The Church Clothes Controversy

[00:00:09] Speaker A: Welcome back to think deeper. Podcast. Jack here with Joe and Will once again. This week we've got controversy to wade into maybe the hot topic in Church of Christ Facebook over the last couple weeks. We'll get to that in just a minute. As always, going to give a little plug. First focus. Plus We've told you guys about a bunch of times. We've had people ask, can I give a gift of Focus Plus? We've made that available. If you go to the Focus Press store on our website, you can buy an annual subscription for a friend family member loved one. It'll give them a year's access to everything we've got up on Focus Plus. The deep end episode, the Revelation study, exclusive articles, all the stuff that goes up every week. And so we're excited about that. Again, that'd be a great gift for somebody who just wants daily Bible content on their app. And so we got that available. Transform Faith is one of the books we've been telling you about. It is on the way now. We're finally on with that one. So preorder number two of three is on its way in. As we've said before, get that preorder in if you want to be one. [00:01:11] Speaker B: Of the first, get ready for the holidays. [00:01:12] Speaker A: That's right, ahead of the holidays. And then I am rushing out the third one as fast as I can. Hope to have that in ahead of the holidays, too. It's going to be under the wire, but we'll see what we can do there. So lots going on at Focus Press. Other than that, I guess we'll just go ahead and get into the episode, which is about dressing up for worship. There was a meme that went around that kind of sparked off the controversy, and I'm going to come out right out front. This was a meme that was pro dressing up for church. I think it was very poorly worded. It just showed a family kind of 50s ish cartoon family dressed up in suits and dresses and real nice. And it said something like, remember when people used to dress like they were going to see Jesus? Which again, is a little heavy handed. It raises a lot of questions. As I've pointed out that you're going to see Jesus on Wednesday night, but you don't wear your suit and dress back. It dresses down a bit. What about when you go in prayer or do your devotional every day? Should you dress up for that? I mean, it's a little over the top, but it was very clearly pro dressing for worship. And a lot of people said Amen, and a lot of other people shared it and said, this is awful, horrible. This is mean. Our church is not like this. This is not Representative Christianity. This is not Christ. Like there's a lot going on there. Every time I saw that meme posted, which I saw it by preachers and members I got a lot of Church of Christ Facebook friends. Every time I saw it, it had dozens of comments of people going back and forth on. [00:02:41] Speaker B: So that's what I was going to say. [00:02:42] Speaker A: It's a controversy. [00:02:44] Speaker B: It clearly prompted emotional responses from a lot of people. Essentially if you scroll past it, a lot of people felt the need to comment on it. It's something that for both sides, everybody it struck a really had a thought on yeah, it struck a nerve for a lot of people. And so yeah, to Jack's point, we thought, hey, let's talk about it on this podcast episode because it is pretty hot button right now. And it's something that's always kind of been there's kind of been a line in the middle that you fall on either one side of there's one side that essentially and we're going to get into all the other arguments but essentially says God looks at the heart, doesn't really matter. What about the visitors? We want to make them feel comfortable. And so kind of pro not necessarily dressing up for church. Maybe they say it was culture and then there's the other side that says no, we should be dressing up. We should be making sure that we are giving know absolute best that we possibly can to God. And so there's a lot here that we want to get into. And Joe, I'll turn it over to you if you want to kind of get us into the first section here. But it's funny, I think this is one that everybody listening to this probably already is on one side or the other. I think sometimes with our episodes topics there might be some that, hey, I don't really have an opinion. Let me see what these guys think. Maybe stuff like the you know, maybe you don't have an opinion. But for this one I feel like everybody's probably already got an opinion on it. At least it seems like in the Church of Christ that people do. And so we want to explore it. We want to explore again all the, I guess defenses of either side. We're going to look at James Two, we're going to look at again, does cost matter? Doesn't God just care about the heart? We're going to look at all these things. Joe, what do you have to add to kind of this introduction of it? [00:04:28] Speaker C: Yeah, I don't know that we have this in our outline. I don't think it is. I take exception with one word you said, which is always people have always fallen on both sides of this. I don't think that's true actually. I think this is a more recent thing. Like if you look back in, the guy showed up to church in shorts and a t shirt that said this blood is for you. Honestly, I think a lot of guys would have taken him out in the back and horse whipped him. It would have been like, what are you doing? Well, at some point along the way and this is what I was interested in, and again, I don't think this is on our outline. I haven't done enough research to fully know. I would love to know where that line shifted. I'd love to know at what point. [00:05:06] Speaker A: In our culture others would make the case that that was the anomaly, that historically, people had just worn what they wore. They didn't have nice clothes or know, oh, Jesus and the fishermen kind of thing. And so there's an argument for both ways of we introduced it as a culture and it know an anomaly for a short time, and then that is going away kind of thing. I'm not saying I advocate for that idea, but that it would be the other historical cultural argument given back to what you're saying. [00:05:36] Speaker C: Yeah, I suppose we'll get into the. [00:05:39] Speaker A: Culture thing here in a bit, so let's not go. [00:05:41] Speaker C: Sure, okay. Yeah. And I'm talking more the history of this, I suppose, rather than the culture. I think the culture unlocks a lot of this as we're going to get into here. The history of it is interesting to me and where we fall on that. But the question that I think we want to start off the top with is, look, is this a Romans 14 issue? Yes. Are we looking to bind this on somebody or condemning somebody based off the dress? Can we bind this? And so, fellas, I'll kind of throw that to you. This is the question you're going to get right off the top know, we get this on every gray area. Are you binding that? [00:06:18] Speaker B: To be clear, we haven't really stated our position yet either way. I mean, if you read Jack's article on Facebook, you probably know where he stands. And I think each one of us are going to kind of give our positions here in just a second. [00:06:27] Speaker A: All the deep thinkers are already subscribed to, right. [00:06:32] Speaker B: That's just me being redundant. Yeah, they've all seen it. They've probably already read it twice at this point, I would hope. But what I was going to say is yeah, exactly. That's what's so interesting about this, Joe, is for everybody, there is a line. Everybody has some kind of line. What's different is where your line is. For instance, and I use this example when we were talking about this off air. First of all, if somebody walked in in a bathing suit, I would imagine that they would get maybe pulled aside or corrected, whatever word you want to use, that's over the line for some people. If people regularly were showing up in straight pajamas, I think that would be something that, once again, they would probably get pulled to the side on in most congregations. If somebody came to worship in a costume, dressed up as some person from a movie or something, a minion from Desikable Me or something like that. Yeah, pretty sure that's over the line for some people. And so, Joe, you ask, is this binding? What's interesting about it is, again, everybody's got a line. Everybody has a line of, okay, that person needs to be talked to about what they're wearing to church. Okay. And maybe the line moves for different people. [00:07:46] Speaker A: I would have said that before, having read some of the comments. I'm not sure everybody has a line. Maybe nakedness, maybe just stark nakedness is some people's line. But you wouldn't believe some of the things people were putting out there. But I think generally you're right that this idea that, well, it doesn't matter. Well, no, we're just