JEWELRIES (OF ANY KIND INCLUDING WEDDING RINGS) AND MAKE-UP – THE BIBLICAL PERSPECTIVE ON JEWELRIES AND MAKE-UP
By: Adom Ofori-Asenso
November 1, 2013.
Since the Spirit of TRUTH will “tell us what is yet to come”, why are you surprised when this same Spirit of TRUTH (the Holy Spirit) reveals to members in the body of Christ the end of women putting on jewelries, make-up and trousers is hell fire, you argue about them when they are biblically aligned. I also trust that certain parts of the Bible which human (carnal) mind has interpreted to justify the use of jewelries such as listed below in bullet points will be thoroughly explained by the divine revelation of the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 1:17 “I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of WISDOM and REVELATION, SO THAT YOU MAY KNOW HIM BETTER”). The reason why we need this Spirit of WISDOM and REVELATION as the verse explains is to KNOW GOD BETTER. It is a pity many Christian believers have strayed IGNORANTLY and CARELESSLY into hell fire because they did not know God better (1 Corinthians 2:12-14 “12 We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we MAY UNDERSTAND WHAT GOD HAS FREELY GIVEN US. 13 This is what we speak, NOT WORDS TAUGHT US BY HUMAN WISDOM BUT IN WORDS TAUGHT BY THE SPIRIT, EXPRESSING SPIRITUAL TRUTHS IN SPIRITUAL WORDS. 14 The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand, BECAUSE THEY ARE SPIRITUALLY DISCERNED (*the reason why some cannot get their head around and it beats their imagination that putting on ordinary jewelries including wedding rings and make-up will land them into hell fire*). I pray that it does not become my portion and yours in the name of Jesus. Every believer has at his or her disposal divine wisdom and revelation into the understanding of the Word of God. This is not given only to pastors or special people in the church. All you need is to sincerely ask God and He will grant them to you.
- Rebekah being worn jewelries by the servant of Abraham (Genesis 24:29-30),
- Joseph being put on the signet ring and a gold chain by Pharaoh (Genesis 41:41-42) and Daniel also put on a golden chain at Belshazzar’s command (Daniel 5:29),
- God instructing the Israelites to go for articles (jewels; KJV) of gold and articles (jewels; KJV) of silver from the Egyptians during their Exodus (Exodus 12:35),
- In Song of Songs where Solomon wrote about the most beautiful of women having her cheeks beautiful with earrings and neck with strings of jewels (Song of Songs 1:10-11)
- In Ezekiel 16 where God gave an allegory of dressing Jerusalem in jewelry (Ezekiel 16:9-13)
- The parable Jesus gave on the prodigal son where is father put a ring on his finger upon his return (Luke 15: 22),
- The misinterpretation of 1 Timothy 2:9 and 1 Peter 3:3
We will therefore address the issue of jewelries and make-up along the above bullet points and scripture references will be placed below the text. As I keep saying; the Word of God (the Bible) explains itself. To this effect, I rely on the Holy Spirit to use scripture to explain scripture to help us understand this topic in full detail.
REBEKAH (Genesis 24: 29-30; see below)
Yes, it is true that in the Bible, the servant of Abraham wore Rebekah nose ring and bracelets on her arms. Let us now understand why these things happened and were recorded in the Bible. In Joshua 24:2-3:“2 Joshua said to all the people, “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘Long ago your forefathers, including Terah the father of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the River and WORSHIPPED OTHER gods (*signifying the idolatrous background of Abraham*). 3 But I took your father Abraham from the land beyond the River and led him throughout Canaan and gave him many descendants…” the Bible makes us understand that God took Abraham from an idolatrous land and separated him for Himself. Not all of Abraham’s traditions and culture which were influenced by his idolatrous origin pleased God; however, Abraham was accredited by God as righteous because Abraham FULLY obeyed God to the extent to which he knew God as God revealed himself to Abraham. Although Abraham faithfully walked with God, God did not fully reveal himself to Abraham (Exodus 6:2-3: “2 God said to Moses, ‘I am the LORD. 3 I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty, BUT BY MY NAME THE LORD, I DID NOT MAKE MYSELF KNOWN TO THEM (*meaning God did not FULLY reveal himself to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; however, to the extent God revealed Himself to Abraham, he obeyed God completely and that is what earned him the credit from God as RIGHTEOUS*). As generations passed, God revealed himself more and more to the human race. Abraham did not live to witness how God split the red sea into two and the fall of the walls of Jericho. However, the Israelites witnessed the splitting of the red sea and that account made them believe that this same God can cause the walls of Jericho to fall by simply marching around the wall and shouting.
