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Splitting Hairs
Straight up, way back in the 19th chapter of Leviticus: GOD outlawed the mullet.
Now, before all you supposedly southern gentlemen leave and cuss me out, HE SAID IT, not me:
“Do not cut the hair at the sides of your head or clip off the edges of your beard.”
Leviticus 19:27
Amongst a whole host of Divine Policies and Procedures – an entire Book of them, really – GOD tells His chosen elect, the Jewish people, a couple decades before they’d even enter the Promised Land, that when He sends them into the continual party of milk and honey – they can enjoy all that bounty and goodness and spoil – but they were absolutely forbidden from the business of keeping it high and tight on the sides of their head.
On its face, it feels like an odd mandate. I mean, it’s an era long before fedoras – so, long hair was already THE practical natural means for keeping the sun off the back of your neck.
But not just that! Way back in ancient times, flowing sideburns was also indicative of STATUS: luscious locks were celebrated as lore and symbolic of Divine Providence.
Men that had heads full of follicles were considered highly favored by the LORD. Women married to men with glorious manes would count themselves amongst the most blessed by GOD Most High.
What I’m saying is: in general, society held both then, and throughout the span of Holy Scripture – front to back – the more whiskers on your head, the more social – and spiritual – worth you must have had.
So, why then, an Old Testament rule about haircuts?
Why would GOD command the ancient Israelites NOT to do something they wouldn't want to do – since, long hair was always in season and the señoritas and the socialites would only look down upon it – anyway?
It would be like me making a turducken-bacon sandwich at the kitchen counter and as I reach for the fat-free mayo, GOD randomly drops in my spirit:
“Thou shalt not have a colonoscopy every 3 months.”
THAT is a good Word. I receive it!
Now, do I think GOD really cares about our actual cuts of hair?
Probably not.
Do I think that some of the most famous mulletteers in history – Rod Stewart, that guy that played MacGyver, Billy Ray Cyrus (or Miley Cyrus for that matter) – or roughly 3/4 of any rural Georgia high school football team are eternally damned?
Not because of their haircuts, no.
SO, THIS SEEMS POINTLESS.
But GOD’s Word doesn’t return void, which is another way of saying He doesn’t waste His time nor His Breath with useless rules and regs.
Why then, does GOD outlaw something years before the Israelites would even see it?
Let alone when they see it, they probably would NOT want it?
Is this Old Testament rule about haircuts really about haircuts?
I can’t help but feel there MUST be something between the lines for GOD’s cowlick concerns.
Let’s find out!
Holy Fire to Unholy Kindling
The reality at the time of the Leviticus download to Moses is that the future Holy Land is already overrun with gobs of unholy hordes that do pretty much the opposite of everything GOD intended back in Eden.
Specifically, regarding GOD’s warning about supposedly, malignant mops: there were a group of indigenous Arabs, a subset of the surrounding culture already entrenched in the Promised Land – thus, the Jewish people would be living in-between them all – that were known to have an idolatrous practice of keeping the hair short at their temples and sides of their heads and letting it grow long in the back, and, the front.
A rudimentary mullet, if you will – and the redundancy of that phrase, is not lost on me. In practice, it probably resembled more of a mini-horse’s mane than a mullet, but you get my point.
And apparently, one of the beliefs these idolatrous influencers had was their god that was responsible for keeping the sun on the straight and narrow for 10-12 hours a day, then liked to throw it down when was he off the clock. And so, in honor of his dichotomous business-party lifestyle, they glorified him with, or without, shaved-in racing stripes.
SO the straight up knock down for legislating the individual issue of the mullet must be the setting He’s sending them into, right?
As a good Parent, He’s trying to keep the Israelites from playing with, and subsequently getting burned by, the current paganistic philosophies that in reality were so far gone and caught up in the demonic undertow that the people actually thought inanimate objects like the sun, moon, and stars – or even trinkets they carried around in their pockets – were the ones in control of their destiny and committed barbarous acts like cutting themselves, having sex with animals, even burning babies in cauldrons of fire in order to curry the inorganic favor of these items. Or, the so-called-gods they represented.
And GOD wanted it ALL out of there. His conquest of Canaan was indeed to give back His chosen people the best-chosen land in ALL the land.
But it’s also a spiritual take-backsies. It’s kingdom give, and Kingdom take.
The entrenched worship of anything other than GOD was to be to be purged, burned, discarded, and ground to dust. He wasn’t messing around.
That’s because he’s not sending the Israelites into the Land of Promise just for them to keep up with the Kardashians of Canaan.
And what He’s saying to them in Leviticus 19, He’s said to them before: for your own good, THOSE guys are devoted to destruction along with whatever they devoted themselves to – including, whatever is trending at the time – because the demons behind it all, know that the imitation of these influencers isn’t a form of flattery, it’s the best formula for your flattening.
