To Beard or Not to Beard, That is The Question

[votivesoul]

In 1 Timothy 4:1-3, Paul warns Timothy that people whose consciences were seared (i.e. cauterized, from κεκαυστηριασμένων) with a hot iron would, as hypocrites, begin speaking lies as they are led to do so by the influence of seducing spirits because they had embraced demonic teachings (doctrines of devils).

These false prophets and teachers cause people to fall (literally, to apostasize, from ἀποστήσονταί, which means to stand off or away from the faith).

How do they do so?

By using and enforcing arbitrarily derived, man-made, un-Biblical standards, particularly, in this case, forbidding marriage and the eating of certain foods considered un-kosher.

In the realm of marriage, Paul desired the Corinthians to remain as he was, which was either single, married but separated, or widowed and thereafter celibate (See 1 Corinthians 7:7). Opinions vary on Paul's matrimonial status.

But note! Although he expressed his opinion and desire as a personal conviction, he never once instituted it as a church standard. More than once in 1 Corinthians 5-7, Paul writes by express commandment of the Lord Jesus Christ, and differentiates those commands from his personal preferences.

If anyone had any seemingly legitimate right or authority to institute into the churches he himself had founded as an apostle any personal conviction or standard, it would have been Paul. And yet, we see he refrains. Why? Why does Paul refrain but we get a pass?

Later in 1 Corinthians, Paul addresses food, and the only statement he makes about what we should or shouldn't eat is whether or not our appetites should cause a brother or sister to stumble and fall. But otherwise, nothing is to be refused, even food sold in the local markets, even if it was previously offered up to an idol prior to you going to town to purchase it.

So, here again, a preference with a solid, Biblical reason to avoid eating certain foods, so we don't sin against Christ by sinning against the brethren (See 1 Corinthians 8:12). But otherwise, no actual standing order of prohibition against eating meat (or flesh, as Paul writes it in 1 Corinthians 8:13). This same theme is evident in Romans 14.

Paul refused to allow his personal views, privately held, that did not come by express commandmant of the Lord Jesus Christ, to become church standards.

Rather, he emphatically warned his "Son in the Gospel" that some men were going to do just that, and in so doing, were going to cause apostasy in the church.

There is no difference therefore, between forbidding to marry or forbidding to eat certain foods and forbidding anything else not otherwise prohibited by the express commandment of the Lord Jesus. If such a right existed, it would have existed in and with Paul and company. Yet we see clearly his refusal to maintain such a right.

No one in the church has the right to overrule or institute anything the HEAD OF THE CHURCH has not instituted in the church.

To do so is to claim extra-Biblical authority over Christ's Wife. Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than He is? If any man tried that on your wife, would you take it easy and let it slide? But somehow we think Jesus is all chill about turning His Bride into the playground of our personal whims and wants?

Well did the psalmist write "There is no fear of God before their eyes".

Simon Peter also mentions a type of eye that some men, who happen to be false teachers, have. He called it the "eyes of adultery" (2 Peter 2:14).

The Lord will recompense the wicked, that is, in this case, all those who would try to pervert the church with their unceasing from sin eyes of adultery and turn the Bride of God's Son into their personal whore.

[Apostolic1ness]

Originally Posted by votivesoul

In 1 Timothy 4:1-3, Paul warns Timothy that people whose consciences were seared (i.e. cauterized, from κεκαυστηριασμένων) with a hot iron would, as hypocrites, begin speaking lies as they are led to do so by the influence of seducing spirits because they had embraced demonic teachings (doctrines of devils).

These false prophets and teachers cause people to fall (literally, to apostasize, from ἀποστήσονταί, which means to stand off or away from the faith).

How do they do so?

By using and enforcing arbitrarily derived, man-made, un-Biblical standards, particularly, in this case, forbidding marriage and the eating of certain foods considered un-kosher.

In the realm of marriage, Paul desired the Corinthians to remain as he was, which was either single, married but separated, or widowed and thereafter celibate (See 1 Corinthians 7:7). Opinions vary on Paul's matrimonial status.

But note! Although he expressed his opinion and desire as a personal conviction, he never once instituted it as a church standard. More than once in 1 Corinthians 5-7, Paul writes by express commandment of the Lord Jesus Christ, and differentiates those commands from his personal preferences.

If anyone had any seemingly legitimate right or authority to institute into the churches he himself had founded as an apostle any personal conviction or standard, it would have been Paul. And yet, we see he refrains. Why? Why does Paul refrain but we get a pass?

