Why don't we follow St. Paul's laws?

[followingtheway]

Okay, I’m Catholic and everything but a couple Bible verses are starting to worry me.In the Bible, St. Paul makes several statements

1. 
   *]Long hair on men is shameful (1 Cor. 11:14)
   *]Women shouldn’t speak in Church (1 Corinthians 14:33-36)
   *]Women should keep their heads covered (1 Corinthians 11:6)
   *]Abstaining from blood (Acts 50:20)
   *]Bishops should have one wife (1 Timothy 3:2)
   
   Like I said I’m Catholic, but if these verses are in the Bible, why don’t we follow them? I know the Old Testament laws were abolished by the death of Jesus, but these are in the New Testament. This is starting to worry me

 

[nickybr38]

Okay, I’m Catholic and everything but a couple Bible verses are starting to worry me.In the Bible, St. Paul makes several statements

1. 
   *]Long hair on men is shameful (1 Cor. 11:14)
   *]Women shouldn’t speak in Church (1 Corinthians 14:33-36)
   *]Women should keep their heads covered (1 Corinthians 11:6)
   *]Abstaining from blood (Acts 50:20)
   *]Bishops should have one wife (1 Timothy 3:2)
   
   Like I said I’m Catholic, but if these verses are in the Bible, why don’t we follow them? I know the Old Testament laws were abolished by the death of Jesus, but these are in the New Testament. This is starting to worry me

1. 
   If I recall some are not laws but customary practices. We don’t follow them now because they are culturally misplaced.
   
   The one about women speaking in the Church? If I recall was a respect thing. I remember reading that women used to LOUDLY ask their husbands what was being said during services. This reprimand was the result.
   
   I’m sure the others have easy responses as well but I don’t know them off hand.
   
   There are many ‘customary’ practices within the Catholic Church. I see such things as learning how to behave respectful but not things that will stain our soul if we ignore them.
   
   Just my two cents!
   
   PS: Just as with the Ten Commandments I would encourage you to look BENEATH the law. What is the point of it? What is it trying to cultivate within people? What is the underlying message. We aren’t supposed to be obsessed with laws, I believe. Instead we are to cultivate our hearts and these laws just help us do that. It’s like when we teach a child how to have proper manners. They won’t know without household rules but once they know the rules they don’t think about them as much because they know the underlying principle; Respect others.

 

[Barbkw]

St. Paul had women assisting him in the various Churches. He wasn’t anti-female.

But, he was a trained Jewish Pharisee evangelizing to pagan cultures.

His norms of liturgical worship followed Jewish traditions (except for how one entered into the family of God - circumcision vs. Baptism).

 

[Tantum_ergo]

Just as a point of information, the idea about a bishop having ‘one wife’ had nothing to do with mandating ‘married bishops’. As Jesus Himself had pointed out, Moses had allowed divorce and there were plenty of men (and women) living in the time of Jesus who were divorced and remarried. . .and of course in doing so, were committing adultery in the eyes of God.

So a bishop to have ‘only one wife’ meant that IF the bishop happened to be married (and of course he wasn’t required to be, but in the early times most men were), it meant the bishop wasn’t supposed to have been divorced and remarried. NOT that bishops were expected to be married at all.

 

[Leegal]

Okay, I’m Catholic and everything but a couple Bible verses are starting to worry me.In the Bible, St. Paul makes several statements

1. 
   *]Long hair on men is shameful (1 Cor. 11:14)
   *]Women shouldn’t speak in Church (1 Corinthians 14:33-36)
   *]Women should keep their heads covered (1 Corinthians 11:6)
   *]Abstaining from blood (Acts 50:20)
   *]Bishops should have one wife (1 Timothy 3:2)
   
   Like I said I’m Catholic, but if these verses are in the Bible, why don’t we follow them? I know the Old Testament laws were abolished by the death of Jesus, but these are in the New Testament. This is starting to worry me

1. 
   Laws and rules change – customs change. Is it wrong in a man having long hair, a woman speaking, a woman not covering her head (many are returing to the practice of covering). I’m not sure what Paul means about blood. At the time the religious could marry; now they cannot, but I would say that even under Paul he did not believe that they could marry over and over . So, a Bishop can’t have any wife any longer.
   
