Rings with a twist

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At 04:09 PM 8/7/96 -0500, you wrote:

>You can take this as you want to but in Indiana district of the UPC
>the beard or mustache is frowned upon and not considered proper
>for members in the churches.  Some preachers preach against it
>even if they don't use scripture..even though I have heard one
>make mention that a man is to be shave and shorn.  My pastor
>personally does not preach against it and still all but 1 person in
>my church that I know of has a mustache.  Hehe..I mean to say only
>

I had decided to refrain from commenting on the facial hair issue, but after
all of the other discussion, I will put in my two cents worth.

To begin with, I can find no Scripture to require men to have no facial
hair.  When I pastored, I never mentioned it yea nor nay.  However, I
noticed that new converts almost invariably would shave very soon after
coming in the church.  I do not believe they were "pressured" in any way to
do so...sometimes it happened the same night they were converted.  As an
evangelist, I noticed the same thing. 
The interpretation?  I am unsure, but I feel that perhaps the Lord was
dealing with them on the issue.

So far as ethnic groups- when I was overseas in a country that was entirely
comprised of dark-skinned people, I noticed that virtually every Apostolic
was clean shaven (in a primitive place where razors are not plentiful),
though non-apostolics often had facial hair.  I can't recall ever hearing
any of the national preachers teach or preach against facial hair.  It
didn't appear to even be an issue to them- they just did it.   

My conclusion to all of this?  Facial hair is not a Heaven or Hell issue,
and little if anything is mentioned about it in Scripture.  However, my
personal observations here and overseas, tend to give more support to those
who prefer not to wear facial hair. 
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Rex Deckard, M.Ed.
rdeckard@venus.net
 
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