You see, I hate shaving. I think it is useless and a waste of money. I am proud to say I've had the same disposable (used at minimum of once a week) since the beginning of August. Shaving ranks up there with covering your property with a vegetation you can't eat, but spend a lot of time and money to keep it from growing (grass). Sorry, that is for a different topic. I like to shave my face differently every time as a form of protest. God gave us hair. We all have it. So why do we spend so much time trying to cut it off and make it look like we have none? Just like hair on top of our heads. Why do we spend so much money cutting, coloring, curling, straightening (even though your hair is already straight, honey) and fixing it up in all kinds of weird ways. My favorite, which I have done, is to fix hair so that it looks like you just got out of bed. hahahaha! Yes, it is weird the effort we put into.
The church is probably the weirdest of all when it comes to hair. I have heard of churches that would not hire very good ministers because they have a beard. I have heard of church who wouldn't let ministers speak because they had hair that was too long. (I don't know where that is found in the Bible.) I've regularly heard, "You really need to shave all of your face."
But is it really all that important? I've read the passages in the Bible that say priests are not to shave the sides of their head or trim the edges of their beard (Leviticus 21:5). In Numbers chapter eight God wants the Levites (the priestly family) to be sprinkled with water, shave their entire body, and wash their cloths so as to be ceremonially clean. I would definitely be upset about that. To take the Nazarite vow, a vow of consecration and fasting before God the individual, even though they began with a shaved head, was not allowed to shave any part of their body.
In Acts chapter 21 we read about the Apostle Paul being confronted by some legalistic gentlemen of the church and then given a "legalistic" way to pacify these ignorant gentlemen. He was to go perform the Nazarite rites at the temple and shave his head. This did nothing for him, because a few guys saw him and then he ended up getting beat by a mob. This is the second time in history when a hair cut got a guy almost killed, the first was Samson.
Then we get to Paul's writings to the corinthian christians. This is where we get a lot of today's legalistic rules about dress, hair, and how to act in worship. Paul goes talks about a woman's place and a man's place. He talks about women having men's hair cuts and men having women's haircuts. He talks about Christ being our head and God being his head. It's all really exciting and you have to read it slow. You also need to know the Corinthians. It was kinda like an ancient Las Vegas. If Paul were to write to the church in Vegas, he may have talked about grease backed hair and not dressing like a show girl. He might say to the guys not to wear girl jeans. An image of Justin Bieber just came into my head. He might say to the girls, take it easy on the make-up.
You see Paul was writing about a CULTURAL PROBLEM. The pagan temples set the fashion standards of the day. Also women's rights and femanatzi-ism was going strong and to prove we were all equal they were all dressing alike or had the same hairdo. Guys were wearing their hair long and women were cutting it to prove a point, fit in with a particular group, or because they thought it was the cool thing to do at the time.
So if there was a band that dishonored God and wore their hair a certain way, or a racist group that shaved their heads, or group of women that colored their hair a certain color to prove a point, then this passage would apply directly to you. His point was not to do this kinda stuff, it doesn't help your christian witness. Right before all this he says, "Everything is permissible" - (freedom in Christ) but not everything is beneficial . . . not everything is constructive."(1 Corinthians 10:23). Basically how we dress, cut our hair, shave our face, wear tattoos, piercing, or what we eat is allowed by God. Remember God told the prophet Samuel not to look on the outside for the best, God looks on the inside. BUT, Paul says it may not be beneficial, for myself or others who are weaker christians and non believers.
The important thing is found in 2 Corinthians 3:18 "We, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit." So if shaving my face helps me better reflect God's glory to some people then I will do it. I won't like it, and it may be different every time. I will live my life so that it is reflecting of what is on the inside. To be all things to all people so as to save some. The next time I look in the mirror, I will see Jesus, hairy, good looking ;-), and in a constant state of transformation.
image from http://thebeardclub.blogspot.com
No comments:
Post a Comment