Hairy Decisions

I am a “kitchen barber” who is often called for buzz-duty as the world is waking up. That way my only client (hubby) can take his morning shower right after I run the clipper over his head to restore it to the quarter-inch hair-length he prefers. Forget the hype of shampoo ads. You don’t need much for stubble maintenance. Our utilitarian approach to one’s crowning glory is why one of the long-time family jokes about vanity concerns hair. About fifteen years ago, a young woman who visited us got into a conversation (somehow) about hair products. As she told how she uses only the very best, she flipped her long tresses and said, “My hair is important to me.” We nodded politely. She hadn’t seen what’s on our tub ledge: cheap stuff, usually bought on sale with a coupon.

Apparently hair was important to the apostle Paul, too, as he prepared to leave Achaia (Greece) for Jerusalem on his second missionary journey. Acts 18:18 says he was in Corinth’s eastern port city, Cenchrea, when he had his hair cut “because of a vow he had taken.” Scholars say this was a “Nazirite vow,” detailed in Numbers 6 for those who sought to focus in a special way on God’s calling. The Bible’s most infamous “Nazirite” was Samson, who didn’t live up to all the vow’s requirements, which included (besides letting one’s hair grow out) avoiding wine and contact with dead bodies. Oh yes, focusing on purity, which went downhill when Delilah came into view. Though it wasn’t required of Christians, Paul apparently reached back into his Jewish heritage for an outward reminder of his need of God’s empowerment in mission work in Macedonia and Corinth. Now, his second mission trip nearing a conclusion, he was ready to end the vow, recognizing that God had indeed heard his prayers for help.

Paul didn’t follow all the rules for the Nazirite vow, which included bringing a sacrifice to the “tent of meeting” (by then the temple in Jerusalem) and having his hair cut on the spot to toss on the altar with the slain animal. He wouldn’t reach Jerusalem for weeks, after some side trips to what’s now the country of Turkey. Rather than getting all hung up on the rules of an Old Testament act of consecration, here’s the part of the whole “hairy” experience worth considering. When faced with a calling bigger than we could ever think of doing on our own, are we ready to seek the Lord with honest earnestness, admitting our dependence on Him? Maybe this was behind Paul’s statement in a letter to one of the churches he left behind in Achaia (Greece). By now a prisoner in Rome, he wrote the church at Philippi, “He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:6, emphasis added).

And here’s another idea for applying the de-hairing principle. Do we care more about how we look on the outside than what’s inside, at soul level? Are we willing to God trim, shave, or even uproot the shaggy sins hiding there? Soul-care should be very important to us.