What can Head Coverings Teach us about Church Unity?

In my early years as a Christian, one issue often seemed to dominate discussions in our extended family and the network of churches to which we belonged. In this context, arriving at a local church one Sunday morning, I noticed that some of my fellow teenagers were facing an entrance condition which didn’t apply to me. You see, they were girls, and one of my female relatives had turned up without a head-covering, and was therefore asked to wear one of the off-the-peg items held in reserve in the church lobby for such an eventuality.

I write with tenderness, because I completely understand the reasons for this practice, and respect the thoughtful engagement with biblical texts which lies behind it. The passage in question (1 Corinthians 11:2-16) must be takena seriously, even if it is seen by many commentators as one of the most complex, controversial and opaque texts in the New Testament. My purpose is not to unravel its mysteries, but to highlight a question which churches through the ages have had to ask: what is primary truth, central and foundational for all Christians, and what is secondary, remaining important but which should not be made a test of orthodoxy or a cause of division?

A rapidly growing church

Not long after Peter’s remarkable vision and the breaking down of the walls of separation in the story of Acts 10, an event occurred which had the potential for creating a deep division within the Christian community. It was to be a critical turning point in the growth of the church, and, if not handled wisely, it could have blown apart the cause of Christian witness in the first century and beyond. It focussed around two issues: a theological one and a practical one.

The theological issue was this: how is a person saved and brought into the Christian community?

The practical issue was this: how can Christians of different backgrounds learn to live together?

The story helps us at several levels: it explains that it is necessary to make distinctions between what we might term ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ in our understanding of Christian doctrine. And further, it helps us understand how differences of opinion can be managed within the Christian community. Both the issues themselves, and the manner in which they were handled, have a great deal to teach us about how we can be eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit.

One of the great blessings of the gospel that Peter proclaimed in his sermon at Pentecost was: ‘the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off’ (2:39). Twenty years had passed since that sermon, and what Peter had predicted was being realised. Gentiles had been brought to faith in Christ in city after city. Paul and Barnabas, having been sent out by the church at Antioch, now reported back with the extraordinary news of what God had done during their missionary journey. ‘They gathered the church together and reported all that God had done through them and how he had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles’ (14:27).

The church in Antioch itself was made up of a colourful mixture of believers from Jewish and Gentile backgrounds. The Jewish leaders - Jewish Christians in the mother church of Jerusalem - had gradually come to terms with the news of Gentiles coming to faith. But it was some years since the conversion of Cornelius, and the situation had changed dramatically, because now Gentile converts were flooding into the church, in Antioch, but also in other cities in southern Galatia.

This raised some urgent questions in their minds. Believers expected that Gentiles would come to faith, but they were concerned that they were not submitting to the law of Moses. So here was the problem: Gentiles were becoming Christians without also becoming Jews. The result was that the influential pressure group within the Jewish church in Jerusalem sent a delegation to try and address what for them was becoming a serious issue.

‘Some men came down from Judea to Antioch and were teaching the brothers, ‘Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved’ (15:1).

This was a critical turning point in Luke’s account of the growth of the church. The issue was: how are believers brought into God’s family? The suggestion being made was that if there was no circumcision, there was no salvation. Faith in Jesus was not enough. This was not just a slightly different cultural emphasis; it was a challenge to the gospel. This struck right at the heart of the apostolic mission, and so it was a potential division that could potentially affect the entire forward movement of the gospel to all nations.

A sharp dispute

No wonder there was a strong response from Paul and Barnabas. ‘This brought Paul and Barnabas into sharp dispute and debate with them’ (15:2). We will see that there are some differences which Christians must learn to live with, but this was a challenge to the gospel itself, over which there should never be compromise. Paul could see that anything which implied that faith in Christ’s work on the cross was not enough for salvation had to be strenuously opposed. It had really troubled the Antioch believers too (15:24).

It was clear that only a full and open debate could settle such a serious matter. ‘So Paul and Barnabas were appointed, along with some other believers to go up to Jerusalem to see the apostles and elders about this question’ (v2).

Because it was a core gospel issue, it had to be confronted. We should not forget that Jesus also engaged in controversy in order to ensure that God’s Word was not modified by human traditions, as we see in his hard-hitting confrontation in Mark 7. Paul was to do the same as he defended the central teaching of justification by faith when writing to the Galatians (Galatians 1:6-9), and John spoke with similar directness about the doctrine of the person of Christ in 1 John. It is clear from scripture and church history that we must not only keep alert to challenges to the Christian gospel, but be ready to confront them. John Piper strikes the right balance when he suggests that some controversy is crucial for the sake of life-giving truth.

An open welcome

Another impressive feature of the account is the manner in which Paul was received. ‘When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and the elders, to which they reported everything God had done through them.’ (v4). Here in the heart of conservative Jerusalem, the more ‘liberal’ group from Antioch was received with a warm welcome and not with cynical suspicion.

If only difficult disagreements in church life could be discussed in such an atmosphere! At every stage of the Jerusalem discussion, there was a willingness to debate the issues face to face, to bring together the two groups and openly examine the evidence. I well remember a church where we had a series of anonymous letters sent by some members: the leaders rightly put them all in the bin, and announced to the congregation that that was how all such letters would be treated in future. Christian relationships are often poisoned by a failure to confront issues openly in the healthy kind of way this passage demonstrates.

So the believers from Antioch were welcomed to Jerusalem, and they met to consider the question openly.

We hope you enjoyed this blog post. Keep an eye out for Jonathan's subsequent post on Theological Triage for deeper investigation of what this looks like.