Day 10: Apostolic Beliefs: Our Crowning Glory!

Yep. This post is about something vital to Pentecostal girls across the world. Hair. 😉

As you most likely know because it is so obvious when you spot us in crowds, we have long hair. This is because we believe that we should not cut our hair.

But in reality and all seriousness, this is actually a really important part of our religious convictions. Now, some of the previous posts in this series (about Oneness and the way to salvation) are strictly set for the majority of Apostolics, but some of these posts (about hair and holiness standards) really differ with the beliefs of each church’s pastor and that person’s personal convictions. Now there is slight variation in this, my church has a very strict no cutting at all policy, but a Pentecostal church across my town allows the women to trim their hair as long as it is small amounts and the hair remains long. (Personally, for biblical reasons I, and my church, do not agree with trimming because that is technically “cutting” your hair.)  So I want to stress right now, what I am about to say may not be the exact same guidelines that your female Apostolic friend down the street follows. We may even be in the same church organization and differ slightly in the opinions on hair.

Now, jumping right on in! Basically for each of these “Apostolic Beliefs” series I am doing, the subject is much more indepth and complicated than I specifically say. I am just trying to bring up the main points of why we do these things but I know for the previous posts I skimmed over parts and really could have gone on and on about some things. So just note that each post in this series could be an entire book! Actually, that is a great segue into something I wanted to mention…

A couple of months ago I downloaded to my Kindle Fire Lori Wagner’s book “Covered By Love” (published by the UPCI in 2011) which goes deeply into why we do not cut our hair than I will be able to and I greatly recommend it!! It BLEW MY MIND! I loved it and felt so much more knowledgeable about the biblical relevance to not cutting your hair after reading it. Seriously, it is a must read for Pentecostal girls everywhere or even if you want to gain an understanding of this!

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Now I will jump right on in to our reasons for not cutting our hair:

1. God made man and woman with specific differences and hair is one of those features. Rev 9:8 – “And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions.” This shows that women have a certain type of hair and that it is different from men’s.

2. 1 Cor 11, the majority of the chapter is like a holy grail about hair!  So much is mentioned in this so I will go into some of it…

~We should be covered in order to have power and because of the angels (verse 10). Note, hair does not have power in itself, but it is a visible symbol of our power we have through God.

~Verse 15 says that hair is a covering! By wearing long, uncut hair we are submitting to God. As “Covered By Love” says so well “a woman’s outer covering reveals an inner acceptance of God’s plan. By her conduct, of her own free will, she gains power on her head.” God covers the things that He loves and are valuable to Him. (I should mention that while the verse does say “long hair” this means uncut hair, and is not referencing any type of set length. Hair is long if it is allowed to grow without cutting. So you could have 10 inches of uncut hair and it would be “longer” than 30 inches of cut hair. The length of the hair is not a judge for how “holy” that woman is.)

~Verse 5-6 say “but every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head: for that is even all one as if she were shaven. For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn: but if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered.” This means that if we cut our hair it is a dishonor to pray or prophesy uncovered, and since 1 Thessalonians 5:17 says to “pray without ceasing” then we must have a never-ending covering on our heads aka our hair! Another thing I’ve learned is that the “shame” mentioned in verse 6 comes from the Greek word for “filthy” or “disfigurement” (much like if we cut off an arm we are disfigured, so too if we cut off our hair!)

~In verse 10 Peter says “for this cause ought the woman to have power on her head,” notice the use of “ought” and not “must.” The Greek for “ought” means “owe,” be in debt for,” or “that which is due.” So we women can CHOOSE to give God what He is owed or due.

3. We use hair to express what we are so to say. Rockers, goths, preps, hippies, they all have signature hairstyles to show what they believe in. So in a way, our hair is helping us to stand out and show people that we believe in and worship God. Our hair separates us from the world and sets us apart for God.

4. Biblical examples of women cutting or losing their hair are not not happy ones. In biblical times women never cut their hair, it was their greatest ornament, and if cut it was the greatest humiliation to the woman. Isaiah 3:24 is about how the daughters of Zion were “haughty” and “wanton” so He turned their “well set hair to baldness.”    Jer 7:29- “Cut off thine hair, O Jerusalem, and cast it away, and take up a lamentation on high places; for the Lord hath rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath.”   Ezekiel 7:18 – “They shall also gird themselves with sackcloth, and horror shall cover them; and shame shall be upon all faces, and baldness upon all their heads.”  I do not want to be like those women!

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I get silly comments from people frequently so here is some biology for you (because I AM a bio major, haha) = cutting your hair does not make it grow faster, cutting does not affect the health of the hair at all because hair grows inside the skin!  Before hair even reaches the outside of the body it is dead, densely packed keratin. Cutting your hair does not make it longer for two reasons. First, it is obviously removing length from the hair, and second, hair has a programmed “terminal length” that it will not grow past no matter how often you trim it. Bam, biology! 

By choosing to not cut our hair we are submitting to and obeying  God and gaining glory, power, and a connection with angels. Wow. By letting our hair grow to its natural length we wear a covering that God made specifically for us, and I don’t want to alter what God made. We do not chose not to cut our hair in order to follow God, rather we follow God so we chose not to cut our hair. Think about that for a second…

I hope this helped you to better understand the Apostolic women’s choice to not cut their hair and I hope this blessed you in some way! Please feel free to comment! 🙂

❤ Passionate Pentecostal