The Rhetorical Method That Changes Everything

For years, I taught that women couldn't cut their hair based on 1 Corinthians 11. I spent hours in the pulpit trying to make sense of a passage that felt "herky jerky." I would literally tell congregations, "I know your eyes are going to just glaze over when we go into this, but stay with me. We've got to try to make sense of this text."

The fact that it didn't make sense should have been my first clue. But instead of questioning our interpretation, I kept pushing forward, trying to force coherence where none existed. Turns out, we were missing something huge.

The Signals That Something's Off

When you really dig into 1 Corinthians 11, there are clear signals that our traditional interpretation doesn't align with Paul or his teaching. Let me show you what I mean.

First Signal: The Hierarchy is Out of Order

In verse 3, Paul states: "But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and man is the head of woman, and God is the head of Christ" (ESV).

Now, if Paul was establishing a hierarchical pyramid as we've been taught, he got it completely backwards. In Greek culture, when you had a list of names or positions, the most prominent came first. That was their way. Paul was actually pretty good about this - he was very careful about order.

If this was meant to be a power structure, Paul would have written it as: God, Christ, man, woman. But he didn't. And he would have been very careful to put it in the right order. The fact that he didn't should have been our first hint that something else was going on.

Second Signal: The Cultural Contradiction

Then Paul says something that should have thrown us for a loop: "Every man who has something on his head while praying or prophesying disgraces his head" (1 Corinthians 11:4, NASB).

Wait. What? Paul, the Jewish Pharisee who grew up wearing a prayer shawl - his Talit - is now prescribing a brand new rule that men can't pray with their heads covered? In Jewish culture, men would flip their prayer shawls over their heads to create their own little prayer closet. It was how they connected with God.

This should have been a massive red flag. Why would Paul, who preached freedom from the law, suddenly institute a new law that contradicted his own cultural practices? There's an imposter here somewhere, right?

Third Signal: The Herky Jerky Movement

As you read through 1 Corinthians 11, you start feeling like you're driving down the road and something's going flat. There's this back-and-forth, this jarring movement that just doesn't fit with Paul's usual systematic approach.

Paul's writing is actually very systematic. When you read Romans, it's like rows of bricks - one row on another. He works his way through Romans, through Ephesians. It's glorious the way he puts Ephesians together. It's a masterpiece. He knows how to layer truth on truth.

And then all of a sudden you get to 1 Corinthians 11, and it's this tangled up mess? No. That's not how Paul wrote at all.

Understanding Paul's Rhetorical Method

Here's what we missed: Paul was using a teaching method that was very common in his day called the rhetorical method or Socratic method. It's a dialogue - a back and forth where the teacher quotes what people are saying and then responds to correct them.

Throughout 1 Corinthians, Paul frames his argument as question and answer, statement and reply. Scholars largely agree on multiple examples of this throughout the letter - in chapters 1, 3, 6, 7, 8, 10, 14, and 15.

In chapter 7, it's most explicit: "Now concerning the things about which you wrote to me..." (1 Corinthians 7:1, NASB). He's responding to a letter the Corinthians sent him! Some translations even put quotes around the statements Paul is addressing because we can recognize he's quoting them before responding.

The Pattern We've Been Missing

So when we get to 1 Corinthians 11, we need to understand that Paul is doing the same thing. He's quoting the Corinthians' letter - all that stuff about hierarchy, head coverings, hair length, and women being created for men - and then he's correcting them.

Look at verse 11: "However, in the Lord, neither is woman independent of man, nor is man independent of woman" (NASB). There's that word "however" - he's about to correct what he just quoted. He's leveling the playing field, cutting the legs out from under their hierarchical argument.

The Corinthians were saying woman came from man, so man has authority. Paul says, "OK, you're right that woman came from man in the very beginning. But so also man now has his birth through woman, and all things originate from God" (1 Corinthians 11:12, NASB).

It's brilliant, actually. In just a few words, Paul dismantles their entire power structure.

The Mic Drop Moment

Then comes the moment that should have changed everything. After going through all these points the Corinthians were making about hair length and head coverings, Paul says:

"But if anyone seems to be contentious, we have no such practice, nor do the churches of God" (1 Corinthians 11:16, NASB).

We have no such practice. Not "we have no other practice" - the Greek word is "toioutos" which means "of this sort." Paul is saying, "If you want to be contentious about this, you need to understand - we don't do this. Neither do the churches of God."

It's a mic drop. All that stuff about hair length, head coverings, hierarchical submission based on creation order - Paul is saying the churches don't practice any of it.

The Freedom This Brings

When I finally understood this, it was like chains falling off. All those years of trying to make sense of contradictory teachings, all those hours in the pulpit wrestling with a text that felt wrong - it finally made sense.

Paul wasn't instituting new laws about hair length or head coverings. He wasn't establishing male authority over women. He was correcting false teaching that was trying to bring God's people back under bondage.

The preacher of grace, the one who declared we're free from the law, was not suddenly adding new rules. He was setting people free from the rules others were trying to impose.

Men, you can have long hair if you want to. Women, you can have short hair if you want to. You're free in Christ. It's like a novel idea, but it really is true. Your glory comes from the Lord, not from your hair length.

Why This Matters

Understanding Paul's rhetorical method doesn't just solve the 1 Corinthians 11 puzzle - it opens up our understanding of how Paul taught throughout his letters. When we recognize that he often quoted false teaching before correcting it, we can better understand passages that have been used to limit and control rather than liberate.

The same Paul who wrote "There is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28, ESV) wasn't contradicting himself in 1 Corinthians. He was consistently proclaiming the freedom and equality that Christ purchased for us.

This is what happens when we let Scripture interpret Scripture instead of forcing our traditions onto the text. Truth really does set us free - not just spiritually, but from the religious systems that would put us back under bondage.

The Church has spent centuries trying to make these passages "make sense" within hierarchical frameworks. Maybe it's time we let Paul say what he actually said: "We have no such practice, nor do the churches of God."

That's not heretical. That's not dismissing Scripture. That's finally letting Paul be Paul - the apostle of grace who consistently opposed those who would put believers back under law, whether it was circumcision, dietary restrictions, or gender-based hierarchies.

The truth was hiding in plain sight all along. We just needed to understand how Paul was teaching to finally see it clearly.

What are your thoughts? Have you struggled with passages that seemed to contradict the gospel of grace? I'd love to hear your story in the comments below.

Blessings,
Susan 😊