It appears that only at the extremity of Israel's spiritual insensitivity did God startle them with Ezekiel's strange diet, Hosea's marriage, or Amos' choice of clothes. While the priests ministered in a prescribed ritual while wearing prescribed apparel, the New Testament knows no detailed church liturgy or any prescribed ceremony for the church's meetings or its observance of the Lord's supper. With the passing of the centuries we have received certain traditions guiding personal conduct, traditions in line with those observed in previous cultures. Two generations ago, the social arbiter was one Emily Post, whose book on etiquette was taken as an authority. She and all the others who write on etiquette are to be taken, not as lawgivers, but as observers, describing what they have seen as the expressions of good taste among community leaders.
Manners then are a sort of consensus of what constitutes decent living.
The writers stress two basic principles that underlie the traditions, thoughtfulness and common sense. In any age, to interrupt a conversation requires an apology for a breach of thoughtfulness. A table setting may seem arbitrary, but there is a commonsense logic in the placing of every piece. Custom then is what codifies thoughtfulness, and common sense in action, The traditions trace to a deeper impulse, the desire to express the importance of certain of life's moments. We now see that in the rented apparel at weddings and graduations.