Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction: This passage is probably the most complex, controversial, and opaque of any text of comparable length in the New Testament.

Craig Blomberg, 1 Corinthians, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1994), 214.

Tozer on Worship and Entertainment: Selected Excerpts (What is Not Acceptable?)

The stark, tragic fact is that the efforts of many people to worship are unacceptable to God.…

This is serious.

It is hard for me to rest peacefully at night knowing that millions of cultured, religious people are merely carrying on church traditions and religious customs and they are not actually reaching God at all.

The Bible does not teach freedom of worship.

As Christians we don’t have a licens to worship anyway.

Biblical worship is not just described it is also prescribed.

The bible clearly prescribes at least three things about worship.

It prescribed the:

Who

Who is to be worshiped?

God alone - We worship Christ!

When

We see very early that the church gathered for worship on the first day of the week.

How

God is very paticular about worship.

He is always saying.

Do this and don’t do that.

The question for us to consider is not what is it to me but what is it to God?

Chapter 11-14 is all about worship

The Corinthians had real issues with worship.

They were a mess.

They sometimes struggled with the who of worship (flee Idolatry) but most significantly they struggled with the how of worship.

There was chaos at the lords table.

They were speaking out during the worship gathering randomly in a way that no one understood.

Issues in worship like what should happen and who should lead were causing all kids of issues.

They question is not:

What do I think about worship.

1 cor 11 2

1 Corinthians 11:2 (ESV)

2 Now I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I delivered them to you.

This is what Paul had taught - This is the faith that has been handed down.

God is the one who regulates worship!

The Bible is our source for proper worship.

Order and authority are byproducts of divine design.

Husbands and wives and equality of value and dignity.

We are both made in God’s image - Gen 1:27

Yet God’s design is to differentiate their roles.

God designed men and women differently.

Men and women are equal in essence but fulfill different roles.

When teaching

Authority and submission are biblical principles that describe order in the home and church.

In the ancient world a woman’s unbound hair often had a strong sexual connotation.

For Example in Greek Mythology Medusa’s hair -

Journal of Biblical Literature, Volume 124 (II.

The Social Symbolism of Women’s Hair and Actions Involving Women’s Hair in Antiquity)

In antiquity, a woman’s unbound hair (and the act of unbinding the hair) often had sexual connotations.

In one popular telling of the story of Medusa, Medusa’s beautiful hair attracts Poseidon, who rapes her, leaving her to be punished by her rival, Athena, who transforms Medusa’s hair into snakes .

The wild, unbound hair of Medusa is beautiful, seductive, and dangerous (above all to her!)

Modesty matters in worship.

Am I being a distraction in worship with the way I dress?

Am I sending the wrong signals with my attire?

Marriage required a change of hairstyle for women (not for men).

Married women did up their hair with headbands, symbolizing the sexual unavailability to any man but her husband.

Adrian Rogers Sermon Archive (C.

Modesty)

Someone has said that humans are the only animals that blush, but they’re the only ones that need to.

But did you know that we have forgotten how to blush?

What about the men?

Can you preach to them a while?

God expects men to look like, dress like, and act like men.

God never intends for men to look like, dress like, and act like women.

There should never be confusion within the local church congregation as to who is who.

Hair doesn’t necessarily have the same connotation in our culture.

Chaos in our culture shouldn’t introduce confusion into our church.

Conduct or mannerisms clothing hairstyles that suggest that a person is sexually unfaithful to his or her spouse, promiscuous or homosexual is inappropriate and has no place in Christian worship.

Roman priests pulling their togas up over their heads while offering sacrifice or performing religious rituals.7

Still another possibility is that long hair on men made their appearance resemble the elaborate hairdos of the sophists.8

Wives, however, should keep their heads covered (v.

5a).

Again, the covering could refer to long hair.

It could be that Paul wants them to keep it “done up,” as was the custom among married women, rather than loose and flowing—a sign in some circles of being unmarried or, worse still, of suspected adultery (among Jews) or pagan, prophetic frenzy (among Greeks).

Or it could be that they are simply wearing their hair too short, perilously close to the shaven heads of a convicted adulteress in Jewish circles or of the more “masculine” partner in a lesbian relationship in the Greek world.

Alternately, if an external head covering is meant, Paul probably wants married women to wear a shawl over their hair and shoulders, as many Greek women still did in public, and not to resemble those who discarded their hair coverings during pagan worship in order to demonstrate their temporary transcendence of human sexuality.9