Recovering Covering: Scripture, Conscience, and the Beauty of Biblical Head Covering - the Kindle book is up and running!

Paper versions to go live on July 31.

 

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What if a passage of Scripture you had always dismissed as cultural turned out to be more enduring than you expected?

Recovering Covering: Scripture, Conscience, and the Beauty of Biblical Head Covering invites Christian women to take a fresh and careful look at 1 Corinthians 11:2–16. Written from the perspective of a woman who never expected to embrace head covering herself, this book combines biblical study, Christian history, personal reflection, and practical guidance in a thoughtful, conversational format.

Ellen Nicholas began studying the passage while preparing with her husband for a small-group discussion of 1 Corinthians. She expected to confirm what she had always heard: that head covering belonged to ancient Corinth and had no continuing relevance for Christians today. Instead, the more she studied, the more questions she encountered.

Why does Paul call the practice an apostolic tradition?
What does headship have to do with worship?
Why does he appeal to creation order, the glory of God, nature, the angels, and the practice of the churches?
And why did Christian women cover their heads in worship for most of church history?

Rather than treating head covering as an isolated rule, Recovering Covering places it within the larger biblical themes of authority, worship, conscience, obedience, and the glory of God.

Inside, readers will explore:

• the historical practice of head covering in the Christian church
• the cultural changes that contributed to its disappearance
• Paul’s teaching on headship and apostolic tradition
• the significance of creation order
• the meaning of “because of the angels”
• the relationship between a woman’s hair, her glory, and a physical covering
• common objections and alternative interpretations
• the difference between biblical command and Christian liberty
• practical questions about when, where, and how to cover
• how to respond graciously when other Christians disagree

Nicholas also writes candidly about the personal side of conviction: the discomfort of standing out, the fear of being misunderstood, conversations within marriage and church, and the challenge of obeying Scripture when a practice feels unfamiliar.

This is not a book written from a place of certainty untouched by questions. It is written from the middle of the struggle—by one woman speaking to another.

Readers are not asked to follow tradition blindly or adopt a practice merely because someone else has. Instead, they are encouraged to examine Scripture, consider the witness of Christian history, pray for wisdom, and act with a clear conscience before God.

A complete study guide is included for individual reflection, women’s groups, or small-group discussion. The questions are designed to help readers examine their assumptions, test interpretations, consider cultural influences, and think carefully about what faithful obedience may require.

Whether you are curious, skeptical, newly convinced, or simply trying to understand why some Christian women still cover their heads in worship, Recovering Covering offers a gracious and substantial place to begin.

Come with an open Bible, an honest conscience, and a willingness to follow Scripture wherever it leads.

 

On Jewelry

 

What About Jewelry?

Most people who tell you to take off the jewelry will fall back on 1 Timothy 2:9 and 1 Peter 3:3. More on those in a minute.

The first question to ask (remember, the Bible is about God)—would God portray Himself as tempting His bride to sin?

Obviously not.

Read this passage about God making Israel His bride:

I made my vow to you and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Lord GOD, and you became mine. Then I bathed you with water and washed off your blood from you and anointed you with oil. I clothed you also with embroidered cloth and shod you with fine leather. I wrapped you in fine linen and covered you with silk. And I adorned you with ornaments and put bracelets on your wrists and a chain on your neck. And I put a ring on your nose and earrings in your ears and a beautiful crown on your head. Thus you were adorned with gold and silver, and your clothing was of fine linen and silk and embroidered cloth. (Ezekiel 16:8b-13a)

Not only did God’s bride have bracelets, necklaces, earrings, a nose ring, and a crown, adorned with gold and silver … she was also adorned in fine linen, silk, and embroidered cloth.

How does that square up with 1 Timothy 2:9?

Likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire. (ESV)

The Lord God put a crown on her head, but we can’t wear braids? The Lord God adorned His bride with gold and silver, but jewelry is a sin? The Lord God provided Israel with fine linen, silk, and embroidered cloth, but we may not have “costly attire” (whatever that means)?

How do we justify God providing what some would call “sin”?

The Orthodox Presbyterian Church puts it this way:

Paul and Peter are both saying that women are to be marked, first and foremost, by their good works, not their good shoes, or their good looks; by their godliness and not their gaudiness. To this end, John Stott said, "The church is to be a veritable beauty parlor because it encourages women members to adorn themselves with good deeds. Women need to remember that if nature made them plain, grace can make them beautiful, and if nature has made them beautiful, good deeds can add to their beauty."

