10.14.2026

Back in 1995, while my brother was in a dental workshop in New Jersey, my nephew and I took the train to New York City. This picture was taken from the Ferry to the Statue of Liberty (see the World Trade Center in the background?) and somewhere I have a better picture than this of the people who were on the ferry. I was surprised how many were from the Middle East. We struck up a conversation with a Pakistani general who showed us how to identify the particular religious sect and/or the nationality of the Middle Easterners by their clothes.  

As Christians, we reject that sort of outward identification. Well . . . most of us do. There are some groups I’ve known over the years who really pride themselves by the way you can identify them. Around here, it’s usually by the women’s hairstyle and dress, but I’ve also run-into “2 color” Christians, who only wear black and white. Then there are the “3 color” Christians, who wear blue, black, and white. There may be four . . . I just haven’t run into them!

These are identity markers. Whether a burqa or sari or a habit or a blue jean skirt and big hair, the clothing is specifically chosen to set the wearer apart from everyone else.  

In New Testament times, the mode of dress indicated your class, but since in Christ there is neither “Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female,” believers didn’t want to identify any way other than Christian. And while there are injunctions in the New Testament about how women should dress (particularly in II Timothy where Paul says women shouldn’t dress like worshipers of Artemis),  the early believers were very conscious NOT to dress in a way to make themselves stand out. 

For one thing, being an obvious Christian because of some outward marker was dangerous. Depending on who was in charge, Christians could lose their jobs or even their heads! But equally important was they avoided anything (including clothes) that would create division in the church, and so they sought to dress in a completely neutral way. 

Yes, a Christian man might be a Roman senator, but as a Christian, he chose not to go about in Senatorial robes in order to show his unity with a poor widow or his slave brother or sister. 

Christianity wasn’t worn as a badge. Nor was it spread through knocking on doors, accosting people in the streets, or through revivals and campaigns of any sort. Christianity wasn’t spread by any overt actions at all.

Instead, Christianity spread by faithful Christians living faithfully and patiently allowing God to do the work both in them and through them. 

As I wrote last week, they didn’t feel called to convert the world but to be the world converted by Jesus. 

And the key to being the world converted by Jesus was the way they faithfully lived for Jesus. They put into flesh the kingdom of God. When they took care of the needy, or brought an orphan into their home, or welcomed the stranger, or when different classes of people sat down to a meal, these were sure signs that the “kingdom of God has come near.” 

One of the ways faithfulness was ingrained in early believers was through their “habitus.” The dictionary defines Habitus as the deeply ingrained habits, skills, dispositions, and ways of perceiving the world that people acquire through their upbringing and social environment. 

We all have a “habitus.” The difference is what informs our habitus!  Will it be Christ or will it be everything else that comes at us during the day. 

The early Christians believed their way of life was important because lifestyle was not only a product of belief, but it was also a display of what they truly believed. 

NOT their clothing; their way of living.

Over the next few weeks I want to explore that a little deeper and think about how the habitus of the early church can be used by us as 21st century believers.

Blessings,
Pastor Terry