Let alone, it would be IMMENSELY ironic to propel His singled out holy people to take the Holy Land back from the pagans, only to have them start behaving, like pagans.
Community of Conscience
Context is critical. Let us zoom out from the individual verse prohibiting indecent hairlines and look at the good stuff before it, AND after it, to try and figure out what GOD is saying, by what He said, within the 19th chapter of Leviticus altogether. Let’s break it down.
Early on, in verses 9-17, He starts with some repackaged and/or rephrased classics from the first half of the Ten Commandments that seem to serve up common sense stuff for quality community life, like:
Don’t steal from, lie to, defraud, or rob people
Don’t mess with the disabled
Don’t slander or gossip
Don’t intentionally put people in harms’ way
Be nice to old people
Be generous
Be fair to everyone despite social status
Cool. Cool. Cool. I mean, it all makes sense; the whole lot: revere the Golden Rule; respect the Golden Girls; honor GOD above any golden, or metallic things.
And, if they do what He said, they won’t suffer the same fate as their ancestor, their great great great great great great great Uncle, fourteen times removed, Lot.
In these verses, GOD sets the standard for excellence and loving people – and, if everyone abides by the first half of Leviticus 19, then life in Israel should be pretty good.
But then, GOD drops the clutch at verse 19, and spends the next stretch of expectations-setting road calling out specific prohibitions for things that – like Korean boy bands and gas station sushi – are seemingly pretty obvious to NOT partake in:
Consuming the blood of living things
Defiling yourself, the land, or both
Cutting your body in honor of dead people
The second half of the chapter is thirteen verses of just awful do NOT do’s that honestly would be too awfully vulgar and debasing they wouldn’t be allowed on Jerry Springer, let alone the nightly news.
It’s a strange and very specific list of outlawed behaviors that would make even those with the strongest of intestinal fortitudes a bit squeamish!
AND, it’s in THESE verses – in His culling of all things awful and abased – neatly tucked in-between not practicing the evils of sorcery and not prostituting one’s daughter – GOD pronounces His preemptive veto of the mullet.
WEIRD.
Why is a rule prohibiting a specific haircut (of all things?!) listed right next to warnings about harlots and demon worship?!
And I’m wondering, why such a long and specific list of so many things – some of which, are so good, AND so many things that are so, so bad.
It’s SO counterintuitive, to me.
But He’s GOD, so it must be method, not madness.
So, what gives?
By George, Your Yoke Ain’t Light
Over the course of the several iterations of my professional journey, I’ve served as a business consultant helping small businesses get unstuck, advance their plans, increase their footprint, and magnify their brand.
One of the first steps I take when engaging with a new client is reviewing their Employee Handbook and P&P’s (Policy and Procedures). These are the governing documents of life at the Company: how the Company expects its employees to behave and, if done correctly, how the employees can expect the Company itself, to operate.
Policies and Procedures always start off with these great pump-up paragraphs of how they’re aiming to change the world; be the best place to work; do right by their staff and their families. All good stuff.
Then, after laying out definitions and boundaries for benefits, shifts, hourly vs salary, etc., the content will eventually transition to bullet lists of specific rules and regulations. And this, is where it starts to get interesting.
THIS is where I make the popcorn and curl up with a blanket – because the sections of Corporate Policy that are coming up are more like the subtext from Human Resource’s private diary than, how-to’s and what-to’s and do-not-do’s.
And when I sit down to debrief Company Leadership at a later date on my initial findings and where I think we should start to make their Company great again, I always start by explaining the why behind my process:
“Show me your policies, and I’ll show you your pain.”
That means, through the seemingly indiscernible Matrix-like code that falls vertically down the screen – all the minutia of how to request PTO and defined Company Holidays – you can actually tell a lot about the ownership and leadership of any organization by the rules they put in place.
What they REALLY care about, they get REALLY specific about:
Staff must turn off the meeting room lights upon exit.
Smoking must occur at least 15ft from an entrance, or in the Company parking lot.
The leadership doth protest too much, me thinks!
I mean, I get it. But do you really need to legislate adults in Company-governing documents the way grandparents micromanage the grandkids onto the carpet protectors?!
Here are a few of my faves:
Blockbuster video rentals are not a valid company expense.
The Worship Pastor may not meet 1:1 with female staff.
Oof.
I call these, Tree Rings.
When I see policies like these in print, I don’t even see the code, I see when a past budgetary drought exposed what Employees have tried to get away with in the past or the fires mid-level Management has caused the entity over the years.
And I’m sure HR means well, but what they don’t realize is that every following years’ inserted (and underlined) line into policy – intending to prevent history from repeating itself – not only provides an accumulating record-keeping of the immoral inclinations of the staff, they actually historically, consistently, and paradoxically dictate an inglorious future.