   I know the reason for the prohibition against marriage for the religious, but how important are the others? Do you see a wrong?

 

[DihydrogenOxide]

Women can’t be priests.
Head covering was not ever abolished. Many women still practice this, including myself.
It has nothing do do with being ashamed.
God created women to be beautiful creatures. Here is a great explanation on head covering:

Veiling

Notice how it’s saying the husband of one wife. This is different than saying they have to have a wife. Could you see why? No polygamy. In fact, Paul promoted living without marrying.

1 Corinthians 7: 8:

8 But I say to the unmarried, and to the widows: It is good for them if they so continue, even as I. 9 But if they do not contain themselves, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to be burnt

1 Corinthians 7:1:

1 NOW concerning the thing whereof you wrote to me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman. 2 But for fear of fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.

He only suggested marriage to those whose vocation it was to be married.

 

[NotWorthy]

The deal with the women (head covering and talking), I believe, had something to do with the culture of Corinth. There was a temple in Corinth that had over 1000 temple priestesses/prostitutes.

In order to prevent any confusion between the fledgling Catholic Church and this temple (I can’t remember who the goddess was), Paul made these ordinances. But I’m pretty sure the rules were only for the Corinthian Church.

 

[Buck_Crosswhite]

Abstaining from blood (Acts 50:20)

There is no Acts 50:20

We are not to drink or eat the blood of animals sacrificed to idols.

 

[TimothyH]

The prohibition against consuming the blood of animals sacrificed to idols was given by the Church through James, the Bishop of Jerusalem, not Paul.

-Tim-

 

[onlyvoice]

Okay, I’m Catholic and everything but a couple Bible verses are starting to worry me.In the Bible, St. Paul makes several statements

1. 
   *]Long hair on men is shameful (1 Cor. 11:14)
   *]Women shouldn’t speak in Church (1 Corinthians 14:33-36)
   *]Women should keep their heads covered (1 Corinthians 11:6)
   *]Abstaining from blood (Acts 50:20)
   *]Bishops should have one wife (1 Timothy 3:2)
   
   Like I said I’m Catholic, but if these verses are in the Bible, why don’t we follow them? I know the Old Testament laws were abolished by the death of Jesus, but these are in the New Testament. This is starting to worry me

1. 
   On a related matter, if Paul condemns long hair on men as shameful, could his Master - the Lord He was preaching to the people - have worn long hair? But why do we depict Christ as having long hair?

 

[Mintaka]

Christ doesn’t have long hair. He has shoulder-length hair, which seems long to us. Roman men did tend to have shorter hairstyles, because of the whole helmet issue (and because they all had those round Roman heads). Middle Eastern manly men wore their hair a little longer, because they wore different styles of headgear. (And covering your ears is good, if you don’t want sunburn and melanoma up there.)

But Paul’s idea of long hair on men in the ancient world meant “long like on a woman of the ancient world.” And women were generally supposed to have hair all the way down their backs. Often they didn’t (because cutting hair was part of the treatment of fevers and some other stuff), but that was what was considered long. Sometimes Nazorean vows led to some pretty long hair on Jewish guys, but Nazorean vow men weren’t otherwise girly in appearance. (And it’s been suggested they had a special manly way to arrange their hair.)

If you see any pictures of Jesus with hair down to His hips or the middle of His back, then you can say He’s got long hair.

 

[Oldtimer_7]

1. Long hair was a mark of men who prostituted themselves by crossdressing. They were not allowed to hold church office.
2. The Greek verb for silence is also the word for reverence. The revolutionary thing Paul was promoting was that women were to be taught about religion, something not done in the pagan religions. The lack of teaching of women led to all sorts of heretical ideas and left women vulnerable to charlatans.
3. The Temple of Artemis was known for its temple prostitution, and the temple prostitutes, (melissae) did not cover their heads. Having women cover their heads was a way to differentiate the Christian community.
4. Blood was used in pagan worship, and it is included with meat that had been strangled, the common way of killing an animal sacrificed to a pagan god.
5. The Greek word for “wife” was the same as the word for “woman.” It was a cultural assumption that an adult woman would also be married. This passage therefore bans polygamy and the keeping of mistresses or concubines.

