Church Order: Preaching and Pastoral Ministry

The Biblical and Historical Significance of the Beard

Transcript: AI Transcript

Professor: John Weaver

Subject: Church Government

Genre: Sermon

Dictation Name:

Date: 2012-11-27

Synopsis: Pastor John Weaver presents a comprehensive biblical and historical case for the beard as a God-given symbol of manhood, life, submission to God, separation, and blessing. He argues that the beard is an assumed fact in Scripture, regulated by divine law, and that its removal signifies judgment, slavery, or mourning. The message challenges cultural taboos against beards, especially among pastors, and calls believers to think biblically about this often-neglected subject.

[John Weaver] Alright, so let's open our Bibles into the book of Leviticus chapter 19. The message today is the biblical and the historical significance of the beard, and you will not think that there's too much in the Bible concerning that, but there is a wealth of material. So, look in Leviticus chapter 19, and let's look at verses 26 through 28. God tells the people, You shall not eat anything with the blood, neither shall you use enchantment, nor observe times. Then in verse 27, Leviticus 19, you shall not round the corners of your heads, neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard. You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you. I am the Lord. Then if you'll look in Leviticus 21, beginning there with verse 1, And this is in reference to even the priest here, the other was in reference to all of God's people in general.

[John Weaver] Now the Lord said unto Moses, Speak thou unto the priests, the sons of Aaron, and say unto them, There shall none be defiled for the dead among his people, but for his kin that is near unto him, that is, for his mother and for his father, for his son, for his daughter, for his brother, and for his sister virgin that is nigh unto him, which hath no husband, For her may he be defiled, but he shall not defile himself, being a chief man among his people, to profane himself. They shall not make baldness upon their head, neither shall they shave off the corner of their beard, nor make any cuttings in their flesh. They shall be holy unto their God, and not profane the name of their God. For the offerings of the Lord made by fire, and the bread of their God they do offer. Therefore they shall be holy."

[John Weaver] Many years ago, I preached this message on the biblical and the historical significance of the beard. This message has basically been around the world. And when I say it's been around the world, I have received comments from this message from Italy, South Africa, England, Wales. It is one of the most listened to messages on sermon audio. It is one of the most downloaded messages. But since I've preached this message many years ago, it has been copied, it has been plagiarized, in some instances it has been vilified. I have seen this message with another pastor's name attached to it. Which I really don't mind, and the one that I'm thinking of particularly, he added just one or two little things.

[John Weaver] And I showed Alice, I got so tickled, I said, look at this, look at this. And it's on the internet, by the way. And he even used an illustration that I have, and since he didn't know me, he said, there is in Pastor John Weaver's office. So I said, well, that's fine too. But I certainly do not mind the message being preached or repreached or reclaimed by anyone.

[John Weaver] I'm kind of like Paul. I'm just rejoicing in the fact that at least the Word of God is being preached and is getting out. So, there have been a number of preachers that have asked me and a number of people that have asked me to redo this message. So, let me begin by telling you what I'm not going to be doing in this message. First, I'm not defending my beard, very obviously. It does not need defending and the very fact that I've had it for over 40 years demonstrates and proves that I really genuinely believe what I'm going to share with you this day. In fact my grandchildren, none of them have ever seen me without a beard and probably my children do not even remember me with not having a beard unless they glance at a picture occasionally every now and then. So I'm not defending the beard.

[John Weaver] Secondly, I'm not trying to bind my convictions upon your conscience. I do pray that the word of God will be open to you that you may see the truth of what I'm preaching. But the fact of the matter is, it's your responsibility to study the scripture for yourself and search out the matter. The Bible tells you in Proverbs 25 and verse 2, it is the glory of God to conceal a thing, but it's the honor of kings to search out a matter. It's your responsibility then to search out this matter according to the Word of God.

[John Weaver] Thirdly, I am not saying, and listen carefully, I am not saying that a man that does not have a beard is less holy than one who does have a beard. Moreover, I am not saying that a man with a beard is more holy than a man without a beard. But I am going to show you shortly from Scripture what a beard does indeed represent and why I believe from scripture, especially a godly man, should have a visible beard.

[John Weaver] Fourthly, I'm not asking you, the men particularly, to grow a beard for my benefit. I would never encourage anyone to do anything that they do not understand that is based upon the pure word of God. I'm not the Lord of your conscience. Jesus Christ is the Lord of your conscience, so you are to be bound by His word and not my word. But I would ask you to submit to the word of God and to be easily entreated, as James says, to the engrafted Word of God, which I believe will give you a great deal of understanding upon this subject, and you will find out that in reality a beard is not only a very

[John Weaver] important matter, it is a biblical matter according to Scriptures. Now let me tell you what I'm going to ask you to do at the very beginning. I'm going to ask you To do that which our Lord commands in John 7 and verse 24 when He says, Judge not according to appearance, but judge righteous judgment. Unhappily today, most people judge by appearance. They do not judge by righteous judgment or just judgment.

[John Weaver] If you want to go by appearance, I could take you down to our local post office, and I could take you through the FBI's most wanted list or the pictures they have there of the men that they want and I could show you where probably 90 percent of the wanted men on the FBI list are clean-shaven. I could conclude then based upon that that anyone who is clean-shaven is a criminal and is probably wanted by the FBI.

[John Weaver] You would say that would be an erroneous judgment. It would be. But I would be judging by appearance. You see what I'm saying? So our Lord says that we're not to judge by appearance. We're to judge just and righteous judgment. You see, there's another objective, or an objection I should say, that appears in relationship to that. And that's because in times past, there were those individuals who lived the hippie lifestyle, and wore their beards, and oftentimes they were dirty, they were unkempt, and they were certainly rebellious. And I hope you understand that just because someone abuses or misuses a truth does not mean that we disobey or disregard the truth. For instance, we do not cease observing the Lord's table just because the Roman Catholics have turned it into a perpetual mass. We do not cease baptizing people just because there are some who teach baptismal regeneration. We do not discard marital sex just because there are adulterers and fornicators. All I'm trying to say is this, you don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

[John Weaver] Just because someone abuses and misuses a truth does not mean that the truth is wrong. It just means that they are wrong for abusing and misusing the truth. In fact, the truth of the matter is there is a growing trend and it has been over the past years, especially among young people, to go for what is known as the Kung Fu or the Kojak look, which in our day and time is now referred to the unisex look. In fact, if you will go into some of the larger department stores and you start to go to a bathroom and you will usually see gentlemen and ladies and then unisex.

[John Weaver] I can point you to several down in Florida and they're there. Or sometimes they will say, now a family bathroom. A family bathroom? I get tickled because, you know, I go into these bathrooms and it says baby changing station. Man, I've stayed there all day and tried to get somebody to change babies with me and nobody will take mine. I know what it means, but I get tickled every time I see that. Baby changing station. Who wants to change babies?

[John Weaver] But anyhow, I'm just simply saying, here is this that you and I understand. And what is happening is this. Since this unisex look is going around, men are looking like women, women are looking like men. And certainly we were going to condemn that because that is condemned in the Word of God. There is indeed a biblical significance to a beard and to a man looking like a man. Second, I want you to understand that a man who has a full beard, the beard is not prohibited in the Word of God. In fact, The beard is commended in the Word of God, and there are definite regulations laid down in the scripture concerning the beard.

[John Weaver] You see, the biggest taboo, and it's not so much today as it was back in the 70s when I first preached this message, but the biggest taboo was a bearded pastor. In other words, back then, pastors just did not have beards. I mean, everybody was basically clean-shaven is what it amounted to. In fact, Even the university that I went to originally back in the 60s did not allow beards. I have known of Christian men who were not accepted in other churches because they had a beard. I've known Christian men who were turned down for positions of teaching because they had a beard. So the taboo that I'm pointing out is not God's taboo, but it is man's taboo.

[John Weaver] They've never ever considered what the Word of God teaches. Thirdly, I would like to encourage you to think biblically today. You see, we claim to be Christians, and we claim to love the Word of God, and yet for all practical purposes, most professing Christians neglect the Word of God. We neglect to study these subjects. I will guarantee you I could probably count on one hand the number of preachers and especially the number of Christians who've ever, ever looked in the Bible to see what the Bible has to say about a beard. Very few.

[John Weaver] In fact, I'll tell you how I came to preach this message. One of my pastor friends who I've known for years and years, I went to see him one day And he had a beautiful head full of gray hair and he had this beautiful gray beard. And I looked at him and I said, why did you grow a beard? And his response was, because of what the Bible teaches about the beard. And I looked at him and I said, well, what does the Bible teach about the beard? And he looked at me and said, I'm not going to tell you.

[John Weaver] If you want to know, go home and study it out for yourself. And that's exactly what I did. And that's why I came to preach this message years ago. But listen to what the Bible says in 2 Corinthians 10, verses 4 and 5. The apostle Paul said, For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds."

[John Weaver] Now listen, casting down imaginations and every high thing or every high thought that exalted itself against the knowledge of God and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. So that means if we think about a beard, If we think about government, if we think about education, if we think about money, if we think about family, whatever we think, we're responsible to bring every thought captive to Jesus Christ. That is, we're responsible to think biblically. Most people have never thought upon this subject at all.

[John Weaver] You know, I've heard this said in times past, someone would offer an objection and they would say, well, I just don't know if it's right or wrong for a man to have a beard. And my response to that is this, let's stop right there. That is not really for you and I to decide, because God has already determined that. He has created men so that they may have beards. So the question in reality is not, is it right or wrong to have a beard? But the question should be, is it right or wrong to shave? and you cannot shave it off. It keeps growing back.

[John Weaver] You have to keep shaving over and over and over. Now, I've had one person to say this to me years ago, and it was a woman. And she said, your beard is offensive to me. Well, if someone tries to say that beards are offensive, my first response is this. I would argue that anyone who finds a beard offensive, they need to take that up with God because God gave beards to men.

[John Weaver] Secondly, I'd point out, to offend someone biblically means to encourage them to do what you're doing without having your knowledge. You remember the word, in the Greek, is the word skandalon for offend. You'll find that in Romans 14 and 1 Corinthians 8. It's where we get our English word, scandal. And the only woman who ever said that to me, I said to her as I smiled, dear lady, my beard could not possibly offend you because you could not do what I'm doing even if you had my knowledge. And if you remember when I brought that brief series on Romans 14 on how to avoid conflicts between Christians, I pointed out that when someone says something like this, well your beard offends me, what they really mean is this. You need to shave it off, I don't like it. That's what they really mean.

[John Weaver] The Lord you please me. Obviously, listen carefully, anyone who has a problem with a beard, or any other biblical subject, not only has a problem with God, But they have a problem with the law of God. How can I say that? Because the Bible says, in Psalm 119, in verse 165, Great peace have they that love by law, and nothing shall offend them. So if you're offended, obviously you don't love the law of God. Because it says, Great peace have they that love by law, and nothing shall offend them. So, clearly then, there's a problem with someone between God and His Word. So, men have beards, and that's the way God has created us. So, you've got to ask yourself this question, why did God give men beards? Why do men have beards? And you have to also ask this question, what does a beard signify?

[John Weaver] Before I finish, I'm going to show you that a beard, really and truly, is a public and a private testimony. It's a public testimony when the beard is grown and neatly trimmed and groomed because everyone who sees it many times will ask concerning it. It's also a private testimony for when the man who has it he looks into the mirror And all of a sudden, he remembers now why God gave him that beard and what it means and what his life should be. I'm going to try to show you five things very quickly today.

[John Weaver] First of all, I want to share with you the history of beards. Before I get into the biblical passages, I wish to point out that history may be studied and analyzed simply by looking at the rise and the fall of the beard. Historical truth is important. It is not equal to biblical truth, yet all history is God's history, for God is the God of history. But history does show us something. History does teach us something. It reveals to us either the lack and the ignorance of, or the knowledge and the importance of, biblical truth upon civilization. So you can look at civilization and you can see when the word of God is in the supremacy, certain things transpired. When the word of God is not in the supremacy, when rationalism, when man's thoughts are supreme, certain things transpired as well.

[John Weaver] Now an interesting tidbit of history is this, that Egypt was about the only country in antiquity that forbade a man to have a beard or to let his beard grow out. The Egyptians disliked facial hair. They shaved themselves and they forced their slaves to shave. Now any biblical scholar will tell you very quickly that Egypt is a type of the world. Egypt has always been in the Bible that which represents contrariness to God, to his law, and to his people. So Egypt then by and large was a nation of beardless men.

[John Weaver] Yet when you look at the sculptures and even a picture, ancient art, of Pharaoh, you will see that Pharaoh always had a sharp pointed goatee. But if you look very carefully at the picture or at the sculpture, you will see there is a very thin line that goes up his cheeks and over his ears. And you know why? Because the beard was a fake beard. It was simply tied on.

[John Weaver] Do you realize there is a reason for that? Even women sometimes in Egypt had these fake beards. For instance, Queen Hatshepsut dressed like a man and is shown with a fake beard. In Egypt, the fake beard was either used for celebrations or public appearances. there was also a religious significance attached to that beard. Because the beard in Egypt was considered a divine attribute of the gods to the Egyptians and thus when the Pharaoh or the Queen or some other public person donned a fake beard, what they were showing and demonstrating was that they were identifying themselves as a living God. And thus the Pharaoh had that fake beard tied just so he could identify himself with deity. Another interesting thing is this, if you will study the history of Egypt you will find that the enemies of Egypt are always depicted with beards. The enemies of Egypt are always depicted with beards. Maybe that's another reason why the Egyptians found facial hair disgusting to themselves because they identified it with an enemy of Egypt. There's another interesting tidbit and if you will check it out you'll find it true that in Greek mythology and in Roman mythology usually the false gods are presented as beardless.

[John Weaver] Now, there were some that were presented with beards, that is true. But in their paintings, in their sculpturing, the false gods were usually beardless. I'm trying to give you some history concerning this. And the Council of Carthage, which was a church council in the early 200 AD, were discussing problems in the church. And in the Council of Carthage in 200 AD, One of the problems they were discussing was the problem of immodest dress. Now, we could think, how in the world could they be having problems with immodest dress in 200 AD? I mean, today we look around and we see the miniskirts and the shortened halters and the tank tops and you say, yeah, we got problems with immodest dress. Well, they had problems with immodest dress in 200 AD. But let me tell you what the council of Carthage said was immodest dress. Listen carefully. Here's the quote from the council concerning immodest dress.

[John Weaver] Any man who appears in church with long hair and a clean-shaven face will be excluded from communion for that man is immodestly dressed. Isn't that amazing? A man with long hair and a clean-shaven face was immodestly dressed. So if you came to church with long hair and a clean-shaven face, you were to be excluded from communion. It was Tertullian, one of the early church fathers, who wrote his treatise on the beard and said that the purpose of the beard was to keep lust down. I've heard some women say, well, he looks better without a beard. Well, he may. But Tertullian said, One of the reasons was to keep lust down. The fourth council of Carthage in 398 said this, the clergyman shall not let his hair grow, neither shall he remove his beard. How about that?

[John Weaver] Many of the ancients believed and they taught that God gave man a beard to distinguish him from a woman and therefore it was wrong to antagonize nature by shaving. One of the early church fathers, Clement of Alexandria, probably wrote more against shaving than any other of the Christian writers combined. Clement called, and I'm quoting now, the beard man's natural adornment and said it is never permissible to remove it. He goes on to say the hairs of the beard have been numbered. Clement warns his readers to seek beauty in hairlessness is sheer ephemisy. if done by men." He goes on to say, God planned, I love this one, God planned that the woman be smooth skin, taking pride in her natural tresses, the only hair she has as the horse in its mane. But man, he adorned like the lion with a beard. So women were like the horses with the long flowing mane Men were like lions with the beard. He went on to say, this then is the mark of the man, the beard.

[John Weaver] By this he is seen to be a man. It is older than Eve. It is the token of superior nature. It is therefore unholy to desecrate the symbol of manhood, hairiness. Isn't that amazing? So, when the barbarian hordes invaded the Roman Empire, they had long hair and they had clean shaven faces. And it was at this particular time when Rome fell that Christendom as a whole was what you and I would call Romanized.

[John Weaver] So the barbarians then began to infiltrate the church. And all of these pagan rites and rituals were incorporated into the church. And at that particular time, since the barbarians had long hair and clean shaven faces, that's basically what began to happen. The men had long hair and they had clean, shaven faces. It's interesting that if you will look at the early pictures of Christ, even pictures today, Christ is always pictured with long hair and a beard.

[John Weaver] Have you ever wondered about that? Let me tell you dogmatically, in no uncertain terms, our Lord did not have long hair. How can I say he did not have long hair? Well, first of all, you have to remember that when our Lord was alive, Caesar was on the throne. The style was known as the Caesar cut or the Caesar style. It was short hair on the top of the head, never even touched the ears. That was the style during our Lord's lifetime. Moreover, specifically, the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 11 and verse 14, doth not even nature itself teach you, listen, that if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him.

[John Weaver] Now the Greek word for shame is atemia, which literally refers to that which is vile, shameful, dishonorable, ignominious, disgraceful, and a reproach. Now, if it was a reproach and shameful and vile for a man to have long hair, you've got to remember that Jesus Christ was and still is the sinless Son of God. He would have never ever done anything that would have been vile and reproachful. Moreover, the Bible tells us in Isaiah 42 and verse 21 concerning Christ, The Lord is well pleased for his righteousness sake.

[John Weaver] He will magnify the law and make it honorable. So therefore the law says it's unnatural and a shame for a man to have long hair. I can assure you Christ never had long hair.

[John Weaver] Now Christ is also presented in these pictures and in these works of art as having a beard. And that's because you could not deny that. It was very plain and very clearly said, not only in scripture, but in truth and in history as well. I want to point out a glaring inconsistency. Have you ever thought about this? Have you ever considered the glaring inconsistency of people who literally worship the Lord Jesus Christ who had a beard and then turn around and try to say it's wrong for a man to have a beard. Have you ever thought about that?

[John Weaver] It was during the 16th century that one of the great awakenings occurred known as the Reformation. Bloody Mary, Queen of England was on the throne 1516 to 1558. It was in 1517 when Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the castle church door in Wittenberg, Germany and he began to teach and preach the just shall live by faith. Now so it's noticeable if you will go back and look then at some of these men as they began in the Reformation and then after they began you'll notice short hair and beards. Isn't that amazing? Then on the other hand if you will look during the Renaissance When man's rationalism prevailed, men then had long hair and clean-shaven faces. Same thing in France during the period of the Enlightenment, where you had so many people there who were agnostics and atheists and infidels and deists, they would have the long hair and the clean-shaven faces. But it's interesting, during the War of Northern Aggression, When you look at the pictures of godly men, you always find that they have beards.

[John Weaver] Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee, Jeb Stuart, James Longstreet, Richard Stoddard Ewell, all of these men. And it's interesting, if you will look back at some of the old pictures of the Confederate veterans, 90% of them have beards. And beards were worn from that period of time up basically until you get to World War I when German liberalism began to infiltrate into this society and then of course beards then began to disappear and once again the long hair and the clean shaven faces came out.

[John Weaver] So I'm just trying to show you, you can study civilization with the rise and fall of the beard. There were a few men down through the ages who cried out against clean-shaven faces. In 1528, William Tyndale was one of those, and here's what he said. He pointed out that shaving is borrowed of the heathen and proclaimed that the shaven nation have put Christ out of his room. Wow. William Shakespeare even said this in his play Much Ado About Nothing, He said, he that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man. He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man.

[John Weaver] In 1859, an Englishman, James Ward, wrote a book, The Defense of the Beard, which was a pamphlet which listed 18 reasons why men were bound to grow a beard unless That man was indifferent as to offending the Creator and good taste. The next year, one year later, a work was published, listen to the title of this, Shaving, a Breach of the Sabbath and a Hindrance to the Spread of the Gospel. In this book, the author described the beard on the grounds that it was a divinely provided chest protector.