Let alone, the IRONY between the lines: if you haven’t updated your undergirding corporate-culture guiding documents since the collapse of a VHS-distribution, brick-and-mortar institution – which, went extinct because its leadership failed to see the big picture – it’s clear your attention is on the TREES.
And you’re lost.
And now you need a business consultant to help restore focus to the forest.
And I’m happy to help. By the hour.
Again, there’s no judgement, per se: protecting the Brand by restricting the boys from the girls and prohibiting personal expenditures may actually help keep you from trending for all the wrong reasons, and the Company coffers secure.
But what leadership typically don’t seem to understand is tougher regulations meant to secure the Starship Enterprise from future Klingon incursions don’t actually safeguard the Company AND serve only to expose the – literally: bolded, underlined, and italicized – wounds of its leadership.
Because here’s the real irony of insecure leaders – and you need look no further than King George or John Hammond to prove it: ANY overreaching governance in reaction to a past event or individual bad actors does NOT serve the collective vision for an expansive empire. Nor prevent the bad behavior of your increasingly captive staff.
The tighter you get in policy, the more likely you are to host a Boston Tea Party without lysine contingencies. Because revolution was written into our genetic code by Adam, which means, unbeknownst even unto themselves, your employees can’t help but throw themselves at the Company’s electric fences to test them, and you, for weaknesses.
Which means, the same ironies that dismantled Isla Nublar will also disembowel your credibility with the team AND cause chaos: the more specific controls you insert into the Codes and Ethics at your Company, the more the likely your systems will fail, and the more your Employees can actually get away with:
But, you didn’t say I couldn’t expense, Netflix.
Clever girl.
Here’s the thing: GOD KNOWS ALL THIS.
He sees the end from the beginning.
I mean, He wrote THE Book of Life.
Which all means, He is fully aware that the human condition is an endlessly repeating proclivity to throw off the yoke of our oppressors and eat ourselves.
HOW COME THEN it feels like Leviticus 19 – with all its prohibitions of gore and goth – reads like an Employee Handbook that was written after Heaven’s Human Resources Manager just got out of a bad relationship with an unfaithful, disingenuous tattoo artist, with an unabashedly red-neck aesthetic and vampire-like tendencies?
If GOD knows granular policy ONLY results in greater likelihood for unGodly behavior, why then does He write into Holy Policy some very specific bullets of gross and grotesque behaviors – that are no-brainers, really – YEARS before they get to drink the milk and pour on the honey?
What NOT To Do. NOT, Why Not To Do It
When GOD shifts gears from Loving thy Neighbor to Hating thouest Culture in the middle of Leviticus 19, I can’t help but feel that He seems to be targeting something specific, when He generally:
Prohibits the crossbreeding of divergent species of livestock;
Relegates sections of land to individual crops, only;
Decrees that clothing material must be uniform. Gotta pick one.
But, what exactly?
Well, what do we know already?
We know culture IS an issue.
And, we know that the GOD of the Universe is NOT an HR Generalist with trust issues.
How, then, are these first three commands against supposedly bad behaviors, which are – and the irony is not lost on me – preceded with,
“You shall keep my statutes…”
Leviticus 19:19
NOT the Everlasting People Officer creating uber-specific policies that are nearly impossible to keep, let alone micromanage the fun out of animal husbandry for the Jewish people AND cause them to miss out on the future joy and practicality of polyblends?
Because THIS is where the true Genius of the One BOSS of the Universe is revealed: between the lines.
He was really saying:
Don’t mix animals.
Don’t mix crops.
Don’t mix fabrics.
Of course, GOD really isn’t all that concerned about an assorted fruit basket at harvest time or the premature inception of golden doodles.
Instead, He’s specifically telling them to avoid any superstitious cultural practices that point credit at something, instead of Someone AND warning them in general about mixing it up with the culture of the time.
Between the lines, GOD is giving a Holy ‘NO’ to mixture.
As in, the blending of two or more things to the point where the individual ingredients become indistinguishable from each other.
While I’m pretty sure you can discern sufficiently between the lines of that GLORIOUS summation of how mixing it up with culture actually binds, and blinds us, spiritually – I’ll go ahead and ask the extremely rhetorical question anyway:
Does that mean all mixture is bad?
No.
Obviously, humans synthesize useful things from individual things all the time – whether it’s the combining of flour and yeast to make dough, or peanut butter and chocolate to make Heaven on Earth. Let alone, the infinite number of combos and alloys that actually come out better than the individual ingredients that initially went into the mix: Steel is stronger than pure iron. Bronze is incredibly durable and harder than either copper or tin, alone. And I’ll just say what we’re all thinking: who’s Joey Fatone without N’Sync?
But throughout Scripture GOD doesn’t use steel or other structural metals as a metaphor for His people or His Heart’s greatest desire for their Holiness. Instead, He employs precious metals like, silver and primarily, gold.
Pure gold was the mandated overlay for crowns, thrones, the Ark of the Covenant, and Temple furnishings. And pure gold can’t have anything else in it. No mixture. No dross.
Finally, I’m starting to catch up.
The reason why GOD focuses so heavily on external behaviors in Leviticus 19 is because He’s actually concerned about their overriding effect on internal conditions.
What GOD is doing is keeping culture OFF them, so culture can’t get IN them.
Leviticus 19 is: outward begets inward.
And yet, I’m stuck.
Again, lists that outlaw things are doomed to fail.
So, why does He dictate Law through a giant list of specific anti-dross-like procedures if a simple, general ‘No Dross’ Policy is all it takes?
Know Thy Audience
We’re a couple dozen metaphors for hair and corporate governance into this thing, so we already know that the LORD can do what any HR director can’t do: specifically focus on prevention of unintended consequences without losing sight of His overarching, intended Vision.
BUT it bears recognizing that He isn’t just the Author of the Rules and Regs.
Unlike your mid-level manager with administrative access to the original Company Policy Word-file – GOD is Author of the audience, too.
HE MADE THEM.
He knows the Israelites, inside and out.
He knows who He’s talking to, how they should hear it, and what they need to hear, so they don’t do what they shouldn’t do.
OR, at very least, be – succinctly and persistently – on The Record for it.
If I want to keep my 4-year-old out of harm’s way, I could sit him down and using a whiteboard and a few textbooks from college, I’d probably:
Start with the industrial application of the principles of thermodynamics and electron distribution flow through high-friction substrates which ultimately result in increased heat within a coil element engineered specifically for the accelerated denaturing of proteins until food is safe for human consumption.
While these coiled devices are set at a general height and depth from the edge that is convenient for the average adult human being to perform general cooking tasks while standing – what makes them comfortably and efficiently positioned for the preparation of food also makes them readily available for human beings just over the age of 3 ½ to procure, and what you need to know, kiddo, is that one jovially, satisfying, mechanical turn of a plastic knob – and the irony, that these are unfortunately not unlike the knobs I’ve previously provided for you in unrelated toys and constructive learning apparatus, is not lost on me – and rapidly these magical elements will remarkably and curiously change color from drab black to bright orange and actually begin to glow from the inside! And you’ll feel warmth on your face as you stare at it because your nose is also 30 inches from the floor and what you may be interested in doing is using all your available senses to explore it further as you ask yourself, what is this wizardry happening inches from me?!
But what’s actually happening is that element which is specifically designed to channel copious amounts of energy to facilitate the literal changing of the physical state of matter from solid to liquid or even liquid to gas has become so inexplicably hot that it will burn your skin irreparably, expose you to the possibility of infection and disability. Scar you – not just physically, but possibly emotionally.
And that’s without going into hospital stays, medications, co-pays and possible investigation by Child-Protective Services for neglect.
I mean, I could say ALL that – run on sentences, and all.
And maybe he gets it, and MAYBE conceptual understanding is all we need for him to maintain his dexterity and open his own Gogurts from here on out.
But will he get it, really?
Sometimes – for reasons expeditious or concern for lack of capacity – the why is momentarily off the table and dictating the what takes over to keep a kid from experiencing grievous harm in the moment.
SO, I just point at the stove and say: “DO NOT TOUCH.”
In Leviticus 19 – actually, a significant part of the Pentateuch altogether – even though GOD isn’t talking to toddlers, He IS talking to a relatively naïve group of people – the result of decades of deserted isolation and exclusivity issues – that have ancestrally proven time, and time, and time again: they need to learn the hard way.
Heck, the IRONY OF ALL THIS is the indescribable evils being committed by the very people GOD is warning them about ARE LITERALLY the downstream results of their forefathers’ indiscretions with pagan servant girls.
So, because of all that’s at stake, the lack of sophistication of His audience, and the savvy of what’s coming against them, GOD knows that His kids need it kept simple, so they don’t get stupid.
Culture Creep
The real danger in mixing it up with culture is that it’s NOT like touching a hot stove, messing with a bull, or immediately regretting calling Chuck Norris’ mom, “Sir”.
Culture is better described as the undertow that occurs on beach fronts.
It starts with putting your toes in the water. This is noice.
Then, you wade out. Lovely!
Talking with friends, lying on your back, and before you know it you’re having fun, and…you’ve been swept a quarter mile from shore and upon realization you try to head back.
But, all your efforts to go back the way you came aren’t working, and even though it seems your original entry point is just…right …there, it feels like everything you wanted before, is now everything that’s working against you and it’s an all-out brawl against the invisible current just to keep from being dragged deeper, or going under entirely.
So, even though it feels like emotionally charged policy insertions in response to previous employees’ indiscretions, it bears repeating that Leviticus 19 is not our Manager Most-High being reactive to error or even the possibility of it repeating.
