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Re: Wearing a Suit and a Tie
I believe that Christians should care about what God thinks AND what others think. Yes, there are limits to how much we can please others and there should be limits to how much we allow that to affect our personal choices, but at the same time we aren't to deliberately offend. I wear a wedding ring and gold watch, but when I go to certain churches, I take them off. It's a matter of being inoffensive. Why would I want to offend anyone? When we purposely offend with our personal liberties, our attitude needs a check. Furthermore, if I'm in any position of teaching or ministering to others, showing up in something I know will offend people stops my ability to teach them or minister to them from the get-go. Right, wrong or indifferent, people will not listen to someone who offends them. That's human nature.
Man does look at the outward appearance, because that's all we have to go on. Since we know that, we should care about how we present ourselves to others. It isn't a criticism of human nature to say that man looks on the outward--it's a statement of reality. Wisdom says that we deal with people according to their nature. Can we expect them to be God and see into our hearts? No. They're going to act like people and they go by what they see.
That doesn't mean I agree with the pastor and his opinions, but again--if you know you're dressing in a way that will offend others, why do it?
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"God, send me anywhere, only go with me. Lay any burden on me, only sustain me. And sever any tie in my heart except the tie that binds my heart to Yours."
--David Livingstone
"To see no being, not God’s or any, but you also go thither,
To see no possession but you may possess it—enjoying all without labor or purchase—
abstracting the feast, yet not abstracting one particle of it;…."
--Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, Song of the Open Road
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