The previous blog-post is rather long. It does contain excellent background material and some challenging thoughts; however, here is its barebones summary.

1) In the Bible “heart” means volition or our free will. When one gives his/her heart to Jesus, he/she willingly does God’s will.
2) In the Bible how one is dressed in church makes a difference. God and the angels can be offended by our attire.
3) Modest attire is commanded by Scripture; particularly for worship. Immodest attire is attention-getting clothing that can be ostentatious, out-of-place or indecorous.
4) God is NOT just interested in one’s heart (modern meaning: emotions) but is concerned about how one conforms his/her will to God’s will.

Here is a Christian cliché that is very popular today: Worship is about one’s heart and not about things like what you wear. The thought is that what God wants is our hearts and everything else is superfluous to that. Well, get ready for some cliché-busting.

Heart

First of all, the word “heart” in the Bible does not refer to emotions. It refers to the center of one’s personal identity--the thing that makes us uniquely humans. Animals have emotions, but they do not have what the Bible means by heart. The heart is the seat of the volition or free will. Therefore, when I say I gave my “heart” to Jesus I am not saying I had a “quiver in my liver” or “Holy Ghost Goosebumps.” I am indicating that I have relinquished my volition (my free will) to the Lord. Consequently, if I go to church and have all kinds of wonderful emotional experiences but simply go my way and do what I want instead of conforming my will to God’s will, I have not truly given my “heart” to Jesus. Giving my heart to the Lord means that I am willing to make His values and priorities my values and priorities. This is very different than the contemporary meaning “heart-felt” worship which generally means sincere-in-the-moment personal FEELINGS of affection for MY personal conception of God. I could go on about this, but you get the point—heart is about the will.

What One Wears to Worship Counts to God

Surprise, surprise, the Bible actually has things to say about how Christians are to dress—and, yes, shockingly, about what to wear in church! In fact, St. Paul actually has the chops to write that there is apostolic authority for what he requires for worship-attire and that refusal to attend to these things offends nature and heaven.

There are certain passages of Scripture we are uncomfortable with and would rather skip over. One of those is 1 Corinthians 11:1-16 where Paul writes about head coverings for women. We ask, “What was that all about?” Isn’t that antiquated stuff and just a relic of a time and culture from long, long ago? Not according to Paul. The common practice was and is for Jewish men to cover their heads for worship and prayer. For them this symbolizes reverence and submission to God. Paul wanted just the opposite for Christian men. According to him, the Christian man’s head is the “glory” of God and must be uncovered to be displayed in worship. The married woman’s head is, therefore, the glory of the husband and should not be displayed because it robs God of His glory, if He must share it with the husband. He grounds his teaching on the authority of: 1) the apostles and their practice in all of the churches (1Cor 11:16); 2) the nature of things (1Cor 11:14); and 3) the fact that it offends the angels when Christians refuse to cover or uncover their heads (1Cor 11:10). Pretty strong stuff! Yet, most contemporary evangelical Christians (who claim to be Bible-believers) don’t even give this matter a second thought. It is interesting that Jews and Muslims are much more attentive to this matter than are Christians.

Well, you say, what does that have to do with whether I wear flip-flops and sweats to church? Glad you asked.

First, remember, Paul indicates that the angels are attentive to how, in a worship setting, God is either given glory or disrespected by our head-coverings. You’ll notice that this simple article of clothing has deep spiritual significance and is NOT superfluous to the angels. Of course, we think it is just about our “hearts” in worship, but, Paul recognized that what we wear makes a difference to God and can even offend Him and the angelic host.

In 1 Tim 2, Paul again writes about worship and he uses a word that we are very unfamiliar with—modesty. Modesty has to do with personal apparel. Modesty is a sub-virtue of temperance. Temperance constrains our pleasure-seeking impulses. The virtue of modesty, in general, may be described as that virtue which prompts us to be decorous, proper, and reserved, in the way we dress, stand, walk, sit—in general in the way we behave exteriorly. Indecorous or improper attire that is immodest can be expressed either as wearing clothing that is ostentatious (i.e. gold-braided hair) or that draws attention to oneself through its strangeness or inappropriateness. You don’t have to be wearing a $2,000 suit or an extremely low-cut dress to be immodest. When Paul writes about this, he was speaking about women but I believe he would also expect men to wear modest apparel. Here is what he says: 1Tim 2:9

1Tim 2:9 And I want women to be modest in their appearance. They should wear decent and appropriate clothing and not draw attention to themselves by the way they fix their hair or by wearing gold or pearls or expensive clothes.

May I suggest, that God is NOT just concerned about my “heart” (using the contemporary meaning—emotions) in worship. God and the angels are actually looking at what I wear to church! Yet, what I wear to church expresses my “heart” (Biblical meaning—my will). If I am unwilling to conform my will to God’s will, I won’t give any attention to what I wear to church. I won’t think about what is decent and appropriate. I won’t attempt to express the virtue of modesty. On the other hand, if I have given my will over to the Lord, I will think about what I wear as an expression of my new Biblical priorities and values.

