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Turn please to I Corinthians 11:7-9. "For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man. For man is not from woman, but woman from man. Nor was man created for the woman, but woman for the man."
The important word in this passage is the word "glory." We talked about it some in Question 17, but I think it's worth considering further. I'll start with a definition, to help us along. Glory, I believe, is the visible expression of the nature of something. In particular, it is the manifestation of that which is good, beautiful, honorable, and worthy of praise.
Okay, so how does that work? How can a woman be the glory of a man, or man be the glory of God?
Well, our scripture passage gives us another clue a few verses later. In verse 15 we read, "But if a woman has long hair, it is a glory to her..." Hmm. Hair is an interesting thing. It's the part of her body that a woman has the most control over. In other words, if her hair is beautiful, she can take credit, and if it's not, guess who's to blame?
Does a woman have complete control over her hair? Are you kidding? All of us fight against the limitations of our hair (ever hear of a "bad hair day"?). In the same way, a husband cannot be held entirely accountable for his unmanageable "glory." But certainly no one blames hair for the misbehaviors of its person.
Well, maybe I'm stretching this a bit far. Metaphors are never perfect. Nonetheless, if God says woman is the glory of man, what He means is that a man's virtues and strengths will be revealed to the world through the "gloriousness" of his wife. Said another way, people will see a virtuous woman and give honor to her husband.
That's what happened to the husband in Proverbs 31. "Who can find a virtuous wife? For her worth is far above rubies. The heart of her husband safely trusts her; so he will have no lack of gain" (Proverbs 31:10-11). In the New Testament we see that prospective church leaders are evaluated specifically by the spiritual health of their families (see I Timothy 3 and Titus 1).
Does this seem unfair? Not really, not at all. You see, it's not a win-lose situation. Marriage never is. It's either win-win, or lose-lose. The Proverbs husband was honored by being given a position of leadership "in the gates." But in those same gates the wife was also praised (verse 30).
You see, we must never forget that marriage is first and foremost the picture of the divine-human relationship. I Corinthians 11 isn't primarily about men and women; it's about God's order for all of creation. "But I want you to know that the head of every man is Christ, the head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God" (verse 3).
So the feminist strategy of raising the status of women by demeaning men will never, never work. When we ignore or destroy the proper interdependence of the sexes, we lose the vitality of what God created us to be, and to do.
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