# Is Wearing Jewelry a Sin? No, but Peter and Paul Warn Against Showy Adornment

Source: https://christianpure.com/learn/bible-wearing-jewelry/
Publisher: Christian Pure (https://christianpure.com/)
Published: 2025-01-03
Updated: 2026-11-05

Wearing jewelry is not a sin, and God's own people wear it. When Abraham's servant finds Rebekah, he puts a gold ring on her nose and bracelets on her arms (Genesis 24:22, 47). Peter and Paul do ask Christian women to adorn themselves with good works and a gentle spirit rather than gold and pearls, and a few churches ask their members to wear none.

When Scripture wants a picture of love, it often reaches for a bride and her jewels, and in Ezekiel it is God himself who puts them on her. "I adorned you with ornaments and put bracelets on your wrists," he says to Jerusalem (Ezekiel 16:11). Peter's warning about gold belongs inside that picture, because he is pointing us to the adornment God prizes most in any of us, "the hidden person of the heart," which "in God's sight is very precious" (1 Peter 3:4).

## Who wore jewelry in the Bible?

Jewelry turns up all through the Old Testament, and usually nobody remarks on it. When Abraham's servant finds a wife for Isaac, he gives Rebekah "a gold ring weighing a half shekel, and two bracelets for her arms weighing ten gold shekels" (Genesis 24:22), and later "jewelry of silver and of gold" (Genesis 24:53). When Pharaoh makes Joseph governor of Egypt, he puts his signet ring on Joseph's hand and a gold chain around his neck (Genesis 41:42), and King Ahasuerus gives his signet ring to Mordecai (Esther 8:2). When the tabernacle was built, men and women "brought brooches and earrings and signet rings and armlets" as offerings (Exodus 35:22), and the high priest wore a breastpiece set with twelve stones, each engraved with the name of one of the tribes of Israel (Exodus 28:15–21). And once Job's suffering was over, each of his relatives and friends gave him "a piece of money and a ring of gold" (Job 42:11).

The New Testament mentions jewelry less often, though when the prodigal son comes home in Jesus' parable, his father calls for the best robe and says, "put a ring on his hand" (Luke 15:22).

## Does the Bible use jewelry in a good sense?

Yes, and often it stands for love, honor and joy. The lover in the Song of Solomon says, "Your cheeks are lovely with ornaments, your neck with strings of jewels" (Song of Solomon 1:10). Isaiah rejoices that God has clothed him with salvation "as a bride adorns herself with her jewels" (Isaiah 61:10). In Ezekiel, God tells of his care for Jerusalem as if he were dressing a bride: "I adorned you with ornaments and put bracelets on your wrists and a chain on your neck. And I put a ring on your nose and earrings in your ears and a beautiful crown on your head" (Ezekiel 16:11–12). Proverbs likens good advice to gold: "Like a gold ring or an ornament of gold is a wise reprover to a listening ear" (Proverbs 25:12). And at the very end of the Bible, the new Jerusalem comes down "prepared as a bride adorned for her husband," with its foundations "adorned with every kind of jewel" and its twelve gates made of pearl (Revelation 21:2, 19–21).

## Where does the Bible warn about jewelry?

When Scripture warns about jewelry, the trouble is idolatry, pride and the display of wealth. At Mount Sinai, Aaron tells the people, "Take off the rings of gold that are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me," and he casts the gold into the golden calf (Exodus 32:2–4). Afterward, in mourning, "the people of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments, from Mount Horeb onward" (Exodus 33:6). Jacob's household, too, gave up their foreign gods "and the rings that were in their ears" before going to worship at Bethel (Genesis 35:2–4). And the ephod Gideon made from captured gold earrings "became a snare to Gideon and to his family" (Judges 8:24–27).

The prophets turn the same images against Jerusalem's pride and unfaithfulness. Isaiah warns that because "the daughters of Zion are haughty," the Lord will take away their anklets, pendants, bracelets, "signet rings and nose rings" (Isaiah 3:16–21). Ezekiel accuses Jerusalem of taking the jewels God gave her and making idols out of them (Ezekiel 16:17), and Hosea speaks of Israel adorning herself "with her ring and jewelry" to go after the Baals (Hosea 2:13). In the New Testament, James warns a congregation against giving the best seat to "a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing" while a poor man is made to stand (James 2:2–4).

