So What If a Woman by Accident, Age or Health Condition Has Short or No Hair, How Should She Be Covered If Hats and Scarfs Are Not a Covering?
1) Direct answer
If a woman loses hair by accident, age, or sickness, she is not made “uncovered” in guilt before God. The Bible’s covering is her hair as God gives it; the command is that she must not cut it. So she should simply let it grow as she is able and keep from cutting. In the meantime, she may use a simple scarf or a plain wig for modesty—not as the Scriptural covering of 1 Corinthians 11, but as modest apparel. When her hair can grow, let it grow; if it cannot, she remains blameless before God.
2) Scriptural explanation
- “Her hair is given her for a covering” (1 Corinthians 11:15). The covering God speaks of is hair, not a hat.
- “If the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn” (1 Corinthians 11:6). Paul links uncoveredness with being shorn/shaven—an act of cutting. The shame is tied to willful shearing.
- God looks at the heart (1 Samuel 16:7). He numbers our hairs (Luke 12:7). He knows when loss comes through infirmity, not rebellion.
- Modesty in apparel is commanded (1 Timothy 2:9; 1 Peter 3:3–4). A simple scarf or plain wig can serve modesty without pretending to be the 1 Corinthians 11 covering.
3) Simple clarifying logic
- Covered = obedience to keep the hair uncut and let it grow as God allows.
- Uncovered = shorn/shaven by choice, even if a hat hides the scalp.
- Involuntary loss (illness, age, accident) does not equal rebellion; therefore it does not bring the guilt of uncoveredness.
- A scarf or wig can help modesty, but it is not the Scriptural covering. The moment hair can grow, do not cut it.
4) Reinforcing statement
God is not measuring hats; He is honoring a woman’s obedient heart to keep what He gives and to walk in modesty.
Final biblical conclusion: A woman who has short or no hair through accident, age, or sickness remains scripturally covered when she refuses to cut and lets it grow as able (1 Corinthians 11:15–16). She may use modest apparel (a simple scarf or plain wig) for decency, but these do not replace the God-given covering. If her hair can grow again, let it grow and do not cut it.
Existing Follow-Up Answers
- If a Woman Willfully Cuts or Shaves Off Her Hair but Wears a Scarf or Hat to Pray, Is She Covered?
1) Direct answer No. If a woman willfully cuts or shaves her hair and then puts on a scarf or hat to pray, she is still uncovered before God. The
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What did the Laodicean Church Age (our age) Angel (- messenger) Say about this?
Ranked passages from the local William Branham sermon and Church Age Book database. Relevance is relative, not a statement of doctrinal certainty.
By faith, Moses
58-0720M §29
Is--maybe a little young lady setting here, a glamorous young women, the world would like to say to you, "Do thus and thus. You are beautiful. Your body is so pretty shaped; you should show that." But my sister, raise up your eyes and look beyond that, to Him that said it's an abomination for a woman to put on a garment that pertains to a man. If the men... of the people in your community, if the women that you associate with, said, "Cut that long hair off; it would be cooler. It would be this, that, or the other,"...
Questions and Answers, Part 3
64-0830M §102
And of course, I know women wants to look pretty; that's nature, and that's what they should be, see. They should be that way. And so, that's fine, but just don't---don't, otherwise like this, don't look like the world (see?); don't pattern after the world. Things wrong... You want it cut off, like that, but don't cut your hair now. If you got the braids hanging down, or whatever it is in your hair, you leave it long. Don't cut it like it's going to look like the world. If you're just them little girls ...
A thinking man's filter
65-0822E §38
Notice. But the woman who wants to have short hair and wear shorts or wear paint and anything, she can go right through a Pentecostal filter just as easy as pie. Nothing about it. Right into death. Because he that... She said, "Well, there's no harm in that." "If you love the world or the things of the world, it's because the love of God's not even in you." Down through this spirit then, she can pull down into her soul things that isn't of God and against God's Word if that's the taste in the soul. It can come thro...