There are some passages in the New Testament that a lot of Christians struggle with. The first one is 1 Timothy 2:9: I also want women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes. The other passage is 1 Corinthians 11:6: If a woman does not cover her head, she should have her hair cut off; and if it is a disgrace for a woman to have her hair cut or shaved off, she should cover her head. These two passages have been interpreted to mean that women should never cut their hair nor braid it. This is what has given way to the common “look” of women in the Apostolic and Pentecostal churches. By common I mean that when you see them in public, you can identify them by their hairstyles (in combination with their attire). Paul wrote both of these passages. He wrote them to two different audiences, but with the same goal in mind.

The Corinthian church was having a lot of problems. The wealthier members were using the Lord’s Supper as a time for gluttony and drunkenness while the poorer members went hungry (1 Corinthian 11:20-21). There were divisions in the church over whom they were going to “follow,” Paul or some one else (1 Corinthians 3:4). There was rampant sexual immorality—to the degree that they were celebrating that one of the members was sleeping with his mother or possibly stepmother (1 Corinthians 5:1-2). There were members suing one another (1 Corinthians 6:7-8). The list continues to go on with the wrongs that were taking place in the Corinthian congregation. The issue being addressed in Chapter 11 was worship. They were not conducting worship appropriately. Apparently, the members were bringing in pagan worship practices into the worship of the church. Not in an overt way, but in a very subtle way—the women were dressing and acting like the priestesses in the local temples. In other words, they didn’t have an identical worship service to that of the pagans, but they had held on to some aspects of the pagan worship practices that “really weren’t that bad.” Paul is simply reminding Timothy, his companion in ministry, about this principle in 1 Timothy 2:9.

We often miss these things as we read the New Testament because the actual worship practices of many of these idols are no longer practiced today. They are not just a foreign concept, but an absent concept. An article in the Huffington Post has recently shed a little light on these passages regarding hairstyles. The article contains several pictures of “religious hairstyles” and what their significance is. It is a rather interesting article that I would encourage everyone to go an LOOK AT.

The article demonstrates that the Bible isn't against hairstyles "just cause." Often times hairstyles can carry a very specific religious meaning, one which could be counter to the commands of God.