“The 411 On The Bling Bling”

Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Is it wrong to wear gold?  My grandma said it was in the Bible.

Sincerely, Girly Girl

Dear Girly Girl,

It isn’t a sin to wear gold; it is a sin to dress like a princess and act like an ogre. Make sure you clothe yourself with meekness and a quiet spirit (1 Pet 3:4-5) also. The verses that your grandmother referred to are 1 Pet 3:3 and 1 Tim 2:9. Both of these verses employ a grammatical term called an ‘ellipsis’. An ellipsis is when the writer leaves out a word in order to emphasize his point. In both of these verses, the apostles leave out the word ‘only’.

Both Paul and Peter are emphasizing how a woman shouldn’t wear fancy and expensive clothing, so she looks good on the outside while she is corrupt and ugly on the inside. What they meant is that women should not ‘only’ adorn themselves with braided hair, gold, pearls, and apparel. Otherwise, we would have to understand these verses to mean that women couldn’t braid their hair, wear gold and pearls, or even wear clothes! That certainly isn’t what God intended. What makes women beautiful isn’t the clothes that they wear - but the moral character inside of them.

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