We are God's own.  And because we are His, there is proper worship, proper dress, proper order, and proper conduct.

Proper worship is not mere liturgical protocol or decorum but worship "in spirit and truth." (John 4:23-24)  Proper worship centers in Christ who claims us as His own, provides for us, and serves His church.  This informs and shapes how we respond in liturgy and song.

Proper dress is not about getting a proper shoe size or just making sure your outfit is tasteful.  Rather, it is the acknowledgement that even with our dress we confess we belong to God.  Such belonging informs how a man will adorn his worship or a woman adorns her head.

The proper order St. Paul teaches in which men are given authority and women the province of childbearing is not some crazy contrivance of God.  He intends only our good.  We are not entitled to revise creation. God owns the patent on humanity.

Failure comes when people go their own way and decide for themselves what is proper.  Sin redefines male and female.  Sin ignores God's boundaries.  Sin dumps the designs of God.  This is happening right now with the sacrilege of so-called same-sex marriage which makes the bold claim, "Nobody owns me.  I decide what is proper."

Yet, equally offensive is the condescension of a man who expects women to be voiceless or releases himself from ever changing a diaper in the twisted idea that his privilege to exercise authority means personal autonomy.  God never intended any such thing.  A man belongs to God, and only then can he exercise authority properly in the service of women, the church, and the world.

The assertion, "I'm nobody's property; I am my own," is nothing new.  Eve was the first feminist.  She advocated that the limitations God set would not apply to her.  She stood up for herself, took control, shuffled God's Word to the bottom, and made an absolute mess while Adam himself committed the impropriety of doing nothing and saying nothing. 

Their sin was improper, and so is ours.  

That which is improper has nothing to do with etiquette or not speaking proper English.  It is whatever severs us from God.

  The root idea of "proper" is that of belonging.  It literally means "one's own."  The question is; who owns us?  Are we the devil's property?   Do we hold custody of ourselves?  No, First Corinthians 6 declares, "You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body."

The Spirit of God lives in the baptized Christian.  "The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children." (Romans 8:16)  We belong to Him.  We belong to Him completely.  Our prayer and praise belong to Him.  Our good works belong to Him.  Our nature and sphere of vocation as a man or woman belong to him.  Certainly, our salvation belongs to Him.

By virtue of our creation by God the Father, our redemption by God the Son, and our adoption by God the Holy Spirit, we are properly His and His alone. 

Luther wrote about God's proper work that He turns sinners into righteous Christians by having relinquished all His own rights, claims, and privileges.  What He owned, He gave.  What He earned, he credited to us.  And what He won, God declares yours.

God thereby creates righteous, peaceful, patient, merciful, truthful, kind, joyful, wise, and healthy people who are His new creation.

"The proper work," Luther said, "is to proclaim the gospel, which is God's grace, through which He freely gives to all men and women peace, righteousness and truth, mitigating all His wrath."

This is the sweet, friendly gospel, and the one who hears it will find it impossible not to rejoice in his or her worship, in one's vocation and conduct, and even in one's dress in keeping with what is holy.  In all these things we confess, "I am not my own.  I was bought with a price -- by Christ, fit and proper."