One conversation that tends to engender passionate feelings in Evangelical circles revolves around what to wear to Sunday services. I recently heard one pastor’s rather smart aleck answer: whenever people ask him what to wear to his church, he replies, “Clothes.” 

While the response is meant to be funny and put people at ease, it’s not especially useful or informative. Not everyone will agree on where to draw the lines of dress at church, but it is certain everyone will draw clear and distinct lines.

Often, the battle lines are drawn as somewhat of an “either-or” proposition between business attire and casual dress. Advocates of dressier garb feel congregants should honor our Lord by wearing their “Sunday best.”  Casual dressers counter that God looks on the heart and we want people to feel comfortable in church. 

While both sides have their points, Christians must turn first and always to timeless Biblical principles to arrive at best practices for 21st century American culture. And honestly, only a handful of verses even touch on the subject of dress. Despite this fact, in some assemblies, the way a person dresses is brought almost to a tier-1 level of importance. This approach is unbalanced: let’s not fall into the error of making more or less out of this subject than the Bible does.

So what does the Bible say? Principle One: be respectful, recognizing that some manners of dress may be culturally acceptable but not morally acceptable in God’s sight. In 1 Timothy 2:9, Paul writes, “women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire.” The word “respectable” means “moderate or well ordered.” It carries the idea of suitability: what we wear (specifically in this context, what women wear) should be appropriate and not draw attention to ourselves. This concept would apply to anything from dressing flashy, dressing provocatively, or pushing culturally acceptable boundaries. 

One verse sometimes misapplied on the subject of dress is Deuteronomy 22:5: “A woman shall not wear a man’s garment, nor shall a man put on a woman’s cloak, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God.” In the denomination I grew up in, this text was harped on to tell women they were not allowed to wear pants. As far out there as this may sound, I once had a pastor equate women wearing pants to the practice of homosexuality. The rationale: since the Old Testament calls both homosexuality and a woman wearing a man’s garment “abominations,” they are virtually on the same level in the eyes of God. 

Yet this verse is actually about men and women not cross-dressing according to their cultural context. Women wearing slacks and homosexuality are not even on the same planet, morally speaking, and those forcing their personal preferences on a text like this one inevitably dilute what the Bible actually says. The bottom line: men ought to dress like men and women like women, in the cultural style that they live in, and everyone should dress modestly so as not to draw attention to themselves.

A second principle: the church does not primarily exist for the world around us, but rather for fellow Christians. Paul and the other apostles spilled much ink reflecting their concern about how the fellowships they planted or were overseeing lived. They dealt with doctrinal controversies, moral dilemmas, and the need to settle personal squabbles. However, to my knowledge, only one New Testament passage – 1 Corinthians 14 –  focuses on the unsaved world attending worship services. It is a reminder for the Corinthian congregation to reflect on how crazy and out of order their misuse of the gift of tongues appeared in corporate worship. 

Which brings us to a final point on dress. We must consider the consciences of our brothers and sisters in the church, especially those weaker in their faith, as Paul calls upon us to do in Romans and 1 Corinthians. The idea that it does not matter what anyone else thinks as long as you feel comfortable and good about yourself may have be a common narrative in society at-large, but it is certainly out of step with a Biblical culture. You should never thumb your nose at another Christian’s feelings and conscience, much less an entire congregation’s. 

This principle doesn’t apply just to provocative (immodest) clothing. For example: should I wear a Led Zeppelin t-shirt to preach this Sunday? Most certainly not. Set aside for a moment the moral objections one may have to Led Zeppelin. Showing up in the pulpit wearing that shirt would be so out of step with what our church is used to, and would draw so much attention to myself, that it would be clearly out of line with Scripture. 

In fact, the mentality over the last 20 to 30 years of pastors in particular dressing casually to appeal to as many people as possible, while noble, is probably less than stellar from a Biblical standpoint. Men who want to be cool and preach in flip flops, shorts, and even Led Zeppelin t-shirts need to grow up. Trendy and flashy dress falls beneath the Biblical qualification for eldership in 1 Timothy 3 in a few areas – but in particular almost certainly violates the requirement to be “respectable” in 1 Timothy 3:2 (the same Greek word cited earlier from 1 Timothy 2:9 on women’s dress). Pastors need to lead in not being so casual in our approach to congregational worship that we miss the seriousness of what we are doing each and every week: meeting with, and thereby ministering to, the Body of Christ and the Lord Himself.

At the end of the day, where we come down on Sunday attire is going to extend beyond tradition to take into account personal preference and cultural context, balanced with an appreciation of the church body involved. 

As much as it’s bad practice to make churches too casual, I certainly don’t advocate creating a culture where everyone has to wear a suit to “fit in.” I love that at Flat Run Church, no one seems even to think about the variety of ways we dress. While I wear a sport coat and some brothers a tie, others might wear a t-shirt and jeans, and no one is up in arms about it. 

Friends, that is the way it should be. Let’s be respectful and courteous, remember the weaker brother’s conscience, and not overdraw attention to ourselves in the worship services – because Christ deserves that focus.

Soli Deo Gloria!