What Does the Bible Say about Facial Hair?
by David K. Bernard
Podcast recording (no venue stated in the delivered transcript)
Kind: teaching
Scripture: Romans 14, Psalm 133, 1 Corinthians 8, 1 Corinthians 10, Romans 15

Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/david-k-bernard--what-does-the-bible-say-about-facial-hair
Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page.
Free to copy and share with attribution.

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this question relates to personal choices um for our lives and for our appearance it's interesting because of apostolic people one is pentecostal people are one of the few groups today that say our dress and our appearance is important to god it is an aspect of holiness it's a small part compared to the big picture our life of morality and the fruit of the spirit is obviously the core of holiness but what we wear and how we dress how we present ourselves to the public is of concern and interest to god he does have some guidelines for that and that's another topic but since we're one of the few groups that still believe that then of course these questions do become important for us so whenever we talk about questions of practical holiness or outward appearance uh i i say there are three teachers the first of all is the bible whatever the bible teaches is authoritative if the bible says do this or don't do this that's end of subject sometimes the bible gives direct commands or it has principles that we apply sometimes the bible speaks consistently approvingly of something or consistently disapproving and even though there may not be an explicit command if it's solely approving or solely disapproving that gives us a pretty strong indication but then there are some cases where the bible gives some examples that might be approving or some that might be disapproving depending on the context or you know the bible might give us two different examples of opposite conduct and both of its with approval so that indicates it's a matter of personal choice it's not a matter of scriptural precedent it's not a matter of command but in addition to the bible we have our pastor and other godly teachers now they don't have authority to add to or take away from god's word but they help us apply god's word in our context and then third we have our own conscience again we don't have the authority to add to or take away from god's word and god doesn't want us to oppose spiritual authority or our pastor but in the context we have our own choice god leaves a lot of things to us romans chapter 14.

