St John the Beloved
Sermon and teaching audio from St John Church in Cincinnati Ohio.
St John the Beloved
Organic Worship
What does your baseball cap have to do with theology? More than you might think. In this illuminating exploration of 1 Corinthians 11:2-16, we discover how this seemingly perplexing passage about head coverings reveals three profound truths about authentic Christian worship.
The sermon begins with a fascinating look at Japanese aesthetics, where principles like suggestion, irregularity, simplicity, and perishability shape everything from literature to fashion. This cultural example brilliantly illustrates how our worldview expresses itself through seemingly mundane choices like clothing and presentation. Similarly, the way the Corinthians approached worship—specifically how they presented themselves—revealed deeper truths about what they believed.
Moving beyond surface-level dress codes, we discover that true Christian worship must be reverent, organic, and confident. Worship demands reverence because it's a cosmic event where heaven and earth intersect, attended even by angels who "long to look into these things." Yet this reverence doesn't mean stiffness or formality—it means approaching worship with appropriate preparation and expectation, knowing God will do amazing things when His people gather.
Worship must also be organic, functioning as one body under Christ rather than as competing individuals. Using the Trinity as our model, we see that headship isn't about superiority but ordered unity. Like traditional Japanese carpentry that creates earthquake-resistant structures through painstaking craftsmanship, building church ministries organically takes longer but produces something far more enduring. "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together."
Perhaps most powerfully, Christian worship must be confident. Unlike pagan worshippers who veiled themselves for protection from capricious gods, Christians approach God with unveiled faces, knowing Christ has torn the temple curtain. The analogy of an IRS audit brilliantly illustrates this difference—while pagans feared divine scrutiny they could never survive, Christians know Jesus has already been "audited" in our place, paying every debt and opening the way for us to approach God boldly as beloved children.
This message transforms our understanding of worship from mere ritual or performance into a profound encounter with the living God who invites us to draw near with reverence, unity, and confidence—not because of who we are, but because of what Christ has done.
For the rest of us. I will invite you to stand for the reading of God's Word If you are visiting with us this morning. The scriptures that I'm about to read, as we read it together, you might be thinking why did they choose this passage to preach on? And the reason is because it's in the Bible and we're walking through 1 Corinthians and we have to deal with everything that's in the Bible. And we're walking through 1 Corinthians and we have to deal with everything that's in the Bible. This passage, to modern readers, is a difficult and strange text, but I think we'll be enriched by it as we dig into it.
Speaker 1:So as we begin, in verse one, the Word of God reads this way, or sorry, in verse two. Now I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions, even as I delivered them to you. But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband and the head of Christ is God. Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head, but every wife who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head, since it is the same as if her head were shaven. For if a wife will not cover her head, then she should cut her hair short. But since it is disgraceful for a wife to cut off her hair or shave her head, let her cover her head. For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is disgraceful for a wife to cut off her hair or shave her head, let her cover her head. For a man ought not to cover his head, since he 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. That is why a wife ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels. 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. Judge for yourselves. Is it proper for a wife to pray to God with her head uncovered? Does not nature itself teach you that? If a man wears long hair, it is a disgrace for him, but if a woman has long hair, it is her glory, for her hair is given to her for a covering. If anyone is inclined to be contentious. We have no such practice, nor do the churches of God. This is God's word. Thanks be to God, you may be seated, and may God bless this reading and preaching of his word.
Speaker 1:Western fashion brands have struggled to succeed in the Japanese market. Many have tried unsuccessfully to crack the code, but only a few have truly broken through, and the ones that have are the ones that took notes from a scholar named Donald Keene. Donald Keene was an American scholar of Japanese aesthetics and literature and culture, and he spent his life studying Japanese literature and art and architecture and aesthetics, and in doing that, he identified four principles that pervade Japanese aesthetics, including fashion, and he so. Here's what he said. He said that all Japanese aesthetics are marked by these four things. Number one by suggestion.
Speaker 1:In Japanese literature, for example, beauty is often implied rather than stated outright. The reader is invited to reflect, he's not given all the information, and Japanese clothing is very similar. It does. It suggests more than it reveals. So there's large, flowing garments, loose-fitting garments, there's muted colors. It's far more about restraint than it is about display.