disagreeing over how much it matters, when it starts to matter and kind of where the line is, like you're saying. [00:08:10] Speaker C: And the question of binding is interesting because I think you're seeing it on both sides. Usually there's one side, okay, not to get too hot, but the alcohol discussion, those that are on the antialcohol are very clearly on the binding side. Those that are on the pro don't bind it on the others. You have to drink alcohol. You see what I mean? Whereas on this one, there are the people on the lax end of things that are binding that on the others going, you cannot make it about the dress. And there are people on the dressed up side of things that are binding on the others saying you cannot go lax on the dress. So the binding issue is kind of permeating this entire discussion because both sides feel they have the ability to bind it onto the others, if that makes sense. [00:08:48] Speaker A: Yeah, it does. That is an interesting point. [00:08:51] Speaker C: So who's the weaker, who's the stronger brother in this situation, you know what I mean, right? [00:08:55] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, just to state it clearly, we think it is a Romans 14 issue. It's not a commandment that thou shalt wear a suit to church. That was something I saw people say, well, where does it say the word suit in the Bible? Like nobody's saying that. But one of the things we have. [00:09:08] Speaker B: Also, that's a very poor way to argue, but it is. [00:09:10] Speaker A: Go ahead. One of the things that we have said many times that our position on Romans 14 issues is it builds the framework for the discussion. Okay, it's all right. So neither side has a command here. So now we need to argue with that. Understanding what a lot of people do is, well, it's a Romans 14 issue, therefore we just shouldn't even have the discussion. Like, no, we're going to pick one way or the other. A church is going to dress up or not dress up. You still have to decide. It's just under the understanding that it's not a commandment. It's going to be a culture thing of how we do this here, like what our congregation prefers, things like that. We have that. But you can't bind that. So let's not talk about it. Drives me crazy. We still have to talk about this stuff because you still have to decide. [00:09:58] Speaker B: Here's what I would ask. So I'll go ahead and state kind of my position on this. I do think that you should be dressing up for worship, and we're going to get into what all that means because somebody might say, well, my $600 jeans are more expensive than your suit. That's me dressing up. We'll get into that here in just a second. But for the most part, again, I believe that you should look different for worship. You should not roll in with your casual outfit, with your hiking clothes, whatever it is. And so what I would be very interested to ask somebody who jack, I'm going to be honest, I didn't see the meme until your article, so I'm about as unplugged. [00:10:36] Speaker A: You guys aren't big Facebook people anyway. [00:10:38] Speaker B: Church of Christ Facebook culture as not really, apparently. So maybe you'd be more, I guess, able to speak on this. But I'd be very curious. For all those that were very anti dress up, those that fell on the side of essentially you can wear whatever you want. You can't bind whatever. What are they advocating that you can wear to worship? Shorts, athletic clothes, just that it doesn't matter because to me, my position has always been if you have nicer clothes to wear, wear the nicer clothes. Like lean on that side. It seems as though those who are on the other side are saying, if you have nicer clothes to wear, don't wear those. Instead, wear something more casual, intentionally on purpose, or are they typically the ones that say, it just doesn't matter what you wear? [00:11:21] Speaker A: I think they're really trying to take the decision making out of it. Wear what you would wear. Any other day I saw somebody say wear what you would wear on a Tuesday night to Applebee's. The things that you walk around when you go to the store, when you're just out for a day, out of the house kind of thing, dress like you would for that, because just continue on with your life. There's not special Sunday clothes. It's your clothes is how you do these things. I think, what they advocate. [00:11:46] Speaker B: So, Joe, I see you shaking your head and I think both of us have the exact same thought, so I'll let you go off on it. What's the problem with that? Let's go ahead and get into that because I off top of my head. [00:11:56] Speaker A: Well, before we get through, where do you stand? And then I'll get to where I stand, and then we'll get into that stuff. [00:12:01] Speaker C: Well, judging by the fact I was shaking my head to that, to the Applebee's comment, I definitely stand on applebee's. [00:12:08] Speaker A: Was on both of our lists of no restaurants. [00:12:10] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. [00:12:10] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. You don't go to Applebee's. So what are you talking about? No, I just think that that shows a complete disrespect and lack of regard for God. [00:12:21] Speaker A: Sorry. [00:12:22] Speaker B: The worship assembly is a little bit different than the Applebee's dining room. [00:12:26] Speaker C: A little bit. There's a lot of jokes that we made. I probably should avoid that, but to be honest, I look at that as very I almost want to use the word sacrilegious. And I know I'm sure they're good intention and whatnot, and I think the point behind theirs is, and Francis Chan makes this point, why would you show up to the assembly looking any different? Right? And I guess we can get into their side of it in just a second, but where I stand personally, I don't like that. I think we do need to be dressing up for church once again. We have another one where people are going to listen, go, great, they all agree. Do you guys ever disagree? I'd love for everybody to agree on this one. I think we ought to be looking nice when we present ourselves before God, the same way that you can't read Revelation four and five and see them entering into the presence of God, right? Everybody being in the presence of God and not come away going, Whoa. Right? This is Isaiah going in Isaiah six going, I'm a man of unclean lips. Like, I'm unclean in every way. We want to present, and it's not like our dress makes us clean, but we want to present well when we're coming before the Creator, the great I am, I want to give Him my very best in my heart and in my mind. And what I put on my body will reflect, in my opinion, what's in my heart, my mind. So that's my take on it. [00:13:38] Speaker A: I think they give good pushback to that. We'll get into some of that here in a minute. [00:13:43] Speaker C: No doubt. [00:13:45] Speaker A: If you read the article, you could tell that I advocate for nicer dress as well. Of course, everybody already read the article, as we said, and again, not in a binding you have to do this way or you're just so disrespectful if you're not. There's some considerations we're going to get to here that I think it is a positive thing to do. I think it is something that we as a culture have. More than anything, I want to question our culture because the reason why we are dressing down and why people didn't used to is a culture thing. And we just think, well, we're so much more casual as a culture, so that's what we're going to do. Okay, but is our casual culture a reflection of a healthy culture or not? And so it's those considerations I want to get to. And again, I think there are good points made by the dress down people, and I think a lot of this reveals a much deeper underlying debate versus of high church versus low church, of some of those more deeper theological discussions of what it's supposed to look like. And we in the churches of Christ don't have any framework for that. Like, Anglicans and Orthodox and Catholic are very high church. It's very fancy, it's very ornate, it's very traditional and all that community church. A lot of Baptists are very low church, and we are not high high church, but we're kind of congregation by congregation autonomy, pick where you want to be. And so this makes it really hard for us to plant a flag anywhere. [00:15:09] Speaker B: So let me ask this, because we're about to get into some of the biblical precepts about this. Again, I referenced James, too. We'll talk about that here in just a second. Jesus and the apostles old Testament stuff. Let's talk about the so we all said that we would advocate dressing up for church. I want us each to kind of clarify. What do we mean by that? Are we talking everybody's got to wear a suit and tie. Every lady has to wear a very nice dress. Again, I could say