Modesty & The Sin of Bathsheba: One Man’s Appeal

“Your brethren in Christ may be weak, and the devil does all he can do to weaken them further. They’re forced to live in a world where they are continually bombarded with sights, which are designed by the enemy of their souls to weaken their morals and destroy their purity of heart, and must Christian women help the devil to do his work? Must they make themselves a temptation to their brethren, even in the congregation of God?

“Oh that you women could understand the fierce and bitter conflict in the souls of your brethren when you arouse their desires by the careless display of your feminine beauty. Never again would you plead for your right to dress as you please.

The fact is you have no such right. You have no right to destroy by your careless dress, the brother for whom Christ died. “You were bought with a price and are not your own” (see 1 Corinthians 6:20).

You are duty bound to glorify God in your body, to clothe that body not as you will but as God wills, and a little love for the souls of your brethren would remove forever from your heart the desire to dress as you please.”

Article by an anonymous man:  “The Sin of Bathsheba” from Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh Demoss, Modesty:  Does God Really Care What I Wear

Modesty: Is There a Standard?

Modesty is a subject Christians have wrestled with, probably since the beginning.  It’s controversial, and different people, all confessing Christ, often come to distant conclusions about the subject.  One big mistake we make is to assume “modesty” only refers to clothing.  Not so.  But as far as it does include attire, is there a standard?

If we all agree that the Bible says, “In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with braided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array…” it is fair then to ask the question, “what’s the standard”?

In how many school student handbooks have you read:  “We feel it is important that the students wear appropriate clothing” without a qualification of “appropriate”?

I do not intend to launch a debate about specifics in this post. (I’ve got closed-toed shoe friends, and spaghetti strap friends, both of whom assume their standard is right.)  Suffice it to say, to “love the Lord with all your heart” is to earnestly desire obedience in all of life, reflecting such desire even in our appearance and demeanor.  To “love your neighbor as yourself” reinforces the earnestness with which we should seek to dress modestly.

I must give a hat-tip to our good friend Trey for his provoking words the other night during his family’s visit to our home.  Since then, I’ve concluded that something he said actually paints a pretty good standard for us, even though it includes no specifics about dress.

Trey explained that his father asked him to make two lists from Scripture:  characteristics of a virtuous wife and those opposite her.  In his in-depth study of a virtuous woman, he read (I think from John McArthur) about the root word translated “modesty” in 1 Timothy.

It comes from kosmios, originally taken from “kosmos” (where we get “cosmos” of course), with the literal meaning “to place in order, to arrange”.  He said that the word “kosmos”  is often used in Scripture to describe the  “reflection of the glory of God”.  What a glorious transfer, then, when we understand that a modest woman (dress, behavior, etc.) is to reflect the glory of God!

I don’t know about you, but that standard makes me look at my wardrobe a little differently.  It also makes me consider my speech, my very carriage, my thoughts (which come out of my mouth) my jewelry,  my conversation–all that encompasses being a woman.  To me, using this standard still allows freedom in one’s unique taste and style of clothing, while maintaining a decidedly strong focal point to guide.

I’m thinking of writing the question, “Do I reflect the glory of God” on my mirror.   (Yes, I’m painfully aware that I overuse winkies in my posts.)

Again, we miss it if we think that modesty only refers to dress, and we miss it if we think it doesn’t include dress.

***As a side note, a while back, I posted an interview by Lindsay, Trey’s sister.  You may want to check out the 3-part interview:

What’s a Girl to Do-Part 1

What’s a Girl to Do-Part 2

What’s a Girl to Do-Part 3

(Thank you again, Lindsay, Trey, Bo and Zhenis, for blessing our family with such delicious food and fellowship…and words that provoke!)

Woman as Home Builder: Faithfulness in Modesty

“In the marriage ceremony a woman vows that she will keep herself unto her husband as a woman in all the aspects of womanliness.  She is building a home when her womanliness, her sexuality, is such that not only her husband knows and can safely trust in her, but all the world knows–if they know her at all–that ‘there is a woman who belongs to one man’.

She does not flaunt her womanliness in the eyes of men in a flirtatious manner or in any other way that would cast down the image that she is the faithful wife of one man in all that she is as a woman.

