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26 "You shall not eat any flesh with the blood in it. You shall not interpret omens or tell fortunes. 27 You shall not round off the hair on your temples or mar the edges of your beard. 28 You shall not make any cuts on your body for the dead or tattoo yourselves: I am the LORD" (Leviticus 19:26-28).

This text is a one of several that are a favorite among skeptics. "We don't hear you lousy Christians preaching on this very much, do we? And you call yourself followers of the Bible!" Well, since I do believe that the Bible is the Word of God and means what it says, I think it is wise to examine ... what it says. So, what have we here?

First, I'd like to avoid the standard pitfalls. One common response is, "Ignore it; it's Old Testament." In fact, many make that argument and then carry it over to "A man shall not lie with a man as with a woman" and other biblical commands. They do the very thing the skeptic complains about and pick and choose what works and what doesn't. We don't want to pick and choose. The other problem occurs if we take this text and, just because we want to, say, "It's about making the Israelites separate" (or something like that). I believe that there are commands given to Israel for that purpose, but here's the problem in this context. If we say, "That's just for Israel", look at what else we're going to set aside.

"Every one of you shall revere his mother and his father" (Leviticus 19:3).
"Do not turn to idols" (Leviticus 19:4)
"You shall not steal; you shall not deal falsely; you shall not lie to one another" (Leviticus 19:11).
"You shall not oppress your neighbor or rob him" (Leviticus 19:13).
"When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong" (Leviticus 19:33).

And that's just a sampling. You see, if you say, "That hair cutting thing is just to make Israel separate", then you'll also need to say, "That 'honor your father and mother' thing and that whole prohibition against idolatry is just to make Israel separate. We can steal, oppress our neighbors, and do wrong to visitors because that was just to keep them separate, not Christians." It's the problem I have with those who say, "The prohibition against a man lying with a man as with a woman is a religious thing", because if you look at the context we'd also need to pile adultery, incest, and bestiality as perfectly acceptable behaviors as long as they weren't religious in nature. Doesn't work. Don't go there.

So, avoiding those errors, where do we go? It is really verse 27 that catches all the attention. "Christians shouldn't be getting haircuts if they say they believe the Bible!" That's what it says, right? And, indeed, the (commendable) orthodox Jew has uncut locks of hair on the sides of his head and an uncut beard. I say "commendable" because of the attitude. "If that's what it says, that's what I'll do." Regardless of the text, that should be our attitude as well. But, does the text say that? Notice that it speaks of rounding off hair and marring the beard. That's not quite the same as cutting the sides of your hair or grooming a beard. These appear to be indications of something beyond a shave and a haircut. So, am I splitting hairs (a little humor there), or are there reasons to think that this may not be a de facto command not to shave the sides of your face?

As always, I recommend text and context. What do we learn from the context? Well, I put the immediate context in the quote above because, if you're paying attention, verse 27 is not a verse in a vacuum. It starts with a command ("You shall not...") and ends with a reason ("I am the Lord."). This structure of terminating in "I am the Lord" is repeated throughout the chapter. So we have Leviticus 19:2-3 tied together, verse 4 as a command, verses 5-10 tied together, and so forth. Each of these is completed in the statement, "I am the Lord." Thus, Leviticus 19:26-28 is a thought, a set of commands tied together by a central theme and punctuated with "I am the Lord." What is the central theme? It appears to be a central theme of false worship, including eating flesh with blood on it, fortune telling, and cutting or tattooing for the dead. In the midst of this is something about rounding hair and marring beards. These are all tied together. What ties them together? Most obvious is the reason to obey: "I am the Lord." But if these are all tied together and if you don't get mixed up by verse markings, you'll see a second item tying them all together: "for the dead".

"Wow, Stan," I can hear you saying, "that's really stretching it." Is it? Let's trace the idea of "for the dead". In Leviticus 21, God tells the priests, "No one shall make himself unclean for the dead." Among the ways listed in which the priests should not make themselves unclean for the dead is this: "They shall not make bald patches on their heads, nor shave off the edges of their beards, nor make any cuts on their body" (Leviticus 21:5). Hmmm, the same things we see in Leviticus 19. Then again in Deuteronomy, the repeat of the Law, we read, "You are the sons of the LORD your God. You shall not cut yourselves or make any baldness on your foreheads for the dead" (Deuteronomy 14:1). I don't think it's a stretch. I think it's the intent. Indeed, the vow of the Nazirites, intended to separate these further, included the command not to cut their hair. If no one was allowed to cut their hair already, what was the point of the vow? No, I don't think that the most reasonable reading of Leviticus 19:27 in context is that God was commanding His people not to cut their hair. It just doesn't fit.

The complaint of the skeptic is that we don't follow the Bible even though we claim to follow the Bible. I would argue that too often they're right ... and that ought to stop. Too often we dismiss stuff that shouldn't be dismissed. It's in there. Let's conform our lives to God's Word rather than vice versa. On the other hand, tying ourselves to a text that doesn't say what they think it says and trying to conform to it makes little sense either. This text commands that we don't do perform some religious practices that were intended to honor the dead. We shouldn't eat flesh with blood on it (like the Zabians who regarded it the food of the devils) or seek divinations or mar your hair or beard for the dead (as the Arabians, according to Herodotus, did to imitate Bacchus) or cut or mark your body for the dead (as the Scythians did). Far from dismissing this as "Old Testament" or "That was just for Israel", I would argue that we, too, should avoid all of this as a matter of obedience to God. I simply suggest that we submit to what God says rather than to what skeptics argue it says out of context and content.

"'Christ in You...'" from Dale Krebbs

The Saints Who Slept