that I think we should all dress up, and Jack could say the same, and we could still be talking about two different things. We've got the money factor here that we need to discuss. What do we mean? I'll go ahead and state what I mean and see if you guys maybe have a little bit different way to put it. Again, I think if you have the nice set of clothes in your closet, wear the nice set of clothes. If you have the set of clothes that you're going to wear for family pictures or something, or for a job interview or for an occasion where you are recognizing, yeah, this is something a little bit different. This is not the Tuesday night at Applebee's. This is not just hanging out around the house. This is not just going out and walking around the mall. We all have occasions in our life where we know, okay, we need to, again, go to the nicer portion of our closet for family pictures. Again, the job interview, maybe the nice dinner, weding, funeral, maybe the wedding funeral, a date with your wife, whatever. We recognize that those are occasions worth dressing up for. But for some reason, for worship, a lot of people, again, want to say, well, no, just dress the way that you normally would. And so, again, I think the worship assembly does need to be recognized specifically on Sundays, the first day of the week, as something that is kind of set above, set apart special. And so, again, when I say dress up, go to the nice section of your closet, whatever it is that you would wear to the job interview, whatever it is that you would wear for the nice dinner with your boss, the wedding, the funeral, whatever it is, go that route. And again, that looks different for some people. Some people are the sweater vest. Some people are the suit and tie and some people are the I think that's what people want to get into when they're anti dressing up is like, okay, so you're saying everybody has to wear a suit and tie. That's not necessarily what I'm saying. For some people's closet, the nice section of their closet is the really nice button up and a pair of jeans and they literally don't have anything else that they wear nice to go out with. That's one thing. I don't know what you guys have to add to that when you say that you are for dressing up for worship. That's what I mean is go to once again the nice section of your closet for the special occasion dress. [00:17:28] Speaker A: It's interesting with the Tuesday night at know, they're that's a stand in for however, you know, walk around normally. No, you dress up most people, not everybody these days, but most people dress up to a degree for Tuesday night in Applebee's. You don't walk in in your slippers and pajama pants. Some people do. And that's one of those again, when you look they don't go to Applebee's. Yeah, it's a little bit out of place, right. Like, hey, you're in public. Why are you dressed that way? When you're going out in public, you dress differently than you do at home. Why? Because it matters. Because there's an inherent understanding in the back of our heads of like, I'm going to be around people. I should look a little bit nicer than I did when I was on my couch eating Cheetos and watching the football game. And so you dress up for that. Well, so what I would advocate is put levels in and whatever worship is, is a level above. And I've preached at small country churches. For some guys, it was their nice pair of jeans versus their other pair of jeans. [00:18:23] Speaker B: Right. [00:18:24] Speaker A: I don't have a problem with that. Oh, he's wearing jeans to church. No, this is what the guy has in his closet, okay, is not a lot of fancy stuff, doesn't have a lot of money, but he clearly has set aside, hey, this is my Sunday morning clothes. This is what I wear to Sunday best. We used to use that phrase. And so more than anything, and I think in a lot of places that's going to take a different look because the whole suit and tie thing is like, look, the church is worldwide. They don't do suits and ties in a lot of the go in places like that. [00:18:56] Speaker B: When we traveled out west growing up and we visited a know, Wyoming, Montana or something, if you wore a suit and tie on Sunday morning, man, you stuck out like a sore thumb. That's just not something that they did, but they were still dressing up for. So that's what I was getting at. And Jack, you stated it clearly as well, which is it's less about exactly what the item is know, again, suit and ties are not the requirement, but rather it is what is. Your. [00:19:25] Speaker C: Know, I was thinking, you know the woman who kind of pushes the cart, or they talk about the people who don't put the cart back. It's like, well, some people don't have the ability to put the cart back. [00:19:33] Speaker B: And it's like, no, but most people shopping cart. [00:19:36] Speaker C: Yeah, okay, the shopping cart. That is, most people do. So stop taking the one person who can't do it and using the exception to break the rule. That drives me nuts. It's kind of the same thing here, which is some people just can't afford that's not what we're talking about. And you're taking the few people we live in America. We live in the wealthiest nation in the world. I realize not everybody can afford a lot of stuff. I'm not dogging on anybody for that. Hey, there's a lot of financially struggling people. However, you could go to the thrift store and find some really nice button up shirt, things like that. It's a heart and a mindset to me, that matters more than anything. And so we kind of run to that, and we hide behind the people who really don't have that much for the 95% of people that do. And that really drives me nuts. And the other thing I would say is I think this correlates with our giving. Giving, by and large, is way down. And I think it's because at the last second, you rifle through your wallet real fast and go, okay, well, I got five. I'll just put my five. Whoa. You choose ahead of time. You write that check ahead of time. You take out of the first of what you've been given. You write that check, and you think about, I'm giving this to God because I want him to. Why would I give to God that which cost me nothing? That's the David quote. We do that in our giving. I would say it's the same thing with our dress of like, why would I give to God that which cost me nothing? We want to have the same, but that blase attitude of who cares? Well, god cares, right? Yes. He cares about the dress. He cares about the money that you're giving him, not how much you give. The widows might she could go in and give a tiny bit. It was out of her heart, right? It was giving from not this great amount of money. Some person could give way more, but the heart isn't, right. And I would correlate those two quite strongly. In my opinion, as the giving has gone down in America, so has the dress. It's a mindset issue. [00:21:25] Speaker B: Interesting point. The only other thing I was going to say about using the person that can't as the exception, the other thing about that is if you don't fall under that category, don't bring it up. If you have the money to afford. If you have the nice clothes in your closet, then why are you the one bringing up the fact that, well, there's a lot of other people like, again, we're not talking about them. You don't fall into that category, so worry about yourself. And Jack has made that point a thousand times. Jack, if you don't have anything else to add to that, I want to get into James Too real quick, because this is it correlates with the cost. [00:21:54] Speaker A: Thing that was one of the other things we're going to talk about is people well, is it about how much it costs? And I think Joe got to that a little bit there. No, it's not. And that's where people get with James Too is like, well, the guy with the fancy clothes and the guy in the poor clothes, the filthy rags, that's all he has. We're not talking about cost, we're talking about this is an aesthetics thing. This is a look nice, feel nice kind of again, it's mental preparation. And no, if you don't have $100 to spend on a suit, nobody's holding that against you. It is much more about look than it is about the money spent. So let's go to James Two, since that's so relevant to that discussion. [00:22:32] Speaker B: Yeah, I've got it pulled up. I'll read it very quickly. Verse one my brethren, do not hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of Glory with partiality. For there should come into your assembly a man with gold rings and fine apparel. There should also come in a poor man in filthy clothes. And you pay attention to the one wearing the fine clothes and say to him, you sit here in a good place and say to the poor man, you stand there or sit here at my footstool. Have you not shown partiality out among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? So again, those