Your inordinate affections need to be mortified. Many of you men are not preaching and teaching God’s word for the edifying of anyone at all. You are just preaching on the sins of the world to the world. You guys need to get off your ego-filled tirades! Seriously and for the love of God, man! Stop with your typical five-verse-automated responses that you have ready for every dissenter of YOU.
Colossians 3:1-17 If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.
2 Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.
3 For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.
4 When Christ, [who is] our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.
5 Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence and covetousness, which is idolatry:
The dross needs to be removed from you preachers that think you have certain justifications with the Book that you attempt to pander. Come down off your high horse and sit with your people for a little but. Try to understand how even you pastors and preachers have deviated from order. You men have developed a “permanent bent of mind” towards certain topics so much so that you fixate on them to the detriment of your people.
Webster's defines Inordinate - Irregular; disorderly; excessive; immoderate; not limited to rules prescribed, or to usual bounds; as an inordinate love of the world; inordinate desire of fame. Deviation from order; excess; want of moderation; inordinacy; intemperance in desire or other passion. Not limited to rules prescribed, or to usual bounds; irregular; excessive; immoderate; as, an inordinate love of the world.
Also Affection - A bent of mind towards a particular object, holding a middle place between disposition, which is natural, and passion, which is excited by the presence of its exciting object. Affection is a permanent bent of the mind, formed by the presence of an object, or by some act of another person, and existing without the presence of its object.
Some of you are preaching nothing more then idiosyncrasies actually, which are defined as a structural or behavioral characteristic peculiar to an individual or group. Many of you are just preaching a physiological or temperamental peculiarity. You men have that down to a “T”. Little things, that are only “big deals” to you and your “clans" that no one else really concerns themselves with or wastes their time on. Just little ol’ rip roaring you and yours!
No doubt preachers are known for “rabbit trails,” “pet peeves,” “hobby horses,” etc, which depending on the context of those things, they can be practically relevant to a spiritual teaching. I am not against those things. But that is not what I am talking about here. The way you men have bad habits at making inordinate affections out of topics you incessantly deal with simply shows a critical lack of balance, a stubborn inability to see beyond a position and it also illuminates the spirit of error that led you to this point to begin with.
Now, you can take all your church fathers and fundamentals and chuck’em out the window! We don’t need their confessions! Their old-time ways, their methods, or their logic! We have a Book for our statement and fundamentals of faith, and we have one church father, if any, given to us from God, one born out of due time, who came from a vain religious system! His name was Paul the Apostle. What was his focus? I didn’t ask about the focus of Spurgeon, Whitfield, Carey, Finney, Wesley, Edwards, Jones, or Cartwright. What was Paul the Apostle's focus?
Now...having said all that, unfortunately, there are fringe preachers all over, so how could one possibly deal with all the vain subject matter from all the false prophets and preachers in pulpits and on street corners today? What ever pet topic you are peddling this week or the next, really for the love of God, men, how much do we see these things dealt with in the word? Look at how much Paul focused on certain things, and compare that to how much we focus on them.
Now some of you men are my friends, and I love you dearly, but enough is enough already! We get it! We know you don’t like certain things. The amount of time you spend on trivial nonsense as opposed to sound doctrine and edifying teaching is very telling of your capacity for reason and also shows your uncanny ability to manipulate the scriptures to fit your standards! I think some of you are just plain lazy in your study and only do it on the weekends, right before "church time". You have members that spend more time in the Book than some of you pastors.
With all of your plodding and bashing on certain things, over and over, you show how little you actually study the Word of God to feed your flock. That is why they, most of the men in your church, are carbon copies of you. Your people will never have their own individualism. They are following you and not the Book. They are adhering to church standard and not God's Word.
There are many examples of inordinate affection and topics that preachers hit. But one always comes to my mind because it is addressed so boisterously and incessantly. Some men, it seems, have a obsession-like knack for always telling people how to dress.
So I must ask those of you who do this, why do you make yourself such an authority on women's clothing and fashion? Do you really care about the fashions of the people that much? Is this your ministry? Are we to reform and prohibit? All the running to the Law and the OT for your stance is blown away with a few verses in Hebrews. So why spend so much time on it? To do so would be spending an inordinate amount of time on things. Does “dress” really matter that much?
You can’t just give Paul’s directives out to men and women beneath the sound of your voice to sound Pauline and then run to certain hit or miss passages dealing with dress. I have seen men who fancy themselves theologians run to the likes of Deut. 22 and Isa. 47 and then mesh them with Paul. That is making the scripture of private interpretation. They are not complicit or conducive passages to any type of Christian dress!
