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1 Peter 3:15 "...always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, that those who revile your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame"
wait, why do we dress up for church again? when did the tradition start? is it even a good idea?
9 comments:
Anonymous
said...
The deal with dressing up for Church definitely has no biblical basis and I believe it is purely another way to set aside the Sabbath and treat it as a special day that is different from the rest of the week.
Definitely. We honor God in the way we dress and the way others view us. If people saw us looking like slobs, their impression of us would be lowered, and even though God only looks at the heart, not the outward appearance, man tends to look more at the latter than the former. We need to honor God in both outward apperance and heart.
I also think that lots of the ways people dress to church is nicer than alot of the time. Maybe it is not alot nicer than when you go to school(that is public schoolers. But I think in todays society, dressing up for something is something really fancy. Do you see what I mean? I wouldn't ever dress the way most other girls dress for church, just wearing jeans. wearing something nice really helps set the day aside for me. So long as what you are wearing doesn't really destract you, I don't think it really matters. It might still be anoying though.
"Since prayer is at the bottom of all this, what I want mostly is for men to pray—not shaking angry fists at enemies but raising holy hands to God. And I want women to get in there with the men in humility before God, not primping before a mirror or chasing the latest fashions but doing something beautiful for God and becoming beautiful doing it."
should how we feel towards god be governed by what we're wearing? do we want the world to think we're really different and better than them because we are dressing up? how would that feel, if you walked into a church in a tshirt and jeans, and everyone was wearing buttonup shirts or suits?
god does not have a standard of dress (last i checked). there's nothing more or less biblical about wearing a suit than a tshirt. it's a state of mind. the church isn't the important part. what we're wearing isn't the important part. heart. look to the heart.
now i'm not trying to condemn it--only question it and defend new standards.
It's a fine line between vanity and humility. Lots of different churches are different in the way people dress, I've noticed. Some are casual, some more dress-up. Not to say that one is right and the other's wrong. I think that either way people are in the totally wrong mindset if they are either vain about how much better they're dressed up than the next person, or if they're casual and they're embarrassed about it. This post is basically: is dressing up for church overrated? but I think really it's turning into: is arguing about dressing up for church overrated? the whole point is heart, I completely agree, but I still hold that God is probably close to the only one in church looking at the heart (man looks at the outward appearance). Because of that, it's better to stay on the safer side of things. Dressing up is a way of showing your respect for God and your honoring His holy day by making it more special than the other days of the week. In that section of 1 Timothy 2, Paul was saying that women shouldn't dress up so much that they become vain about it, not that they shouldn't dress up at all. The way we dress gives the first impression of us to the people around us, so we should make sure that our outward appearance glorifies God. However, as I said at the beginning we have to keep our thoughts and heart set on God, not become proud or vain about how we look. Modesty and cleanliness, but not gaudiness or clothes that scream "look at me!"
i just think if we're going to dress nice, it shouldn't be to impress people what nice, great, people christians must be for wearing nice clothes.
"the message" version/translation. don't want to get into a translation argument, but i like it. it's a modern english version that doesn't change the bible's message.
Oh my gosh Sam we just agreed on something! *faints* lol JK.
The pastor at the church we visited yesterday said something that so totally correlated to this topic (even though the sermon was on stewardship) that was really neat. He said that Christians could look around the church and probably see people both better off and less well-to-do than themselves. But that instead of focusing on how they look on the outside, or more importantly on how they SHOULD look and focusing on how much better we are than them, we should be focusing on God's will for us, and how we can pursue that.
I read a New King James, which I like a lot because of how close it is to the original Bible. However, I like to compare to other translations, especially the Message, when it comes to applying it to my life, because it's more focused on us today.
9 comments:
The deal with dressing up for Church definitely has no biblical basis and I believe it is purely another way to set aside the Sabbath and treat it as a special day that is different from the rest of the week.
-Richard the Disciple
Amen.
Great, now there's two of you stealing my thoughts.
Definitely. We honor God in the way we dress and the way others view us. If people saw us looking like slobs, their impression of us would be lowered, and even though God only looks at the heart, not the outward appearance, man tends to look more at the latter than the former. We need to honor God in both outward apperance and heart.
I also think that lots of the ways people dress to church is nicer than alot of the time. Maybe it is not alot nicer than when you go to school(that is public schoolers. But I think in todays society, dressing up for something is something really fancy. Do you see what I mean? I wouldn't ever dress the way most other girls dress for church, just wearing jeans. wearing something nice really helps set the day aside for me. So long as what you are wearing doesn't really destract you, I don't think it really matters. It might still be anoying though.
1 timothy 2-"the message" version
"Since prayer is at the bottom of all this, what I want mostly is for men to pray—not shaking angry fists at enemies but raising holy hands to God. And I want women to get in there with the men in humility before God, not primping before a mirror or chasing the latest fashions but doing something beautiful for God and becoming beautiful doing it."
should how we feel towards god be governed by what we're wearing? do we want the world to think we're really different and better than them because we are dressing up? how would that feel, if you walked into a church in a tshirt and jeans, and everyone was wearing buttonup shirts or suits?
god does not have a standard of dress (last i checked). there's nothing more or less biblical about wearing a suit than a tshirt. it's a state of mind. the church isn't the important part. what we're wearing isn't the important part. heart. look to the heart.
now i'm not trying to condemn it--only question it and defend new standards.
It's a fine line between vanity and humility. Lots of different churches are different in the way people dress, I've noticed. Some are casual, some more dress-up. Not to say that one is right and the other's wrong. I think that either way people are in the totally wrong mindset if they are either vain about how much better they're dressed up than the next person, or if they're casual and they're embarrassed about it. This post is basically: is dressing up for church overrated? but I think really it's turning into: is arguing about dressing up for church overrated? the whole point is heart, I completely agree, but I still hold that God is probably close to the only one in church looking at the heart (man looks at the outward appearance). Because of that, it's better to stay on the safer side of things. Dressing up is a way of showing your respect for God and your honoring His holy day by making it more special than the other days of the week. In that section of 1 Timothy 2, Paul was saying that women shouldn't dress up so much that they become vain about it, not that they shouldn't dress up at all. The way we dress gives the first impression of us to the people around us, so we should make sure that our outward appearance glorifies God. However, as I said at the beginning we have to keep our thoughts and heart set on God, not become proud or vain about how we look. Modesty and cleanliness, but not gaudiness or clothes that scream "look at me!"
What version was that, Samwise?
good points verya. i definitely agree.
i just think if we're going to dress nice, it shouldn't be to impress people what nice, great, people christians must be for wearing nice clothes.
"the message" version/translation. don't want to get into a translation argument, but i like it. it's a modern english version that doesn't change the bible's message.
Oh my gosh Sam we just agreed on something! *faints* lol JK.
The pastor at the church we visited yesterday said something that so totally correlated to this topic (even though the sermon was on stewardship) that was really neat. He said that Christians could look around the church and probably see people both better off and less well-to-do than themselves. But that instead of focusing on how they look on the outside, or more importantly on how they SHOULD look and focusing on how much better we are than them, we should be focusing on God's will for us, and how we can pursue that.
I read a New King James, which I like a lot because of how close it is to the original Bible. However, I like to compare to other translations, especially the Message, when it comes to applying it to my life, because it's more focused on us today.
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