who are on the, I guess, anti dress up train, anti dress up side of things will point to James Two as kind of a defense for why, see, that means we shouldn't dress up in nice clothes. See, that means we shouldn't be showing favoritism. And to me, that is the point of James Two, at least those first five verses is yet you don't treat people differently based on what they're wearing. That's not a referendum on what you can wear to worship or a referendum on what you should wear to worship. It's not know to me, really talking about that side of things, what is it talking you are you showing partiality? Are you showing favoritism based on purely externals? Based on because notice I've always pointed this out about James Too. He never really even describes the rich man as rich. He just says wearing nice clothes. He describes the poor man as, yeah, this guy is poor. But in verse two for if there should come into your assembly a man with gold rings. Of fine apparel. In other words, a guy who looks rich, somebody who presents himself as rich, and then you've got somebody who is poor, he describes him as poor, and somebody who's in filthy clothes, clearly a guy that can't provide for himself in an other dress. And so to me, that's obviously clearly what it's talking about. Are you showing partiality based on purely external appearance, based on purely what somebody's wearing? And I would say if somebody is doing that in congregations, again, treating the nicer looking person, the one with better clothes, better than the person who maybe has the pair of jeans and the polo or whatever it is. Yeah, that's a problem, Joe. [00:24:27] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:24:28] Speaker C: So let me bring in first Timothy Two here, because this would be the other one I think people would go to, and I don't know that we saw this as much in the comments, but first, Timothy Two, Nine life. I want women to adorn themselves with proper clothing, modestly and discreetly, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly garments, but rather by means a good work. A good works. I think that you look at it and say, okay, that's not about showing partiality, that's saying women shouldn't be wearing these costly garments coming in. What would you guys say to that? Throwing a little curveball. This isn't on the outline, but I'm just curious what you guys would say to that. [00:25:00] Speaker A: I think there's a degree to which you can overdo it, for sure. [00:25:04] Speaker C: No, to me, I think that's where I go with it. [00:25:09] Speaker B: Sorry, Will, I was just going to say to me, that's more so talking about are you trying to draw attention to yourself? Are you trying to present yourself as, man, look at how wealthy I am, look at what all I can do to my hair and look what all I can wear. And it's a very me focused, very again, let me have other people look at me. Yeah, if that's what you're doing. And to be fair, there probably are some or there might be, I should say some people who with their dress, that's exactly what they're doing with worship, maybe the name brands or whatever it is. And so to answer your question, Joe, that's what I would say. Is that's more so talking about yeah. Are you trying to draw attention to yourself? Are you trying to make everybody else look at you and say, man, look how wealthy that person is, or, man, look how nice that person's dress? Yeah, if that's what you're trying to do, you're missing the boat as well. [00:25:52] Speaker C: Yeah, I just wanted to bring that up just in case people do bring it up. I'm like, well, what about that with costly garments? I think that's exactly it. James Two is about don't show partiality to the guy who's dressed well. I think this one is don't dress so much as to draw attention to yourself and to be. And you know, what they used to do back then is like the weaves in their hair that would go up like 2ft off their head and you walk in and again, I've made statement, you're looking like a traffic cone. [00:26:16] Speaker A: I would say Gerald from Hayden. [00:26:20] Speaker C: Nice. [00:26:21] Speaker A: Great reference there. Great reference. [00:26:22] Speaker B: Jack always with the good references. [00:26:24] Speaker C: Yeah, no kidding. [00:26:25] Speaker A: Great show. [00:26:26] Speaker C: But yeah, I mean, that's what they used to dress like, and it was an immediate attention grabber. And I think to that point, I think that comes into the discussion. Yes, there's a modesty element to this, but there's also we are very much not trying to say, hey, wear that Gucci suit where everybody or the Armani suit, that when you walk in, people, whoa. That's not the point either, to just impress everybody with how nice your stuff is. It's more of, once again, it's the heart. And if the heart is, I'm going to look my best for God, or is the heart, I'm going to put on this Gucci suit and everybody's going to be mind blown at what I can wear to church, way different in how we're approaching. So I wanted to bring that in on the James Two discussion just in case people go there. But the other part that we wanted to get into is the OT preparations and the cleansing. [00:27:12] Speaker A: One other thing, people would just drop james Too well, dressing up for church. James Too it doesn't say don't dress up for church. I mean, it was almost used as that. And it's like, that's not it doesn't condemn the man for dressing up. It says don't treat them differently. Don't treat them with partiality. But that also isn't saying, yeah, it doesn't matter what you wear. It's saying, look, this guy has this, this guy has that. Don't treat them any differently. Amen. I don't think anybody disagrees with that. Go ahead. [00:27:44] Speaker B: No, go ahead. [00:27:44] Speaker A: I was just going to say I don't think this is like a mic drop to the whole discussion, like some people have tried to make it to be. In fact, I don't think it's even relevant to the discussion. And that's it. [00:27:52] Speaker B: I will say that's also one of the most annoying things to come across in the Facebook world is when, Jack, you post a question or something like that and people just post a verse reference, nothing else, no thoughts, no comments, no interpretation. [00:28:07] Speaker A: It doesn't it does not say, well, this guy dressed wrong. Clearly, it's, hey, you guys, don't treat people better just because they look nicer externally. Amen. Amen. Let's move on. So to the Old Testament point. [00:28:22] Speaker C: Go ahead, Joe. Yeah, no, I was going to have you lead into some of this because this was the other one you got you got an interesting comment and just about the idea yeah, about the high priest. I guess I'mixing two, because there are the Old Testament preparations and cleansing and I think that's a big part here is you didn't walk into the presence of God with your grubby clothes on that you've been walking around the wilderness. You got prepared, you washed yourself, you cleansed yourself. Even in them, the scribes, I think it was the mastery, right, when they would come to the name of God, they would wash their clothes and they would prep themselves. There was a preparatory aspect to worship where you didn't just show up to God in, again, dirt stain like filth. You had this idea of dressing up, but you had a comment on yours, Jack, specifically about the priests of the high priest would just be in a linen garment as you went into the holy place. I thought you had a good comment back, like, we're not the high priest, but I wanted you to touch on the priesthood element of it, and I think there's more wrapped up into it. There's that question, but there's also the beautification of the temple, the tabernacle, things like that. So what would you say, portion of the Old Testament as it relates to dress and things like that? [00:29:35] Speaker A: Yeah, specifically, what my mind's going to is Exodus 20, and you kind of referenced it a bit. When they come to Sinai and God says, all right, Moses, go tell him that you got three days, get ready. Consecrate yourselves. No sexual relations between couples. It says, don't go near a woman. Wash your garments. They've been out wandering in the wilderness. He says, here's your chance. Go get your garments ready and washed. You better show up in clean clothes for when God comes to the mountain. And of course he does. And it's terrifying to everybody, right? I mean, it's like, whoa, God's here. He's on this mountain. And he told them part of that was wash your garments, that matters. And I think one of the things that we I even grew up hearing this well, the Old Testament was physical. The New Testament spiritual wrong. How do you become a Christian going down into water? That's pretty physical. [00:30:22] Speaker B: Physical. [00:30:22] Speaker A: I mean, like, that's incredibly