Prayer and prophecy are not just supernatural gifts in 1 Corinthians 11

There are some objections to using head coverings today which are popular in circles adjacent to mine. Enough people have asked me about them privately that I’m going to make some public posts to point to in future.

The first objection says that 1 Corinthians 11 only teaches that women must be veiled when performing supernatural gifts. Since these gifts no longer continue, the need for veiling no longer continues. This argument makes much of Paul’s use of the same prayer/prophecy language in 1 Corinth­ians 14, where it specifically means praying in tongues, and giving revelation:

For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful… But if a revelation be made to another sitting by, let the first keep silence. For ye all can prophesy one by one, that all may learn, and all may be exhorted. 1 Corinthians 14:15, 30–31

The problem here is that if you track Paul’s discussion through 1 Corinthians 14, three things become quite obvious:

Firstly, the nature of prophecy seems to also be set in some kind of opposition to a supernatural gift:

Follow after love; yet desire earnestly spiritual gifts, but rather that ye may prophesy. For he that speaketh in a tongue speaketh not unto men, but unto God; for no man understandeth; but in the spirit he speaketh mysteries. But he that prophesieth speaketh unto men edification, and exhortation, and consolation. 1 Corinthians 14:1–3

I am not suggesting that prophecy is not a spiritual gift here, but rather that the language is ambiguous in contrasting “obvious” spiritual gifts—things naturally impossible to us, like speaking in tongues—with “mundane” spiritual gifts—natural abilities that have no special wow factor, but which the Holy Spirit nonetheless works through. Prophecy, Paul says, involves edification, exhortation and consolation. None of these requires supernatural ability. They may be supernaturally prompted or inspired, yet this too may be subtle; think, for instance, of Jesus’ promise to his disciples that “the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said unto you” (Jn 14:26).

Clearly the working of the Holy Spirit is often inconspicuous and even indiscernible. This tracks with Paul’s continual emphasis in 1 Corinthians 14, which is not on figuring out whether you’re doing something “supernatural,” but on whether you’re doing something edifying (think edifice; from the Latin aedificāre, to build). The Holy Spirit works in our gifts to build his church, without the need for impressive displays of power—which should give us considerable pause in asserting that the gift of prophecy no longer continues in any sense.

Secondly, there is some kind of connection in Paul’s mind between music and prophecy. In arguing for the superiority of prophecy over tongues, he says:

But now, brothers, if I come unto you speaking with tongues, what shall I profit you, unless I speak to you either by way of revelation, or of knowledge, or of prophesying, or of teaching? Even things without life, giving a voice, whether pipe or harp, if they give not a distinction in the sounds, how shall it be known what is piped or harped? For if the trumpet give an uncertain voice, who shall prepare himself for war? So also ye, unless ye utter by the tongue speech easy to be understood, how shall it be known what is spoken? 1 Corinthians 14:6–9

And then in verse 15:

What is it then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also: I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also. 1 Corinthians 14:15

Given that the prayer in verse 15 refers to tongues, the contrast demands that singing refers to prophecy, since the whole point of chapter 14 is the contrast between tongues and prophecy.

This tracks with his fourfold distinction in verse 6 between:–

1. Revelation: something revealed directly by God;
2. Knowledge: information conveyed for the sake of others;
3. Teaching: the application of wisdom to some situation;
4. Prophecy: which must be distinct from all three of the above.

We tend to assume that prophecy just means revelation, but clearly to Paul that is not always the case, or otherwise, revelation in this context has a much looser connection to plenary verbal inspiration than we like to imagine. I think very possibly he is intending to put all of these ideas in parallel, but even then, they are not all identical, so this would essentially define prophecy as broadly involving conveying God’s wisdom. This tracks with what he has already said, which is that prophecy involves edification, consolation, and exhortation. But it also tracks with the usage of the Old Testament, where we see people prophesying who are not “first-order” prophets (i.e., commissioned members of the divine council; cf. Jer 23:22):

…thou shalt meet a band of prophets coming down from the high place with a psaltery, and a timbrel, and a pipe, and a harp, before them; and they will be prophesying… 1 Samuel 10:5

In the same way,

Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances. And Miriam answered them, “Sing ye to Yahweh, for he hath triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea.” Exodus 15:20–21

The fact that prophecy here clearly refers to singing and music-making (and apparently dancing) is certainly notable, given Paul’s comments about music and singing in 1 Corinthians 14.

Now, it is fair to ask:

To ask the question is to answer it. Obviously he does. But in that case, the women ought to have their heads covered, for Paul says plainly that “every woman…prophesying with her head unveiled dishonoreth her head; for it is one and the same thing as if she were shaven” (1 Cor 11:5).

Thirdly, in the same way, the connection between prayer and tongues is indisputable, but that does not mean that when Paul refers to prayer in 1 Corinthians 11 he just means speaking in tongues. If he had intended to restrict his meaning to speaking in tongues there, why did he instead consistently refer to prayer and prophecy instead—obviously broader concepts which, unlike speaking in tongues and prophetically teaching, are not off-limits to women in the first place (1 Cor 14:34)? No, the logical explanation is that there is a kind of prayer and a kind of prophecy that women are allowed to perform in worship—as we well know and everyone allows—and this is the very reason he devotes an extended section to their proper order in doing so.

Just on the face of it, that such a long section of teaching is preserved for the church, if it has no true relevance to us throughout time, is extremely implausible. If all Paul is teaching us in 1 Corinthians 11 is that women should cover their heads when performing supernatural gifts in the church, and supernatural gifts have ceased, then what abiding principles can we infer that weren’t already easily discerned in other parts of the New Testament?

On the other hand, if prayer and prophecy is a catch-all term that encompasses everything from the simplest corporate prayer and singing, to speaking in tongues and ecstatic utterances, then women ought to continue to cover their heads in worship, and “prayer and prophecy” may well be thought of as a synecdoche for worship itself.

Continued in objection 2: “the hair is the covering”