Good, now that I have your attention, let’s dig in.
“What?! David believes the Bible teaches covering?!”
Why, yes. I, in fact do.
Now, what does the Bible mean by the term?
Let’s look at those passages, shall we?
A brief Flex search of Accordance for the term “cover” yields 97ish references to the concept.
Here are as many of them as I can muster that tie to the most common Hebrew and Greek word for “cover”:
- Exodus 10:5: locusts covering or hiding the face of the land.
- Exodus 21:33: covering a pit so that livestock does not fall into it.
- Exodus 26:13: the outer layers of skin that cover or protect the tabernacle. Exodus 29:13: the adrenals that cover the kidneys and the fat that covers the entrails, of the sacrificial animals.
- Additionally, Exodus 29:22; Leviticus 3:9; 4:8; 7:3; and 9:19: discuss the fat that covers.
- Leviticus 13:12: deal with leprosy that covers.
- Leviticus 16:13: Incense covering the mercy seat to protect Aaron.
- Leviticus 17:13: covering the blood of an animal used for food.
- Numbers 4:5: covering the ark with the veil of the screen of the tabernacle.
- Number 4:11: covering the implements with various cloths.
- Numbers 19:15: covered vessels.
- Numbers 22:5, 11: Israel covering the face of the earth.
- Deuteronomy 22:15: Talliths covering yourself.
- Deuteronomy 23:13: cover up your crap.
- Joshua 24:7: sea covering up the Egyptians, recalling the destruction of the Egyptians at the Red Sea.
- 1 Kings 7:18 and 41: latticework that covers capitals.
- 2 Chronicles 4:12: same as 1 Kings 7.
- Nehemiah 4:5 Covering guilt
- Job 9:24, and 16:18, cover the faces of judges and cover not my blood, o earth, respectively.
- Job 21:26: worms cover the dead
- Job 22:11: waters covering Job as judgment
- Job 23:17: darkness covers a man’s face
- Job 36:30: God covers the roots of the sea
- Job 36:32 God covers his hands with lightning
- Job 36:34: Flood of Waters covering Job?
- Job 40:22: Lotus trees cover a man for shade
- Psalm 32:5: I did not cover my iniquity.
- Psalm 104:8 Boundaries that prevent the seas from covering the earth.
- Psalm 147:8 Clouds cover the heavens
- Proverbs 10:12 Love covers all offenses
- Proverbs 17:9 Covering an offense is the act of one seeking love
- Isaiah 11:9: Earth shall be covered with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the seas.
- Isaiah 26:21: the earth will not cover over the slain anymore
- Isaiah 58:7: Fasters cover the naked.
- Isaiah 59:6: wicked men will not cover themselves with clothing
- Isaiah 60:2: Darkness shall cover the earth
- Isaiah 60:6: Camels shall cover you, wealth shall cover you.
- Jeremiah 3:25 Let dishonor cover those who sinned against the Lord.
- Jeremiah 46:8: Egypt says she will cover the earth, destroying the inhabitants of cities.
- Ezekiel 7:18: Horror covers Israel.
- Ezekiel 12:6: Cover your face so that you may not see the land in order to be a sign to Israel.
- Ezekiel 16:18: Israel covered the passers-by with embroidered garments. Israel went whoring after others.
- Ezekiel 18:16: the righteous covers the naked with a garment
- Ezekiel 24:7: Covering the ground with dust.
- Ezekiel 26:10: Covering the Israelites with the dust of Babylon
- Ezekiel 26:19: Great waters covering Israel in shame.
- Ezekiel 32:7: I will cover the heavens when I blot you out and the sun with a cloud.
- Hosea 2:9: covering Gomer’s nakedness
- Hosea 10:8: they will say to the mountains “cover us”
- Obadiah 10: shame shall over Edom because of what they have done to their brother Jacob.
- Micah 7:10: shame will cover those who slandered Israel
- Habakkuk 2:14: the earth will be filled with the Knowledge of the Glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
- Malachi 2:13: covering the Lord’s altar with tears.
- Mal 2:16: the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, covers his garment with violence, if their spirit is not guarded.
- Mark 14:55: covering Jesus’ face while they hit him.