physical. We still worship with our voices. We still take the Lord's Supper, bread and the fruit of the vine. That is physical. I mean, it's not not physical just because there's not a temple anymore, just because there's not animal sacrifices. It's not this gnostic thing where God just does not care about the external at all. And so to your point, you go through I mean, the second half of Exodus almost, or at least the last quarter of it is here's all the ways you're going to make the tabernacle super fancy. And God says, I'm going to give this Bezel guy, the head architect, the head designer for the tabernacle, the Holy Spirit is going to be with him so he can design this thing fancy with gold and bronze. I mean, like all of the metals and the dyes and just this beautiful thing for them to carry around the desert. And they did. And then the temple, of course, you see the cedars of Lebanon and how ordinate that. And in both cases, when they finish it and they do all of this incredible, beautiful design, god himself comes and fills it with the cloud, right? Like, I'm going to live here. This is where I want to be. And we can say, well, we don't have the fancy church buildings. I would say some of the Catholic cathedrals and stuff like that, as beautiful as they are, kind of get to the James Two thing of like, oh, let's just throw all of our money into this and treat this fancy earthly thing with greater preference. Yeah, maybe that's too far. On the other hand, going to the opposite extreme and saying, no, none of this matters. External, physical, doesn't matter. It's the same god. It's the same one that commissioned all of this fancy stuff that told the priests, clean your garments, dress up nicely. Here's this ephod, this robe you're going to wear here's, the gemstones that the high priest is going to wear over him all the time, the gold that he's going to wear. This is the guy that is going to minister to me most closely. I want him to be dressed to the nines. Why can we not take a lesson from that? Why did that go out the window? And again, I think the only way you can just dismiss all that is to do the well, we're not under the Old Testament, but it teaches us about God and his character or well, Old Testament's physical, New Testament's spiritual. Not true. And so I think our misunderstanding of the Old Testament, you don't see the pro dress down, people bring the Old Testament into this at all, other than to dismiss it and say, that's not really for us anymore. [00:32:43] Speaker C: I would push back on this a couple of ways. Devil's advocate here. I agree with that completely. They come to the mountain, they need to cleanse themselves, but as you also said, have no sex. So what people are going to go to is, should we have no sex on Friday, Saturday, as we're getting prepped for Sunday, if we're going to make it physical then, and we're going to cleanse ourselves, should we abstain from sex? I mean, I hear that being a potential well, if you're going to take it one way, why don't we go all the way and cleanse ourselves in that way? What would you say to that? [00:33:09] Speaker A: It's just a generic principle of God saying, prepare yourselves, get your minds ready, get your bodies ready, get physically ready. This wasn't a weekly thing, right? This was the I'm coming this one time, but when God was going to come be among them, he said, cleanse, get yourself ready for it. And I think there's a mental and physical element to that that we can take a principle from. [00:33:31] Speaker B: Because here's the other thing that I would add on to that. And this has been something that maybe we brought it up before, but something that I wish personally, I wish sometimes we could do a better job, even at our congregation. And maybe you're listening and you think you could do a better job of this as well. Sometimes worship is a bit too casual, sometimes worship is a bit too habitual, you might say, of like, yeah, we're just here to do what we do every Sunday, and let's take our cracker and juice, let's sing a few songs. I don't know, sometimes it doesn't have the specialness feel that I think it should have. And I firmly believe maybe the lack of dress, maybe the lack of exactly as Jack's talking about preparing ourself to worship and really focusing and thinking about what does that mean? That we are about to approach the throne room of God. We are about to be gathered with the saints to again sing praises to his throne, to approach his throne in prayer, to reflect on the sacrifice that can get lost sometimes in just the habitual routine. Yep, every Sunday we do this. And I think the dress can contribute to that, I guess, is my point of worship, I don't believe is supposed to be casual. Worship is not something that is supposed to just mundane. [00:34:42] Speaker C: Tuesday at Applebee's. [00:34:44] Speaker B: Tuesday at Applebee's. It is supposed to be something different. Yeah, that would be all I would say there is that we have to make sure that we are keeping that perspective with both our thoughts and our dress. [00:34:55] Speaker A: That perfectly goes to the point I wanted to make, is the New Testament references that Zion or that Sinai thing of it was terrifying for them. Hebrews gets into this in Hebrews twelve, starting in 18, you've not come to a mountain that cannot be touched and to a blazing fire and to darkness and gloom and a whirlwind. And he just talks about how terrifying that scene was for them. He says, you're not there anymore, you're not at Sinai, you're at Zion, you're at this new thing that's happening. And I think some might take that and go see that stuff was done away with. But that section ends at the end of chapter twelve. He says, Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe for our God is a consuming fire. I think that really factors in here of like, is there reverence and awe at Tuesday night at Applebee's? Not at. So you know what reverence and awe was for them in the Old Testament was get yourself ready, god is coming to this mountain. And here he says, look, you don't. [00:35:48] Speaker C: Have to be afraid because we've got. [00:35:49] Speaker A: This great high priest and everything he's set up in Hebrews but he's still a consuming fire, so you still better have the reverence and awe, and I just don't see how to square that with showing up to church in shorts. [00:36:01] Speaker C: So here's another thing that they might say. Well, Jesus and the apostles didn't dress up to go into the know. They seem to be pretty, and so if Jesus himself is not, we don't see Him dressing to the nines, so to speak. He's probably walking around in the same stuff that he was always walking around in, and he had a great relationship with God. Or you could even go to John the Baptist, right. And he's got his own garb. What would you say to those things? I realize I'm the one asking the questions all the time, but I am. [00:36:28] Speaker B: Genuinely you got to give the answer. No, I'll go first here, and then Joe may let you go. Yeah, I got two thoughts on that. First of all, I would love to know the book chapter and verse reference, know it lists what all was in Jesus'wardrobe and what all was in Peter's wardrobe of like, yeah, this is what it was. [00:36:47] Speaker A: Just that white robe with the blue sash right, saying Steve Jobs thing every day. [00:36:52] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. [00:36:53] Speaker C: And the blue eyed contacts. [00:36:54] Speaker B: Because anyways, my point is, first of all, that's a broad assumption to make, that, oh, yeah, they just wore the same thing. Now, historically speaking, they probably did, but let's pump the brakes a little bit on yeah, well, we for sure know that they wore the same thing all the time. No, we don't, first of all. Second of all, you have to keep it in the context of what we and by we, I mean the three of us are, I guess you might say, critiquing, which is the idea that I've got nicer clothes in my closet that I'll wear for more special occasions, but for worship, I'm going to choose not to. To me, that's what we're talking about. And applying it to Jesus and Peter. Do you really think, let's say, hypothetically speaking, that Peter, Paul, Jesus, whoever had the nice set of know I don't know if they had closets back then, but you know what I mean? Had the nice set of clothes in their closet and said, you know what? No, I'm not going to wear that. I'm going to dress down. I'm going to just wear what I wore walking on the road to Emmaus or whatever it is. [00:37:48] Speaker C: No. [00:37:49] Speaker B: Do we honestly believe that that's what they were doing? And the answer to that, in my opinion, is obviously not, and so it's a false equivalency. You can't say that. Well, Jesus and the apostles didn't, so we don't have to. It's two completely