Deut 22 and Isa 47...that's it!? That's all you have? These sorts of passages become THAT important that you have to constantly mention them up to and over 3 times a month to your congregation and even more to the world? This is exactly what I mean by men having an inordinate affection. You men are disillusioned in your reformative stances.
You can’t get off it. You preach on it, or stuff associated with it, constantly. A few preachers actually become known for preaching on such topics and get invited to makeshift “Family Conferences” to get everyone in step and line.
It’s all such a gas cloud from a distance to me now. Many of these people are in cults and total deception, but they think they are good Baptist people with the truth of God and the whole council. You men that guide them, you brainiacs and spiritual powerhouses, why don't you use a few other verses to bolster the godly dress issue; maybe Psalms or Proverbs to be positional; maybe Lamentations 3:51 or Proverbs 6:26 and even 2 Sam 11 with King David, but none of these references have anything to do with articles of clothing! Look 'em up, dolts. They are using segmented, unassociated scriptures to establish a standard! Again, this is defined as private interpretation!
Lamentations 3 was NOT Jeremiah lusting after all the daughters in Jerusalem! Good night, people! Read it!
Proverbs 6 doesn’t even mention anything about the clothing that caught him. The lust was after the harlot's beauty, her eyelids, not necessarily her attire!
And King David and Bathsheba, well, she was naked as she was bathing! She had no clothing on at all. And David, lusted and acted upon his lust. What do any of these references have to do with clothing? Nothing. They throw them in the mix with Paul’s vague reference in the NT to make it seem like a bigger issue then it really is.
Then it becomes a tradition of man. And then men are blindly found “teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.” It is a snare and I fear many of you men are fooled into this sort of thing. These are just the scriptural standpoints of lunatics.
You guys are just spinning on the millstone. Some of the conclusions you draw are foolish and it's just too difficult to justify you spending so much time on them. You men sound like ignoramuses how you come to your scriptural conclusions on some of this stuff. You confuse the younger Christians among you, berate the older ones, and institute things which ye ought not. Does a person's dress make a person holy? NO! If you preach this stuff that strong, well, then that is what you believe!
I understand testimony and witness. I understand being blameless before men, but we have gone way off the rails here. I won’t get into a big exegesis on the issue of women’s apparel but the distinct issue Paul was focusing on was drawing attention to ones' self.
Of course there is evil and revealing attire that is sinful, men and women alike. But the issue with Paul was “modesty”. That is what Paul was dealing with in those passages, not pants, knickers, slacks, skirts, and jumpers. You men are not to Lord over your flock (or random strangers on street corners for that matter) in telling them what type of clothes they should wear. Foolish jesters of the public, despicable street preachers!
With Paul, it was the issue of people having costly array, expensive clothing, platting of the hair, wearing of gold, etc., the rich among the body wearing things that would cause people to have a shamed face among others in the Body of Christ, or among those who are less fortunate!
If we were under a law, yes, I concede, it would be a different story. If we were under the law, we would be dressing like the wandering Jews from the OT and preachers today would be dressed like Levitical priests. But guess what, Paul was dressed like the "effeminate"-looking picture at the beginning of this post. What would we say of his attire today?
But Paul, unlike you men today, knew the law was abolished. We are not under any law. And on top of all that, we are Gentiles, most of us American-born into an already existing American culture and civilization. An American culture that adopted a European style of dress, not a Middle Eastern style of dress. This is not justification of sin, this is simply stating a fact and the obvious.
Take it all the way you Bible-believing Baptist men. If you want the Middle Eastern dress code, which is the Bible dress code, go join your Muslim friends for you are not far behind them! Dress like the image above, thou hypocrite! Just get it over with and go Amish already and move to Pennsylvania and be away with your fanaticism. Join the Mennonites if you want to wear the potato sacks. Don’t you realize if Paul the Apostle or Jesus was among us, no one would be dressed appropriately according to their Jewish customs. You would all be in error!
There is fact and there is fiction. And it is way past time for people to start to separate the two. “Pants” or breeches were worn by both sexes in Bible days, Old and New Testaments. Women wore those same breeches under their long flowing robes, same as the men did. There were no long, flowing, full skirts, jumpers or dresses! ”For after this manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves,” This adorning was not a skirt, dress, or jumper!
I could possibly look over your ignorance if we lived in a desert! But unfortunately we live in a civilized society with a established social structure and your logic just doesn’t hold water, as much as you try to use His Holy Word to make it fit your cut!
