Tassels
Many of the women in The Rock, and several from the “community element” of Stonebrook Church are doing a very cool Bible study together this Summer called “Believing God” by Beth Moore. Elaine, our highly esteemed “church mother” is leading it. She is having the women wear a blue “tassel” on their wrist this summer. Nancy could fill you in on the exact symbolism, but Elaine’s source is here:
The Lord said to Moses, “Speak to the people of Israel, and tell them to make tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and to put a cord of blue on the tassel of each corner. And it shall be a tassel for you to look at and remember all the commandments of the Lord, to do them, not to follow after your own heart and your own eyes, which you are inclined to whore after. So you shall remember and do all my commandments, and be holy to your God. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God: I am the Lord your God.”
~The Book of the Law of Moses (Numbers 15:37-41)
“So you shall remember and do all my commandments.”
This is a very cool symbol. Something that a lot of us would perhaps do well to practice. In our day and age of constant stimulus and the resultant short attention span, having a visual reminder to remember and do all of God’s commandments is a very useful thing.
When I first saw one of the girls wearing one of these, I asked what it was, and they said “It’s my tassel!!!”. I kinda chuckled. For whatever reason, the first thing that popped into my head was this:
“They do all their deeds to be seen by others. For they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long…”
~Jesus, speaking about the Pharisees (Matthew 23:5)
I did some checking, This verse IS referring to the exact tassel from Numbers that Elaine was referring to. In the NAS, it translates “fringes” as “tassels” (and is referring to the Numbers tassels). I said (stupidly) something along the lines of “Jesus had something to say to the Pharisees about their tassels…”.
Apparently this was taken to heart. I thought they would catch the frivolous nature of the comment, (which by the way, was also accompianied by a “that’s a really cool symbol…”) but, as usual, I was mistaken.
So I just wanted to apologize publicly for my hastey words, and I wanted to point out one more thing:
And behold, a woman who had suffered from a discharge of blood for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his garment…
Matthew 9:20.
Same fringe, same tassel. Jesus wore tassels.
The point of the Matthew 23 verse is not to do it for a show of righteousness or superior spirituality. (Which we might possibly be in danger of if some of the women start judging the womeone who aren’t wearing tassels.)
But anyway, I think I might just have to get a blue tassel and tie it around my wrist (or sew it to the edge of my garment, which is where they (four of them…) are supposed to go. Would that be alright with you women who are in the study? :-)
It’s cool by me!
I remember a leaders meeting a while ago where I was trying to convince people that there was a reason God wanted the even the clothes the Jews wore to remind them of Him. I’d love to see us embrace that in some way.
I guess I’m kind of ambivalent about the blue wrist band tassel bracelet thingy. Yes, it’s good to have a symbol of the unity I have with my sisters in faith. But I think it’s also good to be wary of faddish symbols of faith that can turn into graven images on one end of the spectrum or become utterly meaningless on the other end.
I’m on the inclination to agree with Megan. God gave man the laws, kings, symbols because his heart was hard and he wasn’t able to see his need for God. He gave them those things so that sin would increase and people could see how utterly sinnful the things that distance us from God were. As for Jesus doing these things… he was the only human to actually live the law.
17″If, while we seek to be justified in Christ, it becomes evident that we ourselves are sinners, does that mean that Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not! 18If I rebuild what I destroyed, I prove that I am a lawbreaker. ~Galatians 2:17-18
Call me on it if I’m wrong on the context of this verse, but I take it to mean ‘don’t rebuild the law’. I’m not going to say one way or another whether you should do that, but just make certain your motivations.
Yeah, Meg, but you should see what happened LAST time Matt commented about faddish bracelets:
http://www.mattandnancy.org/matts-external-brain/livestrong-diesaved
http://www.mattandnancy.org/matts-external-brain/i-guess-this-is-growing-up/
I like it. So what if it’s “faddish” if it helps remind you to do the right things and unite with others. I’m going to pass this on. People wear wrist bands and stuff for all sorts of things, why not for purity and obedience. Go blue tassels. :)
I’m not sure I’d call the Diesaved bracelets faddish… :)
I guess one of the reasons I’m upset over it is because at the behest of my grandma I’m reading a book called “Rome Sweet Home”… which argues for a return to Catholicism (she said she’ll read the book of Romans so I thought it was a good trade off). One of the things in the book that it talks about is the Rosary and its purpose being to meditate on the mysteries of Christ.
Is not the Spirit within us enough?
The Spirit within me is enough, yet I rarely take the time to remember that the Spirit should be making the decisions in my life. I think Catholicism has some beautiful traditions. While I don’t agree with all of Catholicism, I think a lot of their traditions, if embraced with a right heart can be really useful in our walk with Christ. Traditions are for men, men aren’t (or shouldn’t be) for traditions. Traditions are inescapable, and they can be helpful in giving us a framework for worshipping Christ. I would argue that there is as much beauty in Catholicism as their is in GCM. Those are a summary of my “eccumenical” thoughts right now=)
Good call… thanks TJ.