different things, different cultures, different times. Again, we're not talking about the people that don't have the nice clothes to wear. We're talking about the 98% of people that are listening to this podcast that do have the ability and are choosing not to. [00:38:10] Speaker A: Here's the other thing. They had the prayer shawls and things like that, and that was something that Jesus criticized them for. Know, you lengthen the Phylactory and you're basically you're making your religious dress showy to show everybody how much holier you look at. Look at how dedicated to God I am by my religious dress. What Jesus did not say is you shouldn't wear any religious dress. He just said, don't make it showy, don't make it. And so this idea that, no, they didn't have any yes, they did. We don't know the extent of it or how much washing or whatever they did ahead of each Sabbath, going to the synagogue or to their temple trips or whatever else. I imagine with the cleansings things like that. They had things that they did. I mean, even when you walked into the temple complex, there's washing right out front. But they had the prayer shawls. They had things like that that they were expected to wear. And so this idea that they didn't have religious dress back then for the they I it's right there. [00:39:10] Speaker C: Well, my thought know, if you're walking around for three years all around America, you have no wardrobe and you're wearing the same thing going places, then maybe. [00:39:18] Speaker B: It say if that's you go for. [00:39:21] Speaker C: Guess, you know, if that's like, okay, that's nobody here. I shouldn't say there's some guy doing it, but for the majority of people, let's keep it in context, that Jesus did not live the life that most of us live, nor are we supposed to live kind of the nomad life necessarily. That's not for everybody. And so I think it's just a false equivalency where they're trying to say, well, Jesus did a lot of things that we wouldn't do in the 21st century America, in our homes. [00:39:49] Speaker B: That's exactly right. So we got a roll, we got a few more things to talk about here. And one of the things that I want to bring up because the next section of this is kind of, okay, well, do the aesthetics matter? And Jack, you kind of already touched on this a little bit because is a gnostic component. But I'm going to play with devil's advocate once again and drop a verse reference. And I'm going to play Joe and let Joe answer here this one, what people are going to say or what people in defense of the no dressing up are going to say first, samuel 16 seven. The Lord said to Samuel, do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the Lord does not see as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart so very clearly, Joe, that all God's focusing on is the heart for worship. And so therefore, it does not matter the outward appearance, what you wear, what would you guys say to that? Because, you know, this one gets dropped as well. Maybe not the reference itself, but the. [00:40:35] Speaker C: Read the book of Exodus. [00:40:36] Speaker B: Doesn't God just care about the heart? [00:40:37] Speaker C: Yeah, go ahead, read the book of Exodus. Why in the world would you have them go in the middle 40 years in the wilderness and they've got to go find these precious stones? They got to have these precious stones. And I know they took it out of Egypt and whatnot, but, yes, the outer appearance did matter to God in that moment when he's picking a king. People would have the this is to me, this speaks of James, too. Whoa, that guy looks the part. You're judging based on outward appearance, right? God knows what's really important is the heart. However, would the outward appearance, especially in this case, not reflect the heart? In my opinion, if you have an opportunity to dress up, dress nice, get yourself some clean clothes, and choose, as you said, will the nicer part of your wardrobe, and you just choose to show up in gym shorts and flip flops, does that not reflect your heart? That would be what I'd say. So, yes, God does know the heart. He very much knows that you had an opportunity to dress nicely. You had an opportunity to show up and to give Him your very best, and you chose not to. You chose to keep it casual and to say, yeah, Tuesday night at Applebee's, I'm going to continue to go back to that because that's just such a poignant point. Like Tuesday night at Applebee's. Yeah, he knows the heart. So God does judge the heart. God does see it, but the outward does reflect it. And the other thing is, are we just dressing for God or are we also dressing for others? When we pray, is it just for God or are we praying for others? When we sing, is it just for God or are we singing for others? Every part of our worship does have multiple elements to it. It's not all for God. There's a part of it where we are to edify by one another. Psalms, hymns, spiritual songs, right? Sing, make a melody in our hearts to God that is us edifying each other and helping one another. So part of our worship very much is for one another. You know what I mean? When we go to pray, we bow our heads together, and that person leads everybody's hearts in prayer. So when we say, well, dress is just for God, it's not for other people, that's not entirely accurate. [00:42:28] Speaker A: Yeah, I fully agree with that. I had somebody make that point of I realized and I got the point he was making, but he said, I realized I was getting dressed up because I was saying the prayer that morning. I thought, Am I doing this for God or for other people? You can do things for God by doing them for other people. That is a lot of when it says you're members of one another, a lot of what you do as a Christian for other people is unto God. And so you have to remember that. And I think that's a good .1 of the other things I want to bring into this, as we're going to run out of time here real quick. I think it's a very valid point, especially to that meme. We started off talking about why don't we dress up as nice Sunday night or Wednesday night, if you're going before God Wednesday night, even churches that have a pretty standard culture of dress of the guys wearing suits or ties or at least jackets on Sunday morning come back on Wednesday night. And usually it's jeans and a polo or something like that, certainly not a suit. It's a fair question. I think it can be answered. But what do you guys have to say to it? [00:43:31] Speaker B: I'll go first this time. Obviously, we have planted our flag in the ground that hey, if the saints are gathering, you should be there. If there is an assembling of ourselves together, that is happening, everybody should be there. However, in Americanized Church of Christ culture, what is kind of the prevalent opinion that Sunday is the most important? Sunday morning specifically, Sunday night less so, wednesday night less so as far as like mandatory. And I think first of all, we can go ahead and establish that Wednesday night assembling, Bible class, whatever, is a little bit different than Sunday morning because first day of the week is commanded. First day of the week gathering together again is something that is set apart, something that is different. And so my question for all those that would say, well, what about Sunday night and Wednesday night? If you're going to make that claim that, well, those are exactly the same as Sunday morning and therefore you dressing up, people need to be dressing up the same for all those, then what you're saying is that we need to start disfellowshipping people for missing Sunday night and Wednesday night if they're skipping church. I see an equivalency. There is. My point is if you're saying that, well, see, all three of these are the same, therefore everybody should be dressing up the same for all three, are you not then implying that Sunday night, wednesday night if people are missing? Because I think we all agree, if you're repeatedly skipping Sunday assembly, sunday morning worship, some level of churches will need to take place same for Sunday night and Wednesday night, then if that's the claim we're going to make, if we're going to say, well, yeah, they're all the same, I think they're all important. Again, I think they're all we don't have Sunday night worship, but Wednesday night we all need to be making an effort to be there. We don't need to be just sitting at home watching Netflix instead of going but there is something different about the Sunday morning assembly, I guess would be something that I would say. Joe, what about you? [00:45:26] Speaker C: Yeah, I'd agree. I think there still is a standard that we need to dress to a different standard of than it is on Sunday morning. But there's always going to be some standard. Like we were always taught, no shorts on Wednesday night. Yeah, we