Dale Partridge - Is What I Wear to Church Good Enough？ - Dale Partridge

00:00:00.000 On this episode of Real Christianity, does God care about what we wear to church?

00:00:06.420 Important conversation coming up right now. 0.94

00:00:26.640 Welcome to Real Christianity. My name is Dale Partridge. 0.64

00:00:29.260 Today, we're going to have a great conversation about Dress at Church.

00:00:33.700 But first, if you have not checked out the pre-order for my newest children's book,

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00:00:44.840 It's a Q&A style catechism, 100 questions on teaching your kids the gospel, basic theology.

00:00:53.120 And what's unique about this particular catechism,

00:00:57.180 because there's great catechisms that are already out there.

00:00:59.880 There's the Westminster Shorter Catechism.

00:01:02.860 There's the Heidelberg Catechism. 0.83

00:01:04.900 There's the Baptist Catechism.

00:01:06.900 I've taken a lot of the beautiful parts of those catechisms

00:01:11.060 and adapted and modernized and edited

00:01:14.640 and put it into one catechism with 100 questions.

00:01:18.840 The thing that I like about it most

00:01:20.700 is that we've created three categories.

00:01:23.260 I have four kids.

00:01:24.800 And when I was doing catechism time with our kids, my older daughter would have the ability to answer more difficult questions and have more robust answers while my younger kids were not.

00:01:37.760 And so it was frustrating for me to have to create multiple different answers for different age groups when I'm catechizing the whole family.

00:01:46.880 And so in this catechism, we created three categories where we have, you know, these seedlings, sprouts and vines is what we call them.

00:01:58.180 And so the seedlings are for like little kids, maybe three to seven, three to five, and then sprouts or maybe six to eight or zone.

00:02:05.460 And then vines are a little bit, you know, maybe 10 and up or something around that zone.

00:02:12.160 And honestly, they would be even fine for adults.

00:02:14.380 And so you can actually ask one question and have three different answers that are essentially the same answer in a shortened version and have your children participate at different degrees.

00:02:25.840 And so I think it's a really great resource. I worked on it for over a year and it's got great custom illustrations. It's a beautiful book.

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00:02:56.280 And you can pick up a copy at relearn.org forward slash simple.

00:03:01.860 Again, that's relearn.org forward slash simple.

00:03:05.040 Okay, we're going to talk about,

00:03:06.960 does God care about how we dress at church?

00:03:14.160 Now, this is based off of an article that I wrote

00:03:16.580 that's available to read at relearn.org.

00:03:19.380 So if you wanted to read that or share that,

00:03:20.940 you can always check that out.

00:03:22.820 And I'm going to be referencing that quite a bit here

00:03:24.880 and kind of reading a little bit

00:03:27.020 and then coming back and having some conversation

00:03:28.700 about what I'm saying.

00:03:30.120 so today's christians think that intimacy requires casualness i want you to think about

00:03:37.640 that statement for a second today's christians think that intimacy demands casualness that

00:03:45.480 essentially we believe that intimacy with god can only be attained if you can

00:03:50.360 you know approach god the way that you are right that's kind of this generation's you know mo is

00:03:57.240 is that I want to come as you are, come as you are.

00:04:01.800 And I think that that belief really does manifest

00:04:05.620 the way that we worship, the way that we show up for worship.

00:04:09.460 And I think there's some truth to that, come as you are.

00:04:13.400 And I think that's at the truth level,

00:04:16.220 it's pertaining to come at the state of your soul,

00:04:20.180 wherever you're at, if you're a drug addict,

00:04:23.260 or if you think that everything's good in your life,

00:04:26.860 you think that everything's, you just got divorced, whatever it is, come as you are.

00:04:31.400 I think that is a very faithful way to interpret that phrase. Now, come as you are in your pajamas,

00:04:40.360 I think is not a faithful way to interpret that reality. And I think our casual culture has

00:04:46.220 certainly contributed to a misunderstanding of that particular phrase and idea. And so

00:04:53.180 So a Sunday gathering to millennials or Gen Z, you know, that is formal, liturgical, spiritually

00:05:02.740 reverent, these can sometimes feel distant or impersonal or lifeless even for that generation.

