lands, peoples, and cultures, there may be times that the Holy Spirit directs us in a similar way to right away address some pervasive problems in their society to the young believers.

Concerning Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, however, isn’t it interesting that Paul did not just tell the Corinthians, “You will recall how God directed us back at Jerusalem concerning things sacrificed to idols. He said to just abstain from them. That is the Word of God, so please just stick with it.” Paul did not even make reference to what happened in Acts 15. He just ministered the law of Christ to their particular situation – teaching them that, yes, they are under liberty in the Holy Spirit, and not law (I Cor. 6:12, 10:23), but to not use their “liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love [to] serve one another” (Gal. 5:13). So, clearly, I Cor. 8-10 is for a given cultural situation.

Another interesting Scriptural example of how to apply the law of Christ to different cultural situations is how Paul handled circumcision. It is fascinating to note that on one hand Titus (in conjunction with Paul) was not “compelled to be circumcised” so that “the truth of the gospel might continue with you” (Gal.2:3,5), but on the other hand Paul himself circumcised Timothy as he was starting to travel with Paul, “because of the Jews which were in those quarters” (Acts 16:3). This is the same Paul who told that Galatians, “If you become circumcised, Christ will not profit you anything” (Gal. 5:2). What a strong statement! Paul seems to contradict himself. The point is that circumcision in and of itself is neither right nor wrong (Gal. 5:6). What matters is, “What will best serve those around us?” This is also the same Paul who rebuked Peter for eating only with the Jews and not eating with the Gentile believers when Peter came to Antioch – he said that Peter (and those following his example) “walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel” (Gal. 2:14). Surely, Peter did it “because of the Jews.” But it sent the wrong message to those Gentile believers, and the wrong message to the Jewish believers, so Paul had to rebuke him, in order that all of them would be set free from the hypocrisy that was creeping in among them.

This idea of sending the wrong message is also the reason why we feel that the ladies in my household should no longer wear head coverings – I believe that it sends the wrong message to American society as we seek to minister the Word of God. I believe it tells them the Christian life is about rules and regulations concerning what you can and cannot do – that it is just another religion with its own set of good things to do to be right with God. There is a similarity of thought here with what Paul expressed when he said, “If I yet preach circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution? Then is the offence of the cross ceased” (Gal. 5:11). The word “offence” here in Greek is the same word translated “stumblingblock” in I Cor. 1:23 – “We preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock ….” The cross is a stumblingblock to religious people, because it says that you can never be good enough for God – we must surrender and die and give up on trying to be good by our efforts, by our knowledge of right and wrong. We must stop trying to be righteous, and justifying ourselves, and start believing that God is righteous; we must die to our works, and let God lift us up into His works. This is what the cross does for us. And we do not want to send the message to people that what we are preaching is contrary to this cross.

I do not think in American culture that the head covering sends a message of what proper authority is in a woman’s life. It just sends the message that we are strange. I don’t mind being considered strange for Christ (and have been joyfully so for years), but only if it furthers the gospel. The head covering does not awaken people to the righteousness of God, but rather it puts in the minds of people that these kinds of Christians are a strange subculture with their own strange ways of doing things. So often, as I preached the gospel to unbelievers during those years that my wife and daughters wore the head covering, they would negate what I was sharing of the glories of Christ by thinking that it was for people in our subculture. They would often, in a wistful manner, refer to “you people” – we were not of their culture, so our words did not apply to their lives. To them, the gospel did not speak of how they could have glorious life in peace with God, in coming to know and glorify God right in the midst of their culture. It rather spoke that if they would join our religion, and become strange like us, then they could have peace and joy. (Praise God, however, on the flip side of this, doors were opened to Amish and Mennonite people. The Word had great success there.)