Speaker 1:A second principle that he identified is irregularity. In the Japanese mind, perfection does not exist, and if you encounter anything perfect, you shouldn't get involved with it, because you'll probably mess it up. Clothing. Japanese clothing embraces this. It often uses uneven shapes or asymmetry. It doesn't try to be completely perfect. It seeks to imitate some of the asymmetry that's found in nature.
Speaker 1:A third principle is simplicity. The goal in Japanese fashion is not to dress things up, but to highlight the essence of things, and so their clothing embraces this. And so, rather than they wouldn't use tassels or sequins or anything to make it look nice and flashy, but just a simple, cut, fine material, showing you what the material is, nothing excessive. And then, finally, the fourth principle is perishability. In the Japanese mind, everything fades, and that's something that we need to embrace. So clothing does that as well. It's made with natural dyes and fabrics that are meant to age into patina over time and remind us that nothing lasts forever. So that's the Japanese aesthetic. Western companies that have understood these features have been successful in Japan, but those that have not, those that have ignored them, haven't been successful.
Speaker 1:And why do I share that with you? I share that with you to illustrate the principle that clothing is always more than clothing, in that our worldview, the things that we deeply believe and the ways that we view the world expresses itself even through something as mundane or seemingly meaningless as the clothes that we wear, the way that we dress, the way that we present ourselves. Might seem mundane and meaningless, but it actually carries our values and it carries our worldview and it makes a statement to the world around us. It says something about what we believe, even if we're not aware of it, and that is exactly why Paul what he writes, but writes what he writes in 1 Corinthians 11. In these first 16 verses that we've read, we come this morning to one of the most difficult passages in the letter and as I prepared to preach it, I looked at it. I said, man, what am I gonna say about this Preaching in a ball cap up here? As I read it to my children this week and to my wife, my whole family was offended by it just by reading it, because my girls have short cropped hair and Henry, my son, has long hair and dad preaches in a baseball cap and they were so confused as to what I was going to say.
Speaker 1:On the surface, when you read this passage, it looks like it's about these arcane issues of dress code and hairstyle and head coverings and those kinds of things. And if you read it too simply, you might think that Paul is answering questions like should Billy really be preaching in a ball cap? Which I've had that question before and we go to 1 Corinthians 11. You might think it's about that, or you might think it's about you know. We go to 1 Corinthians 11. You might think it's about that, or you might think it's about you know, in our culture today, is it okay for men to have long hair? But when we dig into the context, especially the historical context of the passage, we see that Paul's real concern is not so much about dress code or fashion or hairstyle, but Paul's concern is worship.
Speaker 1:The main issue in this passage is the issue of worship, and the way that the Corinthians dressed and presented themselves in the context of worship revealed what they believed about worship, which is the bigger issue that Paul is seeking to address. That's the core question before us and we're going to be really be looking at that over the next several weeks. What is Christian worship? When we gather together for public worship to sing praises and celebrate the sacraments and to worship God? What is that? Why do we do that? What do we expect will happen from that. How should we approach that? We will be looking at that over the next several weeks because, starting here in chapter 11 and then going through chapter 14, that's the main theme.
Speaker 1:Paul addresses worship in the gathered church. Here, and then even when we get into chapter 12, talking about the use of spiritual gifts within the context of worship. Chapter 14, talking about prophecy in tongues within the context of worship. That's what all of those chapters are about. And from this first section here's where we will begin looking at this issue we learn three profound truths about worship and what our worship must be. Our time together in worship must be reverent, worship must be organic and worship must be confident. So Christian worship is reverent, it is organic and it is confident, and we learn all of that from this interesting passage about head coverings. So let's begin. Worship must be reverent. So let's begin. Worship must be reverent. Worship must be reverent because God, the creator of the universe, does amazing things when his people gather. Worship must be reverent because God does amazing things when his people gather. So Paul begins his instruction on head coverings by assuming that we're in the context of public worship.
Speaker 1:Again, from chapters 11 through 14, the issue is not private devotions. He's not talking about men and women privately praying or privately prophesying. He's talking about the public acts of prayer and prophecy and what happens when God's people come together. The Corinthians' worship in their church somehow had become chaotic, self-centered, confusing, unhelpful to those who were attending. Everyone was sort of seeking to assert themselves rather than acting as one body and speaking with one voice, and we will see that in coming weeks. So Paul is writing to restore order and reverence and making sure that worship is edifying and helpful, that it does the job of putting our attention on God and building up the church.