[John Weaver] So they had long beards coming down here. And here is just one part, one sentence out of that book. Beard shaving and the common use of the razor, an unnatural, irrational, unmanly, ungodly, and fatal fashion among Christians." Wow. One of the more humorous quotes I found concerning the beard came from Tom Robbins. He said, of the seven dwarves, only Dopey had a clean-shaven face, and that should tell us something about the custom of shaving. Only Dopey had a clean shaven face. Wow! The bearded races of mankind have commonly held the beard in high honor.

[John Weaver] It's a sign of full manhood and the very young male or eunuch was beardless and the bearded woman was considered a witch. Whenever you see pictures of Adam or God or the prophets, or kings, and nobles, they are always presented with beards. So the Semites, those who descended from Shem, or the Hebrews, Israelites, have always held the beard in great esteem. Listen to this, here's a quote directly. Among them, that is among the Hebrews, the Israelites, among them it is more injurious for anyone to have his beard cut off than among us to be publicly whipped or branded with a hot iron.

[John Weaver] Many men in that country would prefer death to such a punishment. The wives kiss their husband's beards and the children their father's when they come to salute them. The men kiss one another's beards reciprocally when they salute in the streets or come from a journey. They say that the beard is the perfection of the human face, which would be more disfigured by having this cut off than by losing the nose. They admire any and envy those who have fine beards. Pray do but see, they cry, that beard and the very sight of it would persuade anyone that he to whom it belongs is an honest man. If anyone with a fine beard is guilty of an unbecoming action, they would say, What a disadvantage is this to such a beard? How much such a beard should be pitted? If they would correct anyone's mistakes, they will tell him, for shame on your beard. Does not the confusion that follows such an action light upon your beard? If they entreat anyone or use oaths affirming or denying anything, they would say, I conjure you by your beard.

[John Weaver] or by the life of your beard to grant me this, or by your beard this is or is not so. They say further, in the way of acknowledgement, may God preserve your blessed beard, or may God pour out His blessings upon your beard. And in comparison, this is more valuable than anyone's beards, or anyone's beard.

[John Weaver] Now, if you understand these sayings, you're going to begin to understand a lot of Scripture. For instance, do you remember, and you don't turn there please, the dishonor that David did to his own beard when he was escaping from King Saul and he fled to Achish, king of Gath. It was the Philistine by the way. And when David understood that some of the men saying, well is not this David? Did not he kill all of our men? And then listen to what David did. 1 Samuel 21 verse 13, And he, David, changed his behavior before them, and feigned himself mad in their hands, and scrabbled on the doors of the gate, and let a spittle fall down upon his beard. So he's clawing at the door, foaming at the mouth, we would say, and letting all the spittle run down upon his beard. Well, what happened? Here's what Achish said, 1 Samuel 21, 14 and 15, Then said Achish unto his servants, You see the man is mad.

[John Weaver] Wherefore then have you brought him to me? Have I need of mad men that you have brought this fellow to play the mad man in my presence? Shall this fellow come into my house?" So David's actions then of scrabbling at the door and clawing at the door and letting the spittle fall down upon his beard persuaded Achish that he was crazy, that it was out of his mind. Because Achish understood that no man in his right mind would ever defile his beard.

[John Weaver] Do you remember when David was driven off the throne by Absalom? David had taken Mephibosheth, Saul's grandson, into his home. Mephibosheth, you remember, was laying upon his feet. And Ziba, his servant, lied to him. And Ziba escaped to go carry some things to David and said, Mephibosheth said, well, the kingdom of my father is going to be returned to me this day. But when David came back after the destruction of Absalom and his army, in 2 Samuel 19 verse 24, listen to this, And Mephibosheth the son of Saul came down to meet the king, and had neither dressed his feet, nor trimmed his beard, nor washed his clothes from the day the king departed until the day he came in peace. Mephibosheth then was in mourning concerning the travesty that had been done to David, and the very proof that Ziba had lied, was Mephibosheth had not even dressed his feet, trimmed his beard, or even washed his clothes. The beard was always a cherished and a sacred thing.

[John Weaver] Israel brought the beard safely out of the bondage of the universally shaven Egypt, and the beard was always the outward sign and the visible sign of a true man. Now listen carefully, and you're going to see this from the scripture in just a moment. To rudely touch the beard was to cruelly assail a man's dignity. Children and other kinfolks might gently touch it as a sign of love. A fugitive might reverentially raise his hand to it while praying for succor or for help. And he who put his own hand upon his own beard and swore by it, bound himself by the most solemn of oaths to violate which would render him infamous among his fellow men. To touch the beard in allegiance of love established peace and trustfulness between two parties." Now listen carefully.

[John Weaver] Do you remember when Joab went to Amasa He took him by the beard to kiss him and he said, Aren't thou in health, my brother? Here was a pretended act of love and a pretended act of friendship. But Joab had an ulterior motive. Let me read it to you from scripture. 2 Samuel 20 verses 9 and 10. And Joab said to Amasa, Aren't thou in health, my brother? And Joab took Amasa by the beard with his right hand to kiss him. But Amasa took no heed to the sword that was in Joab's hand.

[John Weaver] So he smote him there under the fifth rib, and shed out his bowels to the ground, and struck him not again, and so he died." So what did Joab do? Joab was following a customary greeting, which was a sign of trust and friendship, of respect and devotion, He took Amasa's beard and he was going to kiss that beard and he asked, art thou in health my brother? Amasa was so concerned with the compliment, in all probability, getting ready to return that compliment because he would in turn then kiss Joab's beard. He took no notice of the sword in Joab's hand and Joab then literally murdered him and shed out his blood. In other words, it was during this act of kindness and respect and honor, and he did not suspect the deadly blow from Joab, nor did he suspect his treasonous attitude toward him.

[John Weaver] By the way, may I remind you, maybe this will shed light on this scripture for you, in Luke 22 and verse 28, Judas had already told the people, him who I kiss, hold fast. And when Judas came to betray Christ, Christ said, Judas, betrayest thou the Son of Man with a kiss. So Judas would have gone up to take our Lord's beard and kiss it. Undoubtedly, Judas had learned this method from Joab who was a traitor and a deceiver. Secondly, I want you to note the beard is an assumed fact and reality in scripture. And when I say the beard is an assumed fact, an assumed fact is something that is taken for granted.

[John Weaver] It is a presuppositional truth. It is something like the doctrine of God. By the way, do you know that the Bible never ever tries to prove the existence of God? The Bible just assumes it. Genesis 1-1, in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. Never does the Bible try to prove there is a God. It just assumes it. Likewise, in the Bible, there is no definite command for men to grow a beard. However, it is assumed that a man will have a beard because that's the way God created him and his facial hair is going to grow. Moreover, there are divine regulations concerning the beard in the Bible. The Hebrew word for beard is the word zakhan. And the Hebrew word for elder is achin. So the elders in Israel got their names from their beard. Hence the word actually means a bearded one. Okay? So you've seen the history of the beard and the fact that the beard is an assumed fact. Let me give you thirdly the value of the beard.

[John Weaver] The Hebrews always looked upon the beard as the glory and the pride of man. They would say that the glory of the face is the beard. The beard was a badge of honor, dignity, and manhood. Anyone wishing to express the value of an object would say this, it is worth more than a man's beard. When a woman wanted to express the value of something, she would say, it's more valuable than my husband's beard. Men often took oaths by their beard.

[John Weaver] They swore by their beards. Every one of us knows the story of the three little pigs and the big bad wolf. What did he say? I'm going to huff and puff and blow your ass down and what did the little pig say? Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin. What was he doing? He was taking an oath on the hair of his, now I realize pigs don't have beards, but That was a fairy tale, but that's where it came from. Because historically and biblically, men took oaths based upon their beards. Proverbs 20 and verse 29 says this, and by the way, even Shakespeare in his plays have men swearing and taking oaths by their beards. But Proverbs 20 and verse 29 says this, The glory of young men is their strength, and the beauty of old men is their gray head. The ornament of young men is their strength, and the honor of old men is the gray hairs, and here it is in the Hebrew, or the hanging gray from the chin.

[John Weaver] It was not necessarily talking about the gray hair up here. Some of us aren't able to have gray hair up here. But it does refer to the hanging gray from the chin. Whenever you see a man with a beard, you ought to consider several things. First of all, To pull it is to inflict an indignity. I've really only had my beard pulled that I can remember one time.

[John Weaver] And I will tell you, anger flew over me instantaneously. Not that I wanted to be angry, but the individual who did it did not realize what he was doing. And I very quickly said, no, you never ever pull a man's beard. It's an indignity. It's an insult.

[John Weaver] Secondly, to have it forcibly cut off or mutilated is a symbol of disgrace, which I'm going to show you from the Bible momentarily. Thirdly, to remove the beard voluntarily is a sign of mourning, which they did occasionally in the Bible. And then to stroke the beard like this, is a preface to uttering seemingly very important words or words of weight and value. And I might point this out, to kiss the beard is a sign of great respect, honor, friendship, and brotherly love.

[John Weaver] You cannot understand a number of verses in the New Testament if you do not understand this simple fact. For instance, let me just quote. 1 Corinthians 16 and verse 20, the apostle Paul said, all the brethren greet you, listen, greet you one another with a holy kiss. Greet you one another with a holy kiss. In Romans 16 and verse 16, Paul again said, salute one another with a holy kiss. The churches of Christ salute you. 1 Thessalonians 5 verse 26, greet all the brethren with a holy kiss. And then 1 Peter 5 and verse 14, greet you one another with a kiss of charity. Peace be with you, all that are in Christ Jesus. Amen. How do you greet the brethren with a holy kiss? Because it was customary, not only in the Old Testament, but in the New Testament, when brethren met, out of great respect and affection, they would take each other's beard and kiss the beard. And yes, I've had men kiss my beard. One man did it particularly every time he saw me.

[John Weaver] He understood this passage. And I was not offended by it. In fact, I thought, well, at least he at least understands the Scripture. I'm just simply saying, you cannot understand the value of the beard unless you understand these Scriptures. And that's how men normally greeted each other in the Old Testament and the New Testament by kissing each other's beards. Let me show you how valuable a beard was.

[John Weaver] I do want you to turn to 2 Samuel chapter 10. 2 Samuel chapter 10, and let's read the first seven verses. I want you to watch this passage, 2 Samuel chapter 10, and look if you would please beginning there with verse 1. 2 Samuel chapter 10, verse 1. And it came to pass after this, that the king of the children of Ammon died, and Hanun his son reigned in his stead. Then said David, I will show kindness unto Hanun the son of Nahash, as his father showed kindness unto me. And David sent to comfort him by the hand of his servants for his father. And David's servants came into the land of the children of Ammon. And the princes of the children of Ammon said unto Hanun their lord, Thinkest thou that David doth honor thy father, that he hath sent comforters unto thee? Hath not David rather sent his servants unto thee to search the city, and to spy it out, and to overthrow it? Wherefore hath none took David's servants, and shaved off one half of their beards, and cut off their garments in the middle, even their buttocks, and sent them away?

[John Weaver] And when they told it unto David, he sent to meet them, because the men were greatly ashamed. And the king said, Tear ye at Jericho, until your beards be grown, and then return. And when the children of Ammon saw that they stank before David, the children of Ammon sent and hired the Syrians of Beth Rehoboam, and the Syrians of Zobah, 20,000 footmen, of King Maacah, 1,000 men, of Ishtab, 12,000 men. And when David heard of it, he sent Joab and all the hosts of the mighty men, and the children of Ammon came out and put the battle in array, et cetera. Now, by the way, David wiped out the Ammonites and the Syrians.

[John Weaver] But the point I'm trying to make is this. Hanun took David's diplomats, his servants, and shaved off one half their beards and cut their garments off and exposed their buttocks. The Ammonites knew exactly what they were doing when they mutilated the Hebrews' beards. They knew that it was a deadly insult. I want you to note something. I want you to see how times have changed. When the diplomats sent word to David that their beards had been mutilated and their garments had been cut off and their buttocks had been exposed, David said this to them, carry ye it Jerusalem until your beards be grown. That was the insult. It did not concern them, to put it bluntly, that their fannies had been exposed.

[John Weaver] Now you stop and think about this. What embarrassed them, what humiliated them was their beards had been mutilated and defiled. It was an insult. You can buy more clothes, but you can't grow a beard overnight. And so David then destroyed the Ammonites and the Syrians, here's a whole war that's fought over beards. Moreover, in the year 1764, a pretender to the Persian throne named Cherub Khan sent ambassadors to Mir Mahanan, the Prince of Bengaravik on the Persian Gulf, to demand tribute from him, but he in return cut off the ambassador's beards. Karim Khan was so enraged at this that he went the next year, took a large army, assaulted and took the city and almost the entire territory to avenge the insult. So to touch the beard was an insult unless it was done as an act of friendship and a token of respect.

[John Weaver] Beards have been so valued down through the years that it would be interesting for you to look not only at the Bible prophets, pictures of them, but look at the preachers down through the years. And you'll find that most preachers, the old preachers, up until the turn of this century, all of them had beards. Did you know that not only did Charles Haddon Spurgeon have a very beautiful beard, but Charles Haddon Spurgeon demanded that all of his deacons have beards. You could not be a deacon in Spurgeon's Tabernacle unless you had a beard. And I have a picture in my library of Spurgeon and all of his deacons, and every one of them are well bearded. Now let me very quickly give you the meaning of the beard. Why did God give men beards? What is a beard to signify? First of all, the beard represents and signifies life unto God. Stop and think. Only living men can grow a beard. In the Bible, it was the leper who had to be shaven. Leprosy in the Bible is not only representative of sin and death, but leprosy in the Bible is also a symbol of the judgment of God.

[John Weaver] Do you remember how God smoked Miriam with leprosy when she rebelled against Moses? Do you remember how God gave Gehazi, the servant of Elisha, the leprosy that Naaman had because of his sin and his deceit?

[John Weaver] Now, I want you to listen to the law of the leper. Listen carefully. This is Leviticus 13, 29 and 30 in verse 33. God says, If a man or a woman have a plague upon the head or the beard, then the priest shall see the plague, and behold, if it be in sight deeper than the skin, and there being it a yellow thin hair, then the priest shall pronounce him unclean, it is a dry skull, even a leprosy, upon the head of the beard. And he shall be shaven, and the skull shall he not shave, but the priest shall shut him up that hath the skull seven days more." So, if a man had leprosy, he had to be clean-shaven. Leprosy is a sign of sin and death and the judgment of God. When you get to the healing of a leper, in Leviticus chapter 14, once again when he came and presented everything that God demanded, he had to be clean shaven once again. And then when the priest pronounced him clean, only then was he allowed to grow his beard.

[John Weaver] So, the beard first and foremost is a symbol of life unto God. It signifies life. We're free from sin. We're free from death. We're free from the judgment of God. Secondly, a beard signifies submission unto God. Now listen carefully. I'm going to show you this from the scripture. A beardless man or one with a clean shaven face indicated that he was a slave or in submission to man. Let me state this another way, to be deprived of a beard was and still is in many places a badge of civility, a mark of infamy that degraded a man from the ranks of men to those of slaves and women. Now, Joseph wore his beard while he was in prison. You remember he was a slave, he was sold into slavery. While he was in prison, he wore his beard. When Pharaoh called him to stand before him, what did Joseph do? He shaved his beard. Why did he shave his beard? Because he was a slave. And he was going to appear now before Pharaoh, and it would have been an insult and a dishonor to Pharaoh for him to have stood there with his beard.

[John Weaver] Listen to this, Genesis 41 verse 14. Then Pharaoh sinned and called Joseph. And they brought him hastily out of the dungeon, and he shaved himself and changed his rim, and he came unto Pharaoh." Why did he do that? Because to be beardless was signifying that you were in submission to man, that you were a slave. And so Joseph then, since he was a slave, took the mark of a slave, he shaved himself. And by the way, in Genesis 41 in verse 40, Pharaoh said this to Joseph, Thou shalt be over my house according to thy word.

[John Weaver] Shall all my people be ruled? Only in the throne will I be greater than thou. What was he saying? You're subject to me. You're my servant. Everybody else is going to be your servant, but you are my servant. So biblically speaking then, the beard indicates that men are in submission to God. Now, I'm not saying that Joseph was out of the will of God when he shaved his beard, because God certainly put him there. However, I am saying that in the context of what happened, when a man shaves his beard, it indicates that he is now in a position of servitude or in submission to man. And I am not implying that just because a man has a beard, that he is in subjection to God.

[John Weaver] Unhappily, that is not true because multitudes of men across this world who have beards are in rebellion to God and they are in rebellion to the Lord Jesus Christ and they are lost in their sins. But the beard in reality is to signify submission unto God. In other words, the men who have beards and who are not in submission to God are betraying the symbol. of what the beard represents. It's just like long hair on a woman symbolizes that she's in submission to her husband. I know plenty of women who have long hair that are not in submission to their husband. The long hair does them no good at all. Their life betrays the symbol. Thirdly, a beard indicates separation unto God. In Bible times, when a man looked at another man's beard, He knew who that man worshipped and who was his God. A beard basically told you who your God was. Pagans usually marred their beard as well as their heads. When God said, and I will show you later, When God says, I shall not mar the corner of your beard, this is the corner of the beard.

[John Weaver] To mar the corner, then, would be to have what you and I would call the goatee. And the pagans did that because they did it in honor of the sun, which was around the moon, the stars, and the heavenly bodies. Herodotus, one of the early historians, said this of the Arabs, where a custom shaved the hair round the head and left a tuft to stand up on the crown in honor of Bacchus.

[John Weaver] In Leviticus 19, which we read a little bit earlier, in verses 26 through 28, God says this, You shall not eat anything with the blood, neither shall you use enchantment nor observe times. You shall not round the corners of your head, neither shall thou mar the corners of thy beard. Why? In Leviticus 21 verses 5 through 6, the priest was not to make any baldness upon his head, neither shall they shave the corners of their beards. Why? Because the Hebrews had full beards, and that full beard represented separation to God.

[John Weaver] When you saw the man with just the goatee and the mustache, It meant in history times, in Bible times, that he was a worshipper of Bacchus, or Baal, or Ortal, or one of the heavenly bodies. So it's important for us to understand that the beard then, in scripture, represents life, it represents freedom, it represents separation of God, but the symbol is nothing without reality. When God's people act like the wicked, God will punish them exactly like the wicked. And God indicates that He will cut or mar the corners of their beard. The expression that I will just read very quickly in Jeremiah 9, Jeremiah 25, Jeremiah 49, when God talks about those who are in the utmost corners, He's not talking about places, He's not talking about geographical places. He's talking about the beard. Listen carefully. God says, Behold, the days come, said the Lord, that I will punish all them that are circumcised with the uncircumcision, Egypt and Judah and Edom and the children of Ammon and Moab and all that are in the utmost corners that dwell in the wilderness.

[John Weaver] For all these nations are uncircumcised and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in the heart. Well, they were uncircumcised in the heart. They were circumcised physically. They were in the covenant. But they were acting like the heathen. God says, you want to act like the heathen? Fine, I'll judge you like the heathen. You find the same thing in Jeremiah 25, 23. Jeremiah 49, verse 32. God says, I will mar the corners.

[John Weaver] Now, fourthly, very quickly, the beard signifies the blessings of God upon His people. Let me just read it. In Psalm 133, beginning with verse 1, listen carefully. Behold how good and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. It is like the precious ointment upon the head that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard that went down to the skirts of his garments. As the dew of Hermon, and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion, for there the Lord commanded the blessing, even life evermore. So when Aaron and his sons then were anointed with that oil, that oil poured on their head, ran down their beards, even to their garments. Thus, a well-groomed and a well-cared for beard indicates the blessings of God upon that individual and his dedication to the service of God. Listen carefully.