In one of my earlier blog-posts I wrote about Christian clichés that I hate. Well, I am thinking that I need to be an equal opportunity cliché-buster. Now I am cooking up some favorite secular myths about Christianity that I want to roast. I’ve already dealt with the one about the Crusades. There is also the one about the Spanish Inquisition (this may surprise you). Then there is the secular myth about how Christianity has held back the advancement of science—that’s a whopper! Oh, there are so many to pick from and they are all so amazingly mythical; yet, they keep getting trotted out for mass consumption year after year.

Do you have a favorite? What secular myth about Christianity do you think needs to be roasted? Go ahead and share, let’s have some good-natured fun. I love this kind of stuff!

Okay, here we go, the Second Coming.

First, if all you had was 1 and 2 Thessalonians, you would not be confused about end times and Christ’s Second Coming. Some scholars believe that these two letters are, perhaps, the oldest writings in the New Testament. Others think Galatians or the Corinthian letters are the oldest. The point is that the Thessalonian letters are very ancient and represent the earliest strata of apostolic teaching on Christian theology, practice and eschatology (study of end times). In these two letters Paul lays out a basic but clear description of what will take place leading up to and at the Second Coming. Additionally, in the second letter, Paul was trying to straighten out the Thessalonians on the timing of Christ’s coming. It seems that someone had confused them and may have convinced them that Christ had already returned. Therefore, he was being exceptionally clear. Now if you were a Thessalonian that had the opportunity to receive teaching from Paul and study his two letters, this is what you would probably believe regarding end times:

1 Thessalonians 4

1) Our dead Christian brothers and sisters are with Jesus in heaven.
2) When Jesus comes back He will bring our departed loved ones with Him.
3) As Jesus returns, the bodies of our loved ones will rise from the grave and they will be resurrected joining their spirits coming from heaven.
4) If we are still alive when He comes, we will be caught up to meet Him in the air to live forever with Christ, our bodies being transformed at His coming.

2 Thessalonians 2

1) Before Christ comes back there will be a period of rebellion against God.
2) The rebellion will have a leader who will oppose the things and people of God, will seek to be worshiped, do incredible things by the power of Satan, and delude masses of people into following religious practices that are spiritual but immoral.
3) Jesus will destroy this rebellious leader at His coming.

That’s it. The main thing that Paul admonishes the Thessalonians to do is to keep an eye peeled for the upcoming rebellion and the revealing of its lawless leader. There is no suggestion that they go to seminars, develop charts and graphs, stay current on the progress of Israeli-Palestinian relations, or figure out how many days, weeks, months and years it has been since the establishment of the Israeli state. This may sound cruel, but be honest, don’t you think the Thessalonians would have been confused by such nonsense and, frankly, thought it was just plain goofy?

My mom used to say, if it was good enough for Paul and Peter, its good enough for me.

I know, I know, you’re going to tell me that I’m the one who’s supposed to be against “venting.” And I grant you that. So I am going to call this a personal rant. I also know that I should be doing a blog-post on the Second Coming of Christ and I will get to that, but in the meantime, here we go.

My favorite cable network, the History Channel, has fallen lock-step in line with the typical Politically Correct nonsense about the Crusades. The nonsense goes something like this. There was this wonderful antiquity and the glory of Greco-Roman culture and then there was the Renaissance and Enlightenment. In between these two periods was the horrible Dark Ages with its mean-spirited religion and ignorant and aggressive warmongering culture. The low point of the dark medieval period was the Crusades when bumpkin-headed clerics lead vicious European warriors to sack, rape and pillage the peaceful, pristine and sophisticated Islamic culture of the Middle East. Sound familiar? Sure, you have heard it over and over again, only one problem, it is not true.

A simple review of history, along very general lines, confirms an obvious truth: Christianity has constantly been on the defensive when it comes to Moslem aggression; this has been the case from the beginning until now. For example, the so-called Crusades were an armed pilgrimage to try and reopen a safe route to Jerusalem and assist the eastern Mediterranean Christian-culture which was under assault by armed Muslim aggression. We probably need to remind ourselves that Islam had been on a four-hundred year march of conquest before Pope Urban II called for the first Crusade. If it hadn’t been for Charles Martel and the Franks at the Battle of Tours in 720 AD, we would likely now be worshipping at our local Mosque. Even in Africa at present there is a bloody offensive by the Moslems to convert ethnic groups that the heroic sacrifices of generations of missionaries had succeeded in converting. Admittedly, the Crusades were an act of war and not pretty; however, they were limited and lasted around 200 years. Islam began its conquest in 624 AD and last attacked Europe in the early 1600’s. How long does the Christian West need to feel guilty for actions done in self-defense, and for keeping the road open for pilgrimage to its most holy places, which was the reason for the Crusades?

For a balanced and factual presentation of the Crusades check out the article on the web titled “The Real History of the Crusades,” By Thomas F. Madden, associate professor and chair of the Department of History at Saint Louis University.