Later in 1 Corinthians, Paul addresses food, and the only statement he makes about what we should or shouldn't eat is whether or not our appetites should cause a brother or sister to stumble and fall. But otherwise, nothing is to be refused, even food sold in the local markets, even if it was previously offered up to an idol prior to you going to town to purchase it.

So, here again, a preference with a solid, Biblical reason to avoid eating certain foods, so we don't sin against Christ by sinning against the brethren (See 1 Corinthians 8:12). But otherwise, no actual standing order of prohibition against eating meat (or flesh, as Paul writes it in 1 Corinthians 8:13). This same theme is evident in Romans 14.

Paul refused to allow his personal views, privately held, that did not come by express commandmant of the Lord Jesus Christ, to become church standards.

Rather, he emphatically warned his "Son in the Gospel" that some men were going to do just that, and in so doing, were going to cause apostasy in the church.

There is no difference therefore, between forbidding to marry or forbidding to eat certain foods and forbidding anything else not otherwise prohibited by the express commandment of the Lord Jesus. If such a right existed, it would have existed in and with Paul and company. Yet we see clearly his refusal to maintain such a right.

No one in the church has the right to overrule or institute anything the HEAD OF THE CHURCH has not instituted in the church.

To do so is to claim extra-Biblical authority over Christ's Wife. Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than He is? If any man tried that on your wife, would you take it easy and let it slide? But somehow we think Jesus is all chill about turning His Bride into the playground of our personal whims and wants?

Well did the psalmist write "There is no fear of God before their eyes".

Simon Peter also mentions a type of eye that some men, who happen to be false teachers, have. He called it the "eyes of adultery" (2 Peter 2:14).

The Lord will recompense the wicked, that is, in this case, all those who would try to pervert the church with their unceasing from sin eyes of adultery and turn the Bride of God's Son into their personal whore.

wow so pastors who teach a platform standard or clean shaven faces have eyes of adultery and have turned the Church into their personal whore?

[Ehud]

Originally Posted by Apostolic1ness

wow so pastors who teach a platform standard or clean shaven faces have eyes of adultery and have turned the Church into their personal whore?

And now you know.

[votivesoul]

Originally Posted by Apostolic1ness

wow so pastors who teach a platform standard or clean shaven faces have eyes of adultery and have turned the Church into their personal whore?

The church is made up of people. The people of God are the church. Forcibly assigning to the people of God extra-Biblical mandates that do not come from the Lord Jesus Christ is by definition, abusive. It is a mistreatment of the Lord's Wife. The Bible couches these ideas in sexual terms related to idolatry and fornication.

Idolatry in the sense of believing one has the power/right/authority over Christ the Lord to institute mandates He Himself did not institute, making that one, and not Jesus, the Head of the Church, which is to say, an idol, which means a form of metaphorical fornication, as idolatry is commonly described in the Holy Scriptures. And those who practice such idolatry are metaphorically fornicators, and if in the church, it's spiritual whoredoms.

It's why Mystery Babylon is called the Mother of All Harlots. What is Mystery Babylon? It is a man-made religion. Whether the religion of the Scribes and Pharisees and Sadducees, or the Gnostics, or any other perverted versions of Biblical Christianity that currently exist. It's all the same stuff.

So when anyone, with any title, deserved or otherwise, asserts authority not granted to him by Christ, and especially when he does so against the actual commandments of Christ, he is committing idolatry, and if leading a congregation, he is leading them to worship him as the idol who overlords it among the people of God (think Diotrephes, for example) and all who then participate in that idolatry are in sin. And as stated, the Bible uses very graphic sexual language to describe such sin, whoredoms being the chief descriptor.

[votivesoul]

Originally Posted by Apostolic1ness

wow so pastors who teach a platform standard or clean shaven faces have eyes of adultery and have turned the Church into their personal whore?

I hope one day the leadership in all of the various churches that demand men be clean-shaven in order to be on some extra-Biblical platform come to feel "led by God" to mandate that women not be allowed to shave for whatever reason they dream up and that if a woman shaves neither she or her husband can't be "used" in the church.

Just once, I'd like to see that come to pass and so, watch y'all sing and howl a different tune.

[votivesoul]

Originally Posted by Ehud

And now you know.

Why not just mandate circumcision and forbid people to marry or to eat certain foods? Why not institute sprinkling instead of immersion for water baptism? Why not just smear some oil on someone instead of praying them through, and claim they've been anointed by the Holy Spirit? How far afield does a person have to go in their false doctrines before we call them on them for what they are?

We are supposed to be people of the truth, and yet, we are mostly just people of the kind of truth with which we are comfortable.