GOD is proactively wanting to keep His Holy people from ending up in the last place anyone wants to be – at the bottom of a slippery slope with a venereal disease – by instructing them to stay away from culture’s community water park in the first place.
AND NOW, it’s suddenly become clear to me why the mullet is GOD’s chosen object lesson for, and stern warning against, mixing it up with culture.
The hairs on your scalp grow at a pretty constant rate. Which means, mullets don’t occur naturally, in Nature. While THAT alone makes my point that GOD never intended for mullets, ever…we have an Aussiedoodle at home…so, yeah.
Also contrary to Natural Law, mullets are neither an accident nor an aesthetic improvement. Only unusually, mullets occur after someone loses a bet or actually thinks it’s a better look.
Instead, let’s be honest: what usually happens when guys get mullets: it's because everybody else around them are doing the mullet, or that guy on TV is doing the mullet.
Mullets happen because one guy says, ‘hold my beer’ which provokes another guy’s passive rebellion against social norm, and another guy that lives in mom’s basement has nothing to lose, so why not?
IF, you have a girlfriend – it’s despite your mullet. The only way you’re gainfully employed while sporting a mullet is if you fix other people’s cars in your own driveway, you get the mullet after you get the job, or drive a race car.
I could keep going, but what I’m saying is, on its face – or literally on anyone’s head – the mullet can’t be of GOD’s Kingdom, because it hamstrings His first-ever command to all human beings, ever: be fruitful and multiply.
While I’m pretty sure you can discern sufficiently between the lines of that GLORIOUS summation of previously loose moralistic strands to see that emulating the culture actually emasculates your intended spiritual destiny – I’ll go ahead and ask the extremely rhetorical question anyway:
Isn’t it JUST a haircut?
Yes AND No.
GOD knows the haircut won’t kill you, obviously. It is just hair, and hair grows back. Which – and the irony is NOT lost on me – is metaphorically literal: Grace upon Grace.
And, what you decide to look like on any given day probably doesn’t have any serious implications to overall outcomes – unless you have a job interview coming up, or you’re about to ask your future father-in-law to 'hold your beer', while you do a cannonball into his gene pool.
But, IF (and that’s a big, IF) it’s true that there’s nothing inherently wrong with having a mullet, the fact that GOD specifically and emblematically uses it to both, cull, and call out cultural no-no’s MUST mean something.
So, if it’s not the what, per se (and that’s a BIG, per se) the issue then naturally falls to what’s between the shaved-in lines: why you got the haircut in the first place.
And when it comes to mullets, as I’ve CLEARLY proven, that comes down to either, the baseline thinking in-between your ears of everyone else is doing it…or, the spirit of stupid.
And GOD – the Universe’s Ultimate Parental Unit – knows that 'everyone’s doing it' is a REALLY dangerous mentality to have – ESPECIALLY if you’re a primitive nation of vagabond orphans composed mostly of a single generation of people with a preexisting, deep, generational father wound; still reeling from having just lost their parents, older siblings, extended family (which is a big deal in their culture) and everyone else they knew, obeyed, or respected back in the wilderness; have never known a permanent address, let alone floors, fixed schedules, or solid food; and, have documented trust, entitlement, and impulse issues.
So, if you’re their Heavenly Father – how to do you keep them safe for now AND for all eternity?
Do you sit one million primordial people down and explain everything they’re inclined to do because they can’t read between the Freudian lines of their repeating family history?
Or, do you just point at the harmful behaviors and things that you want them to avoid and say, “DO NOT TOUCH.”
And that, is what He metaphorically literally, did.
Actually, He did it A LOT.
Business Before Party For Reasons
There are like 27 chapters of myriads of rules and regs in Leviticus alone. Something like bazillions of Pentateuchal Policy and Procedure in this Book that get really specific, AND quite honestly: feel really, REALLY oppressive.
So much so – and the irony is not lost on me – that it completely blows up my preceding premise (and pretty much the entire middle two-thirds of this literary event) that the more rules you put before your people, the less likely they are to abide.
BUT, I’ve been doing this leadership thing for so long, and this parenting thing for long enough, and being a human being for even longer to know:
I’m also, actually, right.
I have enough life-experience to know that whether you oversee Velociraptors in cages, or kids in cribs, or employees in cubicles, your subordinates unanimously hold this truth to be self-evident: rules are meant to be broken.
And whether they’re informed by generational wound, or instinct wound up in genetic code: the more rules you put on them, the more likely you are to become someone’s proverbial, or literal, next meal.
Because, internal nature cannot be contained, and definitely NOT constrained.
So, why then, does GOD set them up for the impossible?
Why make Moses create the Ultimate Handbook for Life with YHWH when He knows that when left up to His target audience, not one policy will be abided, and not one procedure followed, by the time it’s all said and done?
