MUSINGS

“It is Glory to Her” One thing that quickly impresses the visitor to India is the way Hindu women care for and cherish their long black hair—and the grace and dignity their hair imparts to them. This is what Paul says in l Corinthians 11: 14, 15—that even nature itself teaches us that if a woman have long hair “it is glory to her”. It is remarkable to find nature’s teaching followed in a pagan country while in Christendom the cutting of women’s hair is general, even, alas, with many who genuinely love the Lord. And this is in the face of a direct word from the Lord through Paul that it is shameful for a woman to have her hair cut off or shaved (1 Corinthians 11: 6). The original word translated “cut off” includes the meaning ‘to clip, or cut short’.

I wonder by what process of thought true lovers of Christ find it consistent with that scripture to cut their hair, often making themselves indistinguishable from women in the world.

That chapter in Corinthians deals with the ordering of God in which Christ is the Head of every man, and the woman’s head is the man. Flowing from that Paul says that the woman should have on her head a token of the authority under which she stands (see v.10 and footnote in N.T.), and that she is also to have long hair. In a world where this divine order is set aside and often regarded as out-dated, the believing woman has the privilege and dignity of maintaining in the physical matter of long hair a witness to her affectionate committal to what is pleasing to her Lord.

FCM