[John Weaver] The beard was plucked off or plucked out or shaved off or left unattended only during a time of great mourning and great calamity. We've already pointed this out in Mephibosheth. But you remember when Job lost everything he had and his 10 children, and Job won 20? Then Job arose and ran his mantle and shaved his head and fell down upon the ground in worship. In Ezra chapter 9, Ezra, when he saw the sin of all the people, In verse 3 says this, and when I heard this thing, I ripped my garment and my mantle, and plucked off the hair of my head and of my beard, and sat down astonished.

[John Weaver] Now let me show you something in light of this. If you really want to understand what happened to our Lord Jesus Christ, I want you to listen carefully. when God was going to bring judgment upon His people because they refused to repent and refused to return to Him. God indicated that great judgment by telling them that He was going to shave their beards. I remember years ago, and Alice can verify this, when I first grew my beard, which has been about 40 years now, I would have nightmares.

[John Weaver] And my nightmare was this, that I would wake up clean-shaven and didn't know how I got clean-shaven. I'm serious. I mean, and I would just about wake up with chills because I didn't know what had happened. Why would that affect me so, or why should it affect anyone so? Because when God is going to bring judgment upon His disobedient people, He's going to do it under the symbol of shaving their beards.

[John Weaver] Listen, Isaiah 7 and verse 20. In the same day shall the Lord shave with the razor that is hired, namely by them beyond the river, that is the Assyrians, by the king of Assyria the head and the hair of the feet, and it shall also consume the beard." What did God say to those people? I'm going to shave you bald. Why? Because the beard represents life unto God. It represents submission to God, and separation to God, and the blessings of God, and dedication to God. But these people refuse to repent and refuse to surrender to God. And God said, you want to live like the heathen? Fine, I will judge you like the heathen. He said in Isaiah 15 in verse 2, He is going up to Bajeth and to Dibbon, high places to weep.

[John Weaver] Moab shall howl over Nibbon and over Medeba. All their heads shall be baldness and every beard shall be cut off. In Jeremiah 48 in verse 37, God said for every head shall be bald and every beard shall be clipped. Upon all the hands shall be cuttings and upon the loins sackcloth. God said I'll shave you bald. And in Ezekiel chapter 5 and verse 1, to represent what God was going to do, God told Ezekiel, And thou, son of man, take thee a sharp knife, listen, take thee a barber's razor, and cause it to pass upon thine head, and upon thy beard, then take thee balances to weigh and divide the hair. What did God say? Ezekiel, just like you've shaved your beard, I'm going to shave the nation. And so when God then is going to set forth the severity of His judgment, or upon His people because of their sin and rebellion, He does so under the picture and the emblem of taking away the beard. You see, the greatest indignity that could be inflicted upon a man is to have his beard plucked out.

[John Weaver] It was a sheer and a sure sign of the judgment of God upon him. Now, what did I say earlier? I said if you wanted to know what happened to our Lord Jesus Christ, you need to understand this. In Isaiah 50 and verse 6, concerning our Lord, here's what He said, I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to those that plucked off the hair.

[John Weaver] I hid not my face from shame and spitting. What? Our Lord gave His cheeks to those who plucked off the hair." In other words, they reached up and took handfuls of the beard and jerked it out. You say, that had to be excruciatingly painful. Oh, it was painful. But they did not jerk the beard out just to increase the pain. They jerked the beard out because it was the custom then to symbolize, and it was a way of saying, you are under the curse of God, you're judged by God, you're under the wrath of God, God's shaving you. And was that not true concerning our Lord who was our substitute? Did not He bear our wrath?

[John Weaver] Did not He take our punishment? Why was His beard plucked out? to show that He stood as our surety and our substitute, and He suffered the judgment of God in our stead. One last point, I want you to understand the purpose of the beard. God gave beards to men, and I told you earlier, the question is not whether it's right or wrong to have a beard, the question is whether it's right or wrong to shave. The beard is the distinguishing mark of a man. A bearded man can never be mistaken for a woman. Beards were regarded as sacred ornaments given by God to men to distinguish them from women.

[John Weaver] In Deuteronomy 22 and verse 5, here's a verse that has been around the world. The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth to the man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment, for all that do so are an abomination to the Lord. And I've preached and I've explained that verse, but I want you to listen to what Kyle and David said. one sentence upon this verse, Colin Dalish said this, the immediate design of this prohibition was not to prevent licentiousness or to oppose idolaters practices but to maintain the sanctity of that distinction of the sexes which was established by the creation of man and woman and in relation to which Israel was not to sin. Every violation or wiping out of this distinction was unnatural and therefore an abomination in the sight of God. So what Kyle and Dalich are saying in their commentary is that this verse is directed against any and all who would obliterate or blur the distinctions between the sexes and idolatry was often associated with the unisex or transgenderism.

[John Weaver] You remember in Acts chapter 19, I think it was, where Paul got into trouble there with the people because They worshiped Diana of the Ephesians and they kept shouting, great is Diana of the Ephesians. Did you know that Diana, look up her picture, Google it on the internet, put Diana of the Ephesians, and you're going to come and see a statue of a woman that has multiple breasts. Why would they put multiple breasts on a statue of a woman? because that is the distinguishing mark of a woman. But, when you look at Diana, she not only has multiple breasts, she also has a beard, because that's the distinguishing mark of a man.

[John Weaver] And those who worshipped her, oftentimes men dressed like women, and the women dressed like men, to give sacrifices. Many of the pagans did the same thing. If you look in Greece, if you look in Rome, If you look in ancient Egypt, there was a deliberate attempt to break down the distinction between the sexes. And thus, the ancients believed that the beardless man wasn't a feminine man. And thus, when the pagans even then made their statue of Diana, they gave her a beard. Elang in his conglomerate says this, to destroy the divinely instituted distinction between the sexes leads to licentiousness, immorality, and confusion. Whatever leads to render the male sex effeminate or the female sex masculine is an injury to both. One thing for sure, a short-haired man might be mistaken for a woman if he had very tender looks. But a short-haired man with a beard could never, ever be taken for a woman.

[John Weaver] Herodotus, whom I mentioned earlier, one of the early historians, when the barbarians invaded the Roman Empire said this, since the barbarians had long hair and clean-shaven faces, he said, They had been smitten by a deity and turned into a woman. Isn't that amazing?

[John Weaver] Now, let me just make a couple of applications. The first one is this. We cannot deny, disparage, or denigrate any part of the Word of God. All Scripture is inspired of God and is given for our instruction, our edification. If there was no importance concerning the beard, why would God not only give regulations concerning it, but why would He use it then as a symbol to express His divine judgment? Very obviously there is something to the beard.

[John Weaver] Secondly, there has been, lately for which I am thankful, a resurgence of the beard in recent days, and I think that is an indication that men as a whole are growing weary with the effeminacy of our modern day society. And I think there's another implication that men are indeed growing weary of servitude and serfdom and slavery. And once again, you've got to remember the beard indicated freedom from those things. And so when men wear beards then, they are saying in essence, I'm willing and I want to be in submission to God and separated to Him and blessed by Him. And thirdly, the beard is to picture our life unto God, our submission to God, our separation to God, the blessings of God upon us, but the symbol is nothing without the life. I said that the beard is to be a public and a private testimony. I've had Innumerable people over the years ask me why I have a beard.

[John Weaver] And I take the opportunity to explain and answer. But I'll tell you something else. Each time I look in the mirror, and I see the beard, and I trim my beard, I have to think, this beard tells me I'm to be in submission to the One True and the Living God. The question is, am I? I'm to be separated unto Him, am I? I'm to have His blessings upon me, do I? The beard is important, historically and biblically. And there's a reason why God gave men beards.

[John Weaver] And we need to understand that and be able to apply it. Father, we ask in the name of Jesus Christ for your help, for your grace, for your mercy, for your truth. We pray, Lord, that you would teach us, that you'd build us up in the most holy faith, and that you'd give us grace that we may serve thee acceptably with reverence and godly fear. In thy name we pray. Amen.

The Biblical and Historical Significance of the Beard

John Weaver | YouTube

Lecture Metadata	Details
Speaker	John Weaver
Source	YouTube
Media ID	VXbCGfb35UU
Subject	Church Government
Course	Church Order: Preaching and Pastoral Ministry
Genre	Sermon
Date	2012-11-27
Dictation Name
Book	Book 039: Church Order and Worship - Volume 1 — Chapter 10
Source Timed Segments	92

Formatted Transcript

Introduction and Disclaimers

Weaver clarifies he is not defending his beard, binding consciences, or equating beards with holiness, but aims to show the biblical significance of the beard.

Alright, so let's open our Bibles to the book of Leviticus chapter 19. The message today is the biblical and the historical significance of the beard, and you will not think that there's too much in the Bible concerning that, but there is a wealth of material. So, look in Leviticus chapter 19, and let's look at verses 26 through 28. God tells the people,

Scripture Reading — Leviticus 19:26-28

"You shall not eat anything with the blood, neither shall you use enchantment, nor observe times."

Then in verse 27, Leviticus 19,

Scripture Reading — Leviticus 19:26-28

"You shall not round the corners of your heads, neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard. You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you. I am the Lord."

Then if you'll look in Leviticus 21, beginning there with verse 1, and this is in reference to even the priest here, the other was in reference to all of God's people in general.

Now the Lord said unto Moses, "Speak thou unto the priests, the sons of Aaron, and say unto them, There shall none be defiled for the dead among his people, but for his kin that is near unto him, that is, for his mother and for his father, for his son, for his daughter, for his brother, and for his sister virgin that is nigh unto him, which hath no husband, for her may he be defiled. But he shall not defile himself, being a chief man among his people, to profane himself. They shall not make baldness upon their head, neither shall they shave off the corner of their beard, nor make any cuttings in their flesh. They shall be holy unto their God, and not profane the name of their God. For the offerings of the Lord made by fire, and the bread of their God they do offer. Therefore they shall be holy."

Many years ago, I preached this message on the biblical and the historical significance of the beard. This message has basically been around the world. And when I say it's been around the world, I have received comments from this message from Italy, South Africa, England, Wales. It is one of the most listened to messages on sermon audio. It is one of the most downloaded messages. But since I've preached this message many years ago, it has been copied, it has been plagiarized, in some instances it has been vilified. I have seen this message with another pastor's name attached to it. Which I really don't mind, and the one that I'm thinking of particularly, he added just one or two little things.

And I showed Alice, I got so tickled, I said, look at this, look at this. And it's on the internet, by the way. And he even used an illustration that I have, and since he didn't know me, he said, "There is in Pastor John Weaver's office." So I said, well, that's fine too. But I certainly do not mind the message being preached or repreached or reclaimed by anyone. I'm kind of like Paul. I'm just rejoicing in the fact that at least the Word of God is being preached and is getting out. So, there have been a number of preachers that have asked me and a number of people that have asked me to redo this message. So, let me begin by telling you what I'm not going to be doing in this message. First, I'm not defending my beard, very obviously. It does not need defending and the very fact that I've had it for over 40 years demonstrates and proves that I really genuinely believe what I'm going to share with you this day. In fact my grandchildren, none of them have ever seen me without a beard and probably my children do not even remember me with not having a beard unless they glance at a picture occasionally every now and then. So I'm not defending the beard.

Secondly, I'm not trying to bind my convictions upon your conscience. I do pray that the word of God will be open to you that you may see the truth of what I'm preaching. But the fact of the matter is, it's your responsibility to study the scripture for yourself and search out the matter. The Bible tells you in Proverbs 25 and verse 2,

Scripture Reading — Proverbs 25:2

"It is the glory of God to conceal a thing, but it's the honor of kings to search out a matter."

It's your responsibility then to search out this matter according to the Word of God. Thirdly, I am not saying, and listen carefully, I am not saying that a man that does not have a beard is less holy than one who does have a beard. Moreover, I am not saying that a man with a beard is more holy than a man without a beard. But I am going to show you shortly from Scripture what a beard does indeed represent and why I believe from scripture, especially a godly man, should have a visible beard.

Fourthly, I'm not asking you, the men particularly, to grow a beard for my benefit. I would never encourage anyone to do anything that they do not understand that is based upon the pure word of God. I'm not the Lord of your conscience. Jesus Christ is the Lord of your conscience, so you are to be bound by His word and not my word. But I would ask you to submit to the word of God and to be easily entreated, as James says, to the engrafted Word of God, which I believe will give you a great deal of understanding upon this subject, and you will find out that in reality a beard is not only a very

The History of Beards

A survey of historical attitudes toward beards, from ancient Egypt to the Reformation, showing how the rise and fall of the beard correlates with biblical fidelity.

First of all, I want to share with you the history of beards. Before I get into the biblical passages, I wish to point out that history may be studied and analyzed simply by looking at the rise and the fall of the beard. Historical truth is important. It is not equal to biblical truth, yet all history is God's history, for God is the God of history. But history does show us something. History does teach us something. It reveals to us either the lack and the ignorance of, or the knowledge and the importance of, biblical truth upon civilization. So you can look at civilization and you can see when the word of God is in the supremacy, certain things transpired. When the word of God is not in the supremacy, when rationalism, when man's thoughts are supreme, certain things transpired as well.

Now an interesting tidbit of history is this, that Egypt was about the only country in antiquity that forbade a man to have a beard or to let his beard grow out. The Egyptians disliked facial hair. They shaved themselves and they forced their slaves to shave. Now any biblical scholar will tell you very quickly that Egypt is a type of the world. Egypt has always been in the Bible that which represents contrariness to God, to his law, and to his people. So Egypt then by and large was a nation of beardless men. Yet when you look at the sculptures and even a picture, ancient art, of Pharaoh, you will see that Pharaoh always had a sharp pointed goatee. But if you look very carefully at the picture or at the sculpture, you will see there is a very thin line that goes up his cheeks and over his ears. And you know why? Because the beard was a fake beard. It was simply tied on.

Do you realize there is a reason for that? Even women sometimes in Egypt had these fake beards. For instance, Queen Hatshepsut dressed like a man and is shown with a fake beard. In Egypt, the fake beard was either used for celebrations or public appearances. There was also a religious significance attached to that beard. Because the beard in Egypt was considered a divine attribute of the gods to the Egyptians and thus when the Pharaoh or the Queen or some other public person donned a fake beard, what they were showing and demonstrating was that they were identifying themselves as a living God. And thus the Pharaoh had that fake beard tied just so he could identify himself with deity. Another interesting thing is this, if you will study the history of Egypt you will find that the enemies of Egypt are always depicted with beards. The enemies of Egypt are always depicted with beards. Maybe that's another reason why the Egyptians found facial hair disgusting to themselves because they identified it with an enemy of Egypt. There's another interesting tidbit and if you will check it out you'll find it true that in Greek mythology and in Roman mythology usually the false gods are presented as beardless.

Now, there were some that were presented with beards, that is true. But in their paintings, in their sculpturing, the false gods were usually beardless. I'm trying to give you some history concerning this. And the Council of Carthage, which was a church council in the early 200 AD, were discussing problems in the church. And in the Council of Carthage in 200 AD, one of the problems they were discussing was the problem of immodest dress. Now, we could think, how in the world could they be having problems with immodest dress in 200 AD? I mean, today we look around and we see the miniskirts and the shortened halters and the tank tops and you say, yeah, we got problems with immodest dress. Well, they had problems with immodest dress in 200 AD. But let me tell you what the council of Carthage said was immodest dress. Listen carefully. Here's the quote from the council concerning immodest dress.

"Any man who appears in church with long hair and a clean-shaven face will be excluded from communion for that man is immodestly dressed." Isn't that amazing? A man with long hair and a clean-shaven face was immodestly dressed. So if you came to church with long hair and a clean-shaven face, you were to be excluded from communion. It was Tertullian, one of the early church fathers, who wrote his treatise on the beard and said that the purpose of the beard was to keep lust down. I've heard some women say, "Well, he looks better without a beard." Well, he may. But Tertullian said, one of the reasons was to keep lust down. The fourth council of Carthage in 398 said this, "The clergyman shall not let his hair grow, neither shall he remove his beard." How about that?

Many of the ancients believed and they taught that God gave man a beard to distinguish him from a woman and therefore it was wrong to antagonize nature by shaving. One of the early church fathers, Clement of Alexandria, probably wrote more against shaving than any other of the Christian writers combined. Clement called, and I'm quoting now, the beard "man's natural adornment" and said "it is never permissible to remove it." He goes on to say "the hairs of the beard have been numbered." Clement warns his readers "to seek beauty in hairlessness is sheer effeminacy, if done by men." He goes on to say, "God planned," I love this one, "God planned that the woman be smooth skin, taking pride in her natural tresses, the only hair she has as the horse in its mane. But man, he adorned like the lion with a beard." So women were like the horses with the long flowing mane. Men were like lions with the beard. He went on to say, "This then is the mark of the man, the beard.

By this he is seen to be a man. It is older than Eve. It is the token of superior nature. It is therefore unholy to desecrate the symbol of manhood, hairiness." Isn't that amazing? So, when the barbarian hordes invaded the Roman Empire, they had long hair and they had clean shaven faces. And it was at this particular time when Rome fell that Christendom as a whole was what you and I would call Romanized.

So the barbarians then began to infiltrate the church. And all of these pagan rites and rituals were incorporated into the church. And at that particular time, since the barbarians had long hair and clean shaven faces, that's basically what began to happen. The men had long hair and they had clean, shaven faces. It's interesting that if you will look at the early pictures of Christ, even pictures today, Christ is always pictured with long hair and a beard. Have you ever wondered about that? Let me tell you dogmatically, in no uncertain terms, our Lord did not have long hair. How can I say he did not have long hair? Well, first of all, you have to remember that when our Lord was alive, Caesar was on the throne. The style was known as the Caesar cut or the Caesar style. It was short hair on the top of the head, never even touched the ears. That was the style during our Lord's lifetime. Moreover, specifically, the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 11 and verse 14, "Doth not even nature itself teach you," listen, "that if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him."

Now the Greek word for shame is atimia, which literally refers to that which is vile, shameful, dishonorable, ignominious, disgraceful, and a reproach. Now, if it was a reproach and shameful and vile for a man to have long hair, you've got to remember that Jesus Christ was and still is the sinless Son of God. He would have never ever done anything that would have been vile and reproachful. Moreover, the Bible tells us in Isaiah 42 and verse 21 concerning Christ, "The Lord is well pleased for his righteousness sake. He will magnify the law and make it honorable." So therefore the law says it's unnatural and a shame for a man to have long hair. I can assure you Christ never had long hair.

Now Christ is also presented in these pictures and in these works of art as having a beard. And that's because you could not deny that. It was very plain and very clearly said, not only in scripture, but in truth and in history as well. I want to point out a glaring inconsistency. Have you ever thought about this? Have you ever considered the glaring inconsistency of people who literally worship the Lord Jesus Christ who had a beard and then turn around and try to say it's wrong for a man to have a beard. Have you ever thought about that?

It was during the 16th century that one of the great awakenings occurred known as the Reformation. Bloody Mary, Queen of England was on the throne 1516 to 1558. It was in 1517 when Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the castle church door in Wittenberg, Germany and he began to teach and preach the just shall live by faith. Now so it's noticeable if you will go back and look then at some of these men as they began in the Reformation and then after they began you'll notice short hair and beards. Isn't that amazing? Then on the other hand if you will look during the Renaissance when man's rationalism prevailed, men then had long hair and clean-shaven faces. Same thing in France during the period of the Enlightenment, where you had so many people there who were agnostics and atheists and infidels and deists, they would have the long hair and the clean-shaven faces. But it's interesting, during the War of Northern Aggression, when you look at the pictures of godly men, you always find that they have beards.

Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee, Jeb Stuart, James Longstreet, Richard Stoddard Ewell, all of these men. And it's interesting, if you will look back at some of the old pictures of the Confederate veterans, 90% of them have beards. And beards were worn from that period of time up basically until you get to World War I when German liberalism began to infiltrate into this society and then of course beards then began to disappear and once again the long hair and the clean shaven faces came out.

So I'm just trying to show you, you can study civilization with the rise and fall of the beard. There were a few men down through the ages who cried out against clean-shaven faces. In 1528, William Tyndale was one of those, and here's what he said. He pointed out that shaving is borrowed of the heathen and proclaimed that the shaven nation have put Christ out of his room. Wow. William Shakespeare even said this in his play Much Ado About Nothing, he said, "He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man. He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man."

In 1859, an Englishman, James Ward, wrote a book, The Defense of the Beard, which was a pamphlet which listed 18 reasons why men were bound to grow a beard unless that man was indifferent as to offending the Creator and good taste. The next year, one year later, a work was published, listen to the title of this, Shaving, a Breach of the Sabbath and a Hindrance to the Spread of the Gospel. In this book, the author described the beard on the grounds that it was a divinely provided chest protector. So they had long beards coming down here. And here is just one part, one sentence out of that book. "Beard shaving and the common use of the razor, an unnatural, irrational, unmanly, ungodly, and fatal fashion among Christians." Wow. One of the more humorous quotes I found concerning the beard came from Tom Robbins. He said, "Of the seven dwarves, only Dopey had a clean-shaven face, and that should tell us something about the custom of shaving." Only Dopey had a clean shaven face. Wow! The bearded races of mankind have commonly held the beard in high honor.

The Beard as an Assumed Fact in Scripture

The Bible assumes men will have beards, provides regulations for them, and uses the beard as a symbol of dignity, honor, and manhood.

It is a presuppositional truth. It is something like the doctrine of God. By the way, do you know that the Bible never ever tries to prove the existence of God? The Bible just assumes it. Genesis 1-1, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." Never does the Bible try to prove there is a God. It just assumes it. Likewise, in the Bible, there is no definite command for men to grow a beard. However, it is assumed that a man will have a beard because that's the way God created him and his facial hair is going to grow. Moreover, there are divine regulations concerning the beard in the Bible. The Hebrew word for beard is the word zakhan. And the Hebrew word for elder is achin. So the elders in Israel got their names from their beard. Hence the word actually means a bearded one. Okay? So you've seen the history of the beard and the fact that the beard is an assumed fact. Let me give you thirdly the value of the beard.

The Hebrews always looked upon the beard as the glory and the pride of man. They would say that the glory of the face is the beard. The beard was a badge of honor, dignity, and manhood. Anyone wishing to express the value of an object would say this, "It is worth more than a man's beard." When a woman wanted to express the value of something, she would say, "It's more valuable than my husband's beard." Men often took oaths by their beard.

The Value of the Beard

The beard was highly esteemed in Hebrew culture as a badge of honor; to touch, pull, or cut it was a grave insult, as seen in the story of David's ambassadors.

They swore by their beards. Every one of us knows the story of the three little pigs and the big bad wolf. What did he say? "I'm going to huff and puff and blow your house down" and what did the little pig say? "Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin." What was he doing? He was taking an oath on the hair of his, now I realize pigs don't have beards, but that was a fairy tale, but that's where it came from. Because historically and biblically, men took oaths based upon their beards. Proverbs 20 and verse 29 says this, and by the way, even Shakespeare in his plays have men swearing and taking oaths by their beards. But Proverbs 20 and verse 29 says this, "The glory of young men is their strength, and the beauty of old men is their gray head." The ornament of young men is their strength, and the honor of old men is the gray hairs, and here it is in the Hebrew, or the hanging gray from the chin.

It was not necessarily talking about the gray hair up here. Some of us aren't able to have gray hair up here. But it does refer to the hanging gray from the chin. Whenever you see a man with a beard, you ought to consider several things. First of all, to pull it is to inflict an indignity. I've really only had my beard pulled that I can remember one time. And I will tell you, anger flew over me instantaneously. Not that I wanted to be angry, but the individual who did it did not realize what he was doing. And I very quickly said, "No, you never ever pull a man's beard. It's an indignity. It's an insult."

Secondly, to have it forcibly cut off or mutilated is a symbol of disgrace, which I'm going to show you from the Bible momentarily. Thirdly, to remove the beard voluntarily is a sign of mourning, which they did occasionally in the Bible. And then to stroke the beard like this, is a preface to uttering seemingly very important words or words of weight and value. And I might point this out, to kiss the beard is a sign of great respect, honor, friendship, and brotherly love. You cannot understand a number of verses in the New Testament if you do not understand this simple fact. For instance, let me just quote. 1 Corinthians 16 and verse 20, the apostle Paul said,

Scripture Reading — 1 Corinthians 16:20; Romans 16:16; 1 Thessalonians 5:26; 1 Peter 5:14

"All the brethren greet you,"

listen, "greet you one another with a holy kiss." Greet you one another with a holy kiss. In Romans 16 and verse 16, Paul again said, "Salute one another with a holy kiss. The churches of Christ salute you." 1 Thessalonians 5 verse 26, "Greet all the brethren with a holy kiss." And then 1 Peter 5 and verse 14, "Greet you one another with a kiss of charity. Peace be with you, all that are in Christ Jesus. Amen." How do you greet the brethren with a holy kiss? Because it was customary, not only in the Old Testament, but in the New Testament, when brethren met, out of great respect and affection, they would take each other's beard and kiss the beard. And yes, I've had men kiss my beard. One man did it particularly every time he saw me.

He understood this passage. And I was not offended by it. In fact, I thought, well, at least he at least understands the Scripture. I'm just simply saying, you cannot understand the value of the beard unless you understand these Scriptures. And that's how men normally greeted each other in the Old Testament and the New Testament by kissing each other's beards. Let me show you how valuable a beard was. I do want you to turn to 2 Samuel chapter 10. 2 Samuel chapter 10, and let's read the first seven verses. I want you to watch this passage, 2 Samuel chapter 10, and look if you would please beginning there with verse 1. 2 Samuel chapter 10, verse 1.

Scripture Reading — 2 Samuel 10:1-7

"And it came to pass after this, that the king of the children of Ammon died, and Hanun his son reigned in his stead. Then said David, 'I will show kindness unto Hanun the son of Nahash, as his father showed kindness unto me.' And David sent to comfort him by the hand of his servants for his father. And David's servants came into the land of the children of Ammon. And the princes of the children of Ammon said unto Hanun their lord, 'Thinkest thou that David doth honor thy father, that he hath sent comforters unto thee? Hath not David rather sent his servants unto thee to search the city, and to spy it out, and to overthrow it?' Wherefore Hanun took David's servants, and shaved off one half of their beards, and cut off their garments in the middle, even their buttocks, and sent them away.

And when they told it unto David, he sent to meet them, because the men were greatly ashamed. And the king said, 'Tarry ye at Jericho, until your beards be grown, and then return.' And when the children of Ammon saw that they stank before David, the children of Ammon sent and hired the Syrians of Beth Rehoboam, and the Syrians of Zobah, 20,000 footmen, of King Maacah, 1,000 men, of Ishtab, 12,000 men. And when David heard of it, he sent Joab and all the hosts of the mighty men, and the children of Ammon came out and put the battle in array, et cetera. Now, by the way, David wiped out the Ammonites and the Syrians.

But the point I'm trying to make is this. Hanun took David's diplomats, his servants, and shaved off one half their beards and cut their garments off and exposed their buttocks. The Ammonites knew exactly what they were doing when they mutilated the Hebrews' beards. They knew that it was a deadly insult. I want you to note something. I want you to see how times have changed. When the diplomats sent word to David that their beards had been mutilated and their garments had been cut off and their buttocks had been exposed, David said this to them, "Tarry ye at Jericho until your beards be grown." That was the insult. It did not concern them, to put it bluntly, that their fannies had been exposed.

The Meaning of the Beard

The beard signifies life unto God, submission to God, separation unto God, and the blessings of God, with scriptural examples from Leviticus, Psalms, and the prophets.

Do you remember how God smoked Miriam with leprosy when she rebelled against Moses? Do you remember how God gave Gehazi, the servant of Elisha, the leprosy that Naaman had because of his sin and his deceit? Now, I want you to listen to the law of the leper. Listen carefully. This is Leviticus 13, 29 and 30 in verse 33. God says,

Scripture Reading — Leviticus 13:29-33

"If a man or a woman have a plague upon the head or the beard, then the priest shall see the plague, and behold, if it be in sight deeper than the skin, and there being it a yellow thin hair, then the priest shall pronounce him unclean, it is a dry skull, even a leprosy, upon the head of the beard. And he shall be shaven, and the skull shall he not shave, but the priest shall shut him up that hath the skull seven days more."

So, if a man had leprosy, he had to be clean-shaven. Leprosy is a sign of sin and death and the judgment of God. When you get to the healing of a leper, in Leviticus chapter 14, once again when he came and presented everything that God demanded, he had to be clean shaven once again. And then when the priest pronounced him clean, only then was he allowed to grow his beard.

So, the beard first and foremost is a symbol of life unto God. It signifies life. We're free from sin. We're free from death. We're free from the judgment of God. Secondly, a beard signifies submission unto God. Now listen carefully. I'm going to show you this from the scripture. A beardless man or one with a clean shaven face indicated that he was a slave or in submission to man. Let me state this another way, to be deprived of a beard was and still is in many places a badge of civility, a mark of infamy that degraded a man from the ranks of men to those of slaves and women. Now, Joseph wore his beard while he was in prison. You remember he was a slave, he was sold into slavery. While he was in prison, he wore his beard. When Pharaoh called him to stand before him, what did Joseph do? He shaved his beard. Why did he shave his beard? Because he was a slave. And he was going to appear now before Pharaoh, and it would have been an insult and a dishonor to Pharaoh for him to have stood there with his beard.

Listen to this, Genesis 41 verse 14.

Scripture Reading — Genesis 41:14

"Then Pharaoh sent and called Joseph. And they brought him hastily out of the dungeon, and he shaved himself and changed his raiment, and he came unto Pharaoh."

Why did he do that? Because to be beardless was signifying that you were in submission to man, that you were a slave. And so Joseph then, since he was a slave, took the mark of a slave, he shaved himself. And by the way, in Genesis 41 in verse 40, Pharaoh said this to Joseph, "Thou shalt be over my house according to thy word. Shall all my people be ruled? Only in the throne will I be greater than thou." What was he saying? You're subject to me. You're my servant. Everybody else is going to be your servant, but you are my servant. So biblically speaking then, the beard indicates that men are in submission to God. Now, I'm not saying that Joseph was out of the will of God when he shaved his beard, because God certainly put him there. However, I am saying that in the context of what happened, when a man shaves his beard, it indicates that he is now in a position of servitude or in submission to man. And I am not implying that just because a man has a beard, that he is in subjection to God.

Unhappily, that is not true because multitudes of men across this world who have beards are in rebellion to God and they are in rebellion to the Lord Jesus Christ and they are lost in their sins. But the beard in reality is to signify submission unto God. In other words, the men who have beards and who are not in submission to God are betraying the symbol of what the beard represents. It's just like long hair on a woman symbolizes that she's in submission to her husband. I know plenty of women who have long hair that are not in submission to their husband. The long hair does them no good at all. Their life betrays the symbol. Thirdly, a beard indicates separation unto God. In Bible times, when a man looked at another man's beard, he knew who that man worshipped and who was his God. A beard basically told you who your God was. Pagans usually marred their beard as well as their heads. When God said, and I will show you later, when God says, "I shall not mar the corner of your beard," this is the corner of the beard.

To mar the corner, then, would be to have what you and I would call the goatee. And the pagans did that because they did it in honor of the sun, which was around the moon, the stars, and the heavenly bodies. Herodotus, one of the early historians, said this of the Arabs, "where a custom shaved the hair round the head and left a tuft to stand up on the crown in honor of Bacchus." In Leviticus 19, which we read a little bit earlier, in verses 26 through 28, God says this, "You shall not eat anything with the blood, neither shall you use enchantment nor observe times. You shall not round the corners of your head, neither shall thou mar the corners of thy beard." Why? In Leviticus 21 verses 5 through 6, the priest was not to make any baldness upon his head, neither shall they shave the corners of their beards. Why? Because the Hebrews had full beards, and that full beard represented separation to God.

When you saw the man with just the goatee and the mustache, it meant in history times, in Bible times, that he was a worshipper of Bacchus, or Baal, or Ortal, or one of the heavenly bodies. So it's important for us to understand that the beard then, in scripture, represents life, it represents freedom, it represents separation of God, but the symbol is nothing without reality. When God's people act like the wicked, God will punish them exactly like the wicked. And God indicates that He will cut or mar the corners of their beard. The expression that I will just read very quickly in Jeremiah 9, Jeremiah 25, Jeremiah 49, when God talks about those who are in the utmost corners, He's not talking about places, He's not talking about geographical places. He's talking about the beard. Listen carefully. God says, "Behold, the days come, said the Lord, that I will punish all them that are circumcised with the uncircumcision, Egypt and Judah and Edom and the children of Ammon and Moab and all that are in the utmost corners that dwell in the wilderness.

For all these nations are uncircumcised and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in the heart." Well, they were uncircumcised in the heart. They were circumcised physically. They were in the covenant. But they were acting like the heathen. God says, you want to act like the heathen? Fine, I'll judge you like the heathen. You find the same thing in Jeremiah 25, 23. Jeremiah 49, verse 32. God says, "I will mar the corners."

Now, fourthly, very quickly, the beard signifies the blessings of God upon His people. Let me just read it. In Psalm 133, beginning with verse 1, listen carefully.

Scripture Reading — Psalm 133:1-3

"Behold how good and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. It is like the precious ointment upon the head that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard that went down to the skirts of his garments. As the dew of Hermon, and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion, for there the Lord commanded the blessing, even life evermore."

So when Aaron and his sons then were anointed with that oil, that oil poured on their head, ran down their beards, even to their garments. Thus, a well-groomed and a well-cared for beard indicates the blessings of God upon that individual and his dedication to the service of God. Listen carefully.

The Beard and Divine Judgment

God's judgment is often depicted as shaving or plucking the beard, culminating in the suffering of Christ, whose beard was plucked as a sign of bearing God's wrath.

The beard was plucked off or plucked out or shaved off or left unattended only during a time of great mourning and great calamity. We've already pointed this out in Mephibosheth. But you remember when Job lost everything he had and his 10 children, and Job 1:20? Then Job arose and rent his mantle and shaved his head and fell down upon the ground in worship. In Ezra chapter 9, Ezra, when he saw the sin of all the people, in verse 3 says this, "And when I heard this thing, I rent my garment and my mantle, and plucked off the hair of my head and of my beard, and sat down astonished."

Now let me show you something in light of this. If you really want to understand what happened to our Lord Jesus Christ, I want you to listen carefully. When God was going to bring judgment upon His people because they refused to repent and refused to return to Him, God indicated that great judgment by telling them that He was going to shave their beards. I remember years ago, and Alice can verify this, when I first grew my beard, which has been about 40 years now, I would have nightmares. And my nightmare was this, that I would wake up clean-shaven and didn't know how I got clean-shaven. I'm serious. I mean, and I would just about wake up with chills because I didn't know what had happened. Why would that affect me so, or why should it affect anyone so? Because when God is going to bring judgment upon His disobedient people, He's going to do it under the symbol of shaving their beards.

Listen, Isaiah 7 and verse 20.

Scripture Reading — Isaiah 7:20; Isaiah 15:2; Jeremiah 48:37; Ezekiel 5:1

"In the same day shall the Lord shave with the razor that is hired, namely by them beyond the river, that is the Assyrians, by the king of Assyria the head and the hair of the feet, and it shall also consume the beard."

What did God say to those people? I'm going to shave you bald. Why? Because the beard represents life unto God. It represents submission to God, and separation to God, and the blessings of God, and dedication to God. But these people refuse to repent and refuse to surrender to God. And God said, you want to live like the heathen? Fine, I will judge you like the heathen. He said in Isaiah 15 in verse 2, "He is going up to Bajeth and to Dibbon, high places to weep.

Moab shall howl over Nebo and over Medeba. All their heads shall be baldness and every beard shall be cut off." In Jeremiah 48 in verse 37, God said "for every head shall be bald and every beard shall be clipped. Upon all the hands shall be cuttings and upon the loins sackcloth." God said I'll shave you bald. And in Ezekiel chapter 5 and verse 1, to represent what God was going to do, God told Ezekiel, "And thou, son of man, take thee a sharp knife, listen, take thee a barber's razor, and cause it to pass upon thine head, and upon thy beard, then take thee balances to weigh and divide the hair." What did God say? Ezekiel, just like you've shaved your beard, I'm going to shave the nation. And so when God then is going to set forth the severity of His judgment, or upon His people because of their sin and rebellion, He does so under the picture and the emblem of taking away the beard. You see, the greatest indignity that could be inflicted upon a man is to have his beard plucked out.

It was a sheer and a sure sign of the judgment of God upon him. Now, what did I say earlier? I said if you wanted to know what happened to our Lord Jesus Christ, you need to understand this. In Isaiah 50 and verse 6, concerning our Lord, here's what He said,

Scripture Reading — Isaiah 50:6

"I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to those that plucked off the hair. I hid not my face from shame and spitting."

What? Our Lord gave His cheeks to those who plucked off the hair. In other words, they reached up and took handfuls of the beard and jerked it out. You say, that had to be excruciatingly painful. Oh, it was painful. But they did not jerk the beard out just to increase the pain. They jerked the beard out because it was the custom then to symbolize, and it was a way of saying, you are under the curse of God, you're judged by God, you're under the wrath of God, God's shaving you. And was that not true concerning our Lord who was our substitute? Did not He bear our wrath?

Did not He take our punishment? Why was His beard plucked out? To show that He stood as our surety and our substitute, and He suffered the judgment of God in our stead. One last point, I want you to understand the purpose of the beard. God gave beards to men, and I told you earlier, the question is not whether it's right or wrong to have a beard, the question is whether it's right or wrong to shave. The beard is the distinguishing mark of a man. A bearded man can never be mistaken for a woman. Beards were regarded as sacred ornaments given by God to men to distinguish them from women.

The Purpose of the Beard

The beard is a distinguishing mark of manhood, given by God to maintain the distinction between sexes, opposing the unisex and effeminate trends of modern society.

In Deuteronomy 22 and verse 5, here's a verse that has been around the world. "The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth to the man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment, for all that do so are an abomination to the Lord." And I've preached and I've explained that verse, but I want you to listen to what Keil and Delitzsch said. One sentence upon this verse, Keil and Delitzsch said this, "The immediate design of this prohibition was not to prevent licentiousness or to oppose idolaters practices but to maintain the sanctity of that distinction of the sexes which was established by the creation of man and woman and in relation to which Israel was not to sin. Every violation or wiping out of this distinction was unnatural and therefore an abomination in the sight of God." So what Keil and Delitzsch are saying in their commentary is that this verse is directed against any and all who would obliterate or blur the distinctions between the sexes and idolatry was often associated with the unisex or transgenderism.

