JEWELRY AS A BLESSING
I was amazed to find that jewelry is a good thing—a beautiful blessing given by God. The holy, saintly women of the Bible enjoyed it. Christian women can enjoy it today. Here is a summary of a few representative texts that show what the Bible really says about beauty and adornment.
Abraham sent jewelery to Rebekah :
Genesis 24:47-48
47 Then I asked her, ‘Whose daughter are you?’ She said, ‘The daughter of Bethuel, Nahor’s son, whom Milcah bore to him.’ So I put the ring on her nose and the bracelets on her arms. 48 Then I bowed my head and worshiped the LORD and blessed the LORD, the God of my master Abraham, who had led me by the right way to take the daughter of my master’s kinsman for his son.
Joseph wore jewelry:
God blessed Joseph greatly because of his faithfulness. In this passage below, we find Joseph accepting jewelry as a gift from Pharaoh. If God forbade jewelry, it would seem to follow that Joseph would have rejected this gift because Joseph was faithful to God above all.
Gen 41:42 And Pharaoh took off his ring from his hand, and put it upon Joseph’s hand, and arrayed him in vestures of fine linen, and put a gold chain about his neck;
God asked to recover precious things from the Egyptians and put it on their sons and daughters:
Exo 3:22 But every woman shall borrow of her neighbour, and of her that sojourneth in her house, jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment: and ye shall put them upon your sons, and upon your daughters; and ye shall spoil the Egyptians.
Jewelry dedicated to God:
After Moses received the commandments for making the tent of meeting he communicated this message to the people …
And all the congregation of the children of Israel departed from the presence of Moses. Then everyone came whose heart was stirred, and everyone whose spirit was willing, and they brought the Lord ’s offering for the work of the tabernacle of meeting, for all its service, and for the holy garments. They came, both men and women, as many as had a willing heart, and brought earrings and nose rings, rings and necklaces, all jewelry of gold, that is, every man who made an offering of gold to the Lord . (Exodus 35:20-22 NKJV )
Jewelry as a trophy of war dedicated to God:
Then the officers who were over thousands of the army, the captains of thousands and captains of hundreds, came near to Moses; and they said to Moses, “Your servants have taken a count of the men of war who are under our command, and not a man of us is missing. Therefore we have brought an offering for the Lord , what every man found of ornaments of gold: armlets and bracelets and signet rings and earrings and necklaces, to make atonement for ourselves before the Lord .” So Moses and Eleazar the priest received the gold from them, all the fashioned ornaments. And all the gold of the offering that they offered to the Lord , from the captains of thousands and captains of hundreds, was sixteen thousand seven hundred and fifty shekels. (Numbers 31:48-52 NKJV )
Isaiah compares righteousness and salvation to jewelry:
In the passage below, Isaiah compares righteousness and salvation to a bride and bridegroom who adorn themselves with jewelry. It doesn’t seem logical that Isaiah would compare a sinful activity to the salvation and righteousness of God.
Isaiah 61:10 I will greatly rejoice in the LORD; my soul shall exult in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
God speaks in parables using jewelery to show how he loved Israel :
In Ezekiel, God talks about how he has blessed his children with bracelets, necklaces, earrings, jewels and crowns…
Ezekiel 16:11-13
11 And I adorned you with ornaments and put bracelets on your wrists and a chain on your neck. 12 And I put a ring on your nose and earrings in your ears and a beautiful crown on your head. 13 Thus you were adorned with gold and silver, and your clothing was of fine linen and silk and embroidered cloth. You ate fine flour and honey and oil. You grew exceedingly beautiful and advanced to royalty.
Daniel wore jewelry:
Dan 5:29 Then commanded Belshazzar, and they clothed Daniel with scarlet, and put a chain of gold about his neck, and made a proclamation concerning him, that he should be the third ruler in the kingdom.
Jesus viewed jewelry as a blessing:
Jesus also viewed jewelry as a blessing; He recognized the adornment used by the devoted religious women of Israel when He said: “Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs” (Matthew 7:6.) In other words, wear your pearls because they are good things. Jesus commended the merchant who was looking for fine pearls and bought the pearl of great price (Matt. 13:45-46). Jesus mentioned a ring in a positive light (Luke 15:22) and praised the woman with the “ten coins” which every married women wore as jewelry on her forehead (Luke 15:8-10). Critics may say, “Well, those are just parables.” But His parables reflected real life and holy biblical practices. If Jesus considered those practices bad, He could easily have said: “By the way, the jewelry that I praised in my parables is actually evil; stop wearing it.” He never said such a thing because it is not evil.
Argument for forbidding jewelry:
One strong argument for forbidding jewelry is in 1 Peter 3:3 and 1 Tim 2:9, and if read alone, then at first glace it would appear that we are being told not to braid our hair, wear jewelry or wear nice clothes.
Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear
1 Tim 2:9
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
Taking these scriptures in context with just the few scripture in the Bible on jewelry above we see that we are not be told not to wear jewelry, or not to do our hair and wear nice clothes. What we are seeing was a church whose women let vanity get out of control; a church who became over indulgent. Remember that it was a time when it was the custom (very Roman) to show how much you had, so you over did everything because you wanted to show how much you could afford. What Paul and Peter are talking about here is this is not the beauty that a Christian should strive after. We are to be more concerned with the inward beauty, rather than the outward beauty. This is not saying we shouldn’t look nice, but instead look at our hearts and be careful not to abuse our blessings and show off what we have in vanity.
When you think about how you dress in the manner of moderation and modest, then you realize it goes beyond just wearing jewelry. In truth we can make a law about to not wear jewelry, but then we substitute an expensive watch or extravagant showy clothes to fill the sin of vanity in our hearts. The “thing” of blame may be different, but the sin is the same.
the Lord said to Samuel, Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance,but the Lord looks on the heart.
John 7:24
Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.
In Isaiah 3:15-23, God warned His people about oppressing the poor. Because the Israelites had ignored the needy, God threatened to strike the Israelite women with a scab and take away all of their finery, including necklaces, rings, scarves, perfume, purses, mirrors, and fine dresses, if they continued to oppress the poor. (Note: in that verse, the scarf, perfume, purse, mirror, and fine dresses are all treated exactly the same as jewelry: no different, no better, no worse. All of those things are “finery.”)
Wearing of earrings, jewelry, perfume, etc is becoming a problem in many Christian institution. Some teach that these things are wrong and that Christians should not wear such things. In the Bible there is no such prohibition. Nowhere does it say wearing jewelery is wrong. The only thing we need to remember when wearing jewellery is, to wear it decently. And as in all things, wear, walk, talk, so that we bring glory to God in all that we do. Each Christian should remember the wise words of King Solomon – “As a jewel of gold in a swine’s snout, so is a fair woman which is without discretion.” (Pro 11:22)
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