On Haircuts and Holiness

This post is inspired by a post I saw on Instagram yesterday. I think it was from Christian comedian John B. Crist and it was a post about what emojis Christian kids shouldn't use. One of them was a haircut emoji. I'm not against haircuts, so I was a bit confused by the inclusion of this. Thankfully, so was someone else who had commented on the post. In jumped some users who believed haircuts were evil- or at least that not cutting hair was a sign of submission to God. Some of them pointed to Bible verses such as Leviticus 19:27 and 1 Corinthians 11:13. However, given the contexts of these verses I don't really think it's fair or accurate to base claims on them.

The Leviticus passage was, according to bib.irr.org, was more likely talking about the pagan grieving practices of the Israelites' neighbours, which God obviously wanted Israel to stay away from. And the 1 Corinthians passage was more likely referring to traditional head coverings, which the men didn't wear. Also note that this verse said something about the men NOT covering their heads. They weren't bald, and instead most likely had shoulder-length hair, so this argument is entirely irrelevant here.

Of course, for those who believe God is instructing them not to cut their hair, I'm not going to argue with that. After all, the Bible does say elsewhere that it is wrong, if someone has a view against something that isn't strictly forbidden in the Bible, to try to convince them that it's okay. I do have my hair cut, but I don't believe that necessarily means living in disobedience to God. Since this is a different time period and culture, and some of the laws in the Bible were most likely intended for either Israelites as a whole, or specifically Levites, it isn't absolutely necessary for us to hold to them too. After all, since it's the New Covenant, and salvation is open to anyone who will accept it, we don't need obvious rules to separate us from another culture. We only need to live as God would want us to. That's all there is to it.