So let’s talk about nose rings for a minute. In our recent discussion of tattoos, the nose ring question developed into a significant sideshow, and so a few specific words should be addressed in this direction as well.
The first thing to point out (and which I have pointed out elsewhere) is that nose rings cannot be considered malum in se, as something wrong or sinful in themselves. We say this because we are committed to the Bible as our final standard. And in the Bible we find the example of Rebekah (Gen. 24:47), and more to the point, the example of how God adorned Israel (Eze. 16:12). The AV renders the Genesis passage as a jewel for the “face,” and Ezekiel has it as a jewel for the “forehead,” but I think that in these places nose rings are most likely in view, as nose rings usually are. In addition, there are nose rings that the daughters of Israel wear as they are strutting their stuff at the mall (Is. 3:21). So when folks argue that this stuff is “in the Bible” I grant the point. And the fact that something is practiced and/or commended in biblical times means that we cannot condemn it outright, as something malum in se, so I don’t.
But we still have to deal with subsequent history. For example, if I am traveling and visiting with someone on a airplane, and they ask me what I do, I don’t tell them that I am a bishop. I don’t tell them that even though I could demonstrate that presbyteros and episkopos are used interchangeably in the Bible. They are used interchangeably in the Bible, but if I go around telling people that I am a bishop, they will spend a good bit of the rest of conversation trying to figure out why I am not wearing my hat. The fact that I “have some verses” doesn’t keep it from being completely misleading.
We have to take into account all the changes and developments. Rebekah had, as I suppose, a nose ring. But notice how she met Isaac for the first time. “For she had said unto the servant, What man is this that walketh in the field to meet us? And the servant had said, It is my master: therefore she took a vail, and covered herself” (Gen. 24:65). We know enough about the culture of that time to know that the connotations of a nose ring were completely different than what they are now. Then it meant that you were a mysterious queen from the east, veiled and alluring. Today it means you are quite possibly working the night shift at the 7-11 off the interstate, selling porn to truckers. I am overstating this somewhat, for the sake of making a point. Before you post a comment indignantly, I grant that this is a generalization, and is not universally true. I mean, you could be working the Flying J.
Now the issue for thoughtful parents (who are talking to their teenage daughters) is what it means now. The issue is not what it could mean if everything about our culture were completely different. And this issue of parents is why this is a public subject. Why am I not minding my own business? Let everybody do what God leads them to do. Chill, man.
The reason is that we live in community. If you are a twenty-something, out there making your own decisions, and you make the decision to get a nose ring, you are doing so in community, and you are doing so in public. That community contains parents of teenaged girls, and those girls will, if they have been inspired by your example, and want to do the same thing as you, cite you as an example. Suppose the parents don’t want anything of the kind in their house. Suppose further they are not legalistic, oppressive, tyrannical, or anything like that. They have a good relationship with the kids, and want to be able to explain beyond the level of “just because.” Suppose they have a pastor who wants to help parents give these in-house explanations. Suppose they are seeking such help. These are not hypothetical supposes.
In doing anything like this, something that advances the adoption of certain worldly practices in the church, you are placing yourself on the agenda of numerous dinner table conversations. These conversations are not gossip. These conversations, with your name in them, need to occur. And by adopting certain practices, you are the one who put your name into nomination to be used in those discussions.
Now suppose that you are out there doing something that a reasonable parent could believe to be low class. They could believe this without perpetrating any kind of outrage on the tenets of basic courtesy. You want to show your cute little midriff. You want a tramp stamp on the tailbone. You want a little beauty booger on the side of your nose. A father can say to his daughter, “Hon, we want you to be classier than that,” and he can do this without contradicting anything in Genesis or Ezekiel. And when their cousin gets married in Sri Lanka, the father can approve giving her an appropriate wedding gift of some nose jewelery. All without contradiction.
Clothing, jewelery, hair styles and more are all forms of communication. This means that they have public meaning. Further, they have meaning that can be ascertained by a broader public, as part of a larger conversation than what is going on inside the perpetrator’s individual heart. The irony is that often the worldings who develop these things know what they mean, and culturally conservative Christians know what they mean too. The Christians who adopt them thoughtlessly are the ones who can’t read the language they have attached so visibly to their bodies. Would you get a tattoo in Germany with some phrase in German without getting it translated? By someone you really trusted?