Watch out for the Umpires!

That’s the gist of what we talked about on Sunday as we explored Colossians 2:16-23. In both verses 16 and 18 we find the warnings, “do not let anyone judge you… and do not let anyone…disqualify you.” The congregation in Colossae had some people who had appointed themselves arbiters of Christian faith and practice. If you didn’t fall in line with the customs they valued, you were judged and/or considered disqualified. Paul warns the believers to not let those people distract or divide them.
 
In the early 1900’s the Church of God Reformation Movement, of which we are still a part, had a divisive controversy regarding the wearing of neckties. Some thought it worldly, even sinful and others thought wearing a necktie to be a reasonable custom as most men wore a plain tie at the time. 
 
I want to share a excerpt from an article addressing this issue that demonstrates sound Christian reasoning on matters that are not explicitly addressed in the Bible. 
 

“It may be taken as granted, I think, that the New Testament is the only standard of judgment, the highest court of appeal, in all things relative to the Christian church and the individual Christian experience. It is generally accepted, also, that the New Testament speaks to us in two ways-by precept and by principle. The precepts, or commands, of the New Testament are two in class–the positive and the negative. Positive precepts enjoin Christian duty; negative precepts forbid moral evil, or sin. These absolute- precepts, the groundwork of divine law, embody all that is fundamentally necessary to salvation. They teach us to love God supremely and our· neighbors as our selves; they forbid us to do any evil. Thus, rightly related to God and to man, and freed from Satan and sin, the individual soul finds its normal sphere and the body of obedient believers finds itself in “peace on earth.” Both the precepts and the principles of the New Testament must be rightly divided; correctly interpreted and consistently applied. Though division and interpretation present their respective difficulties, yet the correct application is often more difficult.
…
Both external circumstances and internal motives: affect the moral quality of a deed. It is therefore not always easy to judge the moral value of a particular act. It is just here, in the application of certain truths, that our difficulties about the wearing of the necktie have arisen. We all agree that “Be not conformed to this world.” (Rom. 12: 2) applies to the Christian, and interpret worldly conformity to mean anything in thought, word, or deed that is sinful; but when we come to the application of this law, some have thought the wearing of even a plain necktie to be worldly conformity, while others of us have supposed it to in itself only a harmless custom to which we may innocently conform.  If the application of plain positive precepts is not always easy, we may expect more difficulty when we come to the development and application of the less oblivious relative principles.  There is certainly no positive precept that forbids the wearing of a necktie. Therefore, our conclusions concerning it must be based upon such relative principles, as “Be not conformed this world”) Rom. 12:2) and “Adorn themselves in modest apparel” (1 Tim. 2:9). In the application of any principal, we have to be sure that the circumstances under which we apply it are parallel with those under which the writer was inspired to express it. Add to the difficulties of division, interpretation, and application, already mentioned, dangers in us all of prejudice and tradition, and the ever presence of fallibility, and you discover that our greatest need is patience, prayer, and perseverance in our pursuit of divine knowledge.” 

CHRISTIAN ATTIRE OR THE MORALS OF DRESS - (see full article)
Written February 1917 By D. O. Teasley
 
My hope is that this might serve as a reference or even a template for how a thinking Christian (or congregation) may navigate some of the issues that arise in a contemporary setting. You may wish to jot down some of the points that stood out and which might help you grow in the process of biblical discernment.
 
Lastly, the Word of God is best discerned together in the context of community. Instead of drawing lines of who’s in and out, we must not forget that when we come upon a difficult issue “our greatest need is patience, prayer, and perseverance in our pursuit of divine knowledge.”  
 
May God’s Spirit help us grow in discernment as we apply God’s word to our lives.

- Pastor Nate

p.s. The issue landed on the side of allowing plain neckties.