The outward manifestations of what we do physically, often represent the spiritual condition of our heart. How we dress, act, speak, and present ourselves is an expression of who we serve. For those who profess Christ, we are considered ambassadors. This means that how we represent ourselves is a reflection of the Kingdom of God, and our King.
2 Cor 5:20Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God.
When I served in the military, I wore a uniform that represented the United States Airforce. How I conducted myself in that uniform was a reflection of that. When we become reconciled to Christ, our uniform becomes that of holiness, righteousness and truth. Our body becomes a vessel that should be used to glorify Christ, as we were purchased with a price.
1 Cor 6: 19Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? 20For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.
To glorify God in our body, begins first within the heart. All matters begin there. No one is justified in their actions until it is first reconciled with their heart through the Holy Spirit.
From my blog Modesty of the Heart…Where is Your Treasure:
In Scripture “heart” is generally used figuratively as the innermost being of a man. When we have circumcised hearts, we yield to the yoke of righteousness placed upon us through the blood of Yeshua and humble ourselves as we crucify the flesh or sinful nature and take on the nature of Messiah. As we crucify our flesh, and our wicked desires of our heart, Yeshua gives us the desires of His heart, and they become ours. Treasure from the Master’s heart, into the hearts of men; and treasure laid up in our heart will overflow to how we speak, how we behave, and how we dress.
Throughout history, and writings of the scriptures, both old and new, we can see a cultural battle in which God’s people are to be separate from the ways of the world. There is a reason why Yahweh spoke against shaving the sides of heads, tattoos and cuttings of the flesh, as these were practices of the nations, that gave homage to false gods. These were abhorrent to Him and did/do not glorify Him. This is why, over and again, throughout the word, we are told to come out of the world, ‘be ye separate’, and NOT LEARN THE WAY OF THE HEATHEN.
♦Lev 19:26You shall not eat anything with the blood: neither shall you use divination, nor witchcraft.27You shall not shave around the sides of your heads, neither shall you disfigure the corners of your beard.28You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor tattoo any marks upon you: I am the LORD(YHWH).
These commands are in a list of commandments against practices of the occult. Why? because in that time and down through history in many different cultures, to include our present, these practices, were ceremonially performed to honor false gods(demons/satan).
From my blog Tattoos/Piercings: Defilement of the Temple:
There is a reason why Yah has prohibited us from doing such things (tattoos) to our body (Lev 19:28, Deut 14:1), as not only is it mutilation of the flesh, and a root of self-hate, but it is a form of idolatry and witchcraft, and you allow demons into your body when you do. Whether you want to call it possession or oppression, regardless, if you get tattoos on your body, you will give demons legal right to operate within you, and through you. This is a practice of the occult, for that EXACT PURPOSE!
Tribal tattoos are designs that bear serious symbolic mystical and occult meanings. Tribal tattoos, especially, are possible channels into spiritual and demonic possession.
“When the designs are chosen with care, tattoos have a power and magic all their own. They decorate the body but they also enhance the soul.”
(Michelle Delio, Tattoo: The Exotic Art of Skin Decoration, p. 13)
“The reasons why puncturing the skin should be regarded with some degree of awe are not far to seek, for in the first place, there is the drawing of blood, which to the savage world over is full of significance as a rejuvenating and immortalizing factor. There is in addition to the opening of numerous inlets for evil to enter. . .” (Hambly Wilfrid D. 1925. The History of Tattooing and its Significance, p. 233, cited in Gilbert, Steve, Tattoo History: A Source Book, p. 162)
Through the centuries, men have shaved the sides of their heads and sculpted designs into the hair as a mark of allegiance to the particular demon god they served.
The above hairstyle is one that many are probably quite familiar with from the style of the Catholic monks. However, this practice was said to be initially from the druids and is also a common practice within the Eastern religions, such as Buddhism and Hinduism.
From the Encyclopedia Britannica:
“Tonsure, in various religions, a ceremony of initiation in which hair is clipped from the head as part of the ritual marking one’s entrance into a new stage of religious development or activity.
Tonsure has been used in both the Roman Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox churches on occasions of solemn personal dedication to God. Until it was abolished by Pope Paul VI (effective in 1973), tonsure was the ceremony by which a man was initiated into the clerical state and became eligible for ordination to the priesthood. In the Eastern Orthodox church tonsure is part of the ordination of the lector (reader).
In Buddhism tonsure is performed as a part of the ceremony of ordination as a novice (pravrajyā ceremony) and as a monk (upasaṃpadā ceremony). Thereafter, the monk keeps his head and face clean-shaven. In Myanmar (Burma) and Thailand most male children undergo the pravrajyā ceremony at about the age of eight or older and spend a few days or months in a monastery; the rite of tonsure is a principal part of the ceremony.”
