Among the many questions the Apostle Paul poses in his thirteen letters preserved in the New Testament, one least comprehended by this generation, even by folks reared in churches, is the rhetorical query he asks the Corinthians: “Does not nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair it is a shame to him but that if a woman has long hair it is a glory to her?” (1 Corinthians 11:14-15). His appeal is to the nature of things, to what is fitting, not merely to the social ordering among humans but to something more primordial, to creation’s order established by God, the Creator.
This is not the only time that the Apostle makes such an appeal in his letter to the Corinthians. Earlier in the same letter Paul argues that even though he has freely chosen to forego it he has a right as Christ’s minister of the gospel to receive commensurate remuneration for his ministerial labors among the Corinthians just as soldiers do not serve a nation’s military without receiving a proper salary. He supports this right by appealing to Scripture: “For it is written in the Law of Moses, ‘Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain” (1 Corinthians 9:9). Scholars tend to stumble over the Apostle’s use of Scripture as if he were allegorizing the passage or arbitrarily manipulating it to advance his own agenda, hoping that his readers would not notice his nimbleness. Against such notions, I have argued somewhere that Deuteronomy 25:4 illustrates the confluence of natural law and proverbial wisdom. The proverb, which reflects natural law’s obligation to allow an ox that is threshing grain to eat from that grain, attaches to the commandment that precedes it as a proverbial enforcement of humane and proportional punishment of a man found guilty in a dispute with another man (Deuteronomy 25:1-3). “Forty stripes may be given him, but no more, lest if one should go on to beat him with more stripes than these, your brother be degraded in your sight. You shall not muzzle an ox when it is treading out the grain.” Paul could have quoted Jesus who says, “The worker deserves his wages,” which he seems to do in 1 Timothy 5:18 where he also cites Deuteronomy 24:5. It is conceivable that he draws upon the proverbial law of Deuteronomy concerning what is fitting as an implicit reprimand of the Corinthians whose system of patronage would have subjected Paul to their ownership if he had accepted remuneration from them unless, like a muzzled ox that threshes the grain is abused, he does not act on what is fitting, which is his natural-law-right to receive a salary.
Now back to Paul’s question: “Does not nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair it is a shame to him but that if a woman has long hair it is a glory to her?” Neither a man’s long hair nor a woman’s shaved head becomes shameful because of some private special revelation that Paul now passes on to us. Rather, the Apostle appeals to what is fitting. His query calls for wisdom that accounts for both why nature instructs us concerning hair length for males and females and that the length of hair bears significance because it correlates universally to how every culture distinguishes males from females. As with his use of the proverbial enforcement from Deuteronomy 25, Paul’s question calls for us to observe the confluence once again of proverbial wisdom and natural law to recognize what is proper.
We must be prudent lest we prejudice the matter of assessing hair length by imposing artificial standards from our own biases by failing to comprehend that God’s ordering of creation entails natural law that requires wisdom’s discernment for apt enforcement. Both libertines and ascetics lack these discerning qualities. They are unreliable guides because they transgress what nature teaches, though their transgressions are in opposite directions. Habitually, libertines ridicule natural law’s moral authority as they transgress not only nature’s instructions concerning hair length but worse, what hair length signifies concerning the roles of males and females. Like Pharisees of old, with tendencies toward inflexibility, ascetics impose their own contrived and unnatural demands that exceed what nature teaches concerning hair length which results in at least two errors, (1) a uniformity that suppresses individuality among males and among females, and (2) a rigidified patriarchy of males over females (cultic groups are notorious for both). Not so long ago, Christian ascetics (Fundamentalists) imposed strictly enforced measurements of male students’ hair and of female students’ skirts, which they drew from the surrounding culture and treated as hallowed marks of holiness. Paul’s appeal to natural law’s instruction concerning hair length penetrates much deeper, to the sexual roles of males and females. Women who crop their hair like a man’s or males who effeminately toss their locks with effete satisfaction like sassy teenage girls exhibit with their coiffure their defiance of God’s ordered roles for men and women.
Paul’s question concerning nature’s instruction about hair length is but one question among multitudes of such questions that can be and should be asked, questions which function as points of contact with unbelievers. People who suppress the truth in unrighteousness selectively reject the Creator’s laws that govern nature against their own sinful proclivities (Romans 1:18). Throughout 2020 we have witnessed burgeoning numbers of people who disregard others’ ownership of property by vandalizing, by defacing, by stealing, or even by burning other people’s possessions, even by forcibly seizing goods for their own pleasure. Also, because the same people presume that might determines what is right, they have abandoned every natural restraint against forcing their wills upon others by bullying, by terrifying, by harassing, by destroying careers, and even by murdering others in their cause of demanding justice for what they allege was the murder of a Black man on the streets of Minneapolis. They presume that they are anointed to rule over others whether by way of face-to-face confrontation or even on a grand scale by engaging in election fraud to steal elected positions from those rightfully chosen by the electorate.
Our Founding Fathers appealed to natural law as the principal warrant for declaring independence from Britain. Observe how dominating their appeal is in the first two paragraphs of the Declaration of Independence (July 4, 1776).