Speaker 1:So this is about public worship, and the first thing that I want you to notice is this Notice that both men and women pray and prophesy in this passage. Now, paul is talking about public worship here. These are not private prayers, but they're public acts. As you know, when I get up to pray or when Aaron gets up to pray, or speaking, the word of God from the scriptures is a form of prophecy. In this passage, paul allows for both men and women to pray and to prophesy, leading the congregation in speech addressed to God as prayer and in speech from God's word. So Paul's concern here is not that women should not speak. There's a verse in 1 Corinthians 14 where Paul seems to say that, but we have to put that in the context of the letter and we will look at that as we get to it. But Paul's primary concern is not that women shouldn't speak. He assumes that they will. His concern is how men and women conduct themselves in worship as they do so.
Speaker 1:In Greco-Roman culture, married women wore veils in public as a sign of chastity and propriety, and that they were not available, that they were married. And this is not just Christian culture, this is just Greco-Roman pagan culture. And if you go to most places in the world today, outside of Western countries, this is still true. Married women, it's very common for them to wear a shawl or a veil and it signals chastity and propriety. But at home and with the family, in Greco-Roman culture, a woman might go unveiled. It was a more casual setting where she could let her hair down, and that's what happened in the home. So that's just how their culture was the Corinthians. Keep in mind, where would they have met for worship? Almost certainly they would have met for worship in a home, maybe a large home that could accommodate the church, or in several homes and so because they're meeting in a home, some of the women treated it like a casual private gathering where they could let their hair down, and they didn't treat it like a public gathering or a public act before God and his people.
Speaker 1:And Paul says here that we should be careful not to make worship too casual, because it's a holy assembly and it deserves reverence. In verse 10, in this regard is striking. Paul says it's one of the most confusing verses in the whole passage. But Paul says that women in worship, if they're leading, if they're praying and prophesying, should veil themselves. He says because of the angels. He gives no further explanation, he just says because of the angels. Well, what do the angels have to do with anything? There have been a lot of that line there alone has killed a lot of trees, from a lot of scholars writing about what that might mean.
Speaker 1:But I think the best explanation is this that worship is never a small or a casual thing and that even in a small church like ours, or where two or three gather, where a small group gathers to conduct the public worship of God, that is a cosmic event that is attended by the angels. We join with heaven or heaven joins with us in praising God. Angels are in attendance, why? Because the angels attend, because they long to witness what God will do. They long to look in to the things of God and the unfolding tale of redemption and into the secrets of the gospel. Worship is of utmost importance and interest to the angels. They attend to see what God will do in the hearts of his people in this time. And if it's so important to them, shouldn't it be more interesting to us? Shouldn't we pay closer attention and treat it with more reverence? So one of the principles that's being communicated in the passage is this more interesting to us? Shouldn't we pay closer attention and treat it with more reverence? So one of the principles that's being communicated in the passage is this is that Christian worship is never a casual thing. It is an awe-filled meeting between God and his people before the watching hosts of heaven, where God is expected to show up in a unique way and to do amazing things and to advance his kingdom in big ways and in little ways, and in ways that we see, in ways that we don't see. So we should treat it like that.
Speaker 1:A few years ago, I had a Zoom interview with a church's pastoral search committee and this was back before we had determined to plant a church and I was candidating with some different churches. This particular interview was some church in Pittsburgh and I was interviewing to be a lead pastor. So it's kind of a serious interview. It's just a first-round interview. But the problem was that I forgot all about it until like five minutes before the interview started. So I get like this email or this text reminder that I'm supposed to have the interview and by the time I realized I had the meeting, I was at Alt Park in Hyde Park with my family. It was summertime and I was sweaty, I was in a tank top, I was probably wearing a baseball cap. Very poor cell service out there. I have no idea why Julie said I should cancel the meeting. I just took it anyway. I just, you know, found a park bench and pulled up my phone and took the Zoom meeting and had that interview.