You remember in Acts chapter 19, I think it was, where Paul got into trouble there with the people because they worshipped Diana of the Ephesians and they kept shouting, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians." Did you know that Diana, look up her picture, Google it on the internet, put Diana of the Ephesians, and you're going to come and see a statue of a woman that has multiple breasts. Why would they put multiple breasts on a statue of a woman? Because that is the distinguishing mark of a woman. But, when you look at Diana, she not only has multiple breasts, she also has a beard, because that's the distinguishing mark of a man. And those who worshipped her, oftentimes men dressed like women, and the women dressed like men, to give sacrifices. Many of the pagans did the same thing. If you look in Greece, if you look in Rome, if you look in ancient Egypt, there was a deliberate attempt to break down the distinction between the sexes. And thus, the ancients believed that the beardless man wasn't a feminine man. And thus, when the pagans even then made their statue of Diana, they gave her a beard. Ellicott in his commentary says this, "To destroy the divinely instituted distinction between the sexes leads to licentiousness, immorality, and confusion. Whatever leads to render the male sex effeminate or the female sex masculine is an injury to both." One thing for sure, a short-haired man might be mistaken for a woman if he had very tender looks. But a short-haired man with a beard could never, ever be taken for a woman.

Herodotus, whom I mentioned earlier, one of the early historians, when the barbarians invaded the Roman Empire said this, since the barbarians had long hair and clean-shaven faces, he said, "They had been smitten by a deity and turned into a woman." Isn't that amazing? Now, let me just make a couple of applications. The first one is this. We cannot deny, disparage, or denigrate any part of the Word of God. All Scripture is inspired of God and is given for our instruction, our edification. If there was no importance concerning the beard, why would God not only give regulations concerning it, but why would He use it then as a symbol to express His divine judgment? Very obviously there is something to the beard.

Applications and Conclusion

Believers should not disparage any part of Scripture; the resurgence of beards may indicate a desire for biblical manhood; the beard serves as a public and private testimony of submission to God.

Secondly, there has been, lately for which I am thankful, a resurgence of the beard in recent days, and I think that is an indication that men as a whole are growing weary with the effeminacy of our modern day society. And I think there's another implication that men are indeed growing weary of servitude and serfdom and slavery. And once again, you've got to remember the beard indicated freedom from those things. And so when men wear beards then, they are saying in essence, I'm willing and I want to be in submission to God and separated to Him and blessed by Him. And thirdly, the beard is to picture our life unto God, our submission to God, our separation to God, the blessings of God upon us, but the symbol is nothing without the life. I said that the beard is to be a public and a private testimony. I've had innumerable people over the years ask me why I have a beard.

And I take the opportunity to explain and answer. But I'll tell you something else. Each time I look in the mirror, and I see the beard, and I trim my beard, I have to think, this beard tells me I'm to be in submission to the One True and the Living God. The question is, am I? I'm to be separated unto Him, am I? I'm to have His blessings upon me, do I? The beard is important, historically and biblically. And there's a reason why God gave men beards.

And we need to understand that and be able to apply it. Father, we ask in the name of Jesus Christ for your help, for your grace, for your mercy, for your truth. We pray, Lord, that you would teach us, that you'd build us up in the most holy faith, and that you'd give us grace that we may serve thee acceptably with reverence and godly fear. In thy name we pray. Amen.

Study Guide

Major Themes

Biblical Manhood and Distinction of Sexes

Summary: The beard is a God-given mark of manhood that distinguishes men from women, and its removal blurs the divinely instituted distinction between the sexes.

Evidence: Weaver cites Deuteronomy 22:5 and Keil and Delitzsch's commentary to argue that obliterating sex distinctions is an abomination, and notes that a bearded man can never be mistaken for a woman.

The Beard as a Symbol of Submission to God

Summary: A beard signifies submission to God, while a clean-shaven face historically indicated slavery or submission to man, as seen in Joseph's shaving before Pharaoh.

Evidence: Weaver explains that Joseph shaved his beard when appearing before Pharaoh because a beardless state signified servitude, and contrasts this with the beard representing submission to God.

The Beard and Divine Judgment

Summary: The removal or mutilation of the beard is a biblical symbol of God's judgment, most poignantly fulfilled in Christ's suffering when His beard was plucked.

Evidence: Weaver references Isaiah 7:20, Isaiah 15:2, Jeremiah 48:37, and Ezekiel 5:1 to show God's judgment as shaving, and Isaiah 50:6 to show Christ's beard plucked as bearing wrath.

Historical Correlation Between Beards and Godliness

Summary: Throughout history, periods of biblical fidelity and revival are marked by men wearing beards, while apostasy and rationalism correlate with clean-shaven faces.

Evidence: Weaver traces the beard from Egypt (beardless), through the Reformation (bearded), to the Renaissance and Enlightenment (clean-shaven), and notes Confederate generals' beards.

The Beard as a Testimony and Reminder

Summary: The beard serves as both a public testimony to others and a private reminder to the wearer of his commitment to live in submission, separation, and blessing before God.

Evidence: Weaver states that when he looks in the mirror, his beard reminds him to be in submission to God, separated unto Him, and to have His blessings.

Thinking Biblically About Cultural Taboos

Summary: Christians must bring every thought captive to Christ and judge by righteous judgment, not by appearance or cultural biases against beards.

Evidence: Weaver cites 2 Corinthians 10:4-5 and John 7:24, and argues that the taboo against bearded pastors is man-made, not biblical.

Key Arguments

The Beard is an Assumed Biblical Norm

Summary: Scripture never commands men to grow a beard but assumes it as natural, providing regulations for its care and using it as a symbol of honor and dignity.

Evidence: Weaver notes that the Hebrew word for elder (zaqen) is related to beard, and that Leviticus 19:27 and 21:5 regulate the beard rather than prohibit it.

Shaving is the Question, Not Beards

Summary: Since God created men to grow beards, the real question is whether it is right to shave, not whether it is right to have a beard.

Evidence: Weaver argues that beards grow naturally and must be repeatedly shaved, so the burden of proof is on those who remove what God has given.

The Beard Signifies Life, Freedom, and Blessing

Summary: In Scripture, lepers were shaved (symbol of death), slaves were beardless (symbol of servitude), and anointing oil ran down Aaron's beard (symbol of blessing).

Evidence: Weaver cites Leviticus 13:29-33 for leprosy, Genesis 41:14 for Joseph's slavery, and Psalm 133 for Aaron's anointing.

Mutilating the Beard is a Grave Insult and Sign of Judgment

Summary: Forcibly cutting or plucking a beard was a deadly insult in ancient cultures and a prophetic sign of God's wrath upon His people.

Evidence: Weaver recounts the war over David's ambassadors' beards (2 Samuel 10) and the prophetic shavings in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel.

Christ's Beard Was Plucked as Substitutionary Judgment

Summary: The plucking of Christ's beard fulfilled Isaiah 50:6, symbolizing that He bore the curse and judgment of God in place of sinners.

Evidence: Weaver connects the cultural meaning of beard-plucking as divine curse with Christ's passion, emphasizing His role as substitute.

Historical Precedent Supports the Beard for Godly Men

Summary: From early church councils to Spurgeon, godly leaders have required or commended beards, while beardlessness was associated with paganism and effeminacy.

Evidence: Weaver cites the Council of Carthage (200 AD), Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, and Spurgeon's requirement for deacons to have beards.

Scripture References

Leviticus 19:26-28

Context: God commands not to round the corners of the head or mar the corners of the beard, indicating divine regulation of facial hair.

Leviticus 21:1-6

Context: Priests are forbidden to shave off the corner of their beard or make baldness on their head, emphasizing holiness.

Proverbs 25:2

Context: It is the glory of God to conceal a thing, but the honor of kings to search out a matter, applied to studying the beard.

John 7:24

Context: Judge not according to appearance, but judge righteous judgment, used to caution against superficial judgments about beards.

2 Corinthians 10:4-5

Context: Bringing every thought captive to Christ, including thoughts about beards, to think biblically.

Psalm 119:165

Context: Great peace have they that love thy law, and nothing shall offend them, used to argue that offense at beards indicates a problem with God's law.

1 Corinthians 11:14

Context: Nature teaches that long hair is a shame to a man, used to argue Christ did not have long hair.

Isaiah 42:21

Context: Christ magnified the law and made it honorable, supporting that He would not violate the principle against long hair.

1 Samuel 21:13-15

Context: David feigned madness by letting spittle fall on his beard, showing that defiling the beard was considered insane.

2 Samuel 19:24

Context: Mephibosheth did not trim his beard as a sign of mourning during David's exile.

2 Samuel 20:9-10

Context: Joab took Amasa by the beard to kiss him as a pretense of friendship before murdering him.

Luke 22:28

Context: Judas betrayed Christ with a kiss, likely involving taking His beard, paralleling Joab's treachery.

Proverbs 20:29

Context: The beauty of old men is their gray head, interpreted as the hanging gray from the chin (beard).

1 Corinthians 16:20; Romans 16:16; 1 Thessalonians 5:26; 1 Peter 5:14

Context: Greeting with a holy kiss, understood as kissing the beard as a sign of respect and brotherly love.

2 Samuel 10:1-7

Context: Hanun shaved half the beards of David's servants, causing a war, showing the beard's value and the insult of its mutilation.

Leviticus 13:29-33

Context: Lepers with plagues on the head or beard were to be shaven, linking beardlessness with sin and death.

Genesis 41:14

Context: Joseph shaved himself before appearing before Pharaoh, signifying his status as a slave.

Psalm 133:1-3

Context: The anointing oil running down Aaron's beard symbolizes the blessings of God upon His people.

Isaiah 7:20; Isaiah 15:2; Jeremiah 48:37; Ezekiel 5:1

Context: God's judgment is depicted as shaving the head and beard, symbolizing His wrath upon rebellious people.

Isaiah 50:6

Context: Christ gave His cheeks to those who plucked off the hair, fulfilling the symbol of bearing God's judgment.

Historical References

Ancient Egypt

Context: Egypt was a beardless nation; Pharaohs wore fake beards as a divine attribute; enemies of Egypt were depicted with beards.

Council of Carthage (200 AD)

Context: Declared that a man with long hair and clean-shaven face was immodestly dressed and should be excluded from communion.

Tertullian

Context: Early church father who wrote a treatise on the beard, stating its purpose was to keep lust down.

Clement of Alexandria

Context: Early church father who called the beard man's natural adornment and said it is never permissible to remove it.

Barbarian invasions of Rome

Context: Barbarians had long hair and clean-shaven faces, influencing the church to adopt similar styles as Rome fell.

Reformation (16th century)

Context: Reformers like Martin Luther wore short hair and beards, contrasting with the long hair and clean-shaven faces of the Renaissance.

Confederate generals (e.g., Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee)

Context: Godly men during the War of Northern Aggression typically wore beards, with 90% of Confederate veterans bearded.

William Tyndale (1528)

Context: Proclaimed that shaving is borrowed of the heathen and that the shaven nation have put Christ out of his room.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Context: Spurgeon had a beard and required all his deacons to have beards.

Diana of the Ephesians

Context: The statue of Diana had multiple breasts and a beard, representing a deliberate blurring of sexual distinctions in pagan worship.

Important Quotes

I am not saying that a man that does not have a beard is less holy than one who does have a beard. Moreover, I am not saying that a man with a beard is more holy than a man without a beard.

Significance: Clarifies that the message is not about equating beards with personal holiness, but about biblical symbolism.

Judge not according to appearance, but judge righteous judgment.

Significance: Calls for biblical discernment rather than cultural bias when evaluating the beard.

Great peace have they that love thy law, and nothing shall offend them.

Significance: Argues that being offended by a beard reveals a lack of love for God's law.

The beard is the distinguishing mark of a man. A bearded man can never be mistaken for a woman.

Significance: Summarizes the beard's role in maintaining the God-ordained distinction between sexes.

The symbol is nothing without the life.

Significance: Emphasizes that wearing a beard must be accompanied by genuine submission and separation to God.

He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man.

Significance: Quotes Shakespeare to illustrate the historical view of the beard as a mark of mature manhood.

To destroy the divinely instituted distinction between the sexes leads to licentiousness, immorality, and confusion.

Significance: Cites Ellicott's commentary to reinforce the moral implications of blurring gender distinctions.

Discussion Questions

How does understanding the historical and cultural significance of the beard in Scripture change your perspective on passages like 2 Samuel 10 or Isaiah 50:6?

Context: Weaver detailed the insult of beard mutilation and its connection to Christ's suffering.

In what ways might modern cultural taboos against beards in church leadership reflect a failure to 'think biblically' as described in 2 Corinthians 10:5?

Context: Weaver challenged the taboo against bearded pastors and called for bringing every thought captive to Christ.

How can the beard serve as a private testimony and reminder of submission to God in your daily life?

Context: Weaver shared that looking in the mirror reminds him of his commitment to God.

What does the connection between leprosy, shaving, and sin teach us about the spiritual symbolism of the beard?

Context: Weaver explained that lepers were shaved as a sign of sin and death, while the beard signifies life.

How should Christians respond to the growing unisex trend in light of Deuteronomy 22:5 and the beard's role in distinguishing sexes?

Context: Weaver argued that the beard is a God-given mark of manhood that opposes the blurring of gender distinctions.

Why do you think periods of revival and reformation in church history have often been accompanied by a return to wearing beards?

Context: Weaver traced the correlation between beards and biblical fidelity from the Reformation to the modern era.

How can we apply the principle of not judging by appearance (John 7:24) when encountering fellow believers with different convictions about beards?

Context: Weaver cautioned against superficial judgments and emphasized righteous judgment based on Scripture.

What does the plucking of Christ's beard reveal about the nature of His substitutionary atonement?

Context: Weaver connected Isaiah 50:6 to Christ bearing the curse and judgment of God for sinners.

Applications

Study Scripture Thoroughly

Summary: Believers should search the Scriptures to understand even seemingly minor topics like the beard, as all Scripture is profitable for instruction.

Evidence: Weaver urged listeners to study the matter for themselves, citing Proverbs 25:2 and his own journey of discovery.

Reject Cultural Bias

Summary: Christians must not allow cultural taboos or past abuses to dictate their obedience to biblical principles regarding the beard.

Evidence: Weaver argued that just because hippies or others misused beards does not mean we discard the truth, using analogies like the Lord's table.

Embrace Biblical Manhood

Summary: Men should consider growing a beard as a way to visibly affirm their God-given manhood and distinction from women, in opposition to unisex trends.

Evidence: Weaver stated that the beard is a distinguishing mark of a man and that its resurgence may indicate a weariness with effeminacy.

Let the Beard Be a Testimony

Summary: A beard can serve as a public witness and a private reminder to live in submission, separation, and blessing before God.

Evidence: Weaver shared that his beard prompts him to examine his walk with God each time he sees it.

Do Not Be Offended by Biblical Practices

Summary: If someone is offended by a beard, they should examine their love for God's law, as Psalm 119:165 promises peace to those who love it.

Evidence: Weaver used Psalm 119:165 to argue that offense at beards reveals a heart issue with God's Word.

Recognize Christ's Substitutionary Suffering

Summary: The plucking of Christ's beard should deepen our appreciation for His bearing of God's judgment on our behalf.

Evidence: Weaver explained that the beard-plucking was a cultural sign of divine curse, fulfilled in Christ's passion.

Maintain Sexual Distinction

Summary: In a culture that blurs gender lines, Christians should uphold the biblical distinction between men and women, with the beard as one visible marker.

Evidence: Weaver cited Deuteronomy 22:5 and the example of Diana worship to warn against unisex practices.

Submit to God, Not Man

Summary: The beard symbolizes freedom from slavery to man and submission to God alone; believers should live accordingly.

Evidence: Weaver contrasted Joseph's shaving as a slave with the beard as a sign of submission to God.

deepseek | deepseek-v4-pro | clean_readable_transcript | 2026-06-06T04:52:57Z

deepseek | deepseek-v4-pro | weaver_study | 2026-06-06T16:58:15Z

Clean Transcript

The Biblical and Historical Significance of the Beard

Clean readable transcript. This view follows the Commentary.net cleaned segment text while preserving timestamps for audio follow-along.