[Apostolic1ness]

Originally Posted by votivesoul

Why not just mandate circumcision and forbid people to marry or to eat certain foods? Why not institute sprinkling instead of immersion for water baptism? Why not just smear some oil on someone instead of praying them through, and claim they've been anointed by the Holy Spirit? How far afield does a person have to go in their false doctrines before we call them on them for what they are?

We are supposed to be people of the truth, and yet, we are mostly just people of the kind of truth with which we are comfortable.

So leadership has no authority to introduce ANY rules or regulations in the church not found in the scripture?

Should a man preach in your church wearing shorts and a sleeveless shirt?
How about a man in leadership that uses smokeless tobacco? Is there a verse about that in the scriptures?

[votivesoul]

Originally Posted by Apostolic1ness

So leadership has no authority to introduce ANY rules or regulations in the church not found in the scripture?

Correct. Introducing any rules or regulations in the church not found in the scripture is the slippery slope to popish catholicism. The issue with a slippery slope, why they are so dangerous, is not the slide down to whatever level. It's that once you've slid down, you can't get back up the slope to where you started once you've realized your error.

Introduce just one, even small or seemingly insignificant extra-Biblical rule or regulation and see where it takes you. Rome and the Vatican are the shining examples of that fallout. You might not think it matters, but the church is to be glorious, without even a spot or mere wrinkle in her garments when she is presented to the Lord.

Imagine being presented to a king and he dismisses you from his presence because he detects the very hint of something wrong with just a tiny part of your clothing. Those are the spots and blemishes from which the church must be washed.

Jude calls people who continue to introduce such things as "spots on your feasts of charity" (Jude 1:12). Simon refers to such men like so, that they "...shall receive the reward of unrighteousness, as they that count it pleasure to riot in the day time. Spots they are and blemishes, sporting themselves with their own deceivings while they feast with you..." (2 Peter 2:13). These uses of the word "spot" in such instances are either related to, or are the exact same word as used by Paul in Ephesians 5:27.

Therefore anyone who would bring spots upon the church in the name of ecclesiastical authority is by Biblical definition those who sport themselves with their own deceivings, that is, they are false.

And one aspect of those personal deceivings is believing you can add to, and mingle with, the Word of God the commandments of men and think you're going to be okay with the Most High. Such mingling is the very literal definition of the word confusion, which, from Latin, means to "to mix with" (con = with, fuse = mix, as in to "fuse" together). God is not the author of man-made ideas and doctrines being mixed into His Holy Word. We are.

Should a man preach in your church wearing shorts and a sleeveless shirt?

I personally wouldn't much care. But then again, we have no platforms, no extra-Biblical mandates, like someone standing on a platform preaching to a passive audience of spectators, either.

How about a man in leadership that uses smokeless tobacco? Is there a verse about that in the scriptures?

What is leadership? We are all priests of the Most High God. Everyone is called to serve and be an example, to represent Jesus Christ to the absolute fullest sense, however much anyone is able at any given time. If that isn't leadership, what is?

But apart from that, as a man sows, that shall he also reap. If he wants mouth and tongue cancer and likes the idea of dying young in that regard, to his own master he rises or falls. While I find smokeless tobacco unpalatable, even gross, I wouldn't judge the man or write him off. The content of his words, the spirit, and manner of their expression, and how much they line up with the Truth matter more to me than whether or not he might occasionally have a wad of tabacky in his gob.

And precisely because there is no verse of Scripture condemning him for such use. Find me a verse of Scripture that condemns smokeless tobacco and I will condemn it, too. But if not, then not.

[votivesoul]

Originally Posted by votivesoul

Correct. Introducing any rules or regulations in the church not found in the scripture is the slippery slope to popish catholicism. The issue with a slippery slope, why they are so dangerous, is not the slide down to whatever level. It's that once you've slid down, you can't get back up the slope to where you started once you've realized your error.

Introduce just one, even small or seemingly insignificant extra-Biblical rule or regulation and see where it takes you. Rome and the Vatican are the shining examples of that fallout. You might not think it matters, but the church is to be glorious, without even a spot or mere wrinkle in her garments when she is presented to the Lord.

Imagine being presented to a king and he dismisses you from his presence because he detects the very hint of something wrong with just a tiny part of your clothing. Those are the spots and blemishes from which the church must be washed.

Jude calls people who continue to introduce such things as "spots on your feasts of charity" (Jude 1:12). Simon refers to such men like so, that they "...shall receive the reward of unrighteousness, as they that count it pleasure to riot in the day time. Spots they are and blemishes, sporting themselves with their own deceivings while they feast with you..." (2 Peter 2:13). These uses of the word "spot" in such instances are either related to, or are the exact same word as used by Paul in Ephesians 5:27.