Speaker 1:Needless to say, there was no second interview. Why is that I was so surprised? Well, it's because my preparation, my appearance and my preparation, or the lack of it, communicated volumes. It communicated that I was not serious about the position, which I wasn't. I didn't care about that job. It communicated that I said that I did not expect anything important to come out of that meeting, which I didn't. I didn't want a second interview. But all of that came out in the way that I conducted myself and in my dress. I didn't. I didn't want a second interview. So, um, but you know, all of that came out in my, in the way that I conducted myself and in my dress. I tried, you know, I did a good job in the interview, but, but because there was a complete lack of preparation, um, that's what that communicated.
Speaker 1:But that's what reverence is. Reverence is taking something seriously because you believe that it matters, because you believe that you, you expect something important to come from it. You believe that it matters because you believe that you expect something important to come from it. You believe that it matters, you believe that it's significant and so you take it seriously. One of the principles not the only principle here, but one of the principles that Paul is pressing on the Corinthians is that we need to take worship seriously. It's not a casual thing. That doesn't mean it can't be fun or that we can't laugh together or that it's not enjoyable. It needs to be morose, but it is a serious thing where God meets with his people and where God does amazing things. So if reverence is the principle, then what about our worship of the living God? Head coverings today don't carry the same meaning for us as they did in Corinth, and I cannot lay down any universal rule today of what it means for you to be reverent in worship. I can't say, you know, you've got to wear this kind of dress or this kind of hat. Any kind of rule that I tried to lay down would seem just as difficult to understand 200 years from now as this is difficult to understand 200 years from now, as this is difficult to understand for us because culture is always changing. But what's most important is that we wrestle with what it means for us to treat worship with the reverence it deserves. So here's just a few points to get you started.
Speaker 1:Three things Number one prioritize it. Okay, worship. And by worship I mean this time, on Sunday morning, that we come together to do this unique thing that we call worship. Worship should not be squeezed in to our life and to our schedule. If it fits. We should not build our lives and schedules and budgets and then after that squeeze worship in where we can and when we can. It should take a priority in our lives, because this is when we meet with God and the angels are in attendance and we expect that God will do amazing things. It should take priority. Very few things should be able to keep us from it, and I know that sometimes we go on vacation and we're out of town, and that's fine, but worship should take priority. So prioritize it.
Speaker 1:Number two prepare for it. I'm not telling you how to dress. I'm often up here wearing overalls, but I want you to know those overalls. That's the most expensive piece of clothing I own. Okay, that's the nicest clothes I have. All right, I'm not going to tell you how to dress, but, in your heart, posture, prepare for it, just as you would for a wedding or for a job interview or an important meeting. We prepare for worship. We prepare our heart, our schedule, we prepare our household. That can mean so many things. It can mean planning meals the night before. It can mean setting out your clothes. Whatever it is, we need to come prepared. We need to prepare for worship and then, finally, anticipate it.
Speaker 1:Number three don't come to worship expecting nothing. Come expecting that the God who was able to move mountains, that the God who set up the heavens like a tent and put the stars in the sky and calls them out and knows them by name. That God we should come expecting that that God will meet with us by his spirit and he will do work that needs to be done. He might not fix all of our problems every time we gather for worship, but he will meet us in a way that we need and if not in us, he will do it for someone in this room and we need to be a witness to that and to participate in that, because we're one body and that's another. We're going to get into that. That's going to keep coming up in subsequent weeks is that we worship together as one body.
Speaker 1:So Christian worship, first of all, must be reverent, because we come to meet with the God of all creation and heaven is in attendance and amazing things happen when the church gathers in Jesus' name. Worship must be reverent. Point two Worship must be organic, and I'm using this word intentionally because I want to challenge your concepts with the use of this word. So pay attention to what I do here. Worship must be organic because Jesus has made us into one body. Worship must be organic because Jesus has made us into one body.
Speaker 1:So Paul's teaching on head coverings is partly about reverence, but not completely. It's not only about reverence, it's also about authority and order in the body of Christ. Look at verse three. He says I want you to understand that the head of every man not just every Christian, but the head of every man is Christ. The head of a wife is her husband and the head of Christ is God. So, starting here, paul moves back and forth between talking about a literal head and a metaphorical head. The word head here sometimes he means covering your literal head and sometimes he's talking about a metaphorical head and what that means. That word head means having authority over, but not in the way that we might normally think about it. You know. You think about, for example, the head of a company having authority over that company. That's basically what Paul means when he says head. So in that regard, christ is the head of every man. He says that husbands are the head of their wives, is the head of every man. He says that husbands are the head of their wives and, most crucially, he says that the head of Christ is God, which that last phrase should stop any good Trinitarian in their tracks Be like. Hold on a second. What does that mean? The head of Christ is God.
