Well, welcome to Ask Me Anything, everybody. I'm Matt Love. I'm here with Pastor J.D. Greer, and today we have a question that I am sure every single one of you has asked at some point in your life.

Does the Bible teach that men shouldn't have long hair? And this question came up recently out of one of your teachings, JD, through the book of First Corinthians. And in chapter 11, first 14, it says, does not even nature itself teach you that if a man has

long hair, it is a disgrace to him? So, J.D., again, the question that we're all wondering,

does the Bible teach that men shouldn't have long hair? You know, that's often how this passage

was taught to me when I was in my private Christian school in my independent Baptist Christian school I grew up in.

Long hair on a man is sinful. In fact, I would say probably a lot of our listeners may have grown

up in that kind of context. Do you mind remember the song? We actually had a song. If your hair is too

long, there's sin in your heart, get it cut today, make a brand new start. You'll live a life

of fear and dread with that tangled

mess upon your head so is that what paul's trying to say like if you have long hair there's got to be

sin in your heart then there's the part by the way in the same passage about women wearing a head

covering it says that you know women shouldn't have just like men shouldn't have long hair says

women shouldn't have short hair it's a shame to them he says it's a shame to pray with their head uncovered. You know, is Paul saying that it's wrong for a woman

to have a bobbed haircut? Is it wrong for, you know, her not to come in with a veil or a shawl?

That is that what Paul's trying to communicate? I mean, there's some traditions that women have to wear a shawl in church. I mean, you think more of the Amish traditions and that sort of thing, but is that how,

the only way that we can apply 1st Corinthians 11? And if we don't apply it that way, are we picking and

choosing which parts of the Bible to take literally and which parts to, you know, say are cultural?

Let me share something really important about Bible interpretation

that you have to get, if you're going to interpret, not just this passage, but so much of the

New Testament in the right way. You can go wrong in one of two ways with a passage like this.

You can overapply it or underapply it. Paul and other Bible writers will sometimes

teach a timeless principle, and then they will encourage their readers, their first audience,

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