explains christian liberty that when the bible is neutral about something or when the bible doesn't speak about something or the bible gives us a choice then we have christian liberty so one christian could do one thing one christian do another so one might be a vegetarian one might eat meat both are acceptable to god one should not condemn the other one should not ridicule the other so that's the basis of christian liberty so i'm giving you a foundation when we answer a question like this we first look what does the bible say second what what does our pastor advise and then third what does our own conscience say so if any of those three give us direction then i think we should follow it so if you feel personally convicted something even though i don't then you should follow your conviction but you should condemn me when i don't have that conviction because we're not talking about scripture here we're talking about person conviction or you're attending a church your pastor has asked for the people the church to follow this guideline or maybe it's for leadership or for those of the platform representing the whole church so he might not think something is a sin or against god's word but he might think that for the sake of the witness in the community or the sake of leadership or circumstances he's asking everybody to follow then you should follow it and then of course the bible whatever the bible teaches that should go for every one of us so to answer the question i'm going to say follow your conscience follow your pastor follow the bible so anything else i say i'm not trying to contradict any of that that i've just said okay i just want to make that as a foundation now then the question becomes well what does the bible say it's interesting sometimes the bible speaks and presents men's facial hair men growing a mirrored in a favorable way so psalm 133 aaron the high priest had a beard isaiah is a prophecy of the messiah it appears that jesus had a beard at least long enough that the hairs could be plucked out when when he was arrested and crucified at the same time in genesis the bible speaks of joseph shaving before he went before pharaoh because apparently that was appropriate in that custom so the bible speaks of of shaving favorably so here you have an example where the bible speaks of both men growing facial hair and shaving facial air approvingly or positively i've had some people say well you know it's a god-given distinction between male and female therefore a man must wear facial hair i don't see that as required and as i just gave you an example from the bible my counter argument would be whether you shave or not the beard does is visibly different so a man's shaved face is still very different from a woman-shaped face because of the beard so whether you shave it or not it is an important distinction between male and female and certainly in our day when you have this distinction being under attack i do appreciate the idea that people want that a man would want to be definitely masculine uh that's a good thought and a good idea uh now what about the upci it's interesting the upci has never taken an official stand in any of our documents and of course around the world we've had many different practices all throughout i i remember i grew up in korea in that culture traditionally at least the time i was there the 60s and 70s men would invariably shave but then when they reached a retirement age then the more traditional men would grow a beard and so all of our preachers were saved except for one elderly gentleman who he lived through the japanese occupation he was persecuted for being a christian by the japanese he came into the apples like faith he was one of our pastors well when he reached in his 60s he grew a beard nobody even thought anything of it because that was the culture now more specifically to your point um in a mirror so so i'm what i'm getting at is it's not really a biblical issue it's a cultural issue is what does it signify in your culture so when you go back to the 1800s facial hair was very common in america early 1900s facial hair was very common even among the apostolic pioneers the pioneers of the upci but in the early part of the 20th century again facial hair was somewhat common or you know we have many examples but what really happened most people started shaving especially in we're talking about white middle class america now among ethnic minorities there was not always the same connotation but among what i would call the middle class white americans which were the vast majority say by the 1940s 1950s it was typical for a man to shave well the hippie movement arose to rebel against traditional culture in the 60s and 70s so as part of that the hippies would grow facial hair and often the men would grow very long here which does contradict god's word and they were very explicit we're rejecting our culture down with the establishment so they made it very clear that we're doing this because we're in rebellion and they associate it with the use of drugs sexual promiscuity and and so forth so for many in again in white middle class america now talking about the 1960s 1970s if you saw a person particularly a young person young man with facial hair you pretty much would assume they're in rebellion they deny traditional values they deny christian teaching they're probably using illegal drugs they're probably sexually promiscuous that is their badge of their identity so our churches of that time were successful in winning many of these people to the lord so when they came to the lord many of them as a matter of personal conviction nobody even had to tell them they would shave why because that was a badge of their old life and now that they're a new life they wanted to change their identification like changing your uniform and if they didn't immediately generally the pastor would teach them now you're part of a new life you've got to get rid of your old life and so it became part of holiness not that the facial hair itself was a sin but be the cultural connotation so i mentioned the three teachers the bible uh the pastor and other mentors leaders and the conscience and so two of those three would definitely say you need to make a change so that's our culture so while the upci has never had an official position and the reason why we didn't is because if you look across the world that's not a uniform phenomenon and if you look at our own history upci or oneness history as well as american western culture it hasn't been uniform but it's been specific so therefore the upci never felt the need to make any official statement however i would say going back to the 60s 70s 80s in the aftermath of that the vast majority of our churches would have either by personal conscience or pastoral guidance would they would not have wanted facial hair because they wouldn't want to be misrepresented now of course we're now living in in the 20th century we're far removed from the hippies and so when i talk to young people they don't even know what i'm talking about i faced this issue when i started the church in austin texas a very liberal city in 1992 and i immediately saw in that culture at that time that place if a man had facial hair it made no significant it communicated nothing specific he might be homeless he might be a bank president you wouldn't know and even his casual dress wouldn't tell you so that was the culture that i was starting a new church in obviously i was trying to establish new people and i faced issues of sexual promiscuity uh drug addiction and all the sins that are common in our society and of course the teachings of holiness modesty of dress avoiding ornamentation and jewelry uh men cutting their hair short ladies letting their hair grow long so i had to teach all those things well what's my authority the word of god well one of my early converts had a mustache really in my culture i couldn't say it had any significance his wife had never even seen him without a mustache i couldn't really see it was a biblical issue so i'm trying to get these people to change their dress and change their lifestyle by appealing to the bible so i didn't have anything to appeal to so i just ignored it i never brought it up uh another example i had a a man that had been converted as a hippie in the 60s in new york came in one of our churches and so he immediately shaved well he later backslid divorced remarried he ended up many years later now in our church in austin prayed through his new wife is there he has a full beard so he asked me what i thought so i kind of gave him a brief synopsis just like i gave you he says well my wife my new wife has no clue of the background she absolutely doesn't want me to shave you know i'm trying to explain to her but she doesn't understand so i gave him that little synopsis so he came back the next service completely shaved i was a little surprised and i said well why did why did you do that he said well you know you talked about personal conviction he said when i first came in the church this was my conviction i was trying to make a change my whole life he said now that i'm coming back into church being renewed i just feel like i should go back and make my first consecration so that was his choice i had another man african-american who was actually a credential minister and his his facial hair was very curly and curled in and he had some problems with infection in the pores so once when he was shaving he cut himself and that led to an infection led to a blood disease and he was very sick and almost died well he recovered and his doctor advised him don't shave because you're high risk of cutting yourself and then once you cut yourself you're at high risk of another infection this time it could be fatal so he came to me and he says brother bernard i want to comply with everything but i feel like if i could just grow a just slight beard enough that it's off of my face and i'll keep it trimmed and shaved because this is what my doctor has told me to do says what do you think i said well i went through the same kind of thing it's just really a personal conviction and you have a reason it's not related to rebellion or immorality but i said you are a credential minister so as far as our church is concerned it will not make any signal but if you're asked to preach another church ask that pastor what tell that you're that pastor the situation and ask for their advice and if they think that would be misunderstood to their congregation that you're in rebellion or you're abandoning holiness or anything like that then you just have a choice either you shave in order to minister there or you decline to minister there because we have to respect that pastor and there i was following romans 14 which if something would be an offense and in in the new in the king james offense is not so that makes you mad it's it's a stumbling block so if anyone would cause a fellow believer to stumble so paul says and he teaches us in first corinthians 8 and 10 and then romans 14 and 15.

he says you know if if my eating a meat would would cause you to stumble you look at me eating meat saying what a compromise or what are sinner he's backsliding he's denying jesus he says i won't eat meat while the world stands i'll never eat meat again if it would actually cause you to stumble so if what we would do might cause another church member or believer to lose their faith in god well it's not worth it so for those reasons probably i would say a majority certainly a majority of our believers today would would shave but it's not based on scripture it's based on what is the cultural connotation in your area what does it mean what does it signify we don't want to signify any compromise denial of holiness denial of god's will worliness but we do want to signify we're following the lord jesus christ so we look again the bible gives us christian liberty but then the pastor knows the local church and the local situation he tries to give guidance for that situation and then the individual knows his own heart and his own motives and his own consecrations and he needs to be faithful to what god has called him to do