Adornment and The Holy Spirit

It’s a little scary to throw these thoughts out there. But I’m reading Stephen King’s On Writing, and he says a writer is under obligation to his readers to be honest, always. So here goes. One afternoon last week a massage client, a professor at the nearby university, told me the story of one of her students who was recently converted while at a large Christian convention. The student debated whether or not to wear jewelry to the convention, which would be attended primarily by conservative Seventh-day Adventists, a traditionally non-jewelry-wearing population. After all, she didn’t want to be a stumbling block. (1 Corinthians 8:9) But her friends convinced her it was no big deal and she wore what she wanted.

The girl’s conversion began (though certainly Someone was laying the groundwork for a long time beforehand) when she struck up a conversation with a stranger when she arrived at the convention. The woman she spoke with said something about Jesus shining through us, and by the end of the conversation the girl spontaneously and voluntarily removed all of her jewelry. Once back home, she felt so convicted against the wearing of jewelry that she gathered up her collection and threw it in the trash. Incredulous, her friends asked, “Why didn’t you at least give it to us?!” She said she’d felt the need to purge herself of it because she realized it was a stumbling block for her, an idol which came between her and God.

I tell this story most respectfully, and praise God if someone’s relationship with Him has been strengthened.

But I couldn’t help wondering—pearl earrings perched on my earlobes, pearl solitaire necklace dangling from my neck, diamond engagement ring and accompanying wedding band sitting on the bathroom counter waiting to be returned to my finger when the massage was over—if my (non-jewelry-wearing) client was “subtly” preaching at me. Or was she just so caught up in her excitement about the conversion of the student she cared so much about, that she forgot my jewelry?

I grew up in a conservative SDA (non-jewelry-wearing) home. When I was maybe 7 or 8, my dad (a pastor) and I happened upon a Sunday morning church service broadcast on TV. I noticed the earrings the women in the choir wore, and I turned to my dad and asked, “Why don’t we wear jewelry?”

He picked up a Bible and (I tell this story most respectfully as well) opened it to 1 Peter 3:3, “Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes.” I remember thinking, even at that age, “Then why is it okay to braid and curl our hair?”

Despite my dad’s best efforts to reinforce this lesson periodically as appropriate occasions arose (and again, I mean this most respectfully), my subsequent study and life experience leads me to the conclusion that wearing jewelry or not is not a salvation issue. In the realm of spiritual things, to me it’s a VW-sized mosquito, as a friend puts it.

For one thing, the context of 1 Peter 3:3 is Paul speaking to Christian wives whose husbands are unconverted. What I hear him tell these women is to make sure that their inner adornment matched or exceeded any outward adornment they wore, so that their behavior demonstrated Christ’s love to their husbands. Now that’s a principle I can agree carries over to all Christians.

For another, the cultural context out of which Seventh-day Adventism arose was heavily influenced by Puritanical values—which included that of dressing plainly. It could very easily be argued that the idea of jewelry being sinful is a “folklore theology” originating out of this cultural context.

I’ve heard arguments against jewelry from others, but none have ever made much intellectual sense. The weakest was that of an SDA tele-evangelist. Since heaven’s streets are paved with gold (Revelation 21:21), he said, gold is the equivalent of asphalt. Why would you want to wear asphalt in your ears?

I told my husband about my client’s story and my ensuing questions. “People do so many horrible things,” he began. “Much worse than wearing jewelry.” I imagined the response from an anti-jewelry-wearer: Nothing is worse than putting your own desires before God’s.

My husband continued: How does not wearing jewelry make the world a better place? I played the devil’s advocate (yes, I see the irony in using that phrase here) and recited, as I was taught, “Because if your jewelry isn’t drawing people’s attention to you, then they will more clearly see Jesus.” But, he said, what if your jewelry made people notice you, and then because they noticed you, they also noticed your faith in Jesus? I laughed. Besides, he said, people find ways to draw attention to themselves without jewelry. They buy large homes, drive expensive cars, wear fancy clothes or even (in the case of many SDAs) gem-encrusted brooches, or gold engagement watches (a tradition which used to replace the engagement ring). I agreed; people who want to draw attention to themselves can do so even without outward things: their speech, the way they carry themselves, even piety can be used to get attention. Limiting the definition of “adornment” to jewelry alone is missing the point, it seems.

“How about if instead of spending money on jewelry, you put it towards combating world hunger or AIDS or some other plight afflicting those less fortunate?” I asked. Yes, he said, but people will spend their money on anything other than giving to the needy. I agreed. And this idea could very easily be taken to the extreme: Maybe all Christians should live as the apostle Paul did, traveling lightly through life and giving all our material possessions to those less fortunate. But does God call all of us to live that way? Or does He call some to live that way, and others to a life of balance—giving to those less fortunate while also enjoying what He blesses us with?

I decided that the one direct correlation I could find between jewelry and the plight of the world is blood diamonds. I know little more about blood diamonds than what’s in the movie, but it seems eliminating the demand for blood diamonds would indeed make the world a better place for those forced to mine them.

The truth is, I wear jewelry in good conscience and never really think about it—until, that is, I hear a story like this one about my client’s student, in which someone is “convicted by the Holy Spirit” to remove theirs. Then I second-guess myself (something I’m rather prone to do as a general rule anyway). Some would say that’s the Holy Spirit speaking to me.

But is it? If I find no definitive instruction in the Bible not to wear jewelry, why would the Holy Spirit try to convince me otherwise? What does it mean when I find myself second-guessing my Bible-based convictions? Can they be called “convictions” if they’re so easily second-guessed? Does it mean the self-doubt is of man and not God? Or if I re-evaluate those convictions, will I learn a new truth? Because “Bible truths” have been evolving for centuries. But that begs another question: How many times must one person revisit one topic in one lifetime?

Back to the Holy Spirit: If it’s not the Holy Spirit speaking to me, then was it the Holy Spirit speaking to my client’s student? If so, why does He persuade different people of different things? If not, what was it?

I don’t know. I can come up with only two options, neither of which is very satisfying: Either truth is relative and sin is situational, or what we think is the Holy Spirit is really just The Committee, the peanut gallery, the voice of our upbringing or of the group we currently want to belong to.

Because at “the Holy Spirit’s prompting,” or at least in the name of God, people have done many things. Many good things, but also many horrific things, from the Crusades to blowing up the Twin Towers.

Okay, that may be a stretch.

My point is, we so easily make VWs out of mosquitoes. And we try so hard to make things black and white. At its core, Christianity is about accepting Jesus as your Savior. Everything else is secondary. And frankly, I find nearly everything else to be a little gray.

The inner characteristics which “outward adornment” supposedly demonstrates are not eliminated simply by taking out your earrings or removing your rings and necklaces. I know, I know—it’s supposed to be symbolic of what’s happening in the heart. But what happens in someone’s heart is up to the Holy Spirit—not you. I know, I know—when you shared your beliefs about jewelry with me, you felt you were following the prompting of the Holy Spirit.

So here we are again. Perhaps this is really my point: How to decipher the voice of the Holy Spirit from the voice of The Committee?

I don’t know that either, other than to check what you’re “hearing” against the principles laid out in the Bible.

These are big topics and much more could be said, but I’ll end with the principles I understand right now: I try to be a loving, kind, unselfish person—matching my inner adornment with anything outward. I try to balance my luxuries with generosity. And my continual prayer is for an open heart, an eagerness to learn, and a willingness to tear down my “blind spots”–those issues that I subconsciously choose not to look at honestly and rationally.

Because we all have blind spots; they’re just in different places.