Hello lovelies,
Happy new month! I hope you’re all enjoying the year so far and even if not, I pray this second half is filled with testimonies for us all in Jesus name, amen.
So you may have noticed that I’ve made some changes to my appearance over the last year; I’ve lost a ton of weight and I’ve been experimenting with make up, my hair, and generally trying different types of clothes. It’s been really fun! But it’s not something I came into lightly, I had a whole rethink of everything I’ve known about Godly appearance for Christian women 2 years ago and only after a year did I actually make any changes, because I wanted to be sure of my reasoning and motives first of all.
So let’s talk about jewelry first, I didn’t wear any throughout my formative years as I was taught that it’s ungodly based on scriptures like 1 Timothy 2:9-10: Likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness—with good works.
But this view conveniently ignores scriptures like Exodus 3:22 when God literally told the Israelites to put jewelry on their children:
”but each woman shall ask of her neighbor, and any woman who lives in her house, for silver and gold jewelry, and for clothing. You shall put them on your sons and on your daughters. So you shall plunder the Egyptians.”
It’s “contradictions” like this that makes me decide to read around the context of both verses – the Word of God doesn’t have mistakes – so let’s look closer at the passage in 2 Timothy: notice how the parallels that Apostle Paul drew wasn’t describing how godly women should look? He didn’t follow up in verse 10 with a pictorial outward description of a godly woman, rather he focused on the good works. This made me think: it’s not about the hair braiding or gold or pearls – it’s the motive behind them; at the time of writing this scripture, women who wore exuberant outfits connoted sensuality and excess – whereas Godly women should connote good works.
Over in Exodus, the Israelites were directly told to put the jewelry they plundered from the Egyptians on their children – if it was so bad in itself, why would God tell them to do that? Then there’s Esther who was arrayed in the finest of jewels and clothing – and God used her to save the entire people of Israel.
The conclusion I came to was the fact that adornments are just that: beautifying objects, and not to be seen as a means of drawing excess attention to oneself, not to become an idol or item of obsession or worse, tempting others to sin. I pray this blessed you.
Till next time,
Dr ETK xo
