Why would a Christian wear a Prayer Shawl?

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F.Y.I.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

15:37-41 The people are ordered by the Lord to make fringes on the borders of their garments. The Jews were distinguished from their neighbours in their dress, as well as in their diet, and thus taught not to be conformed to the way of the heathen in other things. They proclaimed themselves Jews wherever they were, as not ashamed of God and his law. The fringes were not appointed for trimming and adorning their clothes, but to stir up their minds by way of remembrance, 2Pe 3:1. If they were tempted to sin, the fringe would warn them not to break God's commandments. We should use every means of refreshing our memories with the truths and precepts of God's word, to strengthen and quicken our obedience, and arm our minds against temptation. Be holy unto your God; cleansed from sin, and sincerely devoted to his service; and that great reason for all the commandments is again and again repeated, I am the Lord your God.

As I read this, and the Scripture, and other Commentaries...........surprising myself, I am thinking this is simply a way of reminding people to remember WHO they serve, and WHO they are children of.

The Cross does this as well, does it not? How many different visuals are there in the Church that remind us that we serve God, and are His children?

So, while I'm not going to sew fringes on the bottom of my pant legs, I don't see that this is such a terrible thing...........and keeping it in context with it being what God told the Jews AT THAT TIME to do........... God didn't command the Jews to worship idols, OR to do things that suggested idol worship............ just saying
If you were to come out with a line of witness wear with fringes designed to remind us not to sin, let me know I might order some of those pants.
 
S

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I did not see the prayer shawl in the text. Are you using the text to say that your prayer shawl reminds you to ...look upon it, and remember all the commandments of the Lord, and do them ; and that ye seek not after your own heart and your own eyes, after which ye use to go a whoring: ?
 

tourist

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Did this prevent you from having any accidents or tickets?
Probably not, but still didn't have any tickets or accidents. Once I bought a used car from a Christian woman who said a prayer asking God to bless the car. It was one of my better used cars and had it for years.
 

Blik

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Dec 6, 2016
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There seems to be some misunderstanding. I was in fact referring to 1 Corinthians 11, and the teaching about men with uncovered heads and women with covered heads. That automatically precludes a prayer shawl for men.
No it doesn't.

All God's commands are given to express love for God and man. The physical command can change but the heart of the command never does. God commanded circumcision to separate the men who were His, sharing love. When it no longer did God took the command back. God said divorce was OK because of how the heart of man was, but it did no change the purpose of marriage.

God gave us the prayer shawl, it is Holy. One person can put on a prayer shawl with payer, and it is not used as a prayer shawl but only a scarf over the head, another can put on a prayer shawl and it shuts out the world so they are alone with the Lord. Same shawl, worn the same way, completely different results.

We only know the people of the Corinthian church were mostly gentiles recently converted from their pagan ways and we don't know what head coverings meant to them.

If wearing a prayer shawl means disobeying God to you, then God does not want you to wear one.
 
Mar 28, 2016
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I did not see the prayer shawl in the text. Are you using the text to say that your prayer shawl reminds you to ...look upon it, and remember all the commandments of the Lord, and do them ; and that ye seek not after your own heart and your own eyes, after which ye use to go a whoring: ?
The unfished fringes represent a living faith "in the works" .The four corners universal mankind all nations. Blue to represent the temporal flesh. Gold the unseen measure of faith. The living water of the gospel

Just like in the Wilderness when God who previous used mankind as a representative temple .The new temporal was moveable to give the vision or walking to the other nations of the world. Again to give the picture of a unseen work of God who works in those who believe walking with them.

When they came to the promised land it was the end of walking temples (tabernacle) .and the order returned to mankind not made with human (will) We are the temple as well as those who came before that demonstration . Anything outside of the temple of His design is the abomination of desolation . Which is things seen the temporal corrupted standing in the unseen place of his glory .The golden measure of faith .Its right above the blues skies
 
Mar 28, 2016
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No it doesn't.

All God's commands are given to express love for God and man. The physical command can change but the heart of the command never does. God commanded circumcision to separate the men who were His, sharing love. When it no longer did God took the command back. God said divorce was OK because of how the heart of man was, but it did no change the purpose of marriage.