I mean, according to your own logic, the signers of the Declaration of Independence would eventually be sodomites in your eyes for having long hair and wigs (Deut 22 - things that pertaineth to a man). They would be drunkards for having hard cider! According to your logic Wesley, Spurgeon, and Luther would have been effeminate men!
What about Ezekiel 16:8? Match your logic to this one!
Now when I passed by thee, and looked upon thee, behold, thy time [was] the time of love; and I spread my skirt over thee, and covered thy nakedness: yea, I sware unto thee, and entered into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord GOD, and thou becamest mine.
Or Zech 8:23 Thus saith the LORD of hosts; In those days [it shall come to pass], that ten men shall take hold out of all languages of the nations, even shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, We will go with you: for we have heard [that] God [is] with you.
A “skirt” today, pertaineth to a woman! What does that say of the “men” or the “man” in these passages. What is this skirt? I’m sure would have to go Greek here to find your loophole. “Oh, you're stretching it preacher!” Yeah, maybe. But so are you! Big time.
Based on your logic, if you're transported to the Jerusalem square and Paul and Timothy walked in front of you, you would call them effeminate for wearing what they assuredly wore! Their legs would have been showing. You men would liken some articles to shorts!
All these things are evident, lack of proof text apparent, yet, you deal with this stuff abundantly more then the living words of God do! So much so that guys like me have to attempt to keep things balanced with all the people you confuse. There are just not enough concise, direct, repeated references for you guys to be so dogmatic and emphatic about your legalistic tendencies and standards. Teach your ladies about Godly dress, yes, but nothing more.
You are not a dictator! They must choose to live for God. Coercion is ill-suited for the house of God! It has gone beyond conviction when men are implementing doctrines of dress on the body of Christ when they are nothing more than law and standards. It is what the temple-going Pharisee did in Jesus’s day as well. They were seperated men as well!
I’m trying to get you to see a point here. Your scriptural logic and conclusions are built on law and sand, not law and order. I’ll show you what I mean. You men, you preachers and street preachers, have a double standard with the dress issue. You never preach on Christian dress to men and you never apply the same rules to yourselves.
You men have your women living in the 1700s as Pilgrims or the 1800s as Reformers while all the ministry men, preachers and pastors, get to stay modern and unaffected by current trends. Why do you dress like you do, preachers? Who gave you your dress standards, men of God? Where does your dress code come from? The Bible? Nope. God? Nope. Not God!
You are not “biblical” in dress either, but European. You are a Gentile. You are following customs and traditions of heathen, Gentile nations! How are you men different? Why aren’t you wearing a toga or a long robe-like garment to be biblical? Why aren’t we attempting to be different from men in the world as we have the women do with the women of the world? A collar and tie doesn't set you apart. Why aren’t you being different from the suit next to you on the airplane?
Why aren’t you wearing man's apparel that is shown to us from Bible times? We love the old paths right? Go on, dress like a prophet! Start dressing like John the Baptist. No, you chose to be more European and traditionalistic, ya know, to fit in. You have learned the ways of the heathen and you don’t even realize it. That's why a lot of church is a big show to me now. It's just a game that is put on.
More examples follow: A suit. A tie. Cuff links. Polo shirts. Golf shirts. Tucking in your shirt? Traditions, cultures, customs. How are you different from millions of lost people in the world? Do you know the origins of the neck tie? Do you know the origin of the collared shirt? Do you know the origins of mens' cut slacks today? They too are designed to show off prominent features of a man's body. You men let your women wear lingerie that was designed by European men to accentuate the female body (their daily undergarments).
To you Sunday Best crowd and pastors - I ask how much do your suits cost? How much does the jewelry you allow your wife to parade around in before poor Christians run up to? Preachers, let me ask you this, how long do you spend standing in front of the mirror before Sunday morning preaching time? Your dash of cologne, your fresh groomed face, just like ZZ Top’s sharp dressed man! You call these things totally acceptable preaching attire. You don't see the pride in it. It’s proper, right?
How are you different from any big city business men today? Business men, politicians, corporate heads; your looks are indistinct from theirs! If you were in a room with 20 business men, or walking down the street in a big city with a suit on, how are you separate, how are you different and set apart? How are you different from our president? How are you different from homosexual men who wear suits at their employment? You can’t apply your separation rules so well to yourself. Only on your weaker-vessel women!
Truth is, a lot of Baptist preaching men just like picking on folks and you enjoy having control or manipulative sway over the lesser! Of course I am not making this dress stuff a real issue, I just want you to see the flip side of your twisted and distorted views, how the same rules cannot be applied to you.
