When I was a kid, everyone I knew wore those WWJD bracelets. In case you’re not familiar with that acronym (which would be surprising, considering they were everywhere), it stands for What Would Jesus Do? Started by a youth minister in Michigan, these bracelets were designed to help kids consider their actions from a spiritual perspective.
I wasn’t allowed to wear them—not because my parents disagreed with the message (they loved the idea), but because the idea of wearing something to broadcast your faith defeated the idea of Matthew 6:1-8 (not doing your religion to be seen by men).
Was that right? I’ll leave that up to you to decide, but what is clear is that religious paraphernalia can prove to become stumbling blocks over time. Jesus decried the pharisees for “lengthening their tassels” in order to make themselves look holier than they actually were (Matthew 23:5).
But tassels weren’t originally meant to be this way. In Numbers 15:37-41, God specifically commanded tassels to be worn at the edge of every Israelite’s garment as an explicit reminder to follow after the commandments of God. As your eyes connected with those fringes, so would your mind connect with the Word of God.
What’s fascinating about this section is the specific warning that God provides the Jews. In Numbers 15:39, God tells them not to “follow their hear and their eyes, after which they played the harlot.”
Translation: Your eyes and your heart got you into trouble. Don’t trust them.
This has relevance to what the Israelites literally just went through in the preceding chapter. When the spies went into Canaan, their eyes told them that they were “grasshoppers” in the sight of the Canaanites. The people’s hearts believed the word from the spies. Rebellion followed.
Tassels then were originally meant to divert their attention and their faith towards God. By Jesus’ time, they were used to divert attention back to themselves. That’s where the error came in, and that’s why Jesus condemned it.
I’m not saying we need to create tassels on our garments. My t-shirt collection would look odd with them.
But how can you create reminders of God’s Word in your own life? Sticky notes on the mirror? A habit of quick prayer when you get in the car? A Bible on your kitchen table?
We need these types of reminders in our life for the exact same reason that the Israelites did. Our eyes and our hearts can cause us to lose focus on God, so it’s a good idea to build in marks throughout our life to remind us of where our focus should be.