## What do 1 Timothy 2:9 and 1 Peter 3:3 say about jewelry?

These are the two verses people cite most often against wearing jewelry. Paul writes that "women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness—with good works" (1 Timothy 2:9–10). Peter writes: "Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear—but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious" (1 Peter 3:3–4). In the King James Version the same phrases read "not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array" and "wearing of gold."

Churches have read these verses in two ways. Most take them as a warning against display and expense rather than a ban on every ornament, and the same sentences also name braided hair and clothing. Others hear in them a call to go without gold and ornaments, and they ask their members to do so.

## Earrings and nose rings in the Bible

Hebrew has one word for both, *nezem*. According to the Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew lexicon, it means a nose ring in Genesis 24:47 and Isaiah 3:21 and an earring in Genesis 35:4 and Exodus 32:2. That is why the King James Version calls Rebekah's gift "a golden earring" and yet says the servant put it "upon her face," where modern versions have "I put the ring on her nose." Men wore earrings too. Exodus 32:2 mentions the earrings of the Israelites' sons, and Judges 8:24 the gold earrings of the Ishmaelites whom Gideon defeated.

The [ear-piercing](https://christianpure.com/learn/body-piercing-biblical-view/) in Exodus 21:5–6 is another matter altogether. A slave who chose to stay with his master had his ear bored "through with an awl" at the doorpost, as a sign that he would serve him for life, and the passage never mentions an earring.

## What did the early church teach?

With few exceptions, the early Christian writers discouraged jewelry. Tertullian was writing in North Africa around 200 when he divided women's adornment into dress and ornament. He placed "gold, and silver, and gems" under the first, and of it he said, "Against the one we lay the charge of ambition" (*On the Apparel of Women*, book 1). His contemporary Clement of Alexandria allowed a Christian a gold finger ring and explained, "Nor is this for ornament, but for sealing things which are worth keeping safe." He advised that its seal show "a dove, or a fish, or a ship scudding before the wind, or a musical lyre... or a ship's anchor" rather than the faces of idols (*The Instructor*, book 3, chapter 11).

## Can Christians wear jewelry today?

The Catholic, Orthodox and most Protestant churches have no rule against jewelry. [Wedding rings](https://christianpure.com/learn/wedding-rings-origin-significance-christianity/) are part of the Catholic marriage rite, where the priest or deacon blesses them with the words "May the Lord bless these rings which you give to each other as a sign of love and fidelity." And many Christians wear a cross or a religious medal.

Some churches, though, ask their members not to wear jewelry. The Seventh-day Adventist Church's Fundamental Belief 22 says that "our dress is to be simple, modest, and neat, befitting those whose true beauty does not consist of outward adornment but in the imperishable ornament of a gentle and quiet spirit." In 1986 its North American Division voted "that the wearing of jewelry is unacceptable," though it also declared that members who wear a simple wedding band "should be fully accepted in the fellowship and service of the church."

The holiness churches draw on the Methodist tradition, and John Wesley's General Rules for the early Methodists list "the putting on of gold and costly apparel" among the things members should avoid. The United Methodist Church still publishes those rules, though few mainline Methodists dress plainly today. Some churches of the conservative holiness movement still do. The Discipline of the Evangelical Wesleyan Church asks members to adorn themselves "not with gold, pearls, or costly array," and that rule covers "finger rings of any kind (including wedding rings)."

Among the Anabaptists, the Amish forbid jewelry, and the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College explains why: "the prohibitions against cosmetics, jewelry, and personal photographs are designed to prevent pride."

Whatever our own church asks of us about rings and chains, the last jewels in the Bible come with a promise. The new Jerusalem comes down "prepared as a bride adorned for her husband," and every one of its twelve gates is a pearl (Revelation 21:2, 21). Until that day, the adornment within reach of every one of us is "the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit" (1 Peter 3:4).

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## Related reading

- [What jewelry represents in the Bible](https://christianpure.com/learn/jewelry-symbolism-bible/)
- [Wedding rings: what does the Bible say?](https://christianpure.com/learn/wedding-rings-origin-significance-christianity/)
- [Is wearing makeup a sin?](https://christianpure.com/learn/makeup-sin-beauty-dilemma/)

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