Man Buns: Isn't Appropriate Hair Length Subjective, So Can't I Just Do Whatever I Want?

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Welcome to Bible Bashed, where we aim to equip the saints for the works of ministry by answering the questions you're not allowed to ask. Listen and enjoy this installment of Iron Sharpening Iron, as Pastor Tim answers your sincere questions.

Here's Pastor Tim.

On this episode of Iron Sharpening Iron, we will be answering the question, isn't appropriate hair length subjective, so can't I just do whatever I want? Now one of the most common responses that we've received from our most recent episode on man buns is this response.

Considering that there's some subjectivity in determining what constitutes long hair and short hair, can't we just do whatever we want? And that's a basic impulse that many people have as they try to interact with what Paul is saying in 1 Corinthians 11.

Now one of the things to realize is that when you read through 1 Corinthians 11, there's a lot of things in there that you might not understand. But what's very clear in the passage, and what's very clear that's right on the surface, it's very clear as you read it, that Paul believes that long hair in men is shameful, and short hair in women is shameful.

Paul is saying that in a very black and white way. That is for his perspective. That's what he's teaching. And that's what he's saying as it relates to how the church should be run. He's applying what nature teaches.

Paul thinks that nature is teaching that long hair in men is shameful, and short hair in women is shameful. And he's making some application to this basic principle that nature is teaching to the church.

And so every thoughtful reader of 1 Corinthians 11, if you just read through it 10 times, any thoughtful reader of the passage should come away thinking that Paul clearly is saying that long hair in men is shameful, and short hair in women is shameful.

Now the response that many people have to that is essentially to say, well considering that there's some form of subjectivity in how you determine these things, can't we basically just do whatever we want?

Now as I said, there's two approaches to what you might describe as the angular passages of Scripture. There is what you might describe as a constructive approach to these passages, and there's what you might describe as a destructive approach to these passages.

And what I've described in the title question, since there's some subjectivity in determining the difference there, can't I do whatever I want? That would be an example of what you might describe as a destructive approach to reading Scripture.

And so what I mean is this. Whenever you read the Scripture, there should be in the heart of a Christian the kind of attitude that says that whatever God says, I'll do. And it might be that as I'm reading the Scripture, there might be many things that I'm tempted to think are irrational or offensive, or it seems like God is communicating something that I don't originally agree with.

And the humble kind of person is going to approach passages like that, and they're going to essentially say that, well God's smarter than me. He knows better than me what the difference between right and wrong is.

And so the thoughtful and the humble kind of Christian is going to come to passages, and there might be a great many situations where they encounter passages that they don't completely understand. It might be that they think, well I don't know how to harmonize this instruction that Paul has given us that basically is saying long hair on men is shameful, short hair on women is shameful.

I don't really know how to harmonize that with my experience. I don't know how to harmonize that with historical examples. It seems like there's a lot of subjectivity in determining these things. I don't even know how to harmonize that with issues in the Bible like the Nazarite vow where a man is forbidden from cutting his hair.

So I don't know what to do with some of these things. But I would say that the thoughtful and the humble Christian is just going to come to the Scriptures, and the safe response to the Bible is always to be to err on the side of caution.

So as you read through a passage, it might be that you don't understand the passage, and that says nothing about God's ability to speak. Clearly it might have a lot to do with your own understanding of the Bible, your understanding of the things that are there, your own familiarity with its content.

But whenever you come to a passage like this where something is clearly being taught that you are struggling with, there's a humble response which is just basically to respond in childlike faith and obedience and ask God to clear up the issue for you.

But until it's cleared up, then you're just going to do what it says. And then there's what you might describe as a destructive approach to Scripture which basically holds a certain passage of Scripture hostage to your own understanding.

One of the things that you never want to do is you never want to approach the Bible in such a way that basically says, if I don't understand what this is saying, I'm not going to do what it says until I come to some sort of understanding of what it says, until I answer all my questions or anything else.

So just to give you an example of this in the Bible itself, one of the things that God told Abraham to do was to sacrifice Isaac, his only son. And for Abraham, this would have been a very confusing thing that God would say to him.

Abraham might hear God saying, hey, you're going to sacrifice your son, and then remember all the promises of God that the Abrahamic blessing was going to come through Isaac. And so then God's telling him to kill Isaac, and that might be entirely confusing.