I believe that the law of Christ applied to women’s dress in our culture has a different outworking than it did in the Greek, Roman, and Hebrew cultures. I cannot, by my study, get to the bottom of all the “cultural arguments” and “not-cultural arguments” that people claim concerning I Cor. 11:3-15, and concerning the society in that region during that time. I am convinced, however, that head coverings for women in public places were, at the very least, not uncommon; for their culture, my study indicates that a cloth head covering would not have seemed out of place. People knew what it symbolized in that culture. One study I read seemed to be leaning towards the view of “I am not so sure about the claim that all women wore head coverings in the Greek, Roman, and Hebrew cultures.” Yet, after reading it, and looking at all the pictures of statues, etc., it was very clear to me that at the very least head covering was not uncommon. The Hebrew women clearly wore it. It seems that the Greek and Roman women generally wore it, but maybe there was somewhat of a trend away from it. I got the impression that probably some of the high society, “modern” women were getting away from it. Plus, statues were often shown in the nude, or partially nude, so one cannot make too much of a statement on general state of affairs from statues. A large portion of the statues, however, did have head coverings on the women. It seems that at the very least people understood the concept of head covering for women in that whole region.

One thing I am sure of: the gospel and the life in Christ are not about ANY special clothing, or foods, or special days, or any such thing. Paul says it this way, “If ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments [the elements, the things of food, clothes, houses, etc.] of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances, (touch not, taste not, handle not; which are all to perish with the using)” (Col. 2:20-22). The cross puts that whole religious way of life to death.

As we evaluate each situation, and each possibility of what to wear or not wear, buy or not buy (for we are in this world, but have died to it, and our real life is now in God – Col.3:1-3), we must evaluate it from the viewpoint of (1) liberty from dead works; (2) what is the wisest thing to do; (3) will it bring me personally into some bondage (I Cor. 6:12); and, (4) will it either benefit or harm another (I Cor. 10:23).

There was a period of time during the years that the women in our family wore the head covering that I was beginning to think that maybe wearing the head covering was indeed what God preferred for His people. It kind of grew on me, by being in that subculture. It seemed like it was “sinking in” to my heart. Even during that time, however, my thought was only that maybe in all societies this was the wisest thing for women to do – similar to it being wise to wear clothing to cover the most alluring and private parts of our bodies, for the love of other people and for our own conscience. But it was not even at that time, nor could it ever be, a feeling that the head covering is some holy ordinance from God – special Christian clothing. The Christian life is not made of such things!!! I say this absolutely and emphatically – by the Word of God!

I feel I must air my heart some more on this issue, if you could bear with me. Among serious Christians today, there is a move afoot which is typified in talk like, “We must keep the commandments of Christ.” There is something very amiss in much of what I am hearing. It all sounds logical and right. For surely, Jesus said, “if you love me, you will keep my commandments.” And I say, that is an absolute truth. If we love Him, we will obey Him! In fact, that is what we mean by salvation – we have been saved from our sins (not just the judgment of sin, but from sin itself), to bring us to a place of loving God and doing His will. We who are saved love God, and long to glorify Him.

The problem, however, is how we approach this. Do we approach it by law, or by a walk in the Spirit? Jesus said, “As the Father game me commandment, even so I do” (John 14:31). Amen. Jesus is our pattern here. We are living the same life Jesus was living, for He died to give us that quality of life. Jesus was talking about going to the cross. The Father had made Jesus to know that He must go to the cross to become the Savior of the world. Jesus also said, “If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love” (John 15:10). He is talking about a relationship. He is talking about a spiritual life. As Jesus lived His life in the Father, and thought His thoughts in the Father, God made Him to know and to do what needed to be done.

I do not think that Jesus read passages like Psalm 2, Psalm 22, and Isaiah 53, and took them as carnal commandments, like “well, the Bible says I have to go to the cross and die. I guess I will have to find some way to do that for my Father.” That is an absurd notion, as we all know. Rather, He lived His life in God, and God taught Him, and lead Him. There was a time in His life that He did not yet understand these passages (remember, he came into the world as a babe, and “grew in wisdom” as well as in “stature” – Luke 2:52). But as He fellowshipped with the Father in spiritual union, the Father caused Him to see man’s plight in being dead in trespasses and sins, and that He must go to the cross to deliver them from sin. I am sure that Psalm 2, Psalm 22, and Isaiah 53 came alive to Jesus in burning glory of the fire of the Holy Spirit, and He came to know that His life – and death – was the only hope for this sin-sick world. So the Father, living inside Him, gave Him commandment to go to the cross, and Jesus obeyed Him in love. The love of the Father anointed and filled His human heart by the power of the Holy Spirit, and in love He obeyed the Father. This is the same way Jesus expects us to keep His commandments.