Another scripture which explains the actions of Abraham’s servant is Acts 17:29-31 “29 Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the DIVINE BEING is like gold or silver or stone-an image made by man’s design and skill. 30 IN THE PAST, GOD OVERLOOKED (*WINKED AT; KVJ*) SUCH IGNORANCE, BUT NOW HE COMMANDS ALL PEOPLE EVERYWHERE TO REPENT. 31 For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead”. This scripture clearly indicates that truly God did OVERLOOK some of the actions of the Old Testament believers because He did not fully reveal himself to them as Exodus 6:2-3 tells us (see above). On the contrary, God no longer overlooks certain actions of the New Testament believers because of the much greater extent to which God has revealed himself to the New Testament believers (Titus 2:11-13 “11 For the grace of God has appeared to all men. 12 It teaches us to say ‘No’ to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, 13 while we wait for the blessed hope - the glorious appearing of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ).
For example, the Old Testament believers worshipped God at designated places in built tents, altars or tabernacles (Hebrew 9:1-10). God extended his presence to a particular place and men had to go there to worship God. In contrast, God tells the New Testament church that OUR VERY BODIES is where he has chosen as the temple for His very own Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19 “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own”). Also, in Old Testament history, the Holy Spirit of God was scarce and mostly limited to prophets/prophetesses of those days. In comparison, in the New Testament church, God has freely poured out his precious Holy Spirit on ALL humankind WHO BELIEVE IN THE SALVATION OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST ( Joel 2:28 “And afterwards, I will pour out my Spirit on ALL PEOPLE. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions”. Acts 2:4 “ALL of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them”). In addition, GRACE was not at the disposal of the Old Testament church and men had to live by the MERCIES of God and use their own strength in keeping with the commandments of God. However, through the redemption of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, God has dispensed both GRACE AND MERCY to the new testament church which gives us a GREATER RESPONSIBILITY to live a holy and righteous life with ease (because of the divine power of the Holy Spirit deposited in every believer) as compared to the old testament believers (Titus 2:11-13; see above).
A third scripture which adds to the explanation of the servant of Abraham’s action is Mark 7:13 “13 Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. AND YOU DO MANY THINGS LIKE THAT”. This tells us that, God has explicitly warned the New Testament church not to meddle with his commandments with any manner of tradition or culture. The Old Testament believers lived ignorantly of this because God had not yet revealed this to them and in addition God overlooked some of these things as Act 17:30 tells us. And also, God had not yet freely given His Holy Spirit to dwell in their mortal bodies. A typical example is when they could have countless wives and concubines because that was their tradition (1 Kings 11:3 “He (*Solomon*) had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines…”). However, in the New Testament, God instructs a man to have ONE wife (1 Timothy 3:2 “2 Now the overseer must be above reproach, THE HUSBAND OF BUT ONE WIFE…” Titus 1:6 “6 An elder must be blameless, THE HUSBAND OF BUT ONE WIFE…).
It is true that these are qualifications for an elder or leader in a church. However, it also applies to ALL believers because Revelation 5: 9-10 “9…and with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. 10 You made them to be a kingdom and PRIESTS to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth” and 1 Peter 2:9 “ But you are a chosen people, a ROYAL PRIESTHOOD, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light”. Therefore, God has made every believer in Christ a priest which was not the case in the Old Testament times. In the beginning of creation when God instituted marriage, He made his perfect plan of joining one woman to one man (Genesis 2:24 “ For this reason, A MAN will leave his father and mother and be united to HIS WIFE (*not WIVES*), and they shall become one flesh). However as time passed, we realize children of God took more than one wife as their tradition or customs were. This shows that God indeed overlooked this practice in the Old Testament where they could marry unlimited number of wives and had many concubines as well. Practice this in this present age and the mouth of hell will be wide open to swallow you up and may that not be our portion in Jesus name. Also, God reemphasizes the issue of tradition and culture in 1 Peter 1:17-19 “17 Since you call on a Father who judges each man’s work impartially, live your lives as strangers in REVERENT FEAR. 18 For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from THE EMPTY WAY OF LIFE HANDED DOWN TO YOU FROM YOUR FOREFATHERS (*KJV reads: FROM YOUR VAIN CONVERSATION RECEIVED BY TRADITION FROM YOUR FOREFATHERS*), 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. So for the sake of putting your faith in Christ and living according to the Bible, God expects of the New Testament believers to re-examine all their traditions and culture and test them with scriptures so that they do not flout His commandments. If Abraham were living in our generation and God had told him that his body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, I believe he would not have engaged in his tradition or culture of wearing jewelries.
