Metal Adornments

The following is taken from Section 6 of the “Introduction to Volume Five” of APA:

"In every democracy, there is a disconnect between reality and perception, with this disconnect voicing itself in the people voting for politicians that promise unfunded prosperity as if a person could borrow his or her way to being wealthy. The argument is that right investment—say, investments in education, in green energy, in the environment—made with borrowed money will bring about full employment of a population that looks too much like it has fallen down a flight of stairs while holding a tackle box of fishing lures (Dave Ramsey’s expression) … seriously, has not the person with multiple facial piercings in lips, nose, cheeks, eyebrows made him or herself unemployable? This person would be an employment liability for such piercings are distractions, both to the person and to fellow employees. And while the person has, in a democracy, the right to whatever body adornment the person chooses—a right conferred by citizenship in the democracy—an employer in the same democracy has the right to not hire anyone, or even relocate his or her manufacturing plant to a nation that isn’t rich enough for its populace to practice self-mutilation or self adornment via facial studs and rings.

There is a historical tendency for men to wear earrings shortly before the culture collapses, with the collapsed culture being replaced by a more austere, minimalist culture, one that spurns male head and face piercings ….

 The Lord said to Moses, "Depart; go up from here, you and the people whom you have brought up out of the land of Egypt, to the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, 'To your offspring I will give it.' I will send an angel before you, and I will drive out the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey; but I will not go up among you, lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people." When the people heard this disastrous word, they mourned, and no one put on his ornaments. For the Lord had said to Moses, "Say to the people of Israel, 'You are a stiff-necked people; if for a single moment I should go up among you, I would consume you. So now take off your ornaments, that I may know what to do with you.'" Therefore the people of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments, from Mount Horeb onward. (Ex 33:1–6)

A correspondence existed between personal adornment and being far from God, with the removal of personal adornment being a form of humbling oneself before God; of coming before God without haughtiness.

What would the Lord have done with ancient Israel if the nation hadn’t taken off its personal ornaments? Would there even be an ancient Israel, or would there have been only a nation derived from Moses?"

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Can this be the reason why women are to cultivate a meek and quiet spirit instead of outward adornment? (1 Peter 3:3-4)

“Wives don’t have to obey their husbands.”

"In 1977, Mr. Earl Roemer took a pastorate in Anchorage and Kenai Alaska. He held his first Bible study on the Kenai Peninsula sometime in the late fall, and he began this Bible study by saying, “Wives don’t have to obey their husbands.” He might as well have poured diesel fuel in a campfire: flames of anger swept the room as men insisted that, indeed, wives had to obey their husbands. What these men hadn’t heard, though, was Roemer’s emphasis on have to.

The Bible study began at 7:00 pm, and was still going at 1:30 am.

The point Roemer attempted to make was that in the church of God, wives “choose” to obey husbands. Husbands are not to lord it over their wives, holding their wives hostage to Scripture." Homer Kizer

As men cannot command other men to accept salvation, men cannot command women to become meek and quiet. A man can command women to cover their hair if these women want to fellowship with a certain assembly of disciples, but the person who covered against her will is only outwardly compliant. Only her flesh complies with the command to meekness. And the flesh will not be saved.

For women, the journey of faith from Babylon to Jerusalem will have the inner son of God, born of Spirit, who has a meek and contrite spirit manifesting this meekness through actions of the flesh, with one of those actions likely being expressed in modest or even plain dress and the covering of the head. Likewise, for men the journey from Babylon to Jerusalem will have the inner son of God who has a meek and contrite spirit manifesting this meekness—a horse is “meeked” when broken to bit—through rejection of the values of this world which elevates pride in possessions and accomplishments (as the values of this world elevates outward feminine beauty and the adorning of the hair), and pursing instead the things of God as a servant broken to do the will of God. Therefore, the one who is greatest with God is the one who serves the most, not the one who accumulates the most things or most secular power.