One could ask, “What was Gethsemane all about?” Jesus’ humanity did not relish going to the cross in that it was going to be extreme agony, both physically and spiritually. He also knew the Scriptures. Could it be that, just as the Father provided a way for Abraham to not actually have to slay Isaac, that similarly even though Jesus was absolutely willing in love to go to the cross for love of the Father and for love of us, could it be that there was a way that He would not have to actually die? I do not know that Jesus’ thoughts went along these lines, but I tend to think so. He did ask if there was any other way. The Father affirmed that no, there was no other way. So Jesus was empowered by the Holy Spirit to go all the way to the cross. Thank You Lord Jesus for doing that for us! Thank You for keeping the Father’s commandments, and by that opening up a way for us to come to obey God in You.

So in the same way the Scriptures fill a vital role in our lives. But we do not just “go and do them.” We do not just read the commandments of Jesus, and just do them. That is taking them as carnal law. Rather, we obey HIM, this living being who is inside of us. And He teaches us the Scriptures, in His time and in His way, and makes us understand them by lifting us up into the divine life and thought.

So we do not just read I Corinthians 11, and say in our low human reasoning, “Well, that seems plain enough. I guess I will just have to do it.” Rather, we pray, and commune with God, and He teaches and directs in His way in His time. Sometimes not understanding certain passages is important for us, for we learn to wait on Him, and to do only what He is burning in our hearts by the power of the Holy Spirit. So often, our human reasoning about certain passages of Scripture is as far off from the divine mind as east is from west. So it is extremely dangerous for us to do things based on human logic and reasoning. We must wait for divine understanding, which comes to us full of divine joy.

So it is with the head covering for us. Over the years, I have read and re-read and re-read the head covering passage, before, during, and after the time-period of our having the head covering on. At times I asked if there was something in my heart preventing me from sensing His teaching, but felt no reproof or rebuke. Never has there been light shining on my heart as to exactly what Paul was getting at. Sometimes it seemed like Paul was saying put cloth on your head. Other times it seemed like it indeed was the hair, like many say. Yet other times, it seemed like it was some spiritual idea that I did not fully catch. Very often, it seemed like we God’s people were missing some vital piece of information or understanding, without which we would miss what Paul was saying by a thousand miles. But never did the light shine in my heart to make me understand the passage. In fact, the spiritual silence that I felt when asking the Father what it meant spoke volumes to me. It meant the Father was not teaching me about this passage at that time. Nor, so far, at any time.

So why did we have confidence to take head coverings off? Because finally I asked God if we had liberty to take it off (in view of the things I wrote above), and I felt a strong assurance that we did have that liberty. In fact, I would go so far as to say I felt something to the effect of “absolutely” in my spirit. Yet, my confidence is not in my ability to hear my Shepherd, but in His ability to lead me and to train me. If we somehow are missing His heart now (and I do not think we are, but we must always stay open to reproof from our Lord), I trust that He will teach and correct us. My confidence is in Him, not in myself.

My wife and daughters, as we all talked and prayed about it, were in harmony with my thoughts. So we moved forward in faith and in confidence in our God, that He will ever lead His people onward and upward into His life, ways, and mind. He will ever lead us, His people, into that true unity which comes neither from agreements, nor from signing up to certain creeds, but from His life unveiling His divine mind within us. We will be one, in the fullest and richest sense, even as Jesus and the Father are one (John 17:22). And by this, Jesus promised, the miraculous divine unity that we will have as we mature to the full stature of Christ will convince the whole world that the Father sent Jesus into the world (John 17:21-23). So, let’s throw off from ourselves all dead religious ways of life, like throwing off from ourselves a flea-ridden and dirty blanket, and embrace the divine life and the divine mind and understanding that are found only through faith in Jesus Christ. In this way, we each and ultimately together will be led by the Spirit into all the truth, as Jesus promised (John 16:13, I John 5:6).