Q. I just read your article. I started wearing a headcovering in September 2013. But then I wasn't sure anymore, and I stopped after 3 months. Now I wear my headcovering when I pray. But for some reason I still feel to wear it all the time. My question is, why didn't Paul tell the congregation in 1 Cor. 11 that women should always wear their head covering? Why did he only say to wear it when they pray and prophesy? This is what I struggle to understand. And why are we told in 1 Tim 2:9 and 1 Peter 3:3 "In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array ... Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel." If your heads should be covered all the time, then your platted hair wouldn't be visible anyway. So why are we told how to wear our hair if it should be hidden under a scarf all the time? I am just trying to make sense out of these verses, but I do agree with your article, thank you. (TE, New Zealand, 13 February 2014)

A. This is a very good and important question that has resulted in those who accept the scriptural position on women's headcovering to take one of two positions:

• 1. Minimalist; or
• 2. Maximalist

The minimalist position is the one based solely on Paul's key teaching to the Corinthians:

"But I want you to know that the head of every man is Messiah, the head of woman is man, and the head of Messiah is Elohim (God the Father). Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonours his head (Messiah). But every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonours her head (her husband), for that is one and the same as if her head were shaved. For if a woman is not covered, let her also be shorn. But if it is shameful for a woman to be shorn or shaved, let her be covered. For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of Elohim (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. For this reason the woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the malakim (angels)" (1 Cor.11:3-10, NKJV).

The minimalist teaching is that a woman should:

• 1. Always have her head covered while praying or prophesying (privately or in assembly with others);
• 2. She should do so in order not to dishonour her head (her husband, or if unmarried, her father); and
• 3. She should have this authority on her head because of the malakim (angels).

Those talmidim (disciples) assembling together for worship, and specifically within the context of prayer and prophesy under the apostolic authority of the Body of Messiah as a whole, and/or the pastoral authority of a local assembly (congregation), are required by those authorities to have their heads covered. As the head of the woman is her husband (or father), then it is the husband's (or father's) responsibility to ensure that this happens.

Now I have never attended a meeting where the rules of women's headcovering for praying and prophesying were observed where the women would remove their headcovering while not doing these things (such as listening to a sermon, singing or during a Bible study). For one thing, it is inconvenient for the women to do so and risk messing up their hair. And I doubt that it ever happened anciently either. Common sense tells you that women in households and congregations where the 1 Corinthians 11:3-10 rule is obeyed - and has been obeyed throughout the centuries - and in whatever demonination, kept their headcoverings on for the whole meeting. So even if, for the sake of argument, the requirement for covering a woman's head was only necessary for times of praying and prophesying during assembly services, they were retained during the other activities of congregational worship and study for convenience's sake, and were retained not only for the duration of services but in journeying to and from services as well.

Adherents of the minimalist teaching would probably argue, citing the scriptures you bring to our attention (1 Tim.2:9 and 1 Pet.3:3), that a woman was allowed to uncover her head at all other times which is why the apostles point out the necessity of keeping hairstyles simple such that they will not draw the attention of the carnal eye of men. If a woman's hair is braided and she has it covered all the time, how would anyone know to be critical of it?

Those who subscribe to the maximalist teaching take a slightly different view. They argue that since a headcovering is indicative of the authority of a husband (or father) over his wife (or daughter), why would it only have a valid function during praying and prophesying specifically? Isn't their authority 24/7? If a woman removes her headcovering apart from praying and prophesying, would this not signal that she has ceased being under a husband's or father's authority or headship? And if that is true, why is it so important to only be under headship during praying and prophesying?

There are two things that interest the apostle Paul when it comes to praying and prophesying in public:

• 1. The view of other men present; and
• 2. The view of the malakim (angels).

The headcovering it sending a signal to other men and to malakim (angels): EYES AND HANDS OFF! THIS WOMAN IS TAKEN AND UNDER DIVINE PROTECTION!.

Commentators have long debated why malakim (angels) should have any interest in the matter and many theories have been offered. And what category of malakh (angel) is being referenced here - true malakim (Yahweh's messengers) or fallen malakim (demons), or both? To answer this we must also draw attention to a second point that a malakh (angel) can either be a supernatural messenger or a human one! Natural men and supernatural malakim (angels - good and evil) are being categorised together.

Let's start with the good malakim (angels). Not uncommonly, Yahweh required that His people receive a mark during times of apostacy and great evil immediately prior to a cataclysmic judgment such as brought about by warfare (Ezek.9:4,6). The purpose of these marks was so that malakim (angels) of destruction, sent by Yahweh to punish evil men, would spare those who had the divine mark along with their families, just as they did the households of the Israelites whose doors were marked by the blood of the paschal lamb prior to the Exodus.

The woman's headcovering may be viewed in this light especially for times of judgment by the Almighty. Their headcovering might then indicate a mark of protection generally for properly covered believers.