were Wednesday night. Yeah. There's still a standard that we're trying to hold to and hit maybe a little less so just because Sunday morning, again, is the one that we're seeing in the New Testament, example after example right. Of these things taking place on Sunday morning. That's where we are coming together to truly worship God. We called the other ones. And Sunday night, I think you can make a better case of still showing up for that. Wednesday night is midweek Bible study. Well, if I showed up to Bible study at Applebee's on a Tuesday, there we go again. What would I dress in? Yeah, there'd be a standard. I'm not going to show up in gym shorts, probably, but it's a Bible study. I feel like that's different. Well, what if you sing praises to God? [00:46:18] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:46:18] Speaker C: Point of me being there is a Bible study with the saints. So to me that's a little bit different. That would be my answer there. I still think there's a standard of dress, just maybe not as much as Sunday morning. [00:46:31] Speaker B: Yeah. For us growing up, shorts and T shirts were not allowed no matter what. [00:46:36] Speaker A: The event was, except for Luke that one time that we still give him the business about. Oh, that's right. He was like two years old. So I think we put a lot of weight for a lot of the things we talk about on Sunday on Acts 20, verse seven, and Paul staying over the whole week. There is a difference. I mean, it's like why did he stay the entire time when he was spending the week with them anyway? Why was he waiting till Sunday for the breaking of bread for the Lord's supper, ostensibly? And so, yeah, I think that's a fair explanation to that as well. We just got a few minutes left, and so we got to get to what may be the biggest one, if you guys are ready to get to that of. We want to make visitors feel comfortable. You don't want somebody coming in. Or a lot of people cited that they would invite somebody to church and say, well, what do I wear? I don't have clothes to go to church or whatever. In fact, I've had somebody tell me that before I was inviting a waitress to church at place I used to hang out at, and well, I don't really have church clothes, so what can I come in? I think that goes to the James Two point of like, man, if a visitor walks in, they're a like. There's not expectations on them like there is to everybody else. On the other hand, this idea that we don't want to make them uncomfortable, you don't want to make them feel unwelcome, making them feel uncomfortable. I mean, there's a lot of things about worship that might make them uncomfortable. The sermon might make them I think there's a lot of things that we do to gear it towards them so that they're comfortable, so it's for them. So the sermon is on their level maybe. And it's an evangelistic sermon a lot of times. And the worship assembly is for the visitor has become one of the big things in church growth strategy. I think that's entirely wrong. I think it should be explicitly not for them. I remember as a kid, we went on a field trip to the big Denver Jewish Synagogue. And when you walked know, because it was like one of those learning about other religions, whatever it was, when you walked in, they made you wear the little yamaka hat. Right? I wasn't offended. It's like I'm in your building, I'm with your people. This is how you guys do it. If that's what you expect when I come into your house, when a visitor comes over to your house and your house has a take your shoes off at the door rule, okay? That's what we do here. So if somebody comes in and jeans in a T shirt, they shouldn't feel unwelcome, but they should look around and huh, these people treat this differently. This isn'tuesday night at Applebee's. That's my take on it. What do you guys have? [00:49:01] Speaker B: I've always agreed with your take on that in the sense that making visitors feel comfortable is not the goal. It shouldn't even be in the top ten of any of our goals for Sunday morning worship. And yet a lot of elderships, a lot of congregations have kind of made that not just a goal, but the goal of we want visitors to make sure and almost like putting them up on a pedestal and kind of brushing members to the side, their regular members to the side almost. And like you said, the sermon is for them know, hear the announcements, man, we're just so grateful for all of our visitors that are know, never say anything about the members that are know, just that type of thing where the visitors are put up on this pedestal. The visitors are the ones who are man, this is for you and Jack, I've always agreed with because I think you're the one who's kind of stated your position on this most clearly and most often. That's not really what it's for. It's not really to make them feel comfortable. The sermon is not to just go to the six visitors that are in the room while you're ignoring the 200 members that you have. And so I think that is a flaw in the defense of maybe the not dressing up camp. I don't think this is a defense that if I was in that camp, I would use. Because to your point and to all of our points that we've made for this episode, in the sense that worship is supposed to be special, I do think a visitor walking in in their cargo shorts and their hoodie or whatever it is, looking around, going, oh, this is supposed to be something oh, this is something different. These people are dressed up. These people do take this very seriously. I think that's a good thing. I don't think that's a bad thing. [00:50:31] Speaker A: I think of that Hebrews verse about the reverence and awe. Do people feel that when they come in among us? You look at Acts, too, when they were gathering and listening to the apostles teaching and breaking bread together and all that, and everybody felt awe. And there's not awe in that. There's a congregation or a community church, I should say, like three minutes from our building where we worship together and their sign, like their logo on their sign is literally a couch to say, man, you come in here, it's going to be comfortable. Like, this is a church that is on their sign. They have a couch to let you know how comfortable it'll be to come be a part of their church. I don't want to communicate that message. I want people to come in and have a reverence and awe and be like, this is different than everything else I did this week. [00:51:13] Speaker C: I think this speaks to and this is kind of last point of the outline. It speaks to the culture we want to create within the church. We want people to understand this is different. And anytime where we sidle up to the world, it's like, oh, we're just like you. You go into the first John Three, like, friendship with the world is enemy toward God, right? We can't be friends with the world, but we want them to see this as different. We want them to have that reverence and all. We want them to go, whoa. And if they're drawn to it, man, they've got a heart for the gospel. Let's evangelize, let's reach out. Let's do everything we can, bible study, everything else. We are terrified of the kid walking in a basketball shorts and a hoodie and going, no, this isn't for me. And walking out and never seeing doesn't mean we don't go after him, doesn't mean we don't evangelize. But we are terrified of him never walking back in the doors of the church. Has it occurred to us that maybe he doesn't have a heart for God yet? [00:52:00] Speaker A: Well, I have to dress up. I'm not coming. How much do we want that guy? How much we want that guy? But it's like Jesus always let that person leave. The person who's like, I'm not doing that. [00:52:14] Speaker C: That's my point in that state. If he's willing to come around, how much do we want somebody who's going to disrupt or we cater? Let's be honest, we got a lot of church know picking on people, but we got a lot of older members this way that are very particular. We can't change anything about the church because they might leave. Okay. And if they leave and the only reason they're here is because we're catering to them, is that really a person you want in the church? This is horrible business practice, horrible family practice, horrible everything practice of catering to one needy person who is going to leave if they don't. We can study with them, we can love them, but we're not going to let them decide the state of the church. And I would say we do the same thing. We're so afraid of them getting upset that we cater to them and we kind of let them decide the state of the church. So we just have to be very careful on once again, we're not saying to make them unwelcome, to make them feel like, wow, we don't want you here. We absolutely do. We're glad you're here. We love this. But we also aren't going to sacrifice our culture for your feelings. [00:53:08] Speaker