00:05:09.680 Because we prefer this again, this organic, relaxed, unstructured, spiritual experience

00:05:17.000 that prioritizes, you know, emotions and warmth over solemnity and reverence. And so that's very

00:05:24.280 common in our generation. But I'm just going to say this cavalier approach that we have to worship

00:05:31.400 to Sunday, it should concern us for a couple of reasons. Number one, it doesn't match the example

00:05:39.220 of the Old Testament. Now, I understand, you know, biblical theology and that the Old Testament

00:05:46.040 is essentially the way that they dressed as a high priest to worship

00:05:50.680 is pointing to Christ and preparing us for Christ

00:05:53.940 and who is our ultimate high priest.

00:05:56.180 But I just want to read you something from Leviticus

00:05:58.900 about how you would approach God in the temple, right?

00:06:04.600 This is just one of many verses,

00:06:06.640 but it's Leviticus chapter 16, verse four.

00:06:11.080 He says, he shall put on the holy linen coat

00:06:12.860 and shall have the linen undergarment on his body.

00:06:15.680 He shall tie the linen sash around his waist and wear the linen turban.

00:06:20.420 These are holy garments.

00:06:21.800 He shall bathe his body in water and then put them on. 0.87

00:06:25.220 He shall take from the congregation of the people of Israel two male goats for a sin offering, one for a ram, a burnt offering. 0.81

00:06:34.020 There's just a formality. 0.53

00:06:36.040 And I think the principle of formality, not the theological meaning behind this particular text,

00:06:40.440 but the principle of formality, I think is seen throughout the Old Testament.

00:06:45.680 regarding worship.

00:06:47.760 Now you can create lifeless worship real quick,

00:06:51.520 which is what Jesus came to fix, right?

00:06:53.280 He came to fix this idea that you're worshiping

00:06:56.080 with all the outside and not the inside.

00:06:58.540 Now, I think that this generation has possibly made

00:07:00.740 an overextension of that idea where we worship

00:07:03.660 with all the inside and have no care about the outside.

00:07:06.960 And when you think about even our buildings,

00:07:11.100 like go look at the description and instruction

00:07:16.200 for like the tabernacle or the temple.

00:07:19.420 One is that God requires beautiful architecture

00:07:22.980 and beautiful artisan work and quality development

00:07:28.300 in every possible category.

00:07:30.080 And we're in this generation that it's like,

00:07:32.380 hey, you know what?

00:07:33.220 I know it's an old Domino's pizza building,

00:07:35.220 but let's turn it into a church, you know?

00:07:36.920 And we have no desire to actually create,

00:07:40.680 say architecture that accurately reflects the goodness of the salvation that we have in Christ.

00:07:48.720 I mean, literally, it's like come to this terribly ugly building where we can tell you the best news

00:07:53.280 ever. Like it's inconsistent, right? It's like serving this beautiful filet mignon on paper

00:08:00.240 plates, right? It's a weird thing. Now, I'm not saying that if you worship under a tree because

00:08:06.140 is the tree is all you have in Ghana,

00:08:09.380 that you're doing anything wrong.

00:08:10.660 I'm just saying is that the heart posture should be

00:08:13.780 that it's not just about the inside.

00:08:16.760 It's also about the outside.

00:08:18.920 It's about both because essentially,

00:08:22.320 which I'm gonna say in a minute,

00:08:23.240 cause I'm getting ahead of myself.

00:08:24.380 God doesn't just care about your inside soul.

00:08:27.640 He also cares about your body and your life and your work

00:08:30.700 and what you do and do everything under the Lord.

00:08:34.360 And so does your church building glorify God?

00:08:41.080 And does it actually, people look at it and go, man,

00:08:43.720 those people are incredible artisans

00:08:46.900 that reflects the goodness of God

00:08:50.500 that they preach in Jesus Christ.

00:08:53.500 So again, just a question for you to consider here.

00:08:58.320 A couple of the scriptures, right?

00:08:59.480 So we know Hebrews, right?

00:09:02.260 It says, chapter 12,

00:09:03.880 therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom

00:09:07.480 that cannot be shaken.

00:09:09.080 And thus let us offer to God acceptable worship

00:09:13.360 with reverence and awe for our God is a consuming fire.

00:09:17.620 Now, again, if you're from this generation,

00:09:20.020 you're just going, oh, well, that's an internal thing.

00:09:21.420 Reverence and awe, that's an internal thing.

00:09:23.360 God doesn't care about what I wear.

00:09:25.380 I would just argue against that.

00:09:27.040 I think that God does care.

00:09:29.340 I think that the internal,

00:09:32.260 should match the external and the external should match the internal.

00:09:37.220 And I think that we know this to be true in several other circumstances.