You focus on the impressionable young girls or single ladies in your church as your standard guinea pigs. You focus on other mens' wives and the single women among you to get them in line so you can boast of your seperated women. You preach on this stuff constantly and coerce them to dress right to fit in! But you men have held the same dress standard with the world for 175 years. You have dressed like the godless, money grubbing heathen for years. Hypocrites.
Maybe it’s another problem. Maybe some of you just need to admit you have a problem keeping your eyes in the right place. Is that it? Is that why you talk about it so much? It bothers you to that point, that you see women in pants, and it becomes a lust issue, so you have to make it a holiness issue? I’m just asking. Young girls come to our church in fishnets, boots, and short skirts, and sit down right in front of my family. Just keep your eyes forward. This is typical stuff. Don't freak out. We live in a wicked world. These people are blind.
You know what I think? I think many of you preachers have serious problems with your eye balls and lust. Makes sense when you consider all the pastors and preachers I know of who have fallen into sins of the sexual nature. It explains why they preach on it so much. It bothers them to that point of frustration. They may have wandering eyes! Maybe they can’t keep eyes forward. Maybe, perhaps? Just speculating...
I mean, I live in the world and see women dressed ungodly every day. Sure it bothers me, but not to the point where I have to yell at them to appease my own conscience. Many simply don’t know any better, they're just lost girls following the way of the world. And I’m sorry but it’s not our job or your job to tell them. Why do some of you have to yell at people about dress? You're just simpletons, that's all I know to say.
The issue is not godly dress as much as it is ungodly lust. Men lust. Honest men and wicked men lust. My pastor lusts, I lust, you lust, your pastor lusts. We see this from the very stories in the Word of God. All men. In church, out of church, in season, out of season. Preachers, street preachers, missionaries, deacons, popes, presidents, teachers, etc all lust. And ya know what? Women do too. You think a woman won’t lust after a well-dressed man?
Lust, like pride, is one of those things that affects all of mankind. You guys are so naive. You think mens' wives don’t lust about the sharp-dressed preachers? There are many men who have lost their wives to other men because the woman gave in to lust and temptation. Maybe thats why you dress that way, to get their attention.
Why do you dress to impress? Oh, wait, don't tell me, for "testimony's sake" right? You think they don’t look at you? You think women don’t look at some other guys “john brown hind parts” as they walk by? If I may speak plainly, it makes no difference if a young woman has a dress or slacks on, if a young man and a young woman are given in to their own lusts, either one of those articles will be coming off. Point being, lust continues even if a woman is dressed godly! How many church kids on Sunday afternoon have been caught sneaking kisses in backyards? Men will lust whether they are covered or not.
So to wrap all this up, some men inordinately preach on such topics. Paul mentioned a woman's clothing one time! Just once! And we covered what he said about it. I have heard womens dress preached on in a Missions Conference over the span of 4 days, 3 times from 3 different men. I have heard entire messages on it at several different occasions in several different cities and churches. I have heard hours of teaching and preaching on godly dress. Jesus didn’t mention it at all!
So why do you harp on it so much?
With continual examples, obvious patterns and oft-used phrases found in the Pauline epistles, why not focus on being “void of offense”! The Lord and Paul dealt with that issue many more times than a woman’s dress, but for you mum's the word.
Why not focus on preaching a gospel of Christ without charge? He mentions this several times more then he told people to repent of their immoral short miniskirts! Why not preach on being a cheerful giver, being hospitable? This was echoed throughout the pages of the NT more than “put some clothes on you painted up Jezebel!” We have another 100 patterns seen in Romans through Philemon so why do men incessantly, inordinately waste time on such dribble??
In all the years I have been saved, I have never heard an Independent Baptist preacher even remotely come close to dealing with any such patterns seen in the NT that I listed above. Why?
Some of those things show up with more consistency and with more emphatic mention than dress and women’s apparel! Why not ever mention or preach on the fruits of the spirit from Galatians 5?
The problem is it doesn’t fit your mold. If you preached on these things you can’t rebuke the women as much. You couldn't preach with such a dictator-like authority as much. You couldn’t provoke men to conflict as much so you can seem to have the superior Bible knowledge and preeminence. You couldn’t self promote your ministries as much. You could’t be as confrontational, divisive, or militant as you would like to be.
These men, these modern Baptist preachers, have simply become peevish and devious with God’s Holy Book; taking one or many little sections, perpetuating it as law and standard, and dealing with it consistently and often while excluding sincere milk that is good for the use of edifying. Shame on them for doing so, shame on us for suffering them so.
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