Is it a sin to shave off one’s beard? I heard an argument that God gave men beards to differentiate them from women and that they shouldn’t shave them off because that’s saying to God that He made a mistake on their faces?<\/p>\n\t
The problem is that the argument is not one that God made. God did have men distinguished from women by clothing: “A woman shall not wear anything that pertains to a man, nor shall a man put on a woman’s garment, for all who do so are an abomination to the LORD your God<\/em>” (Deuteronomy 22:5). They are also to be distinguished by their hair length: “Does not even nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a dishonor to him? But if a woman has long hair, it is a glory to her; for her hair is given to her for a covering<\/em>” (I Corinthians 11:14-15).<\/p>\n To say that men must wear beards puts men in the South Asia area and Native Americans at a disadvantage. Many lineages in that region do not have facial hair. God does not make rules that cannot be universally applied.<\/p>\n To argue that men should not cut what God gave them would run counter to the idea that men are to have short hair. Shaving just means a person is choosing to trim his beard to skin level.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Question: Is it a sin to shave off one’s beard? I heard an argument that God gave men beards to differentiate them from women and that they shouldn’t shave them off because that’s saying to God that He made a mistake on their faces? Answer: The problem is that the argument is not one that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[414,1009],"class_list":["post-49075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-hair","tag-hairstyles"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7317,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/where-does-the-bible-say-facial-hair-is-wrong\/","url_meta":{"origin":49075,"position":0},"title":"Where does the Bible say facial hair is wrong?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 8, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I am a Messianic Jew and I go to Church not a Messianic Congregation yet. Anyway, I have heard that having facial hair is wrong. They say they have biblical proof but they can't remember where it is and so I am at a loss as to what to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":41051,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/should-a-christian-shave-his-head-for-a-dead-relative\/","url_meta":{"origin":49075,"position":1},"title":"Should a Christian shave his head for a dead relative?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 22, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Should a Christian shave his head for a dead relative? Despite the fact that shaving the heads for the dead is forbidden in the Old Testament, should a Christian have anything to do with such practices? Thank you for your time. Answer: \"You shall not shave around the sides\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":49780,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/why-are-we-not-supposed-to-cut-the-sides-of-our-hair\/","url_meta":{"origin":49075,"position":2},"title":"Why are we not supposed to cut the sides of our hair?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 19, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Why are we not supposed to cut the sides of our hair? Answer: \"You shall not shave around the sides of your head, nor shall you disfigure the edges of your beard\" (Leviticus 19:27). The word that is translated as \"shaved\" means to strike off with violence, and the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13333,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/why-were-men-in-jesus-day-required-to-have-beards-and-not-shave\/","url_meta":{"origin":49075,"position":3},"title":"Why were men in Jesus’ day required to have beards and not shave?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"December 1, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Why were men in Jesus' day required to have beards and not shave? What is the symbol of the beard? Answer: I'm not aware of any statement in the Bible indicating a requirement to wear a beard. There was an earlier question that talks about beards:\u00a0Where does the Bible\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7079,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/isnt-long-hair-on-men-a-sign-of-rebellion-only-since-the-1960s\/","url_meta":{"origin":49075,"position":4},"title":"Isn’t long hair on men a sign of rebellion only since the 1960s?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 18, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: In regards to \"Why do even non-Christians look down on men with long hair?\", your quote associating long hair with a rebellious attitude is only a post 60's statement, only. I don't know of another time when long hair was a sign of 'rebellion' outside of the era of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13758,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/if-other-sins-in-the-old-testament-are-no-longer-sins-then-isnt-homosexuality-also-not-a-sin\/","url_meta":{"origin":49075,"position":5},"title":"If other sins in the Old Testament are no longer sins, then isn’t homosexuality also not a sin?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 31, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: The Bible is the Word of God, but Leviticus, in which Moses wrote about homosexuality, also lists other sins that are on the very same level of homosexuality (because God says that every sin is as bad as every other sin). Leviticus 19:19 says, \"Do not wear clothing of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49075"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49075\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}