God gave us the prayer shawl, it is Holy. One person can put on a prayer shawl with payer, and it is not used as a prayer shawl but only a scarf over the head, another can put on a prayer shawl and it shuts out the world so they are alone with the Lord. Same shawl, worn the same way, completely different results.

We only know the people of the Corinthian church were mostly gentiles recently converted from their pagan ways and we don't know what head coverings meant to them.

If wearing a prayer shawl means disobeying God to you, then God does not want you to wear one.
Prior to the reformation. Neither Jewish woman or gentiles were allowed to participate in the ceremonies .High walls separated them from each other and the ceremonies . (men's club)

It was new to the whole world because of reformation just as well as the Jewish men who did perform the ceremonies.

The ceremony involves two to represent one and together represent the wedding commencement ceremony. the bread and blood of grapes . If man covered his head of hair it signified shame as if it was shaven off . If one half mocks both parts suffer.

By looking at different priesthoods (Jew , Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox today its easy to see which obey or disobey the ceremonial law. Some mock it as a sign of self edification glorying in their own flesh .

lately there seems to be a connection between the old testament Nazarene vow which was limited to men under the influence of the Spirit of Christ. It would seem the one found in 1 Corihtinans is a fulfillment. Men and woman, Jew and Gentile working together as one new creation displaying a wedding invitation to all the nations.

Bring the oil its dark along the way. .
 
S

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A prayer shawl is not prayer, any more than a stove is the food we eat, but it is useful for prayer like a stove is useful to prepare food.

God designed it, and God is a wonderful designer, and God told us how to use it in Num. 15:37-40. God designed it for us when the numbers of believers was to large to fit in the meeting tent. It creates a special meeting place where you can be alone with the Lord.

Numbers 15: 37 And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,

38 Speak unto the children of Israel, and bid them that they make them fringes in the borders of their garments throughout their generations, and that they put upon the fringe of the borders a ribband of blue:

39 And it shall be unto you for a fringe, that ye may look upon it, and remember all the commandments of the Lord, and do them ; and that ye seek not after your own heart and your own eyes, after which ye use to go a whoring:

40 That ye may remember, and do all my commandments, and be holy unto your God.

41 I am the Lord your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt, to be your God: I am the Lord your God.
I had to look up prayer shawls.

The Bible does not command wearing of a unique prayer shawl or. Instead, it presumes that people wore a garment of some type to cover themselves and instructs the Children of Israel to attach fringes (ציצית tzitzit) to the corners of these (Numbers 15:38), repeating the commandment in terms that they should "make thee twisted cords upon the four corners of thy covering, wherewith thou coverest thyself" (Deuteronomy 22:12).

This means that the prayer shawl is a man made invented tradition and not the DESIGN of God at all and that you are suggesting tradition of men replace the commandment of God. I would be careful about crediting God with a religious tradition invented by men and associating some kind of devine God inspired intentions such as creating a private prayer room and other things you have said.

Your intention might be innocent but this is how the Pharisees got so far off track not to mention the Roman Catholics and their myriads of un-biblical traditions.
 
S

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A prayer shawl is not prayer, any more than a stove is the food we eat, but it is useful for prayer like a stove is useful to prepare food.

God designed it, and God is a wonderful designer, and God told us how to use it in Num. 15:37-40. God designed it for us when the numbers of believers was to large to fit in the meeting tent. It creates a special meeting place where you can be alone with the Lord.

Numbers 15: 37 And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,

38 Speak unto the children of Israel, and bid them that they make them fringes in the borders of their garments throughout their generations, and that they put upon the fringe of the borders a ribband of blue:

39 And it shall be unto you for a fringe, that ye may look upon it, and remember all the commandments of the Lord, and do them ; and that ye seek not after your own heart and your own eyes, after which ye use to go a whoring:

40 That ye may remember, and do all my commandments, and be holy unto your God.

41 I am the Lord your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt, to be your God: I am the Lord your God.
If you think about it, the prayer shawl is an example of.....and that ye seek not after your own heart and your own eyes, after which ye use to go a whoring: A man made tradition not after the pattern of the scripture you quoted and an imagination after your own heart and your own eyes and thus a form of idolatry and spiritual whoredom.
 