Finally, I will draw your attention to a peculiar lesson in the Old Testament concerning the use of jewelries. Our focal passage is Genesis 35:1- 4 (see below). From verse 1, God instructed Jacob to go up to Bethel to build an altar there to God which shows that in the past men worship God in built structures but now God has made our bodies as the temple of His very Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19). Proceeding to verse 2, we see Jacob’s response to God and the instruction he gives to his household. Three things Jacob tells his household to do which are:
- Get rid of the foreign gods
- Purify yourselves
- Change your clothes
And in verse 4, Jacob’s household responds by:
- They gave Jacob all the foreign gods they had
- And the rings in their ears
- And Jacob buried them under the oak at Shechem
What is the Holy Spirit teaching us here?
- We cannot go before God with foreign gods
- We cannot go before God with impurity; you must be purified before you stand before God
- We cannot go before God wearing just anything
- We MUST do away with anything that positions us in at least any of the three points mentioned above to be in right standing with God
The question we should be asking is: Why did they take off their jewelries ie the rings in their ears (earrings) (verse 4).
To a certain extent, these Old Testament believers knew that God was not pleased with them redefining their looks by putting on jewelries. In our present age, we are not ignorant of the fact that some charms or idol worship come as jewelries (rings, necklaces, bracelets, anklets etc). So it should not surprise us that in their response to getting rid of the foreign gods (idols), jewelries may be part. Even if the jewelries they had were not charms or idols, this same scripture also puts across a second feature concerning the jewelries. Let us look again at the instruction from Jacob (see ‘A’ below) and the response from the household (see ‘B’ below) in a parallel context to discover this second feature:
- A: Get rid of the foreign gods you have among you // B: So they gave Jacob all the foreign gods they had
- A: Purify yourselves and change your clothes // B: So they gave Jacob the rings in their ears
So, we realize here that the rings in the ears (earrings/jewelries) apart from it being a foreign god or an idol if they were, were also adornments that were impure before God and they had to get rid of it before approaching the presence of God. Therefore, you may say that as for me, the jewelries I put on are not charms or idols; I only put them on as an accessory. Well said, but the word of God is telling you today that, even if you don’t bear that intention and they may not be charms or idols for you, they will forever remain impure before God. Also, inasmuch as they did put on jewelries, they took them off when in the presence of God and this could also be another example to support Act 17:30 (see above) where God overlooked such ignorance in the past. This could also indicate that although Rebekah did put on jewelries for her marriage, when she goes before the Almighty God, she would take them off. Additionally, for as long as Rebekah and the descendants of Abraham put on jewelries, a time came in that lineage, in the household of Jacob who later became Israel (Genesis 35:10) that they got rid and buried their jewelries under the oak tree at Shechem because they knew it made them impure before God.
So, since we the New Testament believers have been told by God that our body is His temple, how can we entertain jewelries (impure adornments) in them? I pray you allow the Holy Spirit to open your spiritual eyes to grasp this divine revelation of scriptures. But what do we see later on in Israel’s history? While in the land of Egypt as captives, they went back to the foreign gods (idol worship) and the wearing of jewelries (Exodus 32:2-3 “ 2 Aaron answered them, ‘Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me’. 3 So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron) with which they built an idol of Golden Calf. And this is what God said about Israel at the time; Exodus 32:9 “I have seen these people,” the Lord said to Moses, “and they are stiff-necked people (a people going back to their vomit and never willing to change)”. This attitude of the Israelites have run through generations till today and it is not surprising that we have Christian believers still adorning themselves with jewelries which were once buried by the household of Jacob in order to purify themselves before the Almighty God. And this pleased God and changed the name of Jacob to Israel. By one week of age, your parents have already created holes in your ears and fashioned them with jewelries and you grew with them and they became a part of you without raising any questions. How can you therefore know they do not please the Lord? Unless by divine intervention. The reason why you find people born into Islam having a mindset of never leaving the faith is the same reason why you are having the mindset of never dropping the jewelries – BORN INTO IT. But God has warned us in His word; the Bible, that SOME TRADITIONS and WAY OF LIFE HANDED DOWN BY FOREFATHERS can lead one to hell fire (Mark 7:13 & 1 Peter 1:17-19). Therefore it’s up to you to align any tradition or way of life passed on to you with the Bible. You may also say that many Christians are wearing jewelries including the Bishop who does miracles and the Reverend Minister who has written many Christian books and the many prophets and prophetesses so jewelries can never be a sin before God. And that if they were, why hasn’t God showed it to these men of God by now? I will ask you one simple question. Are you with them in their closet? Are you aware of the convictions the Holy Spirit has made known to them and they have rejected? When the prophet Elijah thought that he was the only prophet standing for the truth (1 Kings 19: 10 “He (Elijah) replied, ‘I have been zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, broken down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I AM THE ONLY ONE LEFT, and now they are trying to kill me too); this is what the Lord God Almighty told him; 1 Kings 19:18 “Yet I RESERVE SEVEN THOUSAND in Israel- ALL WHOSE KNEES HAVE NOT BOWED DOWN TO BAAL AND ALL WHOSE MOUTHS HAVE NOT KISSED HIM”. So if you think majority of Christians are wearing jewelries so that settles it, God is telling you from the above scripture that, there are thousands of Christian men and women all over the world who have not bowed to the adornment with jewelries and He is gathering them unto Himself. Finally, in the New Testament God strongly warned the church to take lessons from Israel’s history and that is the scripture I will end with for now; 1 Corinthians 10:1-13 (see below).