Alright, so let's open our Bibles to the book of Leviticus chapter 19. The message today is the biblical and the historical significance of the beard, and you will not think that there's too much in the Bible concerning that, but there is a wealth of material. So, look in Leviticus chapter 19, and let's look at verses 26 through 28. God tells the people, "You shall not eat anything with the blood, neither shall you use enchantment, nor observe times." Then in verse 27, Leviticus 19, "You shall not round the corners of your heads, neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard. You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you. I am the Lord." Then if you'll look in Leviticus 21, beginning there with verse 1, and this is in reference to even the priest here, the other was in reference to all of God's people in general.
#1 | 0:14 to 1:16 | cleaned
Now the Lord said unto Moses, "Speak thou unto the priests, the sons of Aaron, and say unto them, There shall none be defiled for the dead among his people, but for his kin that is near unto him, that is, for his mother and for his father, for his son, for his daughter, for his brother, and for his sister virgin that is nigh unto him, which hath no husband, for her may he be defiled. But he shall not defile himself, being a chief man among his people, to profane himself. They shall not make baldness upon their head, neither shall they shave off the corner of their beard, nor make any cuttings in their flesh. They shall be holy unto their God, and not profane the name of their God. For the offerings of the Lord made by fire, and the bread of their God they do offer. Therefore they shall be holy."
#2 | 1:16 to 2:03 | cleaned
Many years ago, I preached this message on the biblical and the historical significance of the beard. This message has basically been around the world. And when I say it's been around the world, I have received comments from this message from Italy, South Africa, England, Wales. It is one of the most listened to messages on sermon audio. It is one of the most downloaded messages. But since I've preached this message many years ago, it has been copied, it has been plagiarized, in some instances it has been vilified. I have seen this message with another pastor's name attached to it. Which I really don't mind, and the one that I'm thinking of particularly, he added just one or two little things.
#3 | 2:04 to 3:10 | cleaned
And I showed Alice, I got so tickled, I said, look at this, look at this. And it's on the internet, by the way. And he even used an illustration that I have, and since he didn't know me, he said, "There is in Pastor John Weaver's office." So I said, well, that's fine too. But I certainly do not mind the message being preached or repreached or reclaimed by anyone.
#4 | 3:11 to 3:35 | cleaned
I'm kind of like Paul. I'm just rejoicing in the fact that at least the Word of God is being preached and is getting out. So, there have been a number of preachers that have asked me and a number of people that have asked me to redo this message. So, let me begin by telling you what I'm not going to be doing in this message. First, I'm not defending my beard, very obviously. It does not need defending and the very fact that I've had it for over 40 years demonstrates and proves that I really genuinely believe what I'm going to share with you this day. In fact my grandchildren, none of them have ever seen me without a beard and probably my children do not even remember me with not having a beard unless they glance at a picture occasionally every now and then. So I'm not defending the beard.
#5 | 3:36 to 4:27 | cleaned
Secondly, I'm not trying to bind my convictions upon your conscience. I do pray that the word of God will be open to you that you may see the truth of what I'm preaching. But the fact of the matter is, it's your responsibility to study the scripture for yourself and search out the matter. The Bible tells you in Proverbs 25 and verse 2, "It is the glory of God to conceal a thing, but it's the honor of kings to search out a matter." It's your responsibility then to search out this matter according to the Word of God.
#6 | 4:27 to 4:59 | cleaned
Thirdly, I am not saying, and listen carefully, I am not saying that a man that does not have a beard is less holy than one who does have a beard. Moreover, I am not saying that a man with a beard is more holy than a man without a beard. But I am going to show you shortly from Scripture what a beard does indeed represent and why I believe from scripture, especially a godly man, should have a visible beard.
#7 | 5:00 to 5:29 | cleaned
Fourthly, I'm not asking you, the men particularly, to grow a beard for my benefit. I would never encourage anyone to do anything that they do not understand that is based upon the pure word of God. I'm not the Lord of your conscience. Jesus Christ is the Lord of your conscience, so you are to be bound by His word and not my word. But I would ask you to submit to the word of God and to be easily entreated, as James says, to the engrafted Word of God, which I believe will give you a great deal of understanding upon this subject, and you will find out that in reality a beard is not only a very
#8 | 5:29 to 6:10 | cleaned
important matter, it is a biblical matter according to Scriptures. Now let me tell you what I'm going to ask you to do at the very beginning. I'm going to ask you to do that which our Lord commands in John 7 and verse 24 when He says, "Judge not according to appearance, but judge righteous judgment." Unhappily today, most people judge by appearance. They do not judge by righteous judgment or just judgment.
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If you want to go by appearance, I could take you down to our local post office, and I could take you through the FBI's most wanted list or the pictures they have there of the men that they want and I could show you where probably 90 percent of the wanted men on the FBI list are clean-shaven. I could conclude then based upon that that anyone who is clean-shaven is a criminal and is probably wanted by the FBI.
#10 | 6:42 to 7:16 | cleaned
You would say that would be an erroneous judgment. It would be. But I would be judging by appearance. You see what I'm saying? So our Lord says that we're not to judge by appearance. We're to judge just and righteous judgment. You see, there's another objective, or an objection I should say, that appears in relationship to that. And that's because in times past, there were those individuals who lived the hippie lifestyle, and wore their beards, and oftentimes they were dirty, they were unkempt, and they were certainly rebellious. And I hope you understand that just because someone abuses or misuses a truth does not mean that we disobey or disregard the truth. For instance, we do not cease observing the Lord's table just because the Roman Catholics have turned it into a perpetual mass. We do not cease baptizing people just because there are some who teach baptismal regeneration. We do not discard marital sex just because there are adulterers and fornicators. All I'm trying to say is this, you don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
#11 | 7:19 to 8:33 | cleaned
Just because someone abuses and misuses a truth does not mean that the truth is wrong. It just means that they are wrong for abusing and misusing the truth. In fact, the truth of the matter is there is a growing trend and it has been over the past years, especially among young people, to go for what is known as the Kung Fu or the Kojak look, which in our day and time is now referred to the unisex look. In fact, if you will go into some of the larger department stores and you start to go to a bathroom and you will usually see gentlemen and ladies and then unisex.
#12 | 8:35 to 9:14 | cleaned
I can point you to several down in Florida and they're there. Or sometimes they will say, now a family bathroom. A family bathroom? I get tickled because, you know, I go into these bathrooms and it says baby changing station. Man, I've stayed there all day and tried to get somebody to change babies with me and nobody will take mine. I know what it means, but I get tickled every time I see that. Baby changing station. Who wants to change babies?
#13 | 9:17 to 9:48 | cleaned
But anyhow, I'm just simply saying, here is this that you and I understand. And what is happening is this. Since this unisex look is going around, men are looking like women, women are looking like men. And certainly we were going to condemn that because that is condemned in the Word of God. There is indeed a biblical significance to a beard and to a man looking like a man. Second, I want you to understand that a man who has a full beard, the beard is not prohibited in the Word of God. In fact, the beard is commended in the Word of God, and there are definite regulations laid down in the scripture concerning the beard.
#14 | 9:49 to 10:41 | cleaned
You see, the biggest taboo, and it's not so much today as it was back in the 70s when I first preached this message, but the biggest taboo was a bearded pastor. In other words, back then, pastors just did not have beards. I mean, everybody was basically clean-shaven is what it amounted to. In fact, even the university that I went to originally back in the 60s did not allow beards. I have known of Christian men who were not accepted in other churches because they had a beard. I've known Christian men who were turned down for positions of teaching because they had a beard. So the taboo that I'm pointing out is not God's taboo, but it is man's taboo.
#15 | 10:41 to 11:32 | cleaned
They've never ever considered what the Word of God teaches. Thirdly, I would like to encourage you to think biblically today. You see, we claim to be Christians, and we claim to love the Word of God, and yet for all practical purposes, most professing Christians neglect the Word of God. We neglect to study these subjects. I will guarantee you I could probably count on one hand the number of preachers and especially the number of Christians who've ever, ever looked in the Bible to see what the Bible has to say about a beard. Very few.
#16 | 11:33 to 12:12 | cleaned
In fact, I'll tell you how I came to preach this message. One of my pastor friends who I've known for years and years, I went to see him one day and he had a beautiful head full of gray hair and he had this beautiful gray beard. And I looked at him and I said, "Why did you grow a beard?" And his response was, "Because of what the Bible teaches about the beard." And I looked at him and I said, "Well, what does the Bible teach about the beard?" And he looked at me and said, "I'm not going to tell you.
#17 | 12:14 to 12:52 | cleaned
If you want to know, go home and study it out for yourself." And that's exactly what I did. And that's why I came to preach this message years ago. But listen to what the Bible says in 2 Corinthians 10, verses 4 and 5. The apostle Paul said, "For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds."
#18 | 12:53 to 13:14 | cleaned
Now listen, "Casting down imaginations and every high thing or every high thought that exalted itself against the knowledge of God and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ." So that means if we think about a beard, if we think about government, if we think about education, if we think about money, if we think about family, whatever we think, we're responsible to bring every thought captive to Jesus Christ. That is, we're responsible to think biblically. Most people have never thought upon this subject at all.
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You know, I've heard this said in times past, someone would offer an objection and they would say, "Well, I just don't know if it's right or wrong for a man to have a beard." And my response to that is this, let's stop right there. That is not really for you and I to decide, because God has already determined that. He has created men so that they may have beards. So the question in reality is not, is it right or wrong to have a beard? But the question should be, is it right or wrong to shave? And you cannot shave it off. It keeps growing back.
#20 | 13:55 to 14:42 | cleaned
You have to keep shaving over and over and over. Now, I've had one person to say this to me years ago, and it was a woman. And she said, "Your beard is offensive to me." Well, if someone tries to say that beards are offensive, my first response is this. I would argue that anyone who finds a beard offensive, they need to take that up with God because God gave beards to men.
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Secondly, I'd point out, to offend someone biblically means to encourage them to do what you're doing without having your knowledge. You remember the word, in the Greek, is the word skandalon for offend. You'll find that in Romans 14 and 1 Corinthians 8. It's where we get our English word, scandal. And the only woman who ever said that to me, I said to her as I smiled, "Dear lady, my beard could not possibly offend you because you could not do what I'm doing even if you had my knowledge." And if you remember when I brought that brief series on Romans 14 on how to avoid conflicts between Christians, I pointed out that when someone says something like this, "Well your beard offends me," what they really mean is this. "You need to shave it off, I don't like it." That's what they really mean.
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The Lord you please me. Obviously, listen carefully, anyone who has a problem with a beard, or any other biblical subject, not only has a problem with God, but they have a problem with the law of God. How can I say that? Because the Bible says, in Psalm 119, in verse 165, "Great peace have they that love thy law, and nothing shall offend them." So if you're offended, obviously you don't love the law of God. Because it says, "Great peace have they that love thy law, and nothing shall offend them." So, clearly then, there's a problem with someone between God and His Word. So, men have beards, and that's the way God has created us. So, you've got to ask yourself this question, why did God give men beards? Why do men have beards? And you have to also ask this question, what does a beard signify?
#23 | 16:17 to 17:28 | cleaned
Before I finish, I'm going to show you that a beard, really and truly, is a public and a private testimony. It's a public testimony when the beard is grown and neatly trimmed and groomed because everyone who sees it many times will ask concerning it. It's also a private testimony for when the man who has it he looks into the mirror and all of a sudden, he remembers now why God gave him that beard and what it means and what his life should be. I'm going to try to show you five things very quickly today.
#24 | 17:29 to 18:10 | cleaned
First of all, I want to share with you the history of beards. Before I get into the biblical passages, I wish to point out that history may be studied and analyzed simply by looking at the rise and the fall of the beard. Historical truth is important. It is not equal to biblical truth, yet all history is God's history, for God is the God of history. But history does show us something. History does teach us something. It reveals to us either the lack and the ignorance of, or the knowledge and the importance of, biblical truth upon civilization. So you can look at civilization and you can see when the word of God is in the supremacy, certain things transpired. When the word of God is not in the supremacy, when rationalism, when man's thoughts are supreme, certain things transpired as well.
#25 | 18:11 to 19:05 | cleaned
Now an interesting tidbit of history is this, that Egypt was about the only country in antiquity that forbade a man to have a beard or to let his beard grow out. The Egyptians disliked facial hair. They shaved themselves and they forced their slaves to shave. Now any biblical scholar will tell you very quickly that Egypt is a type of the world. Egypt has always been in the Bible that which represents contrariness to God, to his law, and to his people. So Egypt then by and large was a nation of beardless men.
#26 | 19:06 to 19:49 | cleaned
Yet when you look at the sculptures and even a picture, ancient art, of Pharaoh, you will see that Pharaoh always had a sharp pointed goatee. But if you look very carefully at the picture or at the sculpture, you will see there is a very thin line that goes up his cheeks and over his ears. And you know why? Because the beard was a fake beard. It was simply tied on.
#27 | 19:49 to 20:23 | cleaned
Do you realize there is a reason for that? Even women sometimes in Egypt had these fake beards. For instance, Queen Hatshepsut dressed like a man and is shown with a fake beard. In Egypt, the fake beard was either used for celebrations or public appearances. There was also a religious significance attached to that beard. Because the beard in Egypt was considered a divine attribute of the gods to the Egyptians and thus when the Pharaoh or the Queen or some other public person donned a fake beard, what they were showing and demonstrating was that they were identifying themselves as a living God. And thus the Pharaoh had that fake beard tied just so he could identify himself with deity. Another interesting thing is this, if you will study the history of Egypt you will find that the enemies of Egypt are always depicted with beards. The enemies of Egypt are always depicted with beards. Maybe that's another reason why the Egyptians found facial hair disgusting to themselves because they identified it with an enemy of Egypt. There's another interesting tidbit and if you will check it out you'll find it true that in Greek mythology and in Roman mythology usually the false gods are presented as beardless.
#28 | 20:27 to 22:19 | cleaned
Now, there were some that were presented with beards, that is true. But in their paintings, in their sculpturing, the false gods were usually beardless. I'm trying to give you some history concerning this. And the Council of Carthage, which was a church council in the early 200 AD, were discussing problems in the church. And in the Council of Carthage in 200 AD, one of the problems they were discussing was the problem of immodest dress. Now, we could think, how in the world could they be having problems with immodest dress in 200 AD? I mean, today we look around and we see the miniskirts and the shortened halters and the tank tops and you say, yeah, we got problems with immodest dress. Well, they had problems with immodest dress in 200 AD. But let me tell you what the council of Carthage said was immodest dress. Listen carefully. Here's the quote from the council concerning immodest dress.
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"Any man who appears in church with long hair and a clean-shaven face will be excluded from communion for that man is immodestly dressed." Isn't that amazing? A man with long hair and a clean-shaven face was immodestly dressed. So if you came to church with long hair and a clean-shaven face, you were to be excluded from communion. It was Tertullian, one of the early church fathers, who wrote his treatise on the beard and said that the purpose of the beard was to keep lust down. I've heard some women say, "Well, he looks better without a beard." Well, he may. But Tertullian said, one of the reasons was to keep lust down. The fourth council of Carthage in 398 said this, "The clergyman shall not let his hair grow, neither shall he remove his beard." How about that?
#30 | 23:32 to 24:30 | cleaned
Many of the ancients believed and they taught that God gave man a beard to distinguish him from a woman and therefore it was wrong to antagonize nature by shaving. One of the early church fathers, Clement of Alexandria, probably wrote more against shaving than any other of the Christian writers combined. Clement called, and I'm quoting now, the beard "man's natural adornment" and said "it is never permissible to remove it." He goes on to say "the hairs of the beard have been numbered." Clement warns his readers "to seek beauty in hairlessness is sheer effeminacy, if done by men." He goes on to say, "God planned," I love this one, "God planned that the woman be smooth skin, taking pride in her natural tresses, the only hair she has as the horse in its mane. But man, he adorned like the lion with a beard." So women were like the horses with the long flowing mane. Men were like lions with the beard. He went on to say, "This then is the mark of the man, the beard.
#31 | 24:31 to 25:49 | cleaned
By this he is seen to be a man. It is older than Eve. It is the token of superior nature. It is therefore unholy to desecrate the symbol of manhood, hairiness." Isn't that amazing? So, when the barbarian hordes invaded the Roman Empire, they had long hair and they had clean shaven faces. And it was at this particular time when Rome fell that Christendom as a whole was what you and I would call Romanized.
#32 | 25:50 to 26:19 | cleaned
So the barbarians then began to infiltrate the church. And all of these pagan rites and rituals were incorporated into the church. And at that particular time, since the barbarians had long hair and clean shaven faces, that's basically what began to happen. The men had long hair and they had clean, shaven faces. It's interesting that if you will look at the early pictures of Christ, even pictures today, Christ is always pictured with long hair and a beard.
#33 | 26:19 to 26:58 | cleaned
Have you ever wondered about that? Let me tell you dogmatically, in no uncertain terms, our Lord did not have long hair. How can I say he did not have long hair? Well, first of all, you have to remember that when our Lord was alive, Caesar was on the throne. The style was known as the Caesar cut or the Caesar style. It was short hair on the top of the head, never even touched the ears. That was the style during our Lord's lifetime. Moreover, specifically, the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 11 and verse 14, "Doth not even nature itself teach you," listen, "that if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him."
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Now the Greek word for shame is atimia, which literally refers to that which is vile, shameful, dishonorable, ignominious, disgraceful, and a reproach. Now, if it was a reproach and shameful and vile for a man to have long hair, you've got to remember that Jesus Christ was and still is the sinless Son of God. He would have never ever done anything that would have been vile and reproachful. Moreover, the Bible tells us in Isaiah 42 and verse 21 concerning Christ, "The Lord is well pleased for his righteousness sake.
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He will magnify the law and make it honorable." So therefore the law says it's unnatural and a shame for a man to have long hair. I can assure you Christ never had long hair.
#36 | 28:32 to 28:49 | cleaned
Now Christ is also presented in these pictures and in these works of art as having a beard. And that's because you could not deny that. It was very plain and very clearly said, not only in scripture, but in truth and in history as well. I want to point out a glaring inconsistency. Have you ever thought about this? Have you ever considered the glaring inconsistency of people who literally worship the Lord Jesus Christ who had a beard and then turn around and try to say it's wrong for a man to have a beard. Have you ever thought about that?
#37 | 28:50 to 29:36 | cleaned
It was during the 16th century that one of the great awakenings occurred known as the Reformation. Bloody Mary, Queen of England was on the throne 1516 to 1558. It was in 1517 when Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the castle church door in Wittenberg, Germany and he began to teach and preach the just shall live by faith. Now so it's noticeable if you will go back and look then at some of these men as they began in the Reformation and then after they began you'll notice short hair and beards. Isn't that amazing? Then on the other hand if you will look during the Renaissance when man's rationalism prevailed, men then had long hair and clean-shaven faces. Same thing in France during the period of the Enlightenment, where you had so many people there who were agnostics and atheists and infidels and deists, they would have the long hair and the clean-shaven faces. But it's interesting, during the War of Northern Aggression, when you look at the pictures of godly men, you always find that they have beards.
#38 | 29:38 to 31:02 | cleaned
Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee, Jeb Stuart, James Longstreet, Richard Stoddard Ewell, all of these men. And it's interesting, if you will look back at some of the old pictures of the Confederate veterans, 90% of them have beards. And beards were worn from that period of time up basically until you get to World War I when German liberalism began to infiltrate into this society and then of course beards then began to disappear and once again the long hair and the clean shaven faces came out.
#39 | 31:02 to 31:44 | cleaned
So I'm just trying to show you, you can study civilization with the rise and fall of the beard. There were a few men down through the ages who cried out against clean-shaven faces. In 1528, William Tyndale was one of those, and here's what he said. He pointed out that shaving is borrowed of the heathen and proclaimed that the shaven nation have put Christ out of his room. Wow. William Shakespeare even said this in his play Much Ado About Nothing, he said, "He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man. He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man."
#40 | 31:44 to 32:33 | cleaned
In 1859, an Englishman, James Ward, wrote a book, The Defense of the Beard, which was a pamphlet which listed 18 reasons why men were bound to grow a beard unless that man was indifferent as to offending the Creator and good taste. The next year, one year later, a work was published, listen to the title of this, Shaving, a Breach of the Sabbath and a Hindrance to the Spread of the Gospel. In this book, the author described the beard on the grounds that it was a divinely provided chest protector.
#41 | 32:34 to 33:10 | cleaned
So they had long beards coming down here. And here is just one part, one sentence out of that book. "Beard shaving and the common use of the razor, an unnatural, irrational, unmanly, ungodly, and fatal fashion among Christians." Wow. One of the more humorous quotes I found concerning the beard came from Tom Robbins. He said, "Of the seven dwarves, only Dopey had a clean-shaven face, and that should tell us something about the custom of shaving." Only Dopey had a clean shaven face. Wow! The bearded races of mankind have commonly held the beard in high honor.
#42 | 33:10 to 34:01 | cleaned
It's a sign of full manhood and the very young male or eunuch was beardless and the bearded woman was considered a witch. Whenever you see pictures of Adam or God or the prophets, or kings, and nobles, they are always presented with beards. So the Semites, those who descended from Shem, or the Hebrews, Israelites, have always held the beard in great esteem. Listen to this, here's a quote directly. "Among them, that is among the Hebrews, the Israelites, among them it is more injurious for anyone to have his beard cut off than among us to be publicly whipped or branded with a hot iron."
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"Many men in that country would prefer death to such a punishment. The wives kiss their husband's beards and the children their father's when they come to salute them. The men kiss one another's beards reciprocally when they salute in the streets or come from a journey. They say that the beard is the perfection of the human face, which would be more disfigured by having this cut off than by losing the nose. They admire any and envy those who have fine beards. Pray do but see, they cry, that beard and the very sight of it would persuade anyone that he to whom it belongs is an honest man. If anyone with a fine beard is guilty of an unbecoming action, they would say, 'What a disadvantage is this to such a beard? How much such a beard should be pitted?' If they would correct anyone's mistakes, they will tell him, 'For shame on your beard. Does not the confusion that follows such an action light upon your beard?' If they entreat anyone or use oaths affirming or denying anything, they would say, 'I conjure you by your beard.'
#44 | 34:55 to 36:05 | cleaned
"or by the life of your beard to grant me this, or by your beard this is or is not so. They say further, in the way of acknowledgement, 'May God preserve your blessed beard,' or 'May God pour out His blessings upon your beard.' And in comparison, 'This is more valuable than anyone's beards,' or 'anyone's beard.'"
#45 | 36:06 to 36:29 | cleaned
Now, if you understand these sayings, you're going to begin to understand a lot of Scripture. For instance, do you remember, and you don't turn there please, the dishonor that David did to his own beard when he was escaping from King Saul and he fled to Achish, king of Gath. It was the Philistine by the way. And when David understood that some of the men saying, "Well is not this David? Did not he kill all of our men?" And then listen to what David did. 1 Samuel 21 verse 13, "And he, David, changed his behavior before them, and feigned himself mad in their hands, and scrabbled on the doors of the gate, and let a spittle fall down upon his beard." So he's clawing at the door, foaming at the mouth, we would say, and letting all the spittle run down upon his beard. Well, what happened? Here's what Achish said, 1 Samuel 21, 14 and 15, "Then said Achish unto his servants, 'You see the man is mad.
#46 | 36:29 to 37:41 | cleaned
Wherefore then have you brought him to me? Have I need of mad men that you have brought this fellow to play the mad man in my presence? Shall this fellow come into my house?'" So David's actions then of scrabbling at the door and clawing at the door and letting the spittle fall down upon his beard persuaded Achish that he was crazy, that it was out of his mind. Because Achish understood that no man in his right mind would ever defile his beard.
#47 | 37:42 to 38:07 | cleaned
Do you remember when David was driven off the throne by Absalom? David had taken Mephibosheth, Saul's grandson, into his home. Mephibosheth, you remember, was laying upon his feet. And Ziba, his servant, lied to him. And Ziba escaped to go carry some things to David and said, "Mephibosheth said, 'Well, the kingdom of my father is going to be returned to me this day.'" But when David came back after the destruction of Absalom and his army, in 2 Samuel 19 verse 24, listen to this, "And Mephibosheth the son of Saul came down to meet the king, and had neither dressed his feet, nor trimmed his beard, nor washed his clothes from the day the king departed until the day he came in peace." Mephibosheth then was in mourning concerning the travesty that had been done to David, and the very proof that Ziba had lied, was Mephibosheth had not even dressed his feet, trimmed his beard, or even washed his clothes. The beard was always a cherished and a sacred thing.