00:09:42.640 So before I get ahead of myself, second point is that, you know,

00:09:47.480 the irreverent atmosphere can in our churches today of, you know,

00:09:51.560 mega church mania and all this stuff can sometimes stumble the truly broken

00:09:57.700 hearted and the truly hurting in our congregations who are actually looking for some form of stability

00:10:04.980 you know theological footing and not just like an exaggerated experience or some sort of pageantry

00:10:10.980 and so there's there is like a group of people that come in broken and we think that just let's

00:10:17.860 be happy clappy is going to make it all better when sometimes people actually are encouraged by

00:10:25.220 solemnity or reverence or seriousness in some degree and so how have we arrived here um

00:10:34.660 i just can't think that this is kind of a byproduct of our casual culture that we have today

00:10:40.020 where everybody wears yoga pants to work you know and um we have this obsession with equality

00:10:46.180 and egalitarianism and you know let me tell you like the cry of our culture is everyone is the

00:10:52.580 the same. Okay. That's basically a banner over the millennial Gen Z. We're all the same. We're

00:10:58.960 all the same in the sense of, you know, distinctions, whether by station, rank, gender, sex, race,

00:11:07.580 they're offensive to our society's social craze for symmetry. We want this idea that we're all

00:11:15.500 kind of, you're not better than me. I'm not better than you. I could do anything you can do better,

00:11:21.960 you know that whole kind of concept uh you know oh you're a guy and you're a police officer i'm a

00:11:28.680 woman and i can do exactly what you do just as the same and you know you're you're a mother i'm a 0.99

00:11:35.220 chest feeder i can do the same thing too whatever right it's dumb it's just a dumb thing that we are 0.97

00:11:41.040 dealing with in our generation think about this i was thinking about this a couple days ago 0.88

00:11:45.660 like when in history have you had to like all the theologians have passed like some are fighting for

00:11:52.840 like definitions of the trinity some are fighting for like definitions of church government or

00:11:56.820 soteriology like macarthur and sprawl fought against like the prosperity gospel and like

00:12:01.880 we're over here as pastors fighting against like the delusion of there's more genders than

00:12:09.740 male and female, like, what time in history could humanity not answer the question, what is a woman

00:12:17.880 or what is a man or what is a baby or whatever? And so this is a fascinating time, but that's how

00:12:24.720 totally like lost we are as a culture in the sense that we're so confused. A lot of my time,

00:12:32.520 if you guys follow me on social media and other platforms is that I'm speaking about gender,

00:12:38.020 masculinity, femininity, reminding us of the basics.

00:12:42.180 Honestly, I would love to be talking more

00:12:43.740 about deep theology,

00:12:45.620 but like we need to get back to the basics of Genesis one.

00:12:48.940 And so, or not just Genesis one, Genesis one, two, and three.

00:12:52.780 And so I think that we have this kind of extended

00:12:58.980 our classlessness to our worship,

00:13:02.560 whereby we approach God in a sense

00:13:04.620 as if he's kind of like one of us, Jesus is my friend,

00:13:10.860 he's a friend of mine, and that kind of culture.

00:13:15.800 And the historical traits of honor and respect

00:13:19.340 and awe and reverence, they've just been lost

00:13:23.240 in our pursuit of sameness and informality.

00:13:26.060 And so we often display more reverence and awe at,

00:13:31.060 reverence and awe at, especially with our dress

00:13:36.580 and like decorum and business dinners and weddings

00:13:40.560 than we do at the worship of Yahweh.

00:13:42.440 And so it's just, it doesn't make sense to me.

00:13:45.120 And Dr. Steve Lawson, who was my preaching professor,

00:13:48.260 he does a really great video.

00:13:49.740 I just recently saw him being interviewed,

00:13:51.320 maybe on Ligonier about this,

00:13:53.980 about why it's important to dress

00:13:57.440 in a way that reflects what you're doing.

00:14:01.060 Police officers do it.

00:14:03.500 Doctors do it.

00:14:05.100 Like the idea that dress communicates something

00:14:08.220 is really important.

00:14:10.480 And you know that, right? 1.00

00:14:11.820 Because the blue haired chick that's got her face 1.00

00:14:16.400 all pierced up and a shirt that says whatever, 0.98

00:14:20.300 like that's communicating something too.

00:14:22.560 And so dress does communicate something

00:14:24.020 that's not worthless and outside of God's care.

00:14:27.740 He cares about modesty.

00:14:28.840 He cares about how we communicate this concept of reverence and awe and worship through the

00:14:36.920 way that we dress.