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Christians and non-Christians endorsed the Declaration of Independence. They had in common a belief that the Creator imbued nature with instructive revelation. Our nation is far removed from the moral standing of our Founders who acknowledged the veracity of natural law, such as John Adams who wisely wrote, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
Does not nature itself teach you that an object thrust into the air promptly falls to the ground after reaching its apex? Does not nature teach us that two bovine cows cannot procreate a calf, but that reproduction requires a bull and cow? Does not nature teach us that two male humans who caricature the sexual union of a man and a woman engage in a vile act of defiance against their Creator who made them both males? Does not nature teach us that it is a disgrace for a woman to have her head shaved? Does not nature teach us that it is also a disgrace for a man to have long hair, hair that renders him indistinguishable from a woman? Does not nature teach us that the person who works should be rewarded for one’s labor? Does not nature teach us that to take the possessions of another is evil and contrary to all that is right and good and holy? Does not nature teach us that for anyone to impose dictates upon another individual, apart from some implicit or explicit contractual agreement that entails a set of itemized limitations, is contrary to properly ordered human relations and is therefore wicked? Does not nature teach us that for a family, a clan, or a larger social order of people some form of consensually accepted government is necessary for the welfare and protection of all from harm whether from intruders or from rogue members? Does not nature teach us that the best form of human government is one that acknowledges the liberty of free agents who abide by the rules of natural law and the reasonable laws rooted in natural law drafted by wise governing agents? Does not nature teach us that all these are inviolable, even sacrosanct laws which if violated have punishing consequences, some with immediate painful effects and some with delayed outcomes?
The series of ten questions that I have posed above span a range of categories from what might be called scientific observation and inquiry to social-scientific concerns. I have purposely framed each of the questions to highlight the need to acknowledge that natural law and wisdom, the capability to discern inner qualities and relationships, necessarily intersect. This is because each entails ethical and moral implications also, not merely factuality.
Even tots learn quickly to acknowledge gravity’s inflexibility as they toddle and fall but never upward. Though children do not comprehend how reproductive mating functions, they intuitively realize that mothers, not fathers, give birth to infants and nurse them. Despite this incontrovertible fact, hordes of people deny reality while insisting that the law of nature that governs reproductive mating entails no ethical governance over human sexual relations. This is because they welcome as morally acceptable the pretentiously perverse parodic play-act of two human males or two human females who defiantly mock the sacred mating act that belongs along to the union of a male and a female.
Now, I shall meddle by posing a question that I have often asked my students throughout my teaching career. Does not nature teach us how to hold the hand of another human? Has not the Creator imbued nature itself to instruct us concerning the human act of clasping the hand of a fellow human?
I noticed a brief online article a few years ago that mentions a study published in Current Psychology that concerns how humans hold hands, especially in romantic relationships and in families. My interest is not to discuss all aspects of handholding but only one, the romantic hand embrace. For every couple, the holding of hands is a milestone in a relationship. The very nature of things requires that to hold hands, one person’s hand must take the top position with the palm facing downward or toward the back while the other person’s hand is below with the palm facing upward or forward. It is not surprising that psychologists and sociologists view handholding from the contemporary worldview that is preoccupied with oppressors and those they oppress. To the chagrin of researchers, they regularly discover that in most romantic relationships men grasp women’s hands by taking the top or forward position while women grasp men’s hands from underneath.
Indeed, the holding of hands, an outward social behavior, is partially indicative of how a man and a woman relate to one another. While teaching in higher education for many years I have had numerous occasions to observe budding romances. I have been deeply anguished many times by witnessing young women who grasp the hands of males by seizing the lead position with the males looking like docile boys who follow. Regularly, handholding has been a harbinger of relationships and marriages, with far too many crashing after weddings. Thus, as a teacher of God’s Word and a keen observer of culture, I have often exhorted my students to observe how couples on campus hold hands because handholding reveals much about the man, the woman, and their relationship. Yes, such conversations would erupt during a course that involved the exegesis of a Greek text. Rarely, but occasionally, some students would mock my observations. Most students either received my observations pensively or heartily embrace them as indubitably true once I formulated for them thoughts that were yet nascent in their minds and needed cultivation. Invariably, in smaller classes, students would launch into deeper conversations as they expressed their own observations concerning couples on campus. I admonished men, “When your relationship with a young woman develops to the handholding stage, place your hand on top of hers with the back of your hand facing forward and upward. If the woman wriggles her hand free and places it on top and grasps yours so that yours is beneath hers, reposition your hand to the top. If she persists with her grip, run for your life. Do not look back. If you do not end that relationship, you will have enormous regrets for the rest of your life.” I suggested that young women should perform a test to determine whether they should pursue a relationship with any young man. I encouraged them, “When your relationship proceeds to the point that your male friend explores holding your hand, grasp his by taking the upper position. If he shakes loose to place his hand on top and yours underneath, be grateful that he does so. You have a proper man within your grasp. But if he permits you to take the lead position with your hand, drop him like a hot potato. Otherwise, you will have enormous regrets and sorrows.”
Indeed, nature teaches us that how a man and a woman hold hands is a telltale sign of how they relate to one another. The mutual embrace of the hands is a precursor to the entwining of not only two bodies but of two humans as one flesh. That our Creator endowed handholding with such significance, it is an important forecaster of whether the man will assume his God-appointed role as protector and whether the woman will receive her divinely ordained posture of welcoming and honoring her protector.
Rebellion against God takes many forms, and many such acts of insurrection occur without rebuke even from our church’s pulpits. Commendable as it is that pastors focus on Scripture, to easily they tend to forget that Scripture itself obligates us also to discern and to obey God’s laws infused within his creation and confirmed in numerous ways throughout the Bible. Yes, we must obey God’s Word which comes to us in the Holy Scriptures, but we also must heed our Creator who has embedded his laws within his created order which, if we know God’s Word, we will discern and assist others to do the same. Do we submit to the Creator’s natural law or are we disobeying God? Ask the Lord God for wisdom and grace to recognize and to heed his laws revealed in Scripture and in creation. Does not nature teach you? Yes, it does.