“On Being Properly Dressed”
“Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you;
bind them around your neck;
write them on the tablet of your heart.” (Proverbs 3:3, English Standard Version)
I attend a very informal church. Old faded jeans and tee shirts are much more common than suits and ties. I like that. So you don’t have any nice, Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes? No problem! Really! Come as you are!
But sometimes, I like to be a rebel. So, I wear a nice shirt and a tie. It’s a cheap form of rebellion, but hey, I’m cheap!
Today, in particular, I decided to wear a nice shirt and tie. It didn’t hit me as to why I had done that until this evening. You see, I read Proverbs 3 this morning, and spent a bit of time meditating on 3:3. It talks about dressing up with love and faithfulness. We are to bind these qualities around the neck. I suppose that the modern metaphor would involve a necklace or a tie. Since I hated to borrow one of my wife’s necklaces, I opted for the tie.
Of course, Proverbs 3:3 is not speaking of mere outward adornment. It is talking about wearing “steadfast love and faithfulness.” But what do those terms mean?
Christine Roy Yoder points out that the expression “steadfast love and faithfulness” can refer either to God’s love and faithfulness or human love and faithfulness.[1] While Yoder regards as “more compelling” the idea that the phrase refers to God’s love and faithfulness,[2] I wonder if we have to choose. If God is loving and faithful, and if we are made in God’s image, why couldn’t there be an intentional double entendre here?
Wearing God’s love and faithfulness and our own, like a lovely necklace or a silk tie—now there is a wonderful way for all of us to be walking fashion plates.
But it isn’t enough to wear love and faithfulness externally. We are also encouraged to “inscribe them on our hearts.”
Whoa! Things are getting serious now!
Often those of us who are Christians tend to think of the Old Testament as only concerned with externals. Hardly! Like the New Testament, the Old Testament knows that the heart of the matter is the matter of the heart.
I have usually thought of the God’s grace and love working from the inside outward. In a sense, that is a good way of thinking about it.
However, I wonder if sometimes it doesn’t work the other way around. Sometimes, if we begin with external reminders of God’s love and faithfulness—and of the need for us to cultivate and demonstrate those same qualities—our heart can begin to change.
But
we can never be content with the merely external. It may be a good place to begin, but if we
stop there, we haven’t even made a beginning of the spiritual life.
[1] Christine Roy Yoder, Proverbs, Abingdon Old Testament Commentaries (Nashville: Abingdon, 2009),37-38.
[2] Ibid., 37.
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