FACT-CHECKING THE UNCUT HAIR DOCTRINE

A Respectful, Truthful, Logical Examination of the “Uncut Hair” Doctrine

POCKETSERMONS.org
By Rick Cutter (contact)

Every Christian has been commanded by God to do the following:

“Test everything [and] hold on to what is good.” (1 Thessalonians 5:21)

Yet many Christians mindlessly travel through life without ever fact-checking their traditional religious beliefs and practices. That was the case with me before I came to the realization that some of my beliefs and practices weren’t matching the Bible. One of those beliefs was the “Uncut Hair” doctrine—the belief that a woman must simply “let her hair grow perpetually as long as nature will allow.”

Yet all the Bibles I read disagreed with that notion. They plainly stated that if a woman simply “has long hair” she complies with God’s will (see 1 Corinthians 11:14-15). So, after thoroughly investigating these discrepancies, and discovering that the Bible had been properly translated by scholars in every literally-translated English Bible—I brought this to the attention of my church’s leadership. But instead of sincerely examining the evidence and welcoming the truth (as we must all do anytime we discover that we’re in error)—they rejected me as a “dangerous heretic” and I was thereby excommunicated by the leadership of the church and many others.

Jesus said that “if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into the ditch.” (Matthew 15:14)

My friends, if we fail to carefully test our own traditional doctrines and practices, but instead assume they must be right because others said so, we are in danger of destruction (2 Peter 3:15-16). When we rely on others’ opinions to determine “our truth”—and close our eyes ears, hearts, and minds to the facts of God’s Word—we put ourselves in spiritual danger (Matthew 13:15; Acts 28:27).

“Many Christians Are Deceiving Themselves”

One wonderful attribute God has endowed each of us is the ability to make choices for ourselves. However, along with this blessing comes the potential of believing lies and deceiving ourselves. This capability prompted many Biblical cautions against doing so:

“Do not deceive yourselves…” (1 Cor 3:18); “Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way…” (2 Thess 2:3); “Dear friends, do not believe every spirit but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world…” (I Jn 4:1); “I tell you this so that no one may deceive you by fine-sounding arguments…” (Col 2:4)—and more.

The Bereans were elevated in the Bible because of their truth-seeking attitude of fact-checking what they were taught by Paul with the Word of God (Acts 17:11). The Bible says that they “…searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things (that Paul taught them) were so.” And as a result, upon confirmation of the facts, many of them believed.

Let’s make sure we are doing the same!

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