There must be something greater between the lines that we’re missing.
Here’s something super interesting:
When GOD gets down to brass tacks in Leviticus 19, there’s really nothing new in it. In fact, in ALL my concordances, Leviticus chapter 19 is literally sub-headed in each one, by:
‘A Repetition of Various Laws.’
Now, we know that GOD will use repetition to infer importance. Since fonts and underlines and putting hearts around His favorites weren’t available text formatting options yet, GOD would say the same thing more than once for emphasis and/or to make sure you got it.
And, Leviticus 19 is really just a collection of oldies but goodies; Laws rephrased and/or repackaged:
Everyone will revere their mother and father. He told them that back in Exodus.
Sacrifices will be done well – by cooking them until they’re well-done. Said several times already, in Leviticus.
Do not rob your neighbor, nor your employees. Number 8 in the Big 10.
No eating meat with the blood still in it. WAY back in Genesis.
You will not worship idols or make any. Like, LOTS of times.
And, the Regs He laid down in the other verses in the 19th chapter can, in general, be located in-between other earlier lines of Scripture, as well:
When He reproves evil rituals (subtext: all earlier prohibitions of soliciting enchanters and diviners);
And, He lauds good agricultural practices, the first of which, is offered to GOD, or NOT (subtext: previous references to always give Him the first-born livestock but make sure, zero imperfection);
And, He strongly warns about the defiling of the land, through the devaluing of the children (PLAIN TEXT: you gotta know that immorality always breeds GOD’s contempt).
Hopefully, you get my point: a walk-through Leviticus 19 is Policy-and-Procedure-Déjà-Vu. Everything in this chapter has pretty much all been said and done, before.
And, while you’re paying attention because He Who Is Speaking is also, He Who Can Smoosh you – you’ve heard it all, already.
Heck, He even repeats Himself within the chapter with TWO “You shall keep my statutes,” – once in verse 19, and once more at the very end, in verse 37. He says it TWICE.
That's like He underlined, bolded, and italicized: OBEY.
You get what I’m putting down. It’s repetition repackaged. Much regurgitation.
Leviticus 19 is GOD basically underlining the things He says are really important by repeating the things He’s said before.
Except for one thing, between the lines:
Neatly tucked between the reminders of old, enduring classics of ‘Keep the Sabbath’ and everyone-stand-to-show-honor-to-your-elders, was actually something brand spankin’ new:
Haircuts.
Turns out, Leviticus 19:27 is the first time in all the Good News that GOD declares mullets to be bad news.
But if it’s true that this entire chapter is basically GOD repeating Himself in order to basically underline, italicize, and bold things for retention – why the seemingly random insert of a line regulating something, new?
Couple early Revelatory possibilities coming to mind:
Maybe because He’s gotta start somewhere, right? GOD saying it here for the first time, means that Policy reemphasis is still just yet to come.
Perhaps, GOD’s Authoring process is like mine – and the post-it about haircuts fell out of His journal while He was dictating the evils of necromancing and He inserted it here, before He forgot to get it in there, later.
OR, since He’s intentional about EVERYTHING could it be this specific Regulation about haircuts is really a Revelation about something more than just personal aesthetic?
What do we know already?
Bad policy is historical-rule-overreach to avoid repeating bad behavior in the future.
Good policy is rules that guide behaviors that are future-reaching.
And, we know GOD is no ordinary HR Associate because He’s the only One Who can see the end loud and clear from the beginning.
So, is there something between these specific lines of historical code that GOD wants us to know – for future conduct?
If I’m going figure out why GOD is seemingly so concerned with the hairs on our heads, I’m looking to the future to figure out why He said it in the past.
Business Up Front Party in the Year 30 AD
Thousands of years later in Luke 12 and, repeated in Matthew 10 (just to drill my point home further) we’re now in the Promised Land, and the Promised One is teaching something really important to His chosen disciples about what lies deep in the Heart of the Father:
“In the meantime, when so many thousands of the people had gathered together that they were trampling one another, [Jesus] began to say to his disciples first, ‘Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.
Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. Therefore whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops.
I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him!'"
Luke 12:1-5
Luke lets us know in verse 1 that while there’s thousands of people around Him, Jesus seemingly ignores the masses and starts out talking to His individual disciples, first.
Jesus is warning them about ‘the leaven of the Pharisees’ – an elitest group of self-assigned, self-promoting, culture-keepers at the time – by saying in general: don’t copy the behavior of your current leaders, because at the heart of all they do, is insecurity and insincerity:
“Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.”
Luke 12:1
Referring to the Pharisees’ influence as leaven is an INCREDIBLE metaphor that infers one man's iniquity can actually – and insidiously – get mixed deep into the doughy parts of another man. Or, as I like to say:
You are what you eat.
Quick note: Hopefully, you see between the lines, that I'm NOT talking about food.