Looking at the commentaries from both Ellicott and Gill, we can see that the specific passage surrounding rounding the corners of the head were in reference to the customs and practices other nations did in allegiance to their false gods.
(27) Round the corners of your heads.–That is, they are not to shave off the hair around the temples and behind the ears, so as to leave the head bald except a dish-like tuft upon the crown, thus imparting to their heads the form of a hemisphere. This was done by the Arabs, and other worshippers of the god Orotal. Hence the Arabs are ironically called “those with the corner of their hair polled,” as it is rightly rendered in the Margin (Jeremiah 9:26; Jeremiah 25:23; Jeremiah 49:32).
Ye shall not round the corners of your heads,…. The extremities of the hairs of the head, round about, on the forehead, temples, and behind the ears; this is done, as Jarchi says, when any one makes his temples, behind his ears, and his forehead alike, so that the circumference of his head is found to be round all about, as if they had been cut as with a bowl; and so the Arabians cut their hair, as Herodotus (b) reports; see Gill on Jeremiah 9:26,
Similar passages are given a few chapters later in Leviticus, and in Deuteronomy:
♦Lev 21:5Priests must not make bald spots on their heads, shave off the edges of their beards, or make cuts in their bodies.
♦Deut 14:1Ye are the children of the LORD(YHWH) your God: ye shall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness between your eyes for the dead. 2For thou art an holy people unto the LORD(YHWH) thy God, and the LORD(YHWH) hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all the nations that are upon the earth.
Rebellion in Women
The hairstyle in this picture has been a secular and faddish hairstyle since I can remember having grown up in the 1980s. Many variations also included a shaved bottom/lower part of the hair while letting the top part grow longer. A lot of the styles for boys/men also included shaved sides with designs etched into them. Many celebrities helped to encourage this faddish hairstyle like Cyndi Lauper and Vanilla Ice.
This type of extreme hairstyle is not a new fad, as it has just cycled through the centuries and is rooted in paganism/occult. This is not a hairstyle woman, or men for that matter should be adorning themselves with, as the word tells us to be set-apart and holy, in body, spirit and soul (1 Thes 5:23). We are to be separate from the world (2 Cor 6:17) and not adorning ourselves vainly with outwardly fashions of the world:
♦1 Peter 3:3 Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, SUCH AS ELABORATE HAIRSTYLES.
The case of the shaving of the head per the female, when done in this manner per the picture, or any other variation to include completely shaved, also shows a lack of covering and the rejection of male authority, and overall, Yah’s divine authority.
The act of shaving the head for a female, biblically, has generally showed that it was shameful. It was not something done that was giving honor to God. The only time I could see this as an acceptable practice is given in the case of a Nazarite vow (Num 6:1-3), which both men and women could take, but even then, I am not sure if the woman actually shaved all her hair off or simply gave a portion.
Within his letter to Corinth, Paul addresses the physical and spiritual implications of a woman not being covered:
1 Corinth 11:6For if a woman is not covered, let her also be shorn. But if it is shameful for a woman to be shorn or shaved, let her be covered.
That basically, if a woman is not covered, then she might as well have a shaved head, and walk around in her shame. She has announced to the world that she is not in need of a covering.
Verse 6. – Let her also be shorn. Not a command, but, a sort of scornful inference, or reductio ad absurdum. If it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven. When a woman was tried by “the ordeal of the water of jealousy,” her head was uncovered by the priest (Numbers 5:18). To be shorn or shaven was a sign of mourning (Deuteronomy 21:12), and was a disgrace inflicted on adulteresses.
From my blog Deborah, the Righteous Bride, who dwelt under the Palm Tree:
Per the divine order that Yah has given, women are to submit to their husbands as they are the spiritual Head(covering). A woman should always have a covering, whether it be her husband, father, an older brother, an uncle, grandfather, etc. As a woman submits to her husband in love, as she does Messiah, then she adorns her husband righteously
•Proverbs 12:4A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband: but she that maketh ashamed is as rottenness in his bones. (KJV)
When women do not submit to their husbands, or are not provided the proper covering, it is a shame to the woman, and liken to a shorn or shaven head.
•1 Cor 11:2Now I praise you, brethren, that ye remember me in all things, and keep the ordinances, as I delivered them to you. 3But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God. 4Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoureth his head.
5But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head: for that is even all one as if she were shaven. 6For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn: but if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered.
Per this passage, the main focus is a spiritual covering, and Paul parallels it between physical representations to hit on a spiritual concept. The understanding of being shorn or shaven is that it goes back to when a woman has committed adultery per Numbers 5:18-19:
Numbers 5:18‘And the priest shall make the woman stand before יהוה, and SHALL UNCOVER THE WOMAN’S HEAD, and put the offering for remembering in her hands, which is the grain offering of jealousy, while the priest holds in his hand the bitter water that brings a curse.