But there is another consideration too. Ever since Genesis 6:4 supernatural messengers of the demonic variety have lusted after, and taken, "the daughters of men" and fathered cursed offspring through them known as nephilim or "giants". Goliath was an example of this contaminated malakh-man progeny. The purpose of the headcovering for a woman was not merely (though not unimportantly) just symbolic of being under headship but a heavenly ordinance guaranteeing divine protection to a woman of faith walking in obedience to the mitzvot (commandments), a covering given both by her husband (in the spiritual) and by Yahweh Himself directlty against predatory fallen malakim (demons) in physical manifested forms.

For anciently, as today, fallen malakim (angels) can, and do, materialise physically (my own wife has experienced this) and take women physically (she drove her assailant off by praising Yahweh). Sex with demons is a reality, as all deliverance ministers-in-the-know will tell you. These abductions are still going on today on a huge scale. While anciently these fallen beings portrayed themselves as gods, today they mostly come in the guise of 'aliens' who say they fathered the human race anciently at an early stage of alleged human 'evolution' (the increasingly popular doctrine of 'panspermia').

Then, as today, they move between dimensions using a variety of vehicles which we know as UFO's. Only recently the Mexican government officially released ancient Mesoamerican artefacts proving conclusively that these spacecraft that are witnessed and spoken of today were in evidence thousands of years ago too, information they have been hiding for the last 80 years. The stories of modern abductions are legion, running in the tens or maybe even hundreds of thousands (some say millions), and commonly reported by abducted women is that they are impregnated and their hybrid babies removed after a second or later abduction. Though this activity is largely denied by a Christendom still trapped in a mediaeval midnset, who insist all this fallen malakh (angel) activity ceased after the flood (or never happened at all), it has actually been going on continuously ever since, for a variety of reasons beyond the scope of this article.

Husbands and fathers provide screening or covering for their wives and daughters against evil spirits (who must go through them, hence the importance of the men being responsible and clean before Yahweh (1 Tim.5:22) in order to protect their womenfolk), and Yahweh and His malakim (angels) to provide supernatural protection against modern nephilim who have been genetically engineered to in most cases resemble other human beings in size as well as appearance. The wearing of the headcovering by women signals to these demons and nephilim that these women are under supernatural protection!

Yah'shua (Jesus) prophesied that the very last days would be identical to those of the days of Noah in terms of a lack of faith generally as well as in terms of the activities of Satan (Mt.24:37; Lk.17:26) and great deception (Mt.24:24; Mk.13:22). It is for this reason, as well as their desire to indicate at all times that they are under earthy and heavenly headship,) that many believing and more spiritual women are being led by the Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit) to wear headcoverings at all times and why husbands and fathers are also guiding their wives and daughters to do the same.

It is my belief that the elect - the children of the firstborn - will be those found desiring headcovering at all time, both during worship meetings, in private prayers, and generally around the home and in public. This makes a lot of sense for other reasons too, since the head of the household may be away at work, so such supernatural covering takes on an added dimension and spiritual convenience for the womenfolk left alone. Not only that, but through the covering of her husband, father and Elohim (God) Himself, the mother is then able to be the covering of her children while her husband or father is physically absent. This is a very wonderful blessing indeed!.

The position of this ministry is that we absolutely require the minimalist covering of all women members during times of prayer and prophecy, and we require a maximalist covering for those women and their families who serve in a priestly capacity (as elders, deacons, eldresses and deaconesses) to represent the elect and set an example, encouraging by that example those following the mimimalist position to adopt the same practice non-compulsively.

Finally, we can then address, I hope, satisfactorily your question about women's hair appearance and the apparent contradiction in maximalist covering. Clearly there were those less spiritually sensitive women (and their acquiescing husbands and fathers) who took a minimalist position anciently as today, and therefore their hair would have been exposed outside of congregational meetings, fancy or simple. These minimalists, by the very fact that they chose not walk the higher spiritual road, would, in many cases, have more carnal, spiritual fornicating and adulterous tendencies to 'do themselves up' in a way to attract the attention of men not their husbands and (unbeknown to them) of demons and nephilim too! Since those requiring a spiritual physician in apostolic days were around as they were in the days of the Messiah too (Mt.9:12; Mk.2:17; Lk.5:31), we can see the loving hand of Yahweh working through the ministry to guide these liberally- and more feministically-minded minimalist men and women into the higher way of the firstborn.

Accordingly this ministry takes the following positions:

• 1. That all female members who have attained the age of Bat Mitzvah (12 years and older) and have voluntarily entered those covenents to become Daughters of Torah, be required to cover their heads while praying and prophesying in public;
• 2. That their husbands or fathers require them to do the same while praying and prophesying in private (usually at home); and
• 3. That the female members be encouraged, under the direction of their more spiritually-minded husbands and fathers, to wear a headcoving in public at all times.

Since a home properly dedicated to Yahweh and covered by prayer may be said to be a covering in itself for the whole family that is operating in the proper heavenly order, we leave it up to the male heads whether or not they require their wives and daughters have their heads covered generally at home (when not praying or prophesying).

This page was created on 15 February 2014 Last updated on 15 February 2014

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