As you can see, the Bible warns us against an idolatrous view of outward beauty and adornment, while approving of the right use of both.[1]

The “prohibitions” are contrasts, not prohibitions. Don’t find your worth in the things you put on; your value is in Christ, and your inner beauty is what will last.

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[1] https://opc.org/qa.html?question_id=469

shorter version - metonymy and synecdoche

 

God uses lots of ways to express Himself in Scripture. Two of those “figures of speech” are closely related: metonymy and synecdoche – naming a part of the whole to represent the larger reality.

Paul uses these devices in his letters.

In Romans 13:4, “the sword” isn’t merely the weapon, it represents the larger reality of the government’s authority to punish wrong-doers.

In 2 Corinthians 3:6, “the letter kills” isn’t mail; it’s the entire Old Covenantal system.

In Romans 12:1, “present your bodies” isn’t merely skin and bones – it’s the whole self, which Paul clarifies as “spiritual worship.”

In 1 Corinthians 10, the “cup of the Lord” and “the cup of demons” isn’t referring to a physical object – it’s the part of the whole system of worship and fellowship.

Because Paul uses this structure, I believe that “praying or prophesying” is too narrow for what is meant. I don’t think that Paul was isolating these two acts, as though a woman must cover *only* during these two exact points in time.

Just as “our daily bread” expands to God’s provision in our lives, “praying or prophesying” can function as the named part of the larger reality of gathered worship.

Prayer is our words directed toward God – prophesy is God’s Word directed toward His people. Together, they look like a picture of gathered worship.

“Praying or prophesying” is not merely a checklist of two specific activities. They are named parts of the spiritual reality of worship in the presence of God’s people, the angels, and Christ Himself.

This reality is so much larger than what can be named.

Words of the Day: Metonymy and Synecdoche

 

Appendix: Metonymy and Synecdoche — When Scripture Says More Than It Names

After this book came back from the second editor, I listened to a podcast about head coverings and learned two new words: metonymy and synecdoche. I had already come to an understanding early on in my study that “prayer or prophesy” referred to a larger reality of the gathering of the saints – a view held by many of the men I listened to and read on this topic, and the one that made the most sense to me.

I was not convicted that “pray without ceasing” literally means “cover without ceasing.”

The pairing of “praying or prophesying” to mean worshiping together made sense to me, even without having a clear grammatical reason.

We know that Scripture is God-breathed and does not waste words. God speaks in poetry, parables, and songs. He uses metaphors and similes, symbolism and allegory.

And God uses metonymy and synecdoche.

Metonymy names one thing that represents a larger reality.  We recognize that “Moses” means the Law. “The altar” stands in for the larger sacrificial system. When Jesus prays, “Let this cup pass from me” (Matthew 26:39), He wasn’t talking about the object in His hand; He was speaking of the suffering and humiliation that awaited Him.

In 1 Corinthians 10, Paul wrote, “You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons.” The word “table” doesn’t mean furniture – it signifies participation, alignment, a sharing of what that table represents.

Synecdoche names a part to represent the whole. When Jesus taught the disciples to pray, “bread” didn’t only refer to a loaf, it pointed to the whole of daily sustenance. In Romans 13:4, “sword” refers to the whole of the government’s responsibility to have authority over its people.

Faith and love are not a checklist – they are named parts of the whole of Christ-like living. Life and death are not two moments in time; they speak of the entirety of a life lived.

The visible act (eating the bread) reflects a deeper reality of participation. The specific example of meat sacrificed to idols expands into a call to care for the conscience of others. The warning of idolatry is a named part of the larger whole of misplaced worship.

This matters when we come to 1 Corinthians 11.

When Paul writes, “every man who prays or prophesies… every woman who prays or prophesies…,” we need to look back to earlier in the letter (chapter 10.)

We need to ask if Paul is really writing about two specific and isolated practices, or if he is naming two parts of a larger, weightier whole.

Prayer is our speech directed to God. Prophesying is God’s Word directed toward us.

Together, these two named, visible acts reflect a larger reality of participation, forming a fullness – a way of speaking about the whole range of worship, without naming each act.

If we read 1 Corinthians 11 as speaking of two isolated activities, we risk missing the larger reality.

If we read “prayer or prophesying” as a synecdoche, we listen for the larger reality behind the words, not just the words themselves. We look at not merely what is happening in those moments, but what they represent; lives visibly oriented toward God; His people engaging with Him in ways that reflect His honor and glory.

A woman worshipping with a covered head is not tied to a checklist of two acts as if the passage depends on what she is doing at any given moment. She is situated within the larger reality of something profound – the honoring of God’s created order in the presence of angels, the perfected saints and Christ Himself.

What is named is not all that is meant. And what is meant is not less, but more.