 Sunday Best
I was raised with the idea that you should always wear your best clothes to the church meeting. This not only included the Lord’s day meetings on Sunday morning and evening, but also the Wednesday evening gathering. The reason was heartfelt and sincere. It just makes sense that we should be offering to God our best. We should give the Lord all our devotion in terms of reverence and attention. The idea is that God deserves our best and so we should dress to reflect that idea. I have seen it argued that we would “dress up” to meet with dignitaries or celebrities, so why not God? So, in this post I would like to discuss the biblical principles that should be on our minds when we get dressed for the Lord’s day gathering and maybe some notions that should be abandoned in light of scripture. The New Testament Pattern Whenever I think about this subject my mind always goes first to what would seem to be the example that we see in the New Testament by the Lord Jesus and His Apostles. I don't believe this is the best argument, but I can’t escape it as persuasive. My point is that Jesus and the Apostles were not wealthy and probably did not even own a change of clothes. When they went to the synagogue meeting or even to the temple during Jesus ministry they would have come in the clothes they were wearing because that's all they had. They were the ultimate minimalists! As I said, this argument is somewhat weak because we don’t know that they only had one change of clothes. As likely as it seems, I am open to correction if there is compelling evidence to the contrary. The Old Testament Paradigm Earlier I mentioned that I think there are some notions that we need to abandon. The main idea I would argue is that anyone needs to don special or specific clothing for the church gathering. My case is that I think that the church throughout the centuries adopted this practice from carrying over old covenant practices. In the Old Covenant which was a temporal, conditional agreement with the physical descendants of Abraham it makes sense that they would be given physical means of consecration and dress (Leviticus 8). The people were commanded to do various washings because of ceremonial uncleanness that we would not carry over into the New Covenant church (Leviticus 11:39-40). My point is simple: the special clothes of the priests and the special washing of the peoples' clothes belong to that covenant and should not be carried over. I am not arguing that we shouldn’t be clean for comfort and hygiene sake, just that these are not requirements and certainly are not necessarily signs of godliness or spiritual maturity. Jesus’ Dress Code Next week, we will walk through what the New Testament does and does not teach about Christian dress in the church meeting. However, I want to finish this entry with the most important thing Jesus had to say about our clothing. In Matthew 22:1-14, the Lord Jesus gives His famous parable about sending His servants out to invite everyone to the wedding feast. After the guests have come, the King comes in to look at the guests and finds one with no wedding garments. He then commands for this one to be bound and thrown out into the darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. The parable is fairly simple to interpret. The King is Christ and the only people who will be welcomed into His wedding feast will be those clothed with the imputed righteousness of Christ. The clothing that God is most concerned about is not threads on your back but the righteousness of Jesus that now clothes the regenerated heart. The fact is all our good deeds are but filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6) and no outward apparel or sense of style is going to impress Him. All He wants to see upon us is the robes of Christ’s righteousness! (Revelation 7:9-17)
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |