A Follow Up To Evil Beards

This morning I published a post which was nothing more than raw meditation from my Bible reading. A friend, noticing it, shared from the blog a different article written better than two and a half years ago about facial hair and its "evils." As of this moment, the old, truly uninspiring and shallow piece has nearly twelve thousand views. Now, for me, that's viral.

To put this in perspective numerically, I had less than 1700 views for the entire blog previously, and the blog itself was more or less a workshop for my young pastoral mind. I shudder at some of the things written in those old posts, but we must grow.

Beyond statistics, there is much to see, and here are a 3 things I have observed:

1) There are a group of people who got "it." The article was dry humor, and as I remember, more or less a response to the idea that preachers should be clean shaven. A preference, for sure, but in no wise a Scriptural law. Please don't impose your preferences on others for "righteousness sake." Eek.

2) There is a segment of people, and I don't know how large or what percentage, who draw conclusions at a glance. Proverbs 15:28 would be a good help to all of us who at times and places draw quick conclusions that we later regret. Kudos to those who recognized their error and recanted.

3) The "viral" nature (is there a proper "viral" definition? At what point does a piece become viral?) of the article is due to its perceived content. It, if it had indeed been an article championing the cause of clean-shavedness, would have incited great debate -over an extreme peripheral. Which is also interesting because the article demonstrated the author's point, at least the one in his mind; that is, we have deep affection toward the never-ending carnival of peripherals. By peripheral I mean that which the Bible speaks little to nothing about when compared to the greater, deeper questions (and answers!) of life and God.

So what about you? Is whether a man dons a beard truly a matter worth investing your precious God-given life's energy? The mark of a Pharisee in Jesus day was his ability to judge the appearance of something, yet Jesus said as recorded in John 7:24, "Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment."

There was a time in my life where the peripherals and issues were captivating, but I am not interested in being their captive these days. There are greater things to tend to. May the Lord give us wisdom to see what matters before us truly matter.