Sunday Best

It’s 7:30 on a Sunday morning. You roll out of bed and stumble to the closet to pick out your cutest clean outfit (that you haven’t worn for at least a month) to wear to church. This is an important and godly thing to do, of course, since you know that you are supposed to show up in your “Sunday best”—for God. Generally, the only thing weighing on your mind is that you have this oh-so-important responsibility to look good—for God. So you pick out a very cute, very colorful summer dress. All the other girls will be so impressed that you would wear such a nice-looking, stylish article of clothing—for God.

If that resembles your typical Sunday morning routine, you may be missing the point in your preparations to go and worship God with His people.

Jesus condemned the Pharisees for putting aside the command of God for the sake of their traditions (Matthew 15:1-9). Do we do the same when it comes to modesty and dressing for church? There is nothing wrong with the tradition of dressing nicely for church. But it isn’t commanded in God’s word. It is a tradition of men. So when that becomes our foremost goal on a Sunday morning to the neglect of the clear command to dress modestly and discreetly (1 Tim 2:9-10), are we not doing the very thing that God hated to see the Pharisees do?

In our “dressing up for God” do we cause our Christian brothers to stumble? Do we show even more skin in church than we do at school? If anything, we ought to be even more considerate when gathering with God’s people to worship Him. Our goal should be to attract as little attention to ourselves as possible! We want our brothers to worship God, not our bodies! Think about it, ladies. Why wear anything that could possibly cause a brother in Christ to stumble? This should be our heart’s priority at all times, but perhaps even more so when we come together as the body of Christ.

Another thing to think about is the fact that when you pray with other believers in a church meeting, you are coming together before the throne of grace—which we are to do confidently, but also with reverence and humility (Hebrews 4:16, Isaiah 66:2, James 4:6, 10). We aren’t to dress to impress—God is not impressed with our styles, He looks at our hearts (1 Samuel 16:7). If anything, we should recognize who our God is, and out of reverence and humility, see to it that our bodies are well covered.

Shouldn’t our “Sunday best” refer to our best efforts to please God and care for our brothers in the way we dress?

Check out this modesty survey to find out what specific items of clothing might cause a brother to stumble. The survey doesn’t contain any rules, but it does allow you to get feedback from Christian guys so that you can be informed enough to make wise decisions.