You know what? He might not even know how to harmonize the fact that all the promises are going to come through Isaac with God telling him to kill Isaac. There must be some explanation for how these things make sense, but Abraham might not know what that explanation actually is.

But whatever you do, if you're Abraham, the appropriate response is to obey first, and then sort it out later. So you do what God says in a humble and a clear way. And this is what the Bible is essentially saying when it says, to trust in the Lord with all your heart, do not lean on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge him and he'll direct your path.

If there's ever a question related to application as far as that goes, one of the things that you want to do is you want to just say, hey, I'm just going to do what the Bible says until I figure out how to connect all the dots and figure out how to put all the pieces together.

I'll just go with the plain sense of the passage here and then err on the side of caution. And so there's two responses that you can have here. You can err on the side of caution. You can say, well, hey, you know, I don't know how to harmonize all these things.

And so the New Testament seems to be saying, long hair in men is shameful, short hair in women is shameful. There may be some things in the Old Testament which conflict with that in a certain way. There may be societal pressures.

There may be things that are causing my understanding of these things to be somewhat unclear. You can have a destructive approach or you can have a constructive approach. And I think a Christian should always lean towards the constructive approach and err on the side of caution.

It's much better in a case like that just to err on the side of caution than it is basically just to do whatever you want and have to ask forgiveness later. It would be much better just to be safe. It better be safe than sorry as far as that goes.

So now, one of the questions that Harrison asked me along these lines was, isn't there some sort of subjectivity here? How do we determine the definition of long? So it seems like Paul is clearly saying that long hair on men is shameful, short hair on women is shameful.

I want you to define to the inch what is long and what is short. And one of the problems with that is that there's been plenty of individuals throughout church history who have actually tried to nail down those particulars in that sort of way.

And one of the Pharisaical impulses that you might have, that you see throughout the Scriptures is that individuals will speak too specifically and too definitely as it relates to issues of application.

So one of the things that you never want to do is be the kind of person who is getting too specific on the issues of application. At the same time, however, there is an opposite danger, and that is the danger of doing something destructive.

If you can never identify any violation of the principle, at some point you don't believe the principle. That's the point. So if you're looking around a society and basically you're saying, well, hey, maybe there's some subjectivity in determining the difference between short hair and long hair.

Maybe there's some sort of subjectivity. At the very least, anyone who is attempting to obey that should be able to point out obvious examples of violations of the principle. So if you can't point out a single violation of the principle, then the problem is you don't like the principle.

That's the point. There has to be some violation of the principle to be found somewhere, and if you can't find any functional violation, then I question whether or not you're trying to do something helpful with the passage or essentially trying to destroy the passage.

So I would say that there's some pretty hard questions to be had as it relates to this. So if the Bible is saying that short hair in women is shameful, what does that mean? Does that mean a woman who has chin-length hair?

Does that mean a woman who has shoulder-length hair? Does that mean a woman who has hair down to her waist? How do you define short and how do you define long? Now, as I said, there's a kind of person who looks at that basic quandary of trying to draw the line and basically throws their hands up in the air and just says, hey, everyone lay off, and it's totally inappropriate to even talk about the subject.

And I would say, well, all you've done there is done what Satan wants you to do and just thrown out the Bible. You might as well cut that verse out of the Bible because you refuse to apply it anywhere.

So what I don't want to do is be the kind of individual who's coming along and telling you exactly where the line is, but I think we should all be able to agree that there are lines. There are lines somewhere along the way, and that long and short are adjectives that actually have meaning.

And so the safe bet whenever you and this is part of what I was trying to say in my answer to Harrison the safe bet when you're coming to an issue of application is always to try to err on the side of caution.

So imagine for a second that I were to tell my kids, like, don't yell in the house. Now, when I say don't yell in the house, a person who's trying to ignore my command as a father is going to look at that and they're going to say, hey, isn't there some subjectivity in determining the difference between yelling and talking loud?

And so there's going to be that kind of person, and what they're going to do is they're going to walk the line as far as that goes. And so they're going to try to figure out, and they're going to demand and expect from me as a father, you better tell me exactly where the line is.

Where does the line what is the difference between talking loud and yelling? And then the unsubmissive kind of person is going to basically look at me and say, if you can't tell me the difference between talking loud and yelling, then I'm not going to listen to what you say.