Blik

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This means that the prayer shawl is a man made invented tradition and not the DESIGN of God at all and that you are suggesting tradition of men replace the commandment of God. /QUOTE] This tells me you don't study the word of God. In the word we are told to go to our closet to pray. We are told the tizitzit has symbolic meaning. We are told about prayer and being alone with God is part of the prayer we are told of. None of this rules out a prayer shawl. It isn't from men that I have read these things, evidently not in your bible, but it is in scripture.
 

crossnote

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Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head,
(1Co 11:4)

But I did it once while visiting a Jewish synagogue so as not to offend.
 

Blik

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Dec 6, 2016
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This means that the prayer shawl is a man made invented tradition and not the DESIGN of God at all and that you are suggesting tradition of men replace the commandment of God. I would be careful about crediting God with a religious tradition invented by men and associating some kind of devine God inspired intentions such as creating a private prayer room and other things you have said.

Your intention might be innocent but this is how the Pharisees got so far off track not to mention the Roman Catholics and their myriads of un-biblical traditions.
This tells me you don't study the word of God. In the word we are told to go to our closet to pray. We are told the tizitzit has symbolic meaning. We are told about prayer and being alone with God is part of the prayer we are told of. None of this rules out a prayer shawl. It isn't from men that I have read these things, evidently not in your bible, but it is in scripture.

The Pharisees got off track when they wanted to elevate their own ego rather than worship the Lord. Men's ideas instead of the Lord's were the demons influencing man and adding the occult into the church, changing scripture. The decision to listen to scripture about closing yourself off from the outside world to concentrate on the Lord with a shawl that represents (titiztiz) the Lord cannot by the most imaginative mins be compared.
 
S

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This tells me you don't study the word of God. In the word we are told to go to our closet to pray. We are told the tizitzit has symbolic meaning. We are told about prayer and being alone with God is part of the prayer we are told of. None of this rules out a prayer shawl. It isn't from men that I have read these things, evidently not in your bible, but it is in scripture.

The Pharisees got off track when they wanted to elevate their own ego rather than worship the Lord. Men's ideas instead of the Lord's were the demons influencing man and adding the occult into the church, changing scripture. The decision to listen to scripture about closing yourself off from the outside world to concentrate on the Lord with a shawl that represents (titiztiz) the Lord cannot by the most imaginative mins be compared.
The fringes in their clothing was a shadow and type. The reality is that of the indwelling Holy Spirit post death, burial, resurrection, and pentecost. Inventing a prayer shawl is just another type and shadow. However you have no authority to invent another type and shadow and claim the fringes in the garment under the Moses Law as your source. You have departed from the pattern given to Moses and created a different type and shadow suggesting it represents the reality of prayer? It is a man made tradition and you have no authority to change the instruction of the fringes sewn in the clothing and call it something God said to do. Surely you can see this?
 

Blik

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Dec 6, 2016
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The fringes in their clothing was a shadow and type. The reality is that of the indwelling Holy Spirit post death, burial, resurrection, and pentecost. Inventing a prayer shawl is just another type and shadow. However you have no authority to invent another type and shadow and claim the fringes in the garment under the Moses Law as your source. You have departed from the pattern given to Moses and created a different type and shadow suggesting it represents the reality of prayer? It is a man made tradition and you have no authority to change the instruction of the fringes sewn in the clothing and call it something God said to do. Surely you can see this?
All the many ways our Lord uses symbolism to explain the spiritual world to our carnal being is a shadow and type, do your really think we should not listen to our Lord as He uses symbolism?

Certainly we are to know the spiritual meaning of the symbolism, but the Lord never once gave an order not to listen to His use of symbolism.

The church has no authority to do things like invent a new Sabbath or change Passover to something with a name taken from the occult gods: Easter. But using what the Lord tells us that relates to a prayer shawl is NOT adding to scripture like these things are.
 

JaumeJ

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Jul 2, 2011
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The tzit-tzit were to be sewn to the corners of the clothing as a reminder to obey Yahweh. They were more like tassels as on a graduation cap. Fringe is ok but a bit odd.

When I heard this as a child, I thought of it as being the edge or hem of His garment...
 

Prycejosh1987

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Jul 19, 2020
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God designed it, and God is a wonderful designer, and God told us how to use it in Num. 15:37-40. God designed it for us when the numbers of believers was to large to fit in the meeting tent. It creates a special meeting place where you can be alone with the Lord.
Everything God designed is good, and proof of that is in his word.