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Japanese No. The Bible never calls wearing jewelry a sin, and God’s people wear it: Abraham’s servant gives Rebekah a gold nose ring and bracelets (Genesis 24:22, 47). Peter and Paul tell Christian women to adorn themselves with good works and a gentle spirit rather than gold and pearls, and a few churches ask members to wear none.
Who wore jewelry in the Bible?
Jewelry appears throughout the Old Testament, usually without comment. 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). Pharaoh puts his signet ring on Joseph’s hand and a gold chain around his neck when he makes him governor of Egypt (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 engraved with the names of the tribes of Israel (Exodus 28:15–21). After Job’s suffering ended, 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. In the parable of the prodigal son, the father welcomes his son home with the best robe and says, “put a ring on his hand” (Luke 15:22).
Does the Bible use jewelry in a good sense?
Yes, often as a picture of 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 describes his care for Jerusalem as 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 compares good advice to gold: “Like a gold ring or an ornament of gold is a wise reprover to a listening ear” (Proverbs 25:12). At the end of the Bible, the new Jerusalem comes down “prepared as a bride adorned for her husband,” 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?
The warnings concern 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, as a sign of mourning, “the people of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments, from Mount Horeb onward” (Exodus 33:6). Jacob’s household gave up their foreign gods “and the rings that were in their ears” before going to worship at Bethel (Genesis 35:2–4), and Gideon’s ephod, made from captured gold earrings, “became a snare to Gideon and to his family” (Judges 8:24–27).
The prophets use 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 from 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 two verses are the ones most often cited 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). The King James Version renders the same phrases as “not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array” and “wearing of gold.”
Churches read these verses in two ways. Most take them as a warning against display and expense rather than a ban on every ornament; the same sentences also name braided hair and clothing. Others read them as a call to go without gold and ornaments, and ask their members to do so.
Earrings and nose rings in the Bible
The Hebrew word nezem covers both. It means a nose ring in Genesis 24:47 and Isaiah 3:21 and an earring in Genesis 35:4 and Exodus 32:2, according to the Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew lexicon. 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 Israelite sons, and Judges 8:24 the gold earrings of the Ishmaelites defeated by Gideon.
The ear-piercing in Exodus 21:5–6 is a different matter. 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 for life; the passage says nothing about an earring.
What did the early church teach?
Early Christian writers discouraged jewelry, with few exceptions. Tertullian, writing in North Africa around 200, divided women’s adornment into dress and ornament, placed “gold, and silver, and gems” under the first, and said, “Against the one we lay the charge of ambition” (On the Apparel of Women, book 1). Clement of Alexandria, his contemporary, allowed a Christian a gold finger ring, “Nor is this for ornament, but for sealing things which are worth keeping safe,” and 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 are part of the Catholic marriage rite, in which 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 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,” while declaring that members who wear a simple wedding band “should be fully accepted in the fellowship and service of the church.”
Holiness churches draw on the Methodist tradition. John Wesley’s General Rules for the early Methodists, which the United Methodist Church still publishes, list “the putting on of gold and costly apparel” among the things members should avoid. Few mainline Methodists dress plainly today, but 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,” a rule that covers “finger rings of any kind (including wedding rings).”
Among Anabaptists, the Amish forbid jewelry. The Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College explains that “the prohibitions against cosmetics, jewelry, and personal photographs are designed to prevent pride.”
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