Speaker 1:We know as good Trinitarians that the Son is co-equal to the Father in glory and power and divinity. There is no inferiority in the Trinity. The Son and the Father are equal in power and divinity and glory. And yet the Son chooses freely, joyfully, submits himself to the father. Why? So that they might be perfectly united in all that they do. It's the Trinity, the three in perfect unity. So the son submits himself to the father. So what that teaches us headship is a biblical idea. But biblical headship is not about superiority or inferiority. It's not about who's more valuable or who's more talented or better. The son and the father do not differ in their talent or in their value or in what they're able to do. It's not about domination or subjugation. It is about ordered unity. It's about different people with different roles working in harmony as one. And that's what Paul is pressing into here Unity through ordered authority, or in other words what I would say an organic unity.
Speaker 1:For a man to cover his head, paul says in worship, dishonors Christ his head, his authority. We're going to look at that in point three, but for now he says for a woman to uncover her head in worship, as she prays or prophesies, dishonors her husband, her head. That's what Paul is saying. So for a woman to veil herself as she prayed or prophesied in the church, what would that have meant for her to do that? In that culture, it meant that she did not do what she was doing as a private individual, but she did what she was doing praying and prophesying under the authority of the church, under the authority and care of her husband and having been given authority to do so. Having been given authority to do so, having been given authority to do so. And this shows us something profound. This shows us that worship and everything that the church does together, but especially worship, is never about lone individuals doing their own thing and everybody coming together and each having an idea and we're all competing with one another. It's not about that. The church is not a chaotic crowd of self-expressive individuals. Rather, the church is a body. We have been made one body by Jesus, and that's how we need to think about ourselves and that's how we need to operate.
Speaker 1:When I get up to preach, for example, I don't do so as Billy Otten speaking for myself. I preach as one who has been ordained by the presbytery. I have been called by you. You asked me to be up here and preach. You called me as your pastor and overseen and underneath the authority of the elders, who can correct me when I misspeak. I only have the authority that you have given to me and that the presbytery has given to me. I don't have any authority on my own. The same is true whenever anyone leads in worship, or that's how it should be, whenever anyone preaches or prays or prophesies or leads worship or leads a song, whether it's a song or a prayer or the sacraments, or even just a word of welcome at the door, even a greeting or even a benediction. We do nothing in worship as private individuals, but we act as representatives of the body, under the authority that Christ has given to his church, and that's why Paul will later say we'll get to this.
Speaker 1:In 1 Corinthians 14, he says when you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. He says that's fine, let all things be done for the building up, but all things should be done decently and in order. We should function together as a body, as an organic unit that is operating together in an orderly way. So worship must be organic. It must reflect the reality that we're united, that Christ has made us into one body, and every act of leadership and worship is never my act or your act, but it is our act together. When Adam gets up here and leads us in song, we join our voices together. He's leading us in worship, but we sing and worship together. That's what we do in the Lord's Supper. That's even what we do here, as I'm preaching and you're hearing, considering the Word of God. This is something that we do together under Christ, our head, empowered by the Spirit and ordered for the building up of the whole church.
Speaker 1:So think about that. That's what I mean by organic. Now, I could have said hierarchical, that's maybe another way to put it, but I think organic works just as well, and that's what Paul is getting at in terms of the order of the body. The thing about organic things, though, is that they are almost always slower and they almost always take more time, but they're almost always better To do things. The organic way takes time. It can feel slow to strive to move together as one body, when, if we moved independently or acted independently, we could get things done much quicker. It can feel slow, but what's done organically endures and it lasts and it's more permanent.
Speaker 1:Think just about building practices. Modern Western building practices often aim for speed and volume. So we want to pump out as many houses as quickly as possible. So it's all about speed and volume. So we pour concrete, we use metal fasteners, we throw up houses that might last maybe one generation, but probably not much longer than that.
