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04.04.2012 Feature Article

Bald Heads, Beardless Chins, And The Word Of God (part Two)

Bald Heads, Beardless Chins, And The Word Of God part Two
04.04.2012 LISTEN

In Matthew 5: 36, 10: 30, Luke 12: 7, and 21: 18, Jesus Christ talks in a monologue to his followers about facial hairs. In these verses, he reveals how God strives to keep in place, wherever He has placed man's facial hairs and to give them colors that He wishes.

Let us quote here this thirty-sixth verse of Matthew chapter five: “Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black.” (Matthew 5: 36, KJV).

What does this verse mean? It says plainly that it is God who works to keep anybody's facial hairs white or black or whatever color He so desires. For me, this verse reveals man's ignorance and the futility of his mind, in trying to dye his hair black, red or blonde; to anger God and to please himself?

Does God see mankind trying to rebel against Him in trying to keep his facial hairs the way he wants contrary to His Will? Does God see any wisdom in man's actions? Think out some answers for yourself.

Matthew 10: 30 and Luke 21: 7 both talk about the same issue, but I like to quote the account of Matthew here: “But the very hairs of your head are numbered”. (Matthew 10: 30).

What a wonderful revelation: God, who plants hairs on heads of men, watering them to grow in the manner He wants and gives them the colors of His choice in due times, delights also in keeping records of their numbers. This is fantastic; and God must be doing this for good reason, though not appreciated by many people.

Luke 21: 18, (KJV) is equally fantastic: “But there shall not be an hair of your head perish”. God is saying to man, who He has made in His image and likeness that, his facial hair is so important to Him that, He will do all it takes to keep it from perishing.

Sadly, how many men know that their hairs are living parts of their bodies, which only perish when they fall off their heads? Could this be the reason why modern-man, does not permit God to work for him, in keeping his facial hair in its right place, but must cause it to perish at his own hand, by willfully shaving it off and making his head completely bald?

When man keeps on his God-given facial-hairs, even for a very short time, modern-man describes him as being “bushy” (labeling him as a bushman?). However, if on a daily basis he shaves off his God-endowed living-hair, given to him to look and be like God, he is described as being “clean-shaven”; clean (without dirt?), up to date, admirable and adorable.

Oh, what curse, is a life patterned after the wisdom (folly?) of men and the corrupt, corruptible, and ever corrupting World Order of our times? No doubt, the wisdom of men is foolishness to God. (First Corinthians 3: 19).

The men of old seemed to know why they had to keep and care for their facial hairs with a lot of reverence, than most of this generation. They kept and obeyed, in all strictness, the instructions of God on their facial hairs, as today's man must keep the contents of his belly according to hygiene practices.

Let me lead you to God's instructions in the Bible, on the keeping and maintenance of facial hairs. The first is in Leviticus: “Ye shall not round the corners of your heads, neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard.”(Leviticus 19: 27, KJV).

Nobody can have difficulty in obeying this straight-forward instruction of God. I understand it in the same way that God says one must never move an ancient landmark between one's neighbor's farmland and his. (cf. Deuteronomy 19: 14, 27: 17, Proverbs 22: 28).

You may brush the grass on the farmland, but you cannot move its boundaries with your neighbors. And so, although you can periodically reduce the amount of hair on your face, you must not, redesign its limits or take it all away, down to the scalp.

Nobody has the right or power to give a coloring of his choice or alter the configurations to his facial hairs, making them different from what God, by His wisdom and love, has given him, so he can be in His likeness. This is the Will of God for every man who comes to live on this earth of ours.

Let us continue our search for verses in the Word of God which inform mankind why God has endowed man with facial hair. The next one says: “Thou shalt rise up in the presence of the hoary head, and honour the face of the old man, and fear thy God: I am the Lord”. (Leviticus 19: 32, KJV).

Then also are the following verses in the Book of Proverbs: “The hoary head is a crown of glory, if it be found in righteousness”. (Proverbs 16: 31, KJV). Again we read: “… the beauty of old men is the grey head”. (Proverbs 20: 29, KJV).

Who, in our world, wears a crown and for what purpose? It is kings; as a show of their honor, glory, beauty, authority, wisdom and power to judge. Did God reveal this to kings of the earth from His Word, in their wearing of crowns? I believe this to be so; He, being the source of all knowledge and wisdom.

Do we not know that, lawyers and judges don man-made wigs (crowns) as a sign of authority and power, anytime they sit to hear cases? Do we note the color of these wigs? They are always grey in color; grey –God's color of honor, glory, beauty, power and authority placed on man's head.

Lawyers and judges cannot be in court without donning these grey-colored man-made wigs –imitations and counterfeits of God's original grey-hairs! These legal people ought to be those leading mankind in a culture of keeping our God-given crowns of grey-hairs (thinking caps?), so man can function in His stead in rendering righteous judgment.

But alas, many lawyers and judges are the worst offenders, when it comes to the sin of self-inflicted baldness: They cast away their God-given crowns of facial hairs of honor, glory, beauty, authority and power, to don man-made ones. How sad!

And just as all sins run through the blood-line, so does this crazy modern-day sin of self-inflicted baldness. Just look around, and you will see exactly what I see –sons imitating their fathers in inflicting themselves with baldness.

And this you can see among all other professionals. No profession is untainted by this craze of modernism: law-makers, academicians, medical doctors, bankers, soldiers, comedians, etc, with an ignorant Clergy ahead of them all.

Talking about the tribe of Ephraim in the Book of Hosea, we read the following: “Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth it not: yea gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth not”. (Hosea 7: 9, KJV).

Is this situation that Ephraim was in, not the same as our world finds itself? When we ought to find wisdom and understanding by virtue of age and our God-given grey hairs, we lack basic knowledge of the ways of God, for our lives.

From the Word of God, nobody in Old Testament times was ever happy, even when he got bald by nature. This is because baldness was considered to bring reproach, shame, disgrace, dishonor, and sadness. There are situations when baldness is even considered to be the curse of sickness, like leprosy.

Elisha, a holy prophet of God, suffered from a form of natural baldness, which I am sure he never liked. When little children used his bald head as an object of scorn to mock him, he became so angry that he called out two she bears from the woods to tear to pieces, all forty-two of them. (Second Kings 2: 23-25).

There was mourning in as many as forty-two homes, when God honored the cry of His servant to Him for judgment, for being mocked by delinquent children who lacked good parental tutelage.

Emissaries of king David of Israel, to the king of Ammon, were disgraced by the Ammonites by having their beards treated without respect and reverence in being shaved in a weird way.

When this sacrilege committed against the state of Israel came to the hearing of David, his advice to the disgraced ambassadors was for them to stay in Jericho, till their beards grew, before returning to Jerusalem. (Second Samuel 10: 1-5).

For one to inflict one's self with baldness is to do away with his God-given anointing, power, and strength. This was the case of Samson, the Nazarite. Soldiers, defeated in wars, were clean-shaved, as their conquerors manner of disgracing and humiliating them; or were they also meant to serve as “identification haircuts”? (---continuing part to this article is in Part Three: soon to be published).

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Chris Bapuohyele is an author/bible-expositor. His email address is: [email protected].

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