Therefore anyone who would bring spots upon the church in the name of ecclesiastical authority is by Biblical definition those who sport themselves with their own deceivings, that is, they are false.

And one aspect of those personal deceivings is believing you can add to, and mingle with, the Word of God the commandments of men and think you're going to be okay with the Most High. Such mingling is the very literal definition of the word confusion, which, from Latin, means to "to mix with" (con = with, fuse = mix, as in to "fuse" together). God is not the author of man-made ideas and doctrines being mixed into His Holy Word. We are.



I personally wouldn't much care. But then again, we have no platforms, no extra-Biblical mandates, like someone standing on a platform preaching to a passive audience of spectators, either.



What is leadership? We are all priests of the Most High God. Everyone is called to serve and be an example, to represent Jesus Christ to the absolute fullest sense, however much anyone is able at any given time. If that isn't leadership, what is?

But apart from that, as a man sows, that shall he also reap. If he wants mouth and tongue cancer and likes the idea of dying young in that regard, to his own master he rises or falls. While I find smokeless tobacco unpalatable, even gross, I wouldn't judge the man or write him off. The content of his words, the spirit, and manner of their expression, and how much they line up with the Truth matter more to me than whether or not he might occasionally have a wad of tabacky in his gob.

And precisely because there is no verse of Scripture condemning him for such use. Find me a verse of Scripture that condemns smokeless tobacco and I will condemn it, too. But if not, then not.

Considering the emboldened text, ask yourself, when such spots or blemishes become apparent in the Body of Christ, what does the Lord Jesus do to remove them? He washes His Bride with the pure Word of God. He takes His people back to the Holy Scriptures, He shows them where they went wrong, how they impeded their own progress and so, sullied their garments of salvation with the mud of man-made doctrine, and gives them (really "us") the means whereby the situation may be rectified:

Take a bath in the Law, and Prophets, and Writings, and Gospels, and Acts, and Epistles, and the Apocalypse and get yourself clean. Shed off from yourself all the spots and wrinkles and any other such thing and so, be presented to your Lord and Savior a holy and pure vessel meet for your Master's use.

Quit bringing Him, as Israel of old as decried by Malachi did: spotted, lame, faltering, second rate sacrifices. Imagine if the Lamb of God had spotted Himself before the Father by introducing some kind of personal preference or extra-Biblical, can't be found in the Torah-Nevi'im-Ketuvim mandates that He dreamed up one day.

No, Jesus only ever said and did exactly what His Father told Him to say and do. He never added, never subtracted. That is our goal, our example. Never add, never subtract.

Extra-Biblical mandates add to the Word of God, and in so doing they subtract out of the Word of God the mandates that are actually there, to begin with. Keep yourself believing and obeying man-made doctrines and you are going to run out of time and energy believing and obeying God-made doctrines. It's an even exchange, proportional to the amount of man-made doctrines that exist in your belief structure. Hence, why Catholics run amok to do penance and go to confession and pray the rosary and hail Mary and make pilgrimages and etc. They are too busy doing those things and cannot find the ability within themselves to do what the Bible actually prescribes.

"Martha? Martha?" Anyone?

[Ehud]

Originally Posted by votivesoul

Why not just mandate circumcision and forbid people to marry or to eat certain foods? Why not institute sprinkling instead of immersion for water baptism? Why not just smear some oil on someone instead of praying them through, and claim they've been anointed by the Holy Spirit? How far afield does a person have to go in their false doctrines before we call them on them for what they are?

We are supposed to be people of the truth, and yet, we are mostly just people of the kind of truth with which we are comfortable.

So then, you disagree with Bro. Burk?

Originally Posted by TK Burk

Any standard preached should help remedy a problem a local church body is facing, which ultimately means that its purpose is for those saints’ spiritual wellbeing. Thus, no leader standing in a pulpit has the license to impose a standard that is based on his own rules or on his own preferences. Let me be clear here—there are no Bible verses against a man wearing facial hair—none. So, if a church leader is going to set a standard against men wearing facial hair, he needs a valid reason for doing so. Without such a reason, that standard is the will of man, not the will of God.

Originally Posted by TK Burk

In my study, I talked about how a standard against wearing local gang colors or gang clothing styles would protect the saints against misidentification or personal harm. Of course, that standard is not found in the Bible, but it is still valid since it is established for the specific purpose of the "spiritual well-being" of the saints.