Now, that doesn't work in a human level. If my kid were to just basically try to figure out how loud can they talk before they transition into yelling, they're going to get in trouble. That's the way it works.

That's not going to fly, and that doesn't fly in any normal human relationship. So what I would say to them is, hey, everyone knows the difference between yelling and talking loud. So why don't you just try to get as far away from yelling as you can possibly get and talk in a normal volume.

Instead of trying to figure out where the line is and go right up to it, why don't you try to just stay away from it, and then everyone will be safe and understand the actual intention that I have there.

The intention I have there is to stay as far away from the line as possible. Now, if I were to try to give some formal definition between where the difference between talking loud and yelling, I would say, perhaps, maybe, that talking loud transitions into yelling when your voice starts to distort.

Now, whether or not that's a fair distinction, I don't know. If you want me to tell you the exact decibel level, I don't know. Isn't it true that many people talk louder than other people? Isn't it true that a person who is accustomed to talking quieter is going to talk a lot softer than a person with a big, booming voice who is accustomed to talking loud who has bigger windpipes?

Sure, yes and amen, all that. It can get confusing at times, sure. But the command is by no means some kind of incomprehensible riddle that no one can understand. And when people treat this kind of subject as if it's some kind of incomprehensible riddle, like it's just impossible to discern, then I question your commitment to actually follow what the Bible is saying.

Like, this is not all that complicated. Everyone knows the difference between short hair and long hair. Certainly, there's some subjectivity in determining the difference between short hair and long hair.

And certainly, many societies are going to draw the line in a different sort of way. But, isn't it obviously true that if God considers long hair to be disgraceful in men and short hair to be disgraceful in women, that maybe we should try to not be the individuals who are walking the line but try to get as far away from that as possible.

So, whatever you say at that point, our basic, you know, just as a starting point for the whole discussion, and there's more to say thinking through how these cultural symbols work, as a starting point for this kind of discussion, certainly we should all be able to agree that Paul, who is speaking for God and writing the New Testament and giving us God's commands, we should certainly all agree that Paul clearly thinks that it's disgraceful for men to have long hair and for women to have short hair.

That's just right there in the passage, and there's no way to dispute it. If you can't come away reading the passage and come away with that sort of conclusion from reading the plain sense of the word, then you're just not reading it.

And so, whatever we do, we have to just say, as our starting point, those things are true. We may not understand why they're there, and there may be some fuzzy application in the middle. Like, I may not be able to be the kind, like, I'm trying not to be the kind of guy who says, okay, well, on women, the chin length hair is crossing the line, or it's hair that's above the chin, or it's hair, you know, below the shoulders, or I don't know.

The Bible doesn't spell out exactly where that is, but we all know that a woman with, you know, longer hair in the extreme, like, so if you think about the extremes, a woman who has longer hair past her back, we all know that that is definitely considered longer hair past her back.

We all know that, or past her shoulders. We all know that that's, like, at some point beyond that, it's definitely considered long, and we all know that if it's above the chin, it's definitely considered short, and it may get fuzzy in the middle, but maybe what you want to do is, if there's any lack of clarity there, err on the side of caution.

Maybe that's what the humble person would do who wants to actually honor the Scripture, and maybe no one wants to come along and just police the line. I don't want to police the line, but just because I don't want to police the line doesn't mean that there's nothing God's communicating there.

So just like, you know, it may get fuzzy in the middle ground where my kids are trying to talk as loud as they can before they transition into yelling. Just because there's some fuzziness there doesn't mean that nothing has been communicated.

But for the antinomian type of person, essentially they're going to hold all obedience hostage until you can tell them where the exact line is. And I would say that that doesn't work in life. It doesn't work in life, and the person who wants to honor the Lord is not going to approach the Bible that way.

They're going to try to get as far away from the line as possible, and that typically is the mature response.

Caution, Obedience, and the Meaning of 1 Corinthians 11

This has been another installment of Iron Sharpening Iron. As always, if you would like to have your question included in one of these midweek episodes, email us at BibleBashedPodcast at gmail .com. Don't forget to subscribe and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Gab.

Now, go boldly and obey the truth in the midst of a biblically illiterate world who will be perpetually offended by your every move.