In conclusion, if you are justifying your wearing of jewelries because of Rebekah's incident, scriptures does not support that in its full context. I urge you therefore to test everything I have shared with you and if you disagree on any matter, let the word of God; the Holy Scriptures; the Bible be your only authority. It’s high time, Christian believers lived by the word of God and not by culture or traditions handed down by forefathers. Your pastor may confuse you with all manner of contradictions to this message. But I will encourage you to remember that on the judgment day, everyone will fight for his or her own soul before the judgment seat of God. We are ending the year now and you have sat in the church from January. I want to ask you, when was the last time your pastor preached from the Old Testament, rapture, the mark of the beast, the great tribulation, the torments in hell, or the signs of the endtimes? God did not include the Old Testament in the Bible to add volume but to be preached with the same urgency as the New Testament nor did God reveal what is yet to happen in the book of Revelation for us to be scared of reading. By God’s grace the next note will continue from the second bullet point concerning Joseph and Daniel.
All Glory to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit for the divine revelation of His Word.
WHILES I TELL YOU THESE THINGS, I AM KEEPING MY OWN SELF IN THE LINE THROUGH THE SUFFICIENT GRACE AND MERCY OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST LEST I MYSELF MISS HEAVEN
SCRIPTURE REFERENCES
Genesis 24:29-30
29 Now Rebekah had a brother named Laban, and he hurried out to the man at the spring. 30 As soon as he had seen the nose ring, and the bracelets on his sister’s arms, and had heard Rebakah tell what the man said to her, he went out to the man and found him standing by the camels near the spring.
Genesis 35:1-4
1 Then God said to Jacob, “Go up to Bethel and settle there, and build an altar there to God, who appeared to you when you were fleeing from your brother Essau.” 2 So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, “Get rid of the foreign gods you have with you, and purify yourselves and change your clothes. 3 Then come, let us go up to Bethel, where I will build an altar to God, who answered me in the day of my distress and who has been with me wherever I have gone”. 4 So they gave Jacob all the foreign gods they had and the rings in their ears, and Jacob buried them under the oak at Shechem.
1 Corinthians 10:1-13
Warnings from Israel’s History
1 For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers, that our forefathers were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. 2 They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. 3 They all ate the same spiritual food 4 and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ. 5 Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered over the desert. 6 Now these things occurred as examples, to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did. 7 Do not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written: “The people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in pagan revelry”. 8 We should not commit sexual immorality as some of them did – and in one day twenty-three thousand of them died. 9 We should not test the Lord, as some of them did - and were killed by snakes. 10 And do not grumble (*Common grumbling is even a serious sin before the Almighty God. Please lets be watchful*), as some of them did – and were killed by the destroying angel. 11 These things happened to them as EXAMPLES and were WRITTEN DOWN as WARNINGS for us, on whom the FULFILLMENT OF THE AGES HAS COME (*God has revealed Himself to the New Testament church to a much GREATER EXTENT compared with the Old Testament believers*). 12 So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! (*You can be genuinely saved and still lose your salvation through any manner of disobedience and sinful acts. Please don’t be a victim of “once saved, forever saved” heresy. Also, there is a reason for the exclamation mark at the end of verse 12*). 13 No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.
Culled from https://www.facebook.com/notes/adom-ofori-asenso/a-note-to-the-image-of-god-called-woman-4-part-2/658047637559340
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