First, Sam, welcome to the Baptist Board. Hope you find it to be a blessing.
It has been a contentious issue in my family. They think - and I'm coming round to the idea - that it's too long for a man, even a 19-year-old like myself. What do you think?
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I believe that men should have short hair and women should have long hair, but I don't go out of my way to see that everybody is in compliance!
But since you asked...
Paul taught that men should have short hair and women should have long hair. This is in 1 Corinthians 11:14-15. No question about that. However, some people interpret it as a cultural matter, while others see it as more absolute. I belong to the latter view. Paul does not root his argument in culture, but the basic ideas of headship (
vs. 3-5), the image of God (
v. 7), the order of creation (
vs. 8-9), the angels (
v. 10), and the very nature of things (
v. 14). Some people think Paul gave all this time to the question and then negated it by writing “we have no such custom” -- that is, they meaning the churches have no custom regarding praying covered or uncovered, hair length, etc. “Have no such custom” in this context (
v. 16) refers to customs in “the churches of God” -- particularly what he began discussing concerning the manner of prayer. He expects them to follow his apostolic teaching rather than being contentious.
Some are concerned that there no details in the Bible to determine what would be defined as long and what would be defined as short. Perhaps so, but we have a general conception that we can shoot for, although hair styles in the modern West certainly can be confusing! I notice, however, that when folks are talking strictly in terms of style regarding a person’s hair, then seem to freely and simply think they know what is long and what is short.
When I was growing up we wore our hair what some would call “high and tight” (required, and probably based on military haircuts). When I was your age, my hair was much longer than yours (I came out of a “hippie” generation). As I grew older I came to dislike the look and feel of the long hair, as well as coming to believe that Paul was not just making a cultural appeal to hair styles when he wrote what he wrote in 1 Corinthians 11.
For whatever this is worth, and once again, “Welcome to the Baptist Board!”