Speaker 1:But traditional Japanese carpentry is different. You're going to get two Japan illustrations today. So in traditional Japanese carpentry there's a process called ishibadate, if I'm pronouncing that correctly. In that process builders hand-select foundation stones. These are natural stones. They might hand-shape them and polish them a bit, and then they get these timber posts that will rest on the stones, but they carve the bottom of them by hand. They scribe it to the stone, carve out the bottom so that it rests perfectly on top of the shape of the stone. And no fasteners are needed, no adhesives are needed, it's just gravity and precision craftsmanship. And that is the traditional Japanese method. It is incredibly slow and, I imagine, incredibly expensive work, but the result are structures that are incredibly resilient. They prove to be surprisingly earthquake resistant, weather resistant, able to stand for generations. And that's just one example of how the organic way of doing things is slow, but it is enduring and it is worth it.
Speaker 1:And that's something what it looks like to be an organic church that in everything that we do, especially in worship, but just even in our activity out in the world, in everything that we do, we do it as one body under Christ. And if we do it that way, it will feel slow, but what we build together will last. So, for example, imagine someone who's passionate about a particular ministry. Let's say that you catch a bug for something like care for the homeless. You're very passionate about that. It's a good thing to be passionate about.
Speaker 1:What would be the organic way to pursue that passion and to see some kind of movement within the church toward that end? What would be the organic way? It wouldn't be standing up in worship to make an unauthorized announcement and say like hey guys, I'm after church today. I'm going to the soup kitchen. Whoever wants to come with me, come with me. Not that that's a bad thing, but probably not super effective. It wouldn't be going rogue and launching a project on your own and expecting everyone to get behind it, not pressuring elders with emails you know, urgent emails wanting them to take care of it. Those things might feel fast or feel like a way of getting things done, but the organic way is to begin the slow process of talking with the elders, rallying support, praying, spending a lot of time praying, inviting others into the vision, allowing the church, giving the church time to move forward together, working through its God-ordained channels of leadership and authority so that we can move forward together. And that is what Paul is pressing toward in this passage Not individuals asserting themselves, but the whole body acting as a harmonious unit.
Speaker 1:There's an African proverb that says if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. Going far and going fast won't work. If we want to go far, we have to go together, and that's going to take time. We won't always go fast. So worship and everything that we do as a church must be organic, moving as one body under one head, jesus Christ. And finally, point three worship must be confident. Christian worship must be confident because Jesus has torn down the veil.
Speaker 1:So Paul has explained why women should veil, should wear a shawl or a veil in public worship as they pray and prophesy. But now he explains why men should not In verse 4, he doesn't necessarily get into the explanation, but he tells us that they should not. In verse 4, he says Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head, which is Christ. So every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors Jesus. Is what Paul is saying. The covering that Paul refers to is not a baseball cap. They didn't have baseball caps back in first century Corinth. It's something specific. It's a veil or it's a shawl, the kind that would be worn in pagan sacrifice and in pagan worship.
Speaker 1:In the early 20th century, archaeologists uncovered a statue in Corinth from the first century period, a statue of Emperor Augustus offering a pagan oblation, a pagan sacrifice, and his head is veiled in the Roman style. That's how the pagans did it. So Paul says men, christian men, should not do that. That was not unusual at all. What was what's depicted in the statue of Augustus? That is classic Roman worship, where priests and magistrates veiled their heads.
Speaker 1:The men would veil their heads when invoking the gods. Now why would they do that? They did that because the gods are notoriously dangerous. They're not to be trifled with. They're not to be invoked lightly. They're not to be approached lightly. To enter their presence unveiled was to risk destruction or a bad omen or just the capriciousness of the gods. So it sort of masked their identity and it sort of protected them from the gods that they are invoking. To be scrutinized under the divine gaze was to be exposed as unworthy. So a pagan veil was a barrier. It was a barrier, was a protection from judgment or just the capriciousness of the gods. The Corinthian church was full of former pagans. Paul will repeat this fact as we get into chapter 15, full of former pagans who knew that imagery very well and whether or not the men in Corinth were actually doing this in worship were actually veiling.
Speaker 1:Paul's point is clear. He says for a man to veil in Christian worship would dishonor Christ. Why? Because it would deny what Jesus has accomplished. It would deny what Jesus has accomplished. No veil is needed because Christ has already torn down the veil, the real veil. Because Christ has already torn down the veil, the real veil. He's the mediator who restores fellowship with God. So for the men to veil in Christian worship would be to say, when we approach God, we need to be careful. We still need protection from God's presence, because we are sinners, we cannot stand before him in judgment, so we cannot be confident in worship. We must be protected, but the gospel says absolutely not true. You do not need any veil or protection other than the one that Jesus has provided for us in approaching God.