00:14:39.200 And so, yeah, I have another note here is that while we would never consider wearing

00:14:45.940 casual attire to dine with the King of England, we readily do so when worshiping the King

00:14:51.060 of Kings.

00:14:51.680 And so I believe, again, we've over-spiritualized religion.

00:14:56.680 And I don't, you know, like, how can you do that, Dale?

00:14:58.260 Well, how can you over-spiritualize?

00:14:59.820 Well, I think believing that God is solely concerned

00:15:02.920 with the internal condition of the heart

00:15:05.000 and disregards external factors of our bodies. 1.00

00:15:08.880 I just saw some lady that was talking about like, 1.00

00:15:12.980 God doesn't care about what we do with our bodies.

00:15:14.600 I'm a bisexual Christian, like my heart's right.

00:15:17.560 It's like, no, that is not,

00:15:20.260 Jesus did not just purchase your soul.

00:15:22.900 He purchased your body.

00:15:24.540 First Corinthians 6, 19 through 20 says,

00:15:27.520 Or do you not know that your body is the temple

00:15:29.860 of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?

00:15:33.240 You are not your own, for you were bought with a price.

00:15:37.000 So glorify God in your body.

00:15:40.820 Okay, let's just take that at face value.

00:15:44.760 You know, what we do with our bodies in dress,

00:15:46.900 physical posture even, like what we do,

00:15:49.180 which is why I'm kind of not an advocate of the yoga world,

00:15:52.620 holy yoga or whatever, what we do with our body matters.

00:15:56.040 And if we're, you know, putting our body through whatever particular movements, if we're sexualizing our body or putting our bodies in ways that are creating increasing sensuality in the wrong places, you know, what we do in our bodies and what we wear on our bodies is also important to God.

00:16:17.320 again, if you don't have the funds to buy these great clothes, God's looking at the heart. He

00:16:25.600 understands the heart, but I'm just saying is that don't just throw the body and the external out.

00:16:30.880 Now, I'm not calling for some like deadpan, you know, custom of like Romish religious costumes.

00:16:37.920 That's not my call here. I'm not even demanding that you men need to wear a suit or tie on Sunday. 0.96

00:16:44.800 I'm simply pointing out that you can have reverent worship and orderly worship

00:16:53.060 that's really displayed with beautiful dress and honorable attire.

00:17:03.560 You can have that and have a vibrant internal spiritual life too.

00:17:08.160 You can have both.

00:17:09.800 You can wear suits.

00:17:11.320 You can wear beautiful dresses and cover your head.

00:17:14.800 because you guys know that a little plug for my book,

00:17:17.320 cover for glory, right?

00:17:18.760 And you can still have emotion and passion for Christ.

00:17:21.920 It doesn't have to be like all casual

00:17:24.220 or all buttoned up in deadpan, like lifeless religion.

00:17:29.240 Like you can do both.

00:17:31.280 You can have an incredible spiritual,

00:17:34.500 emotional relationship with Christ

00:17:37.620 and reverence and awe while dressed

00:17:40.320 in an appropriate way that reflects

00:17:42.600 the internal reality of what's going on.

00:17:47.820 You don't have to have one or the other.

00:17:49.800 And so ultimately, again,

00:17:51.480 our decorum should be in step

00:17:53.520 with who we are engaging with.

00:17:56.980 And we know this in every other area of our life.

00:18:00.600 Like you're not going to show up to a job interview

00:18:02.820 dressed in casual wear,

00:18:05.540 but people show up to church that way.

00:18:07.680 It's very strange.

00:18:09.600 And so when it comes to God,

00:18:11.500 God is holy.

00:18:12.140 He is completely other than us or separate from us.

00:18:16.300 He's not like us.

00:18:17.980 Therefore, the external aspects of our worship

00:18:20.920 should not only match the character

00:18:24.020 of who we're meeting with,

00:18:25.540 which is God to go worship God,

00:18:27.320 but also the internal disposition of our souls toward him.

00:18:33.220 So yes, Christ is our friend, right?

00:18:36.300 There is an element of that

00:18:37.880 as a dimension of our relationship

00:18:39.480 where Christ is a friend.

00:18:40.620 there's a dimension of our relationship with Christ as a brother. He's also King. He's also

00:18:46.180 Lord. He is also a maker in the sense that God is our maker. He is our provider. And so what we do

00:18:55.980 in body and spirit both matter. Now I'm going to bring up a point that I just actually saw.