Because GOD loves to repeat Himself, Jesus repackages it and repeats it for them in verse 2, when He says that if/when private, explicit things are left unchecked, it will ALL be exposed publicly, one way or another:
"Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed or hidden that will not be known. Therefore, whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops."
Luke 12:2-3
Let me repackage GOD's repeat:
First verse, Jesus warns of the private influence of public influencers.
Then, in the next verse, Jesus warns of private behaviors being made public.
Did you catch that?
Jesus is warning us all that what comes inside you will come out of you.
Right here, at the beginning of Luke 12, GOD is saying,
Don’t let yourself be defiled internally so downfall isn’t your outwardly appearance.
But I thought back there, in Leviticus 19, GOD said,
Don’t imitate their outwardly appearance and thus have yourself defiled, internally…?
Remember, Leviticus 19 was: Outward begets inward.
That means, Luke 12 is Leviticus 19 in reverse: Inward begets outward.
Did GOD just lay down contradictory regulatory guidance?!
Actually, THIS is the Genius of GOD brought into fulfilling circle within the lines of Superior Policy: Behavior begets heart which begets behavior.
GOD wants his Inheritance set apart from the Influencers because for His Kingdom to come and His will to be done, GOD needs His Light-bearers to be holy from the inside, so they reflect His Holy Light to the outside, and no one else’s.
Quick reminder: Lucifer means, “bearer of light”.
Just sayin’.
Which means, laying Leviticus 19 on top of Luke 12, we FINALLY get why your haircut matters to GOD: who you’re copying is just as important as what you’re copying.
And if who you’re copying is an unholy cultivator of your present culture – it could kill you.
Let alone, it would be IMMENSELY ironic for GOD to send His one and only Son to be crucified so you could be set free from sin, shame, and even insecurity, only to have you behaving like someone who’s still bound by the same.
The End is JUST the Beginning
So, is that it...?
Don’t be influenced by iniquitous influencers and you’ll be fine?
Even though it feels like we finally got to the Heart of what GOD is saying in Policy, we’ve still really only addressed behaviors.
That means, we’ve really only talked about the what.
We STILL need the why.
But don’t worry, I’m almost done.
Since the 19th chapter of Leviticus generally, pointed to the first three verses of Luke 12, specifically – I’ve decided, I’m staying put.
Luke 12 is very similar to Leviticus 19, in that it’s a really comprehensive teaching focused on avoiding destructive behaviors and damaging mindsets for quality community life and personal freedoms from spiritual strongholds.
But there’s also A LOT about this New Testament catalogue that’s different from its Old Testament analogue, between the lines:
Back then, it was GOD’s Policy being dictated to one guy, named Moses, and later provided to the masses.
But now, it’s Jesus – WHO IS THE LAW OF MOSES INCARNATE – discussing it directly with the masses.
Did you catch that?
Jesus – and the irony is not lost on me – is GOD repeating Himself in the Form of a Person.
Mind. Blown.
And, because He set us up at the beginning by teaching that the heart of the man is the Heart of the Matter, there’s a MUCH different feel to His commands for specific expectations regarding a Believer’s conduct, even when the conduct He's warning us about, isn’t good:
Coveting material things; for life is greater than them
Anxiety about physical needs; for GOD already knows about them
Make sure your diligence reflects holy reverence; Who said it, and for Whom you’re doing it, matters
That thing you’re feeling right now?!
That’s HOPE.
That’s because, for the first time – we’ve got the cheat codes for knocking out the source(s) of the behaviors themselves.
This is NOT a listing of impossible holiness protocol that only makes us feel hopeless to comply.
This is NOT tighter policy in an attempt to beget tighter control.
By providing the Revelation up front that it’s the heart that counts, the point Jesus keeps pointing out in all this is: your behavior flows from your heart.
Which means – between the lines – fix the heart, and the behavior takes care of itself.
If your heart is properly aligned to the Heart of GOD, you’ll do all these things that Jesus is commanding, naturally.
How do I know?
Because the first three verses of Luke 12 are actually the PERFECT fulfillment of GOD's mandate for holiness that He made way back in the first couple verses of Leviticus 19:
"And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 'Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them, You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.'"
Leviticus 19:1-2
In Luke 12, when Jesus teaches the Israelites between the lines about how settling private conditions of their hearts automatically satisfies the conditions for public holiness…GOD just did what only GOD can do:
Expect, command, and demand the impossible;
AND satisfy all the requirements for it, Himself.
Which means that GOD’s will done is: Jesus’ indwelling in the heart of every believer for salvation AND sanctification (albeit, still in process) AND a setting apart from culture for His Kingdom come.
And even though you’re probably already bleeding from your ears after that GLORIOUS summation and integration of my entire premise with Holy Doctrinal Reconciliation to GOD and His Purposes – I’ll go ahead and ask the extremely rhetorical question anyway:
So, in Leviticus 19, was GOD commanding holiness of His chosen people?