19‘And the priest shall make her swear, and say to the woman, “If no man has lain with you, and if you have not turned aside to uncleanness UNDER YOUR HUSBAND’S AUTHORITY, be free from this bitter water that brings a curse.
The priest shall uncover her head meaning releasing her husband, as to see if she has laid with another man. The spiritual understanding and application of this, is that if a woman is rebellious or not in submission to her husband, it is likened to spiritual adultery to her husband, and she is uncovered/shaven and is a dishonor/disgrace to both her husband, as well as YHWH. In token that she had forfeited her glory by breaking, or seeming to have broken, her allegiance to her husband.
The case of the shaving of the head was also a disgrace except in regard to the taking of the Nazarite vow in Numbers 6, the only case that it was acceptable for the woman. Even with the transfer of authority during battle and men would take the woman as their wives, they would shave their heads as humbling and a mourning:
Deut 21:12then you shall bring her home to your house, and she shall shave her head and trim her nails,
Many years ago, one of my favorite movies was “G.I. Jane” with the main actress Demi Moore. A famous scene within the movie is where she shaves off all her hair in order to maintain the same standards with the men during her navy seal training. In a previous scene it was made evident that her long hair had become a hinderance to her as she was trying to compete with the men during a rigorous training session in the ocean.
The scene in which she shaves all of her hair off was a defining moment in the movie in which the role of Demi, drastically changes. When I had found enjoyment in this movie and found such defining moment to be “empowering” and a victory for women everywhere, I came to realize years later that this was indeed a defining moment, but not in the way I had thought.
A women’s hair is a symbolic representation to her femininity and her role as a woman. In such scene with Demi, the message given forth through her actions is that a woman has to give up her role and her femininity in order to be proven worthy. She later even gives up her own separate quarters of being female, to that of being directly integrated with the same quarters of the men. Thus, blurring the lines even further of the specific roles that men and women have. It does not mean that one is superior to the other, but rather that we have been created male and female, and each have their part to play within creation.
“It is a naive sort of feminism that insists that women prove their ability to do all the things that men do. This is a distortion and a travesty. Men have never sought to prove that they can do all the things women do. Why subject women to purely masculine criteria? Women can and ought to be judged by the criteria of femininity, for it is in their femininity that they participate in the human race. And femininity has its limitations. So has masculinity. That is what we’ve been talking about. To do this is not to do that. To be this is not to be that. To be a woman is not to be a man. To be married is not to be single – which may mean not to have a career. To marry this man is not to marry all the others. A choice is a limitation.” ― Elisabeth Elliot, Let Me be a Woman
Having served in the military myself, I saw many situations that women should have never been in and encouraged women to continue on in their career even after having a child. I don’t believe that women should not work or have a job, however, when at all possible, the woman should be the caretaker of the home which supports their husband and children.
Titus 2:3The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things; 4That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, 5To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.
In 2011, after I had separated from Active-Duty Air Force, I had gone into the Air Force Reserves. In 2014, I was deeply convicted that this was no longer a place that I should be, that my place was at home. It was this same passage that Yah gave me to write on a form to discontinue my monthly weekend duty requirement. Looking back, I am thankful for Yah’s mercy and grace through that entire transition, helping me to submit to my role as a woman, a wife, and a mother separated from the world.
A few years later, in 2017, while sharing my experience in the military, I wrote this:
I served in the military for 15 years, 12 of them active duty. I never once fought for the ‘rights’ of others, but when I actually upheld the very moral standards that they promote, only to be persecuted. The uniform that I put on every day symbolized a lie that the government feeds the masses every day. The very ‘rights’ that we are told we protect, are the very ones, that those in the military lose, you are a number, a guinea pig, a pawn in a vicious game. The wars that are generated, are created from the banking elite, to make money, to kill off those whom are a vulnerability/threat. In the voice of ‘freedom’ our military is off slaughtering thousands, and back here at home in the voice of ‘freedom’ thousands more are slaughtered in the view of ‘choice’. I watched families be destroyed from deployments and woman being put into situations, that they should have never been put into to begin with. The only ‘rights’ that woman have lost, are the value that they place on themselves, objectifying themselves, demoralizing themselves, removing their femininity to embrace feminism, debasing the very essence of beauty that woman were created. When men choose not to be men, and woman not to be woman, and those that embrace such, those are the greatest ‘rights’ that you choose to give up.
We have freedom in Christ, but we are not to use that freedom to dishonor our Messiah. We must be willing to forsake the ways of the world in all areas of our life and examine the practices and motives in how we dress, act, and speak. How we chose to represent the Kingdom of God, can either glorify Christ or bring Him shame.
♦Romans 12:1I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.
♦Romans 6:12Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. 13And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.