#48 | 38:09 to 39:27 | cleaned
Israel brought the beard safely out of the bondage of the universally shaven Egypt, and the beard was always the outward sign and the visible sign of a true man. Now listen carefully, and you're going to see this from the scripture in just a moment. To rudely touch the beard was to cruelly assail a man's dignity. Children and other kinfolks might gently touch it as a sign of love. A fugitive might reverentially raise his hand to it while praying for succor or for help. And he who put his own hand upon his own beard and swore by it, bound himself by the most solemn of oaths to violate which would render him infamous among his fellow men. To touch the beard in allegiance of love established peace and trustfulness between two parties." Now listen carefully.
#49 | 39:28 to 40:30 | cleaned
Do you remember when Joab went to Amasa? He took him by the beard to kiss him and he said, "Art thou in health, my brother?" Here was a pretended act of love and a pretended act of friendship. But Joab had an ulterior motive. Let me read it to you from scripture. 2 Samuel 20 verses 9 and 10. "And Joab said to Amasa, 'Art thou in health, my brother?' And Joab took Amasa by the beard with his right hand to kiss him. But Amasa took no heed to the sword that was in Joab's hand.
#50 | 40:30 to 41:08 | cleaned
So he smote him there under the fifth rib, and shed out his bowels to the ground, and struck him not again, and so he died." So what did Joab do? Joab was following a customary greeting, which was a sign of trust and friendship, of respect and devotion. He took Amasa's beard and he was going to kiss that beard and he asked, "Art thou in health my brother?" Amasa was so concerned with the compliment, in all probability, getting ready to return that compliment because he would in turn then kiss Joab's beard. He took no notice of the sword in Joab's hand and Joab then literally murdered him and shed out his blood. In other words, it was during this act of kindness and respect and honor, and he did not suspect the deadly blow from Joab, nor did he suspect his treasonous attitude toward him.
#51 | 41:09 to 42:15 | cleaned
By the way, may I remind you, maybe this will shed light on this scripture for you, in Luke 22 and verse 28, Judas had already told the people, "Him who I kiss, hold fast." And when Judas came to betray Christ, Christ said, "Judas, betrayest thou the Son of Man with a kiss." So Judas would have gone up to take our Lord's beard and kiss it. Undoubtedly, Judas had learned this method from Joab who was a traitor and a deceiver. Secondly, I want you to note the beard is an assumed fact and reality in scripture. And when I say the beard is an assumed fact, an assumed fact is something that is taken for granted.
#52 | 42:16 to 43:21 | cleaned
It is a presuppositional truth. It is something like the doctrine of God. By the way, do you know that the Bible never ever tries to prove the existence of God? The Bible just assumes it. Genesis 1-1, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." Never does the Bible try to prove there is a God. It just assumes it. Likewise, in the Bible, there is no definite command for men to grow a beard. However, it is assumed that a man will have a beard because that's the way God created him and his facial hair is going to grow. Moreover, there are divine regulations concerning the beard in the Bible. The Hebrew word for beard is the word zakhan. And the Hebrew word for elder is achin. So the elders in Israel got their names from their beard. Hence the word actually means a bearded one. Okay? So you've seen the history of the beard and the fact that the beard is an assumed fact. Let me give you thirdly the value of the beard.
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The Hebrews always looked upon the beard as the glory and the pride of man. They would say that the glory of the face is the beard. The beard was a badge of honor, dignity, and manhood. Anyone wishing to express the value of an object would say this, "It is worth more than a man's beard." When a woman wanted to express the value of something, she would say, "It's more valuable than my husband's beard." Men often took oaths by their beard.
#54 | 44:35 to 45:10 | cleaned
They swore by their beards. Every one of us knows the story of the three little pigs and the big bad wolf. What did he say? "I'm going to huff and puff and blow your house down" and what did the little pig say? "Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin." What was he doing? He was taking an oath on the hair of his, now I realize pigs don't have beards, but that was a fairy tale, but that's where it came from. Because historically and biblically, men took oaths based upon their beards. Proverbs 20 and verse 29 says this, and by the way, even Shakespeare in his plays have men swearing and taking oaths by their beards. But Proverbs 20 and verse 29 says this, "The glory of young men is their strength, and the beauty of old men is their gray head." The ornament of young men is their strength, and the honor of old men is the gray hairs, and here it is in the Hebrew, or the hanging gray from the chin.
#55 | 45:11 to 46:20 | cleaned
It was not necessarily talking about the gray hair up here. Some of us aren't able to have gray hair up here. But it does refer to the hanging gray from the chin. Whenever you see a man with a beard, you ought to consider several things. First of all, to pull it is to inflict an indignity. I've really only had my beard pulled that I can remember one time.
#56 | 46:22 to 46:52 | cleaned
And I will tell you, anger flew over me instantaneously. Not that I wanted to be angry, but the individual who did it did not realize what he was doing. And I very quickly said, "No, you never ever pull a man's beard. It's an indignity. It's an insult."
#57 | 46:54 to 47:18 | cleaned
Secondly, to have it forcibly cut off or mutilated is a symbol of disgrace, which I'm going to show you from the Bible momentarily. Thirdly, to remove the beard voluntarily is a sign of mourning, which they did occasionally in the Bible. And then to stroke the beard like this, is a preface to uttering seemingly very important words or words of weight and value. And I might point this out, to kiss the beard is a sign of great respect, honor, friendship, and brotherly love.
#58 | 47:19 to 47:58 | cleaned
You cannot understand a number of verses in the New Testament if you do not understand this simple fact. For instance, let me just quote. 1 Corinthians 16 and verse 20, the apostle Paul said, "All the brethren greet you," listen, "greet you one another with a holy kiss." Greet you one another with a holy kiss. In Romans 16 and verse 16, Paul again said, "Salute one another with a holy kiss. The churches of Christ salute you." 1 Thessalonians 5 verse 26, "Greet all the brethren with a holy kiss." And then 1 Peter 5 and verse 14, "Greet you one another with a kiss of charity. Peace be with you, all that are in Christ Jesus. Amen." How do you greet the brethren with a holy kiss? Because it was customary, not only in the Old Testament, but in the New Testament, when brethren met, out of great respect and affection, they would take each other's beard and kiss the beard. And yes, I've had men kiss my beard. One man did it particularly every time he saw me.
#59 | 47:59 to 49:09 | cleaned
He understood this passage. And I was not offended by it. In fact, I thought, well, at least he at least understands the Scripture. I'm just simply saying, you cannot understand the value of the beard unless you understand these Scriptures. And that's how men normally greeted each other in the Old Testament and the New Testament by kissing each other's beards. Let me show you how valuable a beard was.
#60 | 49:09 to 49:40 | cleaned
I do want you to turn to 2 Samuel chapter 10. 2 Samuel chapter 10, and let's read the first seven verses. I want you to watch this passage, 2 Samuel chapter 10, and look if you would please beginning there with verse 1. 2 Samuel chapter 10, verse 1. "And it came to pass after this, that the king of the children of Ammon died, and Hanun his son reigned in his stead. Then said David, 'I will show kindness unto Hanun the son of Nahash, as his father showed kindness unto me.' And David sent to comfort him by the hand of his servants for his father. And David's servants came into the land of the children of Ammon. And the princes of the children of Ammon said unto Hanun their lord, 'Thinkest thou that David doth honor thy father, that he hath sent comforters unto thee? Hath not David rather sent his servants unto thee to search the city, and to spy it out, and to overthrow it?' Wherefore Hanun took David's servants, and shaved off one half of their beards, and cut off their garments in the middle, even their buttocks, and sent them away.
#61 | 49:41 to 50:52 | cleaned
And when they told it unto David, he sent to meet them, because the men were greatly ashamed. And the king said, 'Tarry ye at Jericho, until your beards be grown, and then return.' And when the children of Ammon saw that they stank before David, the children of Ammon sent and hired the Syrians of Beth Rehoboam, and the Syrians of Zobah, 20,000 footmen, of King Maacah, 1,000 men, of Ishtab, 12,000 men. And when David heard of it, he sent Joab and all the hosts of the mighty men, and the children of Ammon came out and put the battle in array, et cetera. Now, by the way, David wiped out the Ammonites and the Syrians.
#62 | 50:53 to 51:28 | cleaned
But the point I'm trying to make is this. Hanun took David's diplomats, his servants, and shaved off one half their beards and cut their garments off and exposed their buttocks. The Ammonites knew exactly what they were doing when they mutilated the Hebrews' beards. They knew that it was a deadly insult. I want you to note something. I want you to see how times have changed. When the diplomats sent word to David that their beards had been mutilated and their garments had been cut off and their buttocks had been exposed, David said this to them, "Tarry ye at Jericho until your beards be grown." That was the insult. It did not concern them, to put it bluntly, that their fannies had been exposed.
#63 | 51:28 to 52:41 | cleaned
Now you stop and think about this. What embarrassed them, what humiliated them was their beards had been mutilated and defiled. It was an insult. You can buy more clothes, but you can't grow a beard overnight. And so David then destroyed the Ammonites and the Syrians, here's a whole war that's fought over beards. Moreover, in the year 1764, a pretender to the Persian throne named Cherub Khan sent ambassadors to Mir Mahanan, the Prince of Bengaravik on the Persian Gulf, to demand tribute from him, but he in return cut off the ambassador's beards. Karim Khan was so enraged at this that he went the next year, took a large army, assaulted and took the city and almost the entire territory to avenge the insult. So to touch the beard was an insult unless it was done as an act of friendship and a token of respect.
#64 | 52:44 to 53:52 | cleaned
Beards have been so valued down through the years that it would be interesting for you to look not only at the Bible prophets, pictures of them, but look at the preachers down through the years. And you'll find that most preachers, the old preachers, up until the turn of this century, all of them had beards. Did you know that not only did Charles Haddon Spurgeon have a very beautiful beard, but Charles Haddon Spurgeon demanded that all of his deacons have beards. You could not be a deacon in Spurgeon's Tabernacle unless you had a beard. And I have a picture in my library of Spurgeon and all of his deacons, and every one of them are well bearded. Now let me very quickly give you the meaning of the beard. Why did God give men beards? What is a beard to signify? First of all, the beard represents and signifies life unto God. Stop and think. Only living men can grow a beard. In the Bible, it was the leper who had to be shaven. Leprosy in the Bible is not only representative of sin and death, but leprosy in the Bible is also a symbol of the judgment of God.
#65 | 53:53 to 55:24 | cleaned
Do you remember how God smoked Miriam with leprosy when she rebelled against Moses? Do you remember how God gave Gehazi, the servant of Elisha, the leprosy that Naaman had because of his sin and his deceit?
#66 | 55:25 to 55:38 | cleaned
Now, I want you to listen to the law of the leper. Listen carefully. This is Leviticus 13, 29 and 30 in verse 33. God says, "If a man or a woman have a plague upon the head or the beard, then the priest shall see the plague, and behold, if it be in sight deeper than the skin, and there being it a yellow thin hair, then the priest shall pronounce him unclean, it is a dry skull, even a leprosy, upon the head of the beard. And he shall be shaven, and the skull shall he not shave, but the priest shall shut him up that hath the skull seven days more." So, if a man had leprosy, he had to be clean-shaven. Leprosy is a sign of sin and death and the judgment of God. When you get to the healing of a leper, in Leviticus chapter 14, once again when he came and presented everything that God demanded, he had to be clean shaven once again. And then when the priest pronounced him clean, only then was he allowed to grow his beard.
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So, the beard first and foremost is a symbol of life unto God. It signifies life. We're free from sin. We're free from death. We're free from the judgment of God. Secondly, a beard signifies submission unto God. Now listen carefully. I'm going to show you this from the scripture. A beardless man or one with a clean shaven face indicated that he was a slave or in submission to man. Let me state this another way, to be deprived of a beard was and still is in many places a badge of civility, a mark of infamy that degraded a man from the ranks of men to those of slaves and women. Now, Joseph wore his beard while he was in prison. You remember he was a slave, he was sold into slavery. While he was in prison, he wore his beard. When Pharaoh called him to stand before him, what did Joseph do? He shaved his beard. Why did he shave his beard? Because he was a slave. And he was going to appear now before Pharaoh, and it would have been an insult and a dishonor to Pharaoh for him to have stood there with his beard.
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Listen to this, Genesis 41 verse 14. "Then Pharaoh sent and called Joseph. And they brought him hastily out of the dungeon, and he shaved himself and changed his raiment, and he came unto Pharaoh." Why did he do that? Because to be beardless was signifying that you were in submission to man, that you were a slave. And so Joseph then, since he was a slave, took the mark of a slave, he shaved himself. And by the way, in Genesis 41 in verse 40, Pharaoh said this to Joseph, "Thou shalt be over my house according to thy word.
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Shall all my people be ruled? Only in the throne will I be greater than thou." What was he saying? You're subject to me. You're my servant. Everybody else is going to be your servant, but you are my servant. So biblically speaking then, the beard indicates that men are in submission to God. Now, I'm not saying that Joseph was out of the will of God when he shaved his beard, because God certainly put him there. However, I am saying that in the context of what happened, when a man shaves his beard, it indicates that he is now in a position of servitude or in submission to man. And I am not implying that just because a man has a beard, that he is in subjection to God.
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Unhappily, that is not true because multitudes of men across this world who have beards are in rebellion to God and they are in rebellion to the Lord Jesus Christ and they are lost in their sins. But the beard in reality is to signify submission unto God. In other words, the men who have beards and who are not in submission to God are betraying the symbol of what the beard represents. It's just like long hair on a woman symbolizes that she's in submission to her husband. I know plenty of women who have long hair that are not in submission to their husband. The long hair does them no good at all. Their life betrays the symbol. Thirdly, a beard indicates separation unto God. In Bible times, when a man looked at another man's beard, he knew who that man worshipped and who was his God. A beard basically told you who your God was. Pagans usually marred their beard as well as their heads. When God said, and I will show you later, when God says, "I shall not mar the corner of your beard," this is the corner of the beard.
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To mar the corner, then, would be to have what you and I would call the goatee. And the pagans did that because they did it in honor of the sun, which was around the moon, the stars, and the heavenly bodies. Herodotus, one of the early historians, said this of the Arabs, "where a custom shaved the hair round the head and left a tuft to stand up on the crown in honor of Bacchus."
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In Leviticus 19, which we read a little bit earlier, in verses 26 through 28, God says this, "You shall not eat anything with the blood, neither shall you use enchantment nor observe times. You shall not round the corners of your head, neither shall thou mar the corners of thy beard." Why? In Leviticus 21 verses 5 through 6, the priest was not to make any baldness upon his head, neither shall they shave the corners of their beards. Why? Because the Hebrews had full beards, and that full beard represented separation to God.
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When you saw the man with just the goatee and the mustache, it meant in history times, in Bible times, that he was a worshipper of Bacchus, or Baal, or Ortal, or one of the heavenly bodies. So it's important for us to understand that the beard then, in scripture, represents life, it represents freedom, it represents separation of God, but the symbol is nothing without reality. When God's people act like the wicked, God will punish them exactly like the wicked. And God indicates that He will cut or mar the corners of their beard. The expression that I will just read very quickly in Jeremiah 9, Jeremiah 25, Jeremiah 49, when God talks about those who are in the utmost corners, He's not talking about places, He's not talking about geographical places. He's talking about the beard. Listen carefully. God says, "Behold, the days come, said the Lord, that I will punish all them that are circumcised with the uncircumcision, Egypt and Judah and Edom and the children of Ammon and Moab and all that are in the utmost corners that dwell in the wilderness.
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For all these nations are uncircumcised and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in the heart." Well, they were uncircumcised in the heart. They were circumcised physically. They were in the covenant. But they were acting like the heathen. God says, you want to act like the heathen? Fine, I'll judge you like the heathen. You find the same thing in Jeremiah 25, 23. Jeremiah 49, verse 32. God says, "I will mar the corners."
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Now, fourthly, very quickly, the beard signifies the blessings of God upon His people. Let me just read it. In Psalm 133, beginning with verse 1, listen carefully. "Behold how good and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. It is like the precious ointment upon the head that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard that went down to the skirts of his garments. As the dew of Hermon, and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion, for there the Lord commanded the blessing, even life evermore." So when Aaron and his sons then were anointed with that oil, that oil poured on their head, ran down their beards, even to their garments. Thus, a well-groomed and a well-cared for beard indicates the blessings of God upon that individual and his dedication to the service of God. Listen carefully.
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The beard was plucked off or plucked out or shaved off or left unattended only during a time of great mourning and great calamity. We've already pointed this out in Mephibosheth. But you remember when Job lost everything he had and his 10 children, and Job 1:20? Then Job arose and rent his mantle and shaved his head and fell down upon the ground in worship. In Ezra chapter 9, Ezra, when he saw the sin of all the people, in verse 3 says this, "And when I heard this thing, I rent my garment and my mantle, and plucked off the hair of my head and of my beard, and sat down astonished."
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Now let me show you something in light of this. If you really want to understand what happened to our Lord Jesus Christ, I want you to listen carefully. When God was going to bring judgment upon His people because they refused to repent and refused to return to Him, God indicated that great judgment by telling them that He was going to shave their beards. I remember years ago, and Alice can verify this, when I first grew my beard, which has been about 40 years now, I would have nightmares.
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And my nightmare was this, that I would wake up clean-shaven and didn't know how I got clean-shaven. I'm serious. I mean, and I would just about wake up with chills because I didn't know what had happened. Why would that affect me so, or why should it affect anyone so? Because when God is going to bring judgment upon His disobedient people, He's going to do it under the symbol of shaving their beards.
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Listen, Isaiah 7 and verse 20. "In the same day shall the Lord shave with the razor that is hired, namely by them beyond the river, that is the Assyrians, by the king of Assyria the head and the hair of the feet, and it shall also consume the beard." What did God say to those people? I'm going to shave you bald. Why? Because the beard represents life unto God. It represents submission to God, and separation to God, and the blessings of God, and dedication to God. But these people refuse to repent and refuse to surrender to God. And God said, you want to live like the heathen? Fine, I will judge you like the heathen. He said in Isaiah 15 in verse 2, "He is going up to Bajeth and to Dibbon, high places to weep.
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Moab shall howl over Nebo and over Medeba. All their heads shall be baldness and every beard shall be cut off." In Jeremiah 48 in verse 37, God said "for every head shall be bald and every beard shall be clipped. Upon all the hands shall be cuttings and upon the loins sackcloth." God said I'll shave you bald. And in Ezekiel chapter 5 and verse 1, to represent what God was going to do, God told Ezekiel, "And thou, son of man, take thee a sharp knife, listen, take thee a barber's razor, and cause it to pass upon thine head, and upon thy beard, then take thee balances to weigh and divide the hair." What did God say? Ezekiel, just like you've shaved your beard, I'm going to shave the nation. And so when God then is going to set forth the severity of His judgment, or upon His people because of their sin and rebellion, He does so under the picture and the emblem of taking away the beard. You see, the greatest indignity that could be inflicted upon a man is to have his beard plucked out.
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It was a sheer and a sure sign of the judgment of God upon him. Now, what did I say earlier? I said if you wanted to know what happened to our Lord Jesus Christ, you need to understand this. In Isaiah 50 and verse 6, concerning our Lord, here's what He said, "I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to those that plucked off the hair.
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I hid not my face from shame and spitting." What? Our Lord gave His cheeks to those who plucked off the hair. In other words, they reached up and took handfuls of the beard and jerked it out. You say, that had to be excruciatingly painful. Oh, it was painful. But they did not jerk the beard out just to increase the pain. They jerked the beard out because it was the custom then to symbolize, and it was a way of saying, you are under the curse of God, you're judged by God, you're under the wrath of God, God's shaving you. And was that not true concerning our Lord who was our substitute? Did not He bear our wrath?
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Did not He take our punishment? Why was His beard plucked out? To show that He stood as our surety and our substitute, and He suffered the judgment of God in our stead. One last point, I want you to understand the purpose of the beard. God gave beards to men, and I told you earlier, the question is not whether it's right or wrong to have a beard, the question is whether it's right or wrong to shave. The beard is the distinguishing mark of a man. A bearded man can never be mistaken for a woman. Beards were regarded as sacred ornaments given by God to men to distinguish them from women.
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In Deuteronomy 22 and verse 5, here's a verse that has been around the world. "The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth to the man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment, for all that do so are an abomination to the Lord." And I've preached and I've explained that verse, but I want you to listen to what Keil and Delitzsch said. One sentence upon this verse, Keil and Delitzsch said this, "The immediate design of this prohibition was not to prevent licentiousness or to oppose idolaters practices but to maintain the sanctity of that distinction of the sexes which was established by the creation of man and woman and in relation to which Israel was not to sin. Every violation or wiping out of this distinction was unnatural and therefore an abomination in the sight of God." So what Keil and Delitzsch are saying in their commentary is that this verse is directed against any and all who would obliterate or blur the distinctions between the sexes and idolatry was often associated with the unisex or transgenderism.
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You remember in Acts chapter 19, I think it was, where Paul got into trouble there with the people because they worshipped Diana of the Ephesians and they kept shouting, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians." Did you know that Diana, look up her picture, Google it on the internet, put Diana of the Ephesians, and you're going to come and see a statue of a woman that has multiple breasts. Why would they put multiple breasts on a statue of a woman? Because that is the distinguishing mark of a woman. But, when you look at Diana, she not only has multiple breasts, she also has a beard, because that's the distinguishing mark of a man.
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And those who worshipped her, oftentimes men dressed like women, and the women dressed like men, to give sacrifices. Many of the pagans did the same thing. If you look in Greece, if you look in Rome, if you look in ancient Egypt, there was a deliberate attempt to break down the distinction between the sexes. And thus, the ancients believed that the beardless man wasn't a feminine man. And thus, when the pagans even then made their statue of Diana, they gave her a beard. Ellicott in his commentary says this, "To destroy the divinely instituted distinction between the sexes leads to licentiousness, immorality, and confusion. Whatever leads to render the male sex effeminate or the female sex masculine is an injury to both." One thing for sure, a short-haired man might be mistaken for a woman if he had very tender looks. But a short-haired man with a beard could never, ever be taken for a woman.
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Herodotus, whom I mentioned earlier, one of the early historians, when the barbarians invaded the Roman Empire said this, since the barbarians had long hair and clean-shaven faces, he said, "They had been smitten by a deity and turned into a woman." Isn't that amazing?
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Now, let me just make a couple of applications. The first one is this. We cannot deny, disparage, or denigrate any part of the Word of God. All Scripture is inspired of God and is given for our instruction, our edification. If there was no importance concerning the beard, why would God not only give regulations concerning it, but why would He use it then as a symbol to express His divine judgment? Very obviously there is something to the beard.
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Secondly, there has been, lately for which I am thankful, a resurgence of the beard in recent days, and I think that is an indication that men as a whole are growing weary with the effeminacy of our modern day society. And I think there's another implication that men are indeed growing weary of servitude and serfdom and slavery. And once again, you've got to remember the beard indicated freedom from those things. And so when men wear beards then, they are saying in essence, I'm willing and I want to be in submission to God and separated to Him and blessed by Him. And thirdly, the beard is to picture our life unto God, our submission to God, our separation to God, the blessings of God upon us, but the symbol is nothing without the life. I said that the beard is to be a public and a private testimony. I've had innumerable people over the years ask me why I have a beard.
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And I take the opportunity to explain and answer. But I'll tell you something else. Each time I look in the mirror, and I see the beard, and I trim my beard, I have to think, this beard tells me I'm to be in submission to the One True and the Living God. The question is, am I? I'm to be separated unto Him, am I? I'm to have His blessings upon me, do I? The beard is important, historically and biblically. And there's a reason why God gave men beards.
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And we need to understand that and be able to apply it. Father, we ask in the name of Jesus Christ for your help, for your grace, for your mercy, for your truth. We pray, Lord, that you would teach us, that you'd build us up in the most holy faith, and that you'd give us grace that we may serve thee acceptably with reverence and godly fear. In thy name we pray. Amen.
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deepseek | deepseek-v4-pro | clean_readable_transcript | 2026-06-06T04:52:57Z