- Luke 8:16: no one covers a light with a jar after they light it.
- Luke 23:30: Repeat of Hosea 10:8.
- 1 Cor 11:6: a Corinthian woman’s covering of her head. and a Corinthian man’s covering of his head.
- James 5:20: the one who rescues a pre-believer will cover a multitude of sins.
- 1 Peter 4:8 Love covers a multitude of sins.
So, covering has to do with these 59 references.
And not one scrap of these references has diddly squat with one human being covering another, because no one died on the cross for anyone else.
The dynamics of covering are largely for the covering over of sins, the work of sacrifice and atonement, and the throwing of some item over another item as with a cover.
Not one red scrap about a man or a woman and a covering of any sort, gang. The doctrine of covering as we teach it with respect to leadership is nothing more than a red herring.
This is how covering is dealt with.
The legitimate use of the term “covering” is sidelined so we can pursue our own abusive defintion of the concept in order to build our own empire and then we gaslight anyone who opposes our nonsense. We thus send them chasing after something that really is a distraction from the real and redemptive purpose of the true concept of covering: Love covers sins, we cover offenses, and Christ covers and atones for our junk, and through that covering over with His sacrificial love, we step into some solid authority and capacity to love others as He loved the church.
The charismatic movement is in this royal mess precisely because we taught and coerced and forced “the people” to “grow” into an unhealthy place of dependence on the authority of leadership. And the fivefold that came out of the New Apostolic Reformation and the Fuller Post-Denominational Symposium refused as a segment of the body of Christ to actually embody the truth John Wimber set in place for us: to equip AND release. We instead attempted to do the right thing with the wrong tool. And so we perpetuated the madness instead of doing anything that was particularly effective with any degree of skill.
But golly bob howdy do we control and limit excessively well and boy do we teach the concept of welfare Christianity with great skill!
We expect people to suck on this anointed person’s teat and depend on the movement to tell us what God is saying. And when only a select few, then we as a consequence accept that a majority cannot hear from God.
And none of that garbage is anywhere in Scripture.
I won’t do word studies on this topic for y’all, because they are largely red herrings. Suffice it to say that these words in these verses largely mean to cover something, like putting a lid on a pot, if you wish.
The five-fold nonsense of the last 4 decades is largely responsible for sowing a perverse and satanic form of leadership and submission rooted in witchcraft into those who are commanded to “submit” and we have taken that “submit” word to mean things it was never meant to mean.
And all of the Fivefold ministry manifestations are completely rooted in smoldering heretical stew this without exception.
True five-fold, on the other hand, is rooted in the fullness of the Revelation 12:11 call to die to self. No five-fold can exist without a great deal of self-death and self-sacrifice, and care and nurture for others.
And I have yet to meet one manifestation that takes that call seriously.
It’s part of the reason Jeremiah Johnson and R. Loren Sandford have been calling out the junk pertaining to Todd Bentley that they have been calling out the last several months.
And it is part of the reason that Arthur Burk’s albums on High Impact Christians and Tough Spots In Inner Healing have been so critical in dealing with the topic of the five-fold ministry. In those albums he covers the Ishmaelite apostolic, and the Spirit of Antichrist in the five-fold and covering, respectively, as part of larger teachings.
Gang, I don’t know about you, but I don’t mind seeing the Ishmaelite expression of the true manifestation getting destroyed.
What do I mean by “Ishmaelite expression”?
Simple picture, from Arthur Burk.
When God prophesies an Isaac, the enemy will come in and precede that with the birth of one or more Ishmaels.
We have a whole horde of arrogant mocking and unsubmitted Ishamaels who, because of their biological age devoid of spiritual maturity, have not gotten around to walking in the real nature of what the fivefold was designed to become.
As a result, we have had all sorts of destruction because we tried to help God out with our seed of the slave woman.
And all the while, God has been trying to get us to accept the name of Isaac, in whose name we will be called.
This is part of the reason God named my firstborn son 6 years before he was born. He wants those Ishmaelite counterfeits broken.
The maturity is something we are designed to embrace.
And, gang, it is time we embrace it.
In order to have the Lord in fullness, you need to embrace his hammer.