Speaker 1:Paul writes this in 2 Corinthians 3.18. He says that we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image, and the writer of Hebrews declares this in Hebrews 10. He says since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, that's, that's how we enter the presence of God. Let us draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith. The curtain of the temple, the great veil separating God's presence from sinful people, was torn in half when Jesus died, and we don't. We never need to make another one. His flesh was torn so that any barrier between us and God might be removed, and that's why Paul says that men should not veil in worship, because Christian worship is not like pagan worship, where a veil is needed for safety. In Christ, we worship confidently. We worship with unveiled face, with humble confidence, free access and bold assurance before the throne of grace.
Speaker 1:Think about it like this. So imagine you get a letter in the mail tomorrow and it's letting you know that the IRS has decided to conduct an audit of your tax returns for the past three years. How would you feel receiving such a letter? Even if you're very honest and even if you're very careful and responsible, you're probably going to be, if not a nervous wreck, at least a little bit unnerved, because everybody makes mistakes. What if you miss something? What if your accountant messed up? What if you actually owe thousands of dollars in back taxes? That's accruing interest that because of some clerical error? Whatever is the case, you're going to find out if you're going to be audited, because now there's a team of people whose job it is to criticize and scrutinize every dollar that's passed through your bank account. It's the kind of attention you would never want to get. It's like falling under the gaze of Sauron. You know the all-seeing eye, and it's not a wonderful thing.
Speaker 1:That's why the Roman pagans wore a veil when drawing near to the gods, so as not to fall under their terrible scrutiny, to be able to get in and make their requests and get out before and the gods are none the wiser. That's what the veiling was all about Christian worship could not be more different, because in Christ we step boldly into God's marvelous light. Christian worship is the one place where you should be able to be completely honest about your sin and your brokenness, no need to cover ourselves, even if we could, which we can't but also completely confident that we will receive favor and blessing from the hand of our Father and not judgment, because we come to him through Christ. So how can those two things be true? How can we both be honest about our sin and confident that God will bless us Only through Jesus Christ and the living way that he's opened for us?
Speaker 1:The pagans wore a veil because they feared an audit that they could never pass, but Jesus has already been audited in our place and every line item of our sin has fallen on him and he has made good on our debt. And because he passed that audit for us, you stand unveiled and confident and beloved before the Father, who only wants to bless you. That doesn't mean that he's not going to discipline and correct you and sanctify you. That's part of the way that he blesses you, but that's all that he wants to do is to bless you and conform you to's part of the way that he blesses you, but that's all that he wants to do is to bless you and conform you to the image of his son, jesus. So, as we approach God through Christ, our sin no longer counts against us, so we can freely acknowledge it and we can be healed of it, and we can see it for the first time, we can repent of it and we can be done with it. And that's what we do when we come together for worship.
Speaker 1:So Christian worship must be reverent. We should be able to laugh and have fun together and spend time as a family, but it is worship and we meet with the God of all creation and the angels are in attendance. Christian worship must be organic. In all that we do, we don't behave as a chaotic mass of individuals, but we strive to act as one body. In Christian worship, we must be confident. We draw near to the Father through the blood of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1:To these ends, let us pray Our Father.
Speaker 1:We thank you that you have given us an authoritative word in your scriptures that spans all of time and has relevance for all people of all cultures, at all times and Lord, and that's why we read all of it, even passages that are difficult to understand or that seem very removed from our culture.
Speaker 1:But even in those things, lord, there's something you have to say to us, and so I pray for us over the next few weeks as we go through these words of Paul and as we learn more about what it means to worship you rightly. That you would help us, that you would build us up, help us to see the importance of our worship, not just our public worship, but how we worship you in all of life, as we go from here throughout the week. So help us, lord, to be confident through Jesus and to make our requests boldly. Lord, we pray that you would help us to function as one body and to be organic in the ways that you intend for us to, and that, god, you would help us to be reverent and to know the weight of your glory, and that this is a weighty matter and an important thing. We ask all of this in Jesus' name, amen, amen. Stand with us.