B: Well, we're not going to compromise our standards because that can also parlay, you might say, into moral standards actual what the Bible teaches about things that are black and white issues. It feeds the consumeristic mentality that Jack's, of course, written a whole book about that if you walk in and man, everything's about making me feel comfortable and everything's about making sure it's my way with the way I dress or whatever, yeah. That's going to very easily sometimes translate or parlay into wait, I actually have moral standards I have to live by. Wait, there's actually things that I can and can't do, biblically speaking, past the dress, past the way I dress. And so I think that's incredibly good point there. I know we've got a wrap here very shortly. I want to transition into, I guess, practical things. We agree that it's not a command. We agree that it's not Romans 14 binding. And so I think all of us are on the page of these are principles that we need to apply really in our lives of making sure worship is special is at least set aside as special in our minds and in the way we dress. One of the things that I want to bring up is, I guess be my closing comments. As far as practicality goes, I love what Jack does for his substac. That again, all of our deep thinkers are already subscribed to anyway. But prepping for worship the night before, prepping for worship on Saturday night, getting your mind focused and ready for worshipping God. And I think that's the biggest takeaway that I want to again share as we get ready to wrap here is man mentally prepare for worship because I think that translates into the way that you dress for worship, set your clothes out ahead of time. My wife does a very good job of doing that with our kids because, man, Sunday morning, it can be a hassle to get two kids jack's, like, man, you only have two kids to get ready. I have four kids ready to get ready. But my point is, like, man, Sunday morning can be a scramble. My wife sets the clothes out ahead of time, sets the breakfast out or gets the breakfast ready ahead of time, that kind of thing. I think we should be doing that mentally as well, of preparing for worship and honestly thinking ahead of time. What are we about to go do tomorrow? What are we going to be putting our minds on tomorrow? What are we going to be singing tomorrow versus rushing around sunday morning, you show up to worship and again, it's very casual, it's very habitual. We do this every single week. All right, let's get our 2 hours in and move on. I think that would also, once again, translate into, yeah, I'm going to dress up a little bit. I'm going to set my nice clothes out. I'm going to make sure that I am physically prepared and mentally ready or prepared for worship. That would be what I would say. As far as application goes, I love. [00:55:38] Speaker C: That idea of laying it out because there's something very tangible about laying basketball shorts out on your chair in the morning. Once again, if I am go ahead. [00:55:53] Speaker B: I was just going to say and once again, let's say you had a job interview the next day. Are you rushing around that morning, the morning up? What am I going to wear? No, you're probably, or at least most people are probably going to have selected ahead of time that I'm going to wear this. This is what I'm you're going to. [00:56:07] Speaker C: Iron the shirt, right? You're going to make sure things match. You're going to have everything out ahead of time in preparation for what's coming. So I do love that idea. There's a culture element to this. No doubt. It's going to look different in every culture. We haven't hit that as much. We touched on we haven't hit that as much. But I do think that it's very important that we give God our best. The same way that Casual Friday, we know that productivity drops off on Casual Friday. This has been proven in scientific study after scientific study. If that's the case, what does that tell you about the way we dress? I'm way more productive because I'm in that right mindset when I am wearing the suit and tie to the office. If you can do that during the week and we can understand from a productivity standpoint, what does that tell you about when we show up to worship? There is a cultural element to this, but there's also a scientific element to this of like, you are not prepped fully for your mind, worshipping the great I am when you show up dressed like you would any other time during the week. So I would say check your heart in this if you do feel like I'm not going to condemn you. It is a Romans 14 thing, I think. But the discussion needs to be had internally on your side of am I really looking to give God my very best. And if that's the case, in what ways? It wouldn't just be the dress. It would be prepping your hearts and minds on Saturday for what you're going to sing. It would be getting your voice ready in the morning as you're in the shower kind of singing some things, getting it ready, getting it prepped so my voice is ready to go by the time we get there. It would be reading through the scriptures, prepping your mind for Lord's Supper. Those are the things that matter. So it's not just the dress, it's the entire mindset. It's the writing, the check ahead of time instead of scrambling at the last second for what's in your wallet. All of those things make the worship matter. It gives it gravitas. Right. That's what we're looking for. So why would we not go the entire way, not just in our minds and not just in the physical things of money, but also in our dress? So that'd be my closing statement, I suppose. [00:57:58] Speaker A: Jack yeah. Again, it's not confronting a guy and saying where's your suit? Or telling a woman, hey, go home, put a dress on. It's a church culture thing. It's leadership. Might even say, hey, we're going to make an effort to try and look a little nicer here. You might have to confront somebody that's walking in consistently, you know, they can do better and they are coming in basketball shorts and a t shirt and just take them aside and kind of let them know, hey, we are going to treat this with a little more respect and let's do that. I think that's not wrong. I think more than anything it comes down to those two words, reverence and awe. The culture right now goes toward treating Jesus as the meek and lowly arm around you friend. And he we've talked so many times about the lion and the lamb and, well, the lamb, he just wants to see me. He doesn't care about how I'm he's also the lion and you need to dress like you're going to see the lion with reverence and awe. You want to go be with him because you love him, because he is the lamb that was slain and all that. He's also the lion. Treat him as both. And I really think there is a question here of are we treating him so budy kind of where we've talked about parents that want to be their kids friends. Jesus wants a relationship with you. He doesn't just do it on whatever terms you want to bring him. Show that reverence and awe. You can disagree that dress is a part of that. I really think the COVID Lockdowns taught us at home, like trying to do work from home in your shorts and t shirt every day. It was really hard to do. A lot of people realized I still need to go put on my jeans and my shoes and my shirt or whatever it may be that I would go to work in from my home while I'm working from my computer at my kitchen table. So I feel different. It matters. And I think the argument that it doesn't matter is it just doesn't fit with reality and that's what we're trying to do here is be real about the world God has put us in as physical beings. And so a lot of ground covered here. I know we're going to get disagreement because I wrote on it. I mean, I've seen the arguments, both sides. We'd love to hear your comments. This should make for a very interesting deep end to see how many are on either side of it. But again, tell us why we're wrong. Push back on any point. Tell us if you agree. Tell us if there were points that we missed one way or the other. There's a lot to it. I did not realize people were so passionate about this, but since they are, I figured we better get together and talk about it. So anything before we wrap, guys. All right. And we will talk to you guys. Oh, one of the other things, I mentioned this the other day, itunes or Spotify or whatever podcast app you listen. [01:00:29] Speaker C: Ratings. [01:00:30] Speaker A: We need some ratings. We need some help. We've had some detractors. So if you enjoy the show, give us that five star rating. Tell us what you like or don't like about the show. Leave that rating. But of course, it's just going to be what you like if you're still here. [01:00:43] Speaker B: Of course. [01:00:43] Speaker A: Of course. And that's all we got for this week. We'll talk to you guys next time.