? on rings

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> >My personal belief is that the wedding ring is not wrong as
> >long as it does not bring attention to yourself.
> 
> I would have to agree with that. The problem that I find with people that
> take a strong stand on rings is that they tend to believe that they are the
> only ones that are right and they have a tendancy to split the body of
> Christ over it. 

My pastor's (Bro. John Koonce) father (Bro. Bob E. Koonce) has always said
that it's never over *major* doctrinal decisions that churches split, but
the piddly little things.

I've always been taught as long as it's modest, decent, and in order then 
there should be no problem.  As far as the plaiting of hair and all of 
that stuff, it has been explained to me this way:

Back in the bible days, a man's wealth was shown by essentially what he
could easily protect.  Back then, you basically had what you could either
protect on your property or what you carried around with you.  If you were
more *mobile* than stationery, the only way to make it easy to keep the
wealth and riches mobile was to mix the wealth in with the servants clothes
and hair.  To the point where a man's status (and wealth) back then was well 
reflected by the jewels and fine clothing the master allowed the servants to
wear.

Like all things, it eventually got to the point that what's being shown 
back then became somewhat of beauty, status, or riches type pagent with 
the act of parading and flaunting became the reason instead of a protection
of jewelry and posessions as the main reason.

It's that outward flaunting and parading around of the jewels, jewelry, and 
riches that implies by the exaggerated flaunting that "I'm better than you"
or that "you're less because I've got so much" kinda attitude that God 
rejects to.  

Bro. Tyler