As I read the Bible and review verses and passages about what people are to wear, I am finding most of them fit into one of the following 3 categories. God specifically instructed, used to illustrate a teaching and examples to re-enforce a principle. I will give you a quick summary of each to help you know what I am talking about.
God specifically instructed the people of Israel about the clothing required for the priests. This was not some principle or illustration (though you may find some as well) but a specific requirement for the priests, NOT OPTIONAL.
The Bible uses clothing to illustrate a teaching, such as being clothed in righteousness or holiness.
The Bible uses examples of specific clothing, dress, jewellery etc... to re-enforce a principle being taught. A great example of this would be the teachings from the Apostle Paul regarding what to NOT wear during worship like gold and braided hair etc...
What the Bible does not teach anywhere is that the world's view of "formal" dress code is inherently spiritual. In fact what we wear does say a lot and has meaning but I would suggest that we are called to not embrace the world's view of this. Instead we are to first seek out what honours God and gives Him glory in what we wear.
So here goes, this is what I believe is a Biblical stance for Christians on how to dress.
- Always we are to publicly display modesty, dressing in a way to draw inappropriate attention to our bodies is not healthy for our Christian walk or testimony to the world.
- Always we are to present ourselves in a way that fits with our desire to walk in humility. Jesus wants us to glorify Him and not ourselves, we are not to focus on building ourselves up by being the most fashionable person around.
- The above 2 points apply to all of us all the time including when we go to Church.
- We should seek to dress in a manner that shows proper respect for others, but only in so much as it is for the benefit of the Gospel and the glory of God. Not so that we just gain more friends or "brownie points" with those in authority.
- When we are at an event, including Church services, we should attempt to dress in a manner that does not draw special attention to ourselves, keeping in mind that the above points still stand. So to wear a suit and tie when you are visiting a small rural African Church might make you stand out more than your skin colour does and give the wrong example of what is important. In the same way visiting an inner-city Church that has a high level of un-employed attenders might not be the best place to wear your latest Armoni suit. However when you go to the typical old school country Church you may want to dress up a little more and wear a suit. This is for the benefit of the Body of Christ so that we are not a distraction in worship.
- We need to not sit in our "glory days of old" and believe that our favourite style of clothing is "more pleasing to God". May we never be these people. This is full of horrible pride. Jesus did not wear our clothing style, the apostles did not either, do we think our clothes make us better than them? Our styles should and will change and this is fine and should be expected, not frowned upon. As long as we are following Biblical teaching on modesty and loving God and others, then the style does not matter.
God is our focus, people are where we find our ministry, Love is our method, the Gospel is our tool, prayer is our fuel, the Spirit is our guide, the Word is our teacher, Worship is to be life-long and our lives are to give glory to Jesus.
Let's not allow the formal / informal agendas to distract us from what is truly important.
Pastor Bruce
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