Prohibition against jewelry
One of the rules of the message is that jewelry is generally forbidden. But is this scriptural? The following is a biblical examination of this issue.
Nose rings
Did you know that nose rings are scriptural?
Eliezer, Abraham's servant, gave a nose ring to Rebekah:
- When the camels had finished drinking, the man took out a gold nose ring weighing a beka and two gold bracelets weighing ten shekels. Then he asked, “Whose daughter are you? Please tell me, is there room in your father’s house for us to spend the night?”
- ...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 Rebekah tell what the man said to her, he went out to the man and found him standing by the camels near the spring.[1]
Earrings
William Branham stated that earrings and other jewelry was a mark of a heathen. But that is not what scripture states.
An earring is like the words of a wise judge in Proverbs 25:12:
- Like an earring of gold or an ornament of fine gold, is the rebuke of a wise judge to a listening ear.[2]
Solomon thought earrings were beautiful (Sone of Solomon 1:10):
- Your cheeks are beautiful with earrings, your neck with strings of jewels. We will make you earrings of gold, studded with silver.[3]
God also saw earrings as making a woman beautiful in Ezekiel 16:
- I clothed you with an embroidered dress and put sandals of fine leather on you. I dressed you in fine linen and covered you with costly garments. I adorned you with jewelry: I put bracelets on your arms and a necklace around your neck, and I put a ring on your nose, earrings on your ears and a beautiful crown on your head. So you were adorned with gold and silver; your clothes were of fine linen and costly fabric and embroidered cloth. Your food was honey, olive oil and the finest flour. You became very beautiful and rose to be a queen. And your fame spread among the nations on account of your beauty, because the splendor I had given you made your beauty perfect, declares the Sovereign LORD.[4]
Jewelry in general
God refers to jewelry in the book of Jeremiah:
- Does a young woman forget her jewelry, or a bride her wedding dress? Yet for years on end my people have forgotten me.[5]
There is really only one reference to jewelry in the New Testament:
- Wives, in the same way submit yourselves to your own husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives, when they see the purity and reverence of your lives. Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to adorn themselves. They submitted themselves to their own husbands, like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her lord. You are her daughters if you do what is right and do not give way to fear. [6]
The text literally says, ‘Let not your adorning be the outward adorning of braiding of hair and wearing of gold or putting on of clothing.’ It is incorrect, therefore, to use this text to prohibit women from braiding their hair or wearing gold jewellery, for by the same reasoning one would have to prohibit ‘putting on of clothing’. Peter’s point is not that any of these are forbidden, but that they should not be a woman’s ‘adorning’, her source of beauty.[7]
Quotes of William Branham
I said, "Then, sister, go home and wash your face or whatever you do." I said, "Do you mean to tell me that you'd let such a little thing as wearing a little of that old stuff on your face…" 85 And I can prove to you that that come from the devil. I can prove to you that nothing in the… The originate of it was heathens. And as long as you wear it, it's a mark of a heathen. Now, I just come back from Africa, and I've been in the Hottentot jungles and found out just exactly where earrings, where all that stuff come, and all this, a lot of jewelry wrapped your necks and ears and everything, where that comes from. It's the heathens. And the Bible don't want a Christian to be a heathen. And you don't want… I don't say that you are a heathen because you do it, but you're making yourself look like one. It's because your pastor didn't tell you the truth. The Bible said so.[8]
Footnotes
- ↑ The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), Gen 24:22-23, 29–30.
- ↑ The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), Pr 25:12.
- ↑ The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), So 1:10–11.
- ↑ The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), Eze 16:10–14.
- ↑ Tyndale House Publishers, Holy Bible: New Living Translation (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2013), Jer 2:32.
- ↑ The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), 1 Pe 3:1–6.
- ↑ Wayne A. Grudem, 1 Peter: An Introduction and Commentary, vol. 17, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1988), 148.
- ↑ William Branham, 56-0805 - The Church And Its Condition, para. 85