Journal: Priscilla Papers
Volume: PP 17:3 (Summer 2003)
Article: Beginning With The End In 1 Cor. 11:2-16
Author: Alan G. Padgett

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PP 17:3 (Summer 2003) p. 17

Beginning With The End In 1 Cor. 11:2-16

Understanding the passage from the bottom up

Alan G. Padgett

Alan Padgett is professor of systematic theology at Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minn. He is the author of Introducing Christianity (with Sally Bruyneel; Orbis Press, 2003) and Science and the Study of God (Eerdmans, 2003). He is also a consulting theologian for Priscilla Papers.

As the Word of God in human words, the Scriptures can and do speak with a fresh voice today. It is sometimes hard, however, to read a familiar passage in a new way. The purpose of this essay is a simple one. I hope you will come away with a new understanding of one paragraph in Paul’s letters that deals with women and men in the church. The paragraph in question is 1 Cor. 11:2-16, a passage I have been studying and writing about for over twenty years. 1

While many ways of understanding this passage have developed over the millennia, the interpretation I prefer will require a fresh approach to the text. To this end, just to overcome years of misreading, I am going to ask you to read the passage from the bottom up.

What Is The Main Argument?

It often helps to look at the end of a difficult argument in order to understand it better. What is the author’s main point? This should guide our interpretation of the whole passage. Paul’s arguments are often quite difficult to follow. He was not a linear thinker. His prose is circular, even sinuous. The trick of looking at the end or main point of his argument works on many different passages. Consider Romans, for example.

Romans 8 is one of my favorite chapters in the whole Bible. It ends with a ringing declaration of the love of God. Nothing, not even death, can separate us from God’s love in Christ. But the very next words are jarring in their change of direction. Paul writes that he is speaking the truth in Christ—not lying— about his great sorrow for his people, the Jews. What is the connection here? Many commentators have been puzzled by the “insertion” of chapters 9-11 in Paul’s overall argument in Romans.

We have to remember that Paul’s original text did not have verse or chapter divisions. In fact, paper was so expensive that scribes did not even leave spaces between words. So the “jump” from 8:39 to 9:1 must have been even more jarring to Paul’s original readers. What is going on here? The answer is revealed only at the end of this long section, in ...

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