Or, was He prophesying Holiness?
Yes.
Either way, this announced Policy update from the Perfect One means this just became a Handbook of HOPE that points to HEALING and results in HOLINESS.
Amen.
And, just when you think you FINALLY got it…
...there it is…
Rinse and Repeat
Just a little bit farther down, neatly tucked in Luke 12, between the red-lettered lines of, “don’t be afraid” (because GOD is greater than those guys), and “don’t be anxious” (because GOD has those things covered already), Jesus pulls back all the seemingly loose strands of Holy Policy & Procedure, and ties it all together with a crimson scrunchie:
"Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered.
Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows."
Luke 12:6-7
Now, we know His why for an Old Testament rule about haircuts.
Just to make sure we get it, GOD just did what only GOD can do: He repeats Himself, by saying something brand spankin’ new, between the lines:
Not one word I speak will ever fall to the ground, and neither will one hair on your head without Me knowing about it. I love you THAT much.
That’s me, paraphrasing the GOD of the Universe, but it IS what He said.
Remember, Jesus is the Law, perfectly fulfilled. And right here in Luke 12, Jesus perfectly fulfills an earlier Law in Leviticus 19 about the hair we wear by saying the reason our hairs matter to Him is because WE matter to Him.
And the fact that GOD – Who is intentional about EVERYTHING He says – uses something as insignificant as individual hairs as the metaphor for Divine Recognition of every human being’s condition must literally mean that EVERYTHING about you, matters to Him.
Whether you knew it before this, or not – doesn’t matter. You are in His Heart. You matter, to Him.
From what you wear, what you eat, what you think, what you do, what you say, and what you feel. It’s all invaluable to Him, because it’s all valuable to you.
How do I know?
When He says our individual hairs are really important to GOD in Luke 12, Jesus:
Transcends time and space; to personally resolve all mankind’s inadequacies over much time, and space
Satisfies His own previously stated preconditions for Holy living back in Leviticus 19; so we don’t have to
Restates His unconditional Love for every human being; which, includes YOU
Reclaims Sovereignty over not just the haircuts of individuals – but the individuals, themselves. Also, you.
His Love: Repackaged. Repeated. Much Reconciliation.
By the way, Jesus did the EXACT SAME THING later on in: Luke 23 and, repeated it in Matthew 27; and repeated it again in Mark 15; and repeated it AGAIN in John 19…
…on the Cross, with regards to our sin – that ugly thing that separates us from GOD, drags us down beneath His intended Promises and Purposes for us, and keeps us out of His, metaphorical and literal, Promised Land.
Did you catch that?
That’s your Heavenly Father saying – four times in four Gospels (GOD, making His point for me):
I did it, for you. Because I love you – yes, YOU – more than you can possibly hope, think, or imagine.
Like I’ve said, He really likes to repeat Himself.
He must REALLY want you to get it.
Heir Apparent
SO, I take it all back.
Not any of my between-the-lines waxing sarcastic that having a mullet means not ever having sex again.
I meant all that.
But I will concede that Scripture proves that GOD does in fact care, about the haircut.
He must, if He’s intentional enough to lay out a specific rule about a Jewish man’s hair in Leviticus, and then use it to lead the rest of us to His Heart for all mankind, in Luke.
Because again, the Truth is, policy and procedure always reflects authorship:
Corporate policy exists for the good of the Company. Where THAT goes wrong is when someone with good intentions drags corporate vision down by inserting lines with personal agenda unconsciously in tow. If Man is the author, one way or another, what’s between the lines reflects HURT. Which means NO ONE will ever be good enough to fulfill their requirements.
And, ironically: read enough Employee Handbooks and you’d find out that Man dictates appropriate hairstyle a lot more than GOD ever did.
GOD's Policy exists for the good of all mankind. Where THAT went right is when Someone with pure intentions pulled Heaven down and not just inserted lines with an Intentional Agenda for our holiness in mind, but also fulfilled all their requirements for us. GOD is the Author, which means what’s between ALL the lines reflects His HEART for you.
And, if you read enough of His Lines, you’ll find out that every one of them are meant to be personal Revelations that lead you into even deeper intercourse with Him.
So, when is an Old Testament rule about haircuts NOT about haircuts?
When it’s about: you.
Turns out it’s been someone – between the lines – the whole time.
God is Good. Mullets are Bad. SmashLetters. Copyright © 2025 SmashLetters. All Rights Reserved.
One more thing
You just read that GOD knew you, has been thinking about you, wanting the best for you, and absolutely crazy-person loving you since time began. If you don't yet know Jesus as Savior - please take just a few moments to read what He did for you and made available for you to start living the life He's dreamed for you, since the beginning of time. The Gospel.
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