The Biblical and Historical Significance of the Beard

John Weaver | Freedom Ministries

Pastor John Weaver presents a comprehensive biblical and historical case for the beard as a God-given symbol of manhood, life, submission to God, separation, and blessing. He argues that the beard is an assumed fact in Scripture, regulated by divine law, and that its removal signifies judgment, slavery, or mourning. The message challenges cultural taboos against beards, especially among pastors, and calls believers to think biblically about this often-neglected subject.

Introduction and Disclaimers

Weaver clarifies he is not defending his beard, binding consciences, or equating beards with holiness, but aims to show the biblical significance of the beard.

Scripture Reading — Leviticus 19:26-28

"You shall not eat anything with the blood, neither shall you use enchantment, nor observe times."

Then in verse 27, Leviticus 19,

Scripture Reading — Leviticus 19:26-28

"You shall not round the corners of your heads, neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard. You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you. I am the Lord."

Then if you'll look in Leviticus 21, beginning there with verse 1, and this is in reference to even the priest here, the other was in reference to all of God's people in general.

Scripture Reading — Proverbs 25:2

"It is the glory of God to conceal a thing, but it's the honor of kings to search out a matter."

The History of Beards

A survey of historical attitudes toward beards, from ancient Egypt to the Reformation, showing how the rise and fall of the beard correlates with biblical fidelity.

The Beard as an Assumed Fact in Scripture

The Bible assumes men will have beards, provides regulations for them, and uses the beard as a symbol of dignity, honor, and manhood.

The Value of the Beard

The beard was highly esteemed in Hebrew culture as a badge of honor; to touch, pull, or cut it was a grave insult, as seen in the story of David's ambassadors.

Scripture Reading — 1 Corinthians 16:20; Romans 16:16; 1 Thessalonians 5:26; 1 Peter 5:14

"All the brethren greet you,"

Scripture Reading — 2 Samuel 10:1-7

"And it came to pass after this, that the king of the children of Ammon died, and Hanun his son reigned in his stead. Then said David, 'I will show kindness unto Hanun the son of Nahash, as his father showed kindness unto me.' And David sent to comfort him by the hand of his servants for his father. And David's servants came into the land of the children of Ammon. And the princes of the children of Ammon said unto Hanun their lord, 'Thinkest thou that David doth honor thy father, that he hath sent comforters unto thee? Hath not David rather sent his servants unto thee to search the city, and to spy it out, and to overthrow it?' Wherefore Hanun took David's servants, and shaved off one half of their beards, and cut off their garments in the middle, even their buttocks, and sent them away.

The Meaning of the Beard

The beard signifies life unto God, submission to God, separation unto God, and the blessings of God, with scriptural examples from Leviticus, Psalms, and the prophets.

Scripture Reading — Leviticus 13:29-33

"If a man or a woman have a plague upon the head or the beard, then the priest shall see the plague, and behold, if it be in sight deeper than the skin, and there being it a yellow thin hair, then the priest shall pronounce him unclean, it is a dry skull, even a leprosy, upon the head of the beard. And he shall be shaven, and the skull shall he not shave, but the priest shall shut him up that hath the skull seven days more."

Listen to this, Genesis 41 verse 14.

Scripture Reading — Genesis 41:14

"Then Pharaoh sent and called Joseph. And they brought him hastily out of the dungeon, and he shaved himself and changed his raiment, and he came unto Pharaoh."

Now, fourthly, very quickly, the beard signifies the blessings of God upon His people. Let me just read it. In Psalm 133, beginning with verse 1, listen carefully.

Scripture Reading — Psalm 133:1-3

"Behold how good and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. It is like the precious ointment upon the head that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard that went down to the skirts of his garments. As the dew of Hermon, and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion, for there the Lord commanded the blessing, even life evermore."

The Beard and Divine Judgment

God's judgment is often depicted as shaving or plucking the beard, culminating in the suffering of Christ, whose beard was plucked as a sign of bearing God's wrath.

Listen, Isaiah 7 and verse 20.

Scripture Reading — Isaiah 7:20; Isaiah 15:2; Jeremiah 48:37; Ezekiel 5:1

"In the same day shall the Lord shave with the razor that is hired, namely by them beyond the river, that is the Assyrians, by the king of Assyria the head and the hair of the feet, and it shall also consume the beard."

Scripture Reading — Isaiah 50:6

"I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to those that plucked off the hair. I hid not my face from shame and spitting."

The Purpose of the Beard

The beard is a distinguishing mark of manhood, given by God to maintain the distinction between sexes, opposing the unisex and effeminate trends of modern society.

Applications and Conclusion

Believers should not disparage any part of Scripture; the resurgence of beards may indicate a desire for biblical manhood; the beard serves as a public and private testimony of submission to God.

The Biblical and Historical Significance of the Beard

John Weaver | YouTube

Lecture Metadata	Details
Speaker	John Weaver
Source	YouTube
Media ID	VXbCGfb35UU
Subject	Church Government
Course	Church Order: Preaching and Pastoral Ministry
Genre	Sermon
Date	2012-11-27
Dictation Name
Book	Book 039: Church Order and Worship - Volume 1 — Chapter 10
Source Timed Segments	92

Lecture Guide

Outline

Introduction and Disclaimers: Weaver clarifies he is not defending his beard, binding consciences, or equating beards with holiness, but aims to show the biblical significance of the beard.
The History of Beards: A survey of historical attitudes toward beards, from ancient Egypt to the Reformation, showing how the rise and fall of the beard correlates with biblical fidelity.
The Beard as an Assumed Fact in Scripture: The Bible assumes men will have beards, provides regulations for them, and uses the beard as a symbol of dignity, honor, and manhood.
The Value of the Beard: The beard was highly esteemed in Hebrew culture as a badge of honor; to touch, pull, or cut it was a grave insult, as seen in the story of David's ambassadors.
The Meaning of the Beard: The beard signifies life unto God, submission to God, separation unto God, and the blessings of God, with scriptural examples from Leviticus, Psalms, and the prophets.
The Beard and Divine Judgment: God's judgment is often depicted as shaving or plucking the beard, culminating in the suffering of Christ, whose beard was plucked as a sign of bearing God's wrath.
The Purpose of the Beard: The beard is a distinguishing mark of manhood, given by God to maintain the distinction between sexes, opposing the unisex and effeminate trends of modern society.
Applications and Conclusion: Believers should not disparage any part of Scripture; the resurgence of beards may indicate a desire for biblical manhood; the beard serves as a public and private testimony of submission to God.

Major Themes

Key Arguments

The Beard is an Assumed Biblical Norm

Scripture never commands men to grow a beard but assumes it as natural, providing regulations for its care and using it as a symbol of honor and dignity.

Weaver notes that the Hebrew word for elder (zaqen) is related to beard, and that Leviticus 19:27 and 21:5 regulate the beard rather than prohibit it.

Shaving is the Question, Not Beards

Since God created men to grow beards, the real question is whether it is right to shave, not whether it is right to have a beard.

Weaver argues that beards grow naturally and must be repeatedly shaved, so the burden of proof is on those who remove what God has given.

The Beard Signifies Life, Freedom, and Blessing

In Scripture, lepers were shaved (symbol of death), slaves were beardless (symbol of servitude), and anointing oil ran down Aaron's beard (symbol of blessing).

Weaver cites Leviticus 13:29-33 for leprosy, Genesis 41:14 for Joseph's slavery, and Psalm 133 for Aaron's anointing.

Mutilating the Beard is a Grave Insult and Sign of Judgment

Forcibly cutting or plucking a beard was a deadly insult in ancient cultures and a prophetic sign of God's wrath upon His people.

Weaver recounts the war over David's ambassadors' beards (2 Samuel 10) and the prophetic shavings in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel.

Christ's Beard Was Plucked as Substitutionary Judgment

The plucking of Christ's beard fulfilled Isaiah 50:6, symbolizing that He bore the curse and judgment of God in place of sinners.

Weaver connects the cultural meaning of beard-plucking as divine curse with Christ's passion, emphasizing His role as substitute.

Historical Precedent Supports the Beard for Godly Men

From early church councils to Spurgeon, godly leaders have required or commended beards, while beardlessness was associated with paganism and effeminacy.

Weaver cites the Council of Carthage (200 AD), Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, and Spurgeon's requirement for deacons to have beards.

Scripture References

Leviticus 19:26-28: God commands not to round the corners of the head or mar the corners of the beard, indicating divine regulation of facial hair.
Leviticus 21:1-6: Priests are forbidden to shave off the corner of their beard or make baldness on their head, emphasizing holiness.
Proverbs 25:2: It is the glory of God to conceal a thing, but the honor of kings to search out a matter, applied to studying the beard.
John 7:24: Judge not according to appearance, but judge righteous judgment, used to caution against superficial judgments about beards.
2 Corinthians 10:4-5: Bringing every thought captive to Christ, including thoughts about beards, to think biblically.
Psalm 119:165: Great peace have they that love thy law, and nothing shall offend them, used to argue that offense at beards indicates a problem with God's law.
1 Corinthians 11:14: Nature teaches that long hair is a shame to a man, used to argue Christ did not have long hair.
Isaiah 42:21: Christ magnified the law and made it honorable, supporting that He would not violate the principle against long hair.
1 Samuel 21:13-15: David feigned madness by letting spittle fall on his beard, showing that defiling the beard was considered insane.
2 Samuel 19:24: Mephibosheth did not trim his beard as a sign of mourning during David's exile.
2 Samuel 20:9-10: Joab took Amasa by the beard to kiss him as a pretense of friendship before murdering him.
Luke 22:28: Judas betrayed Christ with a kiss, likely involving taking His beard, paralleling Joab's treachery.
Proverbs 20:29: The beauty of old men is their gray head, interpreted as the hanging gray from the chin (beard).
1 Corinthians 16:20; Romans 16:16; 1 Thessalonians 5:26; 1 Peter 5:14: Greeting with a holy kiss, understood as kissing the beard as a sign of respect and brotherly love.
2 Samuel 10:1-7: Hanun shaved half the beards of David's servants, causing a war, showing the beard's value and the insult of its mutilation.
Leviticus 13:29-33: Lepers with plagues on the head or beard were to be shaven, linking beardlessness with sin and death.
Genesis 41:14: Joseph shaved himself before appearing before Pharaoh, signifying his status as a slave.
Psalm 133:1-3: The anointing oil running down Aaron's beard symbolizes the blessings of God upon His people.
Isaiah 7:20; Isaiah 15:2; Jeremiah 48:37; Ezekiel 5:1: God's judgment is depicted as shaving the head and beard, symbolizing His wrath upon rebellious people.
Isaiah 50:6: Christ gave His cheeks to those who plucked off the hair, fulfilling the symbol of bearing God's judgment.

Historical References

Ancient Egypt: Egypt was a beardless nation; Pharaohs wore fake beards as a divine attribute; enemies of Egypt were depicted with beards.
Council of Carthage (200 AD): Declared that a man with long hair and clean-shaven face was immodestly dressed and should be excluded from communion.
Tertullian: Early church father who wrote a treatise on the beard, stating its purpose was to keep lust down.
Clement of Alexandria: Early church father who called the beard man's natural adornment and said it is never permissible to remove it.
Barbarian invasions of Rome: Barbarians had long hair and clean-shaven faces, influencing the church to adopt similar styles as Rome fell.
Reformation (16th century): Reformers like Martin Luther wore short hair and beards, contrasting with the long hair and clean-shaven faces of the Renaissance.
Confederate generals (e.g., Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee): Godly men during the War of Northern Aggression typically wore beards, with 90% of Confederate veterans bearded.
William Tyndale (1528): Proclaimed that shaving is borrowed of the heathen and that the shaven nation have put Christ out of his room.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon: Spurgeon had a beard and required all his deacons to have beards.
Diana of the Ephesians: The statue of Diana had multiple breasts and a beard, representing a deliberate blurring of sexual distinctions in pagan worship.

Important Quotes

I am not saying that a man that does not have a beard is less holy than one who does have a beard. Moreover, I am not saying that a man with a beard is more holy than a man without a beard.

Clarifies that the message is not about equating beards with personal holiness, but about biblical symbolism.

Judge not according to appearance, but judge righteous judgment.

Calls for biblical discernment rather than cultural bias when evaluating the beard.

Great peace have they that love thy law, and nothing shall offend them.

Argues that being offended by a beard reveals a lack of love for God's law.

The beard is the distinguishing mark of a man. A bearded man can never be mistaken for a woman.

Summarizes the beard's role in maintaining the God-ordained distinction between sexes.

The symbol is nothing without the life.

Emphasizes that wearing a beard must be accompanied by genuine submission and separation to God.

He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man.

Quotes Shakespeare to illustrate the historical view of the beard as a mark of mature manhood.

To destroy the divinely instituted distinction between the sexes leads to licentiousness, immorality, and confusion.

Cites Ellicott's commentary to reinforce the moral implications of blurring gender distinctions.

Discussion Questions

[Question]

How does understanding the historical and cultural significance of the beard in Scripture change your perspective on passages like 2 Samuel 10 or Isaiah 50:6?

[Context]

Weaver detailed the insult of beard mutilation and its connection to Christ's suffering.

[Question]

In what ways might modern cultural taboos against beards in church leadership reflect a failure to 'think biblically' as described in 2 Corinthians 10:5?

[Context]

Weaver challenged the taboo against bearded pastors and called for bringing every thought captive to Christ.

[Question]

How can the beard serve as a private testimony and reminder of submission to God in your daily life?

[Context]

Weaver shared that looking in the mirror reminds him of his commitment to God.

[Question]

What does the connection between leprosy, shaving, and sin teach us about the spiritual symbolism of the beard?

[Context]

Weaver explained that lepers were shaved as a sign of sin and death, while the beard signifies life.

[Question]

How should Christians respond to the growing unisex trend in light of Deuteronomy 22:5 and the beard's role in distinguishing sexes?

[Context]

Weaver argued that the beard is a God-given mark of manhood that opposes the blurring of gender distinctions.

[Question]

Why do you think periods of revival and reformation in church history have often been accompanied by a return to wearing beards?

[Context]

Weaver traced the correlation between beards and biblical fidelity from the Reformation to the modern era.

[Question]

How can we apply the principle of not judging by appearance (John 7:24) when encountering fellow believers with different convictions about beards?

[Context]

Weaver cautioned against superficial judgments and emphasized righteous judgment based on Scripture.

[Question]

What does the plucking of Christ's beard reveal about the nature of His substitutionary atonement?

[Context]

Weaver connected Isaiah 50:6 to Christ bearing the curse and judgment of God for sinners.

Applications

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deepseek | deepseek-v4-pro | weaver_study | 2026-06-06T16:58:15Z