Outward Holiness - Standards

Standards

  • Modest clothing (1 Tim. 2:9), which is defined as loose covering from the neck to below the knee in all normal body postures (Exod. 20:26; 28:42-43). This would also include the strict prohibition of mixed bathing or public swimming.
  • No use of jewelry or ornaments of gold, silver, and jewels for personal adornment (1 Tim. 2:9-10; 1 Pet. 3:1-6); some denominations will only allow the use of a wedding band or ring.
  • A distinction of the sexes in clothing, forbidding such style as slacks and pant suits for women (Deut. 22:5).
  • Christian men are to wear their hair short and Christian women must never cut their hair, wearing it long (1 Cor. 11:14-15).

Outward Holiness can also include the following which reveal an inward character:

  • Impeccable honesty (Prov. 11:1; Rom. 12:7)
  • Civil obedience (Rom. 13:1-7)
  • Subjection to parental authority (Eph. 6:1)
  • Submission to the spiritual authority (Heb. 13:17)
  • No profanity or vulgar joking (Eph. 4:29; 5:4; Col. 3:8)

Outward Holiness is almost extinct in theology and practice. Assemblies of God says, " a Christian has strong convictions against wearing jewelry, that conviction should be honored." Denominations that still practice Outward Holiness are Amish, Mennonites, Hutterites, Church of God, Church of God of Prophecy, Church of God (Restoration), International Pentecostal Holiness Church (few), The Apostolic Faith Church, United Pentecostal Church (oneness), Assemblies of the Lord Jesus Christ, Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ of the Apostolic Faith, Wesleyan Holiness, True Jesus Church, Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, Independent Fundamental Baptist, the Seventh-Day Adventist Church (Sabbatarian), Apostolic Assembly of the Faith in Christ Jesus (Spanish oneness), Netherlands Reformed Congregations, Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland, New Testament Christian Churches of America, House of Prayer Christian Church, Independent Holiness Church (Canada), Calvary Holiness Church, Charity Christian Fellowship, and the Pentecostal Fire-Baptized Holiness Church.

Read more about this topic:  Outward Holiness

Famous quotes containing the word standards:

    “The technologist was the final guise of the white missionary, industrialization the last gospel of a dying race and living standards a substitute for a purpose in living.”
    —Max Frisch (1911–1991)

    “In this nation I see tens of millions of its citizens, a substantial part of its whole population, who at this very moment are denied the greater part of what the very lowest standards of today call the necessities of life. I see one third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished. The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much, it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”
    —Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)

    “That’s the great danger of sectarian opinions, they always accept the formulas of past events as useful for the measurement of future events and they never are, if you have high standards of accuracy.”
    —John Dos Passos (1896–1970)