00:19:00.560 It was Piper. John Piper recently tweeted out, he says, this is on September 30th. So 2.7 million

00:19:09.040 impressions on this on X, which is formerly Twitter.

00:19:14.600 He says, can we reassess whether Sunday coffee sipping

00:19:19.240 in the sanctuary fits?

00:19:21.960 And he cited Hebrews 12,

00:19:23.240 let us offer to God acceptable worship

00:19:25.380 with reverence and awe.

00:19:27.280 And I remember seeing that going, okay,

00:19:29.280 like, let me think about this for a second.

00:19:32.240 Piper's asking for the removal or not asking,

00:19:35.820 he's asking the question,

00:19:36.960 should we be just like casually sipping coffee in the front row?

00:19:42.240 And like, would you do that at a wedding for like a formal wedding in a nice church

00:19:49.180 while people are giving their vows?

00:19:51.200 Like, would you be just like sipping your Starbucks there?

00:19:54.360 So that is an interesting comment.

00:19:56.240 The most interesting comment I saw is from a pastor who said,

00:20:00.080 I once had a family roll up to church and in the front row ate a full-blown Burger King meal

00:20:08.980 just sitting right there in the front row during church and again we I think it's easier for us to

00:20:16.420 go oh yeah like I would never do that I would never just straight like open up my dipping

00:20:22.560 sauces and like set my drink on the floor and like start dipping fries and like throwing down

00:20:28.160 a burger and the front row on Sunday morning. But what Piper's getting at is, should we be kind of

00:20:37.600 casualizing this? Are we coming with reverence and awe? Because the external reality of sipping coffee

00:20:43.520 doesn't seem real reverent. It seems actually very casual. The priority is comfort, not worship.

00:20:52.240 and i i was looking at comments and people were like in the cat people from from the catholic

00:20:58.240 church were like no way this would ever happen here or the eastern orthodox church like no way

00:21:02.960 this is going to happen or the lutheran church people are like no way this is going to happen

00:21:06.240 here and so i've honestly seen a lot of people men and women unfortunately leave the protestant

00:21:14.960 church for those other and i'd say the lutherans and anglicans and all those guys are in but in

00:21:21.600 Eastern Orthodoxy is playing footsie with Rome, but people are moving to the traditional,

00:21:29.140 historic Roman Catholic world because they're looking for something serious. 0.89

00:21:36.000 They look at our pageantry and casualism of today, and they're like, this ain't it. 0.99

00:21:42.440 This ain't it.

00:21:44.280 And so again, I'm just calling for an examination of can you do both?

00:21:49.520 Can you come dressed in a way

00:21:52.340 that if you were literally meeting Christ,

00:21:54.380 what would you wear?

00:21:57.640 And can you still do that without feeling like you're,

00:22:02.240 you're like losing the come as you are element

00:22:05.680 of Christ loves me how I am like, yeah, he does.

00:22:12.280 But there's still an element of body and internal

00:22:15.500 that we get to wrestle with.

00:22:17.100 And yeah, what are you gonna do at sanctuary at the sanctuary

00:22:19.440 And what are you going to do at church?

00:22:20.740 How can we essentially elevate the reverence

00:22:24.180 and the awe of worship?

00:22:25.980 And I think Hebrews supports that.

00:22:27.560 I think that should be a priority for us as churches. 0.81

00:22:31.380 How can we do that in our churches

00:22:34.040 to elevate reverence and awe?

00:22:36.400 And sometimes it requires formality,

00:22:38.380 which our generation hates.

00:22:40.380 And so good questions to ask, good topic to think about.

00:22:46.380 If this episode was helpful for you,

00:22:49.080 would you guys be willing to leave a review?

00:22:50.880 You don't have to even write anything.

00:22:52.660 You could just tap the stars in your podcast app.

00:22:55.180 However, if you do write something, I will read it.

00:22:57.840 And I think we're going on 7,000 reviews strong

00:23:01.280 here at Real Christianity.

00:23:03.060 And those reviews really do help the exposure to our show.

00:23:06.660 And so it's a great way to get other people to listen

00:23:08.920 to what we're doing over here.

00:23:11.220 On that note, thank you guys for listening

00:23:13.540 to this episode of Real Christianity.

00:23:15.360 My name is Dale Partridge, and I'll see you guys next time.

00:23:19.080 I'll see you next time.

Dale Partridge - October 16, 2023

Is What I Wear to Church Good Enough？ - Dale Partridge

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