 

[nickybr38]

1. Long hair was a mark of men who prostituted themselves by crossdressing. They were not allowed to hold church office.
2. The Greek verb for silence is also the word for reverence. The revolutionary thing Paul was promoting was that women were to be taught about religion, something not done in the pagan religions. The lack of teaching of women led to all sorts of heretical ideas and left women vulnerable to charlatans.
3. The Temple of Artemis was known for its temple prostitution, and the temple prostitutes, (melissae) did not cover their heads. Having women cover their heads was a way to differentiate the Christian community.
4. Blood was used in pagan worship, and it is included with meat that had been strangled, the common way of killing an animal sacrificed to a pagan god.
5. The Greek word for “wife” was the same as the word for “woman.” It was a cultural assumption that an adult woman would also be married. This passage therefore bans polygamy and the keeping of mistresses or concubines.

 

[followingtheway]

1. Long hair was a mark of men who prostituted themselves by crossdressing. They were not allowed to hold church office.
2. The Greek verb for silence is also the word for reverence. The revolutionary thing Paul was promoting was that women were to be taught about religion, something not done in the pagan religions. The lack of teaching of women led to all sorts of heretical ideas and left women vulnerable to charlatans.
3. The Temple of Artemis was known for its temple prostitution, and the temple prostitutes, (melissae) did not cover their heads. Having women cover their heads was a way to differentiate the Christian community.
4. Blood was used in pagan worship, and it is included with meat that had been strangled, the common way of killing an animal sacrificed to a pagan god.
5. The Greek word for “wife” was the same as the word for “woman.” It was a cultural assumption that an adult woman would also be married. This passage therefore bans polygamy and the keeping of mistresses or concubines.

Wow, that explains everything! Thanks!

 

[fisherman_carl]

1. 
   *]Long hair on men is shameful (1 Cor. 11:14)
   *]Women shouldn’t speak in Church (1 Corinthians 14:33-36)
   *]Women should keep their heads covered (1 Corinthians 11:6)
   *]Abstaining from blood (Acts 50:20)
   *]Bishops should have one wife (1 Timothy 3:2)
   
   (

1. 1. While Paul is warning against gender confusion, Paul is speaking about the custom of the day. ‘Nature itself’ can mean “natural law” or “common custom”. Paul intends the latter rather than the former. See ICSB (1 Cor 11:10, 11:14)
   2. “Paul enjoins silence upon Christian women in public worship. This is not an absolute restriction, since women can lawfully pray and prophesy in the liturgical assembly (I Cor 11:5) and are encouraged to teach in other circumstances (Tit 2:3-4). Paul is prohibiting women from instructing the congregation in the official capacity of a pastor or homilist.”
   • ICSB (1 Cor 14:34-35)
   1. “The Catholic Church teaches that Paul’s counsel on the veiling of the women was inspired by the customs of the day. Because this was a matter of discipline, not doctrine, the Pauline directives on covering and uncovering the head are subject to change. They are no longer binding on men and women today (Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith: Inter insigniores [1976], 4)”.
   • ICSB - 1 Cor 11:6)
   1. "The decree [Acts 15:23-29] is shaped by the laws of Lev 17-18 that govern the conduct of Gentile sojourners living in the company of Israel. They were forbidden to eat meat consecrated to idols instead of to Yahweh (Lev 17:7-9), to consume blood (Lev 17:10-12), to eat meat not properly drained of blood (Lev 17:13-14), and to engage in various forms of sexual immorality… (Lev 18:6-23). Though several such laws are enjoined in the Torah, only these four prohibitions are applied equally to Israelites and sojourners and threaten to cut violators off from the covenant.
   According to the council of Florence in 1442, the apostolic decree was only a temporary measure to facilitate unity among Jews and Gentiles in the early Church. The binding force of its food restrictions was relaxed once the ethnic circumstances that made them necessary passed away."
   • ICSB (Acts 15:20)
   1. “Candidates for pastoral ministry should not be married more than once in their lifetime (3:12). Paul does not specify why, but his teaching elsewhere suggests (1) that widowers who remain unmarried will be better able to devote themselves to the Lord’s work (1 Cor 7:8, 32-34) and (2) that widowers who pursue remarriage may be lacking the self-control expected of a minister of the gospel (1 Cor 7:9, 3638).”
   • ICSB (1 Tim 3:2)
   note: ICSB - Ignatius Catholic Study Bible