It is so important that we do not say one thing in our vows and another thing in our lives.  It is so important when we have vowed to be faithful to Jesus Christ that in all of our lives bef0re the world we show forth that faithfulness.  If we vow faithfulness to Jesus Christ and do not show it forth, we live a lie.

The woman lies who vows at the marriage altar faithfulness to her husband–to the degree that she exerts her power over other men even in a minor matter, even in an “innocent”, flirtatious manner, even in the manner of her dress that she advertises to other men the peculiar relationships of her womanhood that belong only to her husband; to that extent, I say, she lives a lie.  I say this because it must be said in days like these.  I say it pleadingly, though I say it authoritatively, on the basis of the Word of God;  she who regards this thing in wisdom builds her house; she who disregards this–no matter how outwardly faithful she may be–tears it down with her hands.”      –R.J.  Rushdoony

Getting to the Heart of Modesty

Missy, at Somewhere in the Middle posted a great piece about what modesty means…

“Modesty is one of those Jell-O concepts. You try to pick it up, and it squishes fiendishly out between your fingers. 1 Timothy 2:9 commands women to dress modestly, but what does that actually mean when we’re getting dressed in the morning?”

read the rest at Getting to the Heart of Modesty.

Unless You’re Near the Water

Upon traversing America in the 1830s, French author and statesman Alexis de Toqueville attributed the extraordinary prosperity and growing greatness of the nation to “the superiority of their women,” who were protected by “punishing rape by death.” Continuing, he noted that

“no other crime is judged with the same inexorable severity by public opinion. There is reason for this: as the Americans think nothing more precious than a woman’s honor.” It was a time of chivalry, honor and modest dress. It was a time when a woman “could walk anywhere alone without fear, so great was men’s respect for their modesty.”

(Wendy Shalit, A Return to Modesty, Discovering the Lost Virtue, 1999, pages 39-40).

To the post where I confronted porn*graphy at my doctor’s office, I received this comment:

“I think your response to the article in the doctor’s office was a bit “over the top.” In fact, when I read it, I actually “rolled my eyes.”

(It was a cardboard stand-up ad, not an article.)

If this commenter is an unbeliever, I’m not surprised or really concerned about her reaction. If she was a Christian, however, I am. So I post this response, with genuine concern, for all the “eye-rollers”.

Based on the PROVEN fact that a few clothes are more seductive than none, we must define pornography. (And perhaps some would be more comfortable with the word “obscenity”, to which I see little difference, although I’m aware of their specific terms.)

By one definition I quickly searched obscenity is:

“Offensive to chastity or modesty; expressing or presenting to the mind or view something which delicacy, purity, and decency forbid to be exposed; impure; as, obscene language; obscene pictures.”

The swimsuit in the doctor’s office could have hardly been smaller without revealing “zones”. Sufficient, by definition, to label obscene.

This quote reveals a major shift in our principles:

“The earliest bathing suit may have possibly been an old smock resembling a kind of “bathing gown.” Modesty was the dictum with style not much of a consideration in those days.”

Our problem is that we have allowed definition based on the name of clothing. If it’s called a “swimsuit”, then it is acceptable attire. If it were a type of underwear (which I’m not going to name for fear of keywords), it is taboo…well, used to be. *sigh*

What constitutes pornography? Does a man view the human body differently depending on what he calls the attire? “This body over here–not provocative. She’s wearing a swimsuit. But this one…well, wow, um,…”

And we’ve done it in other areas!

“Abortion is murder”. Well, unless someone has been raped and then it’s not the same.”

“Divorce is wrong. Well, unless you’re not happy.”

“Barely covering your geni*als is obscenity. Well, unless you’re near the water.”

And one of the reasons I posted this subject is because I want to beg you to THINK. It’s something we simply don’t do. We’ve let others define what is acceptable or not; we’re like blind people, who, frankly, would sound stupid to, say, an alien. Imagine it:

“Well, this is a hammer. Unless you put it under a tree, and then it is a shovel. Hammer–shovel–hammer–shovel .”(holding it under the tree and removing it again.)

Doesn’t that sound senseless? But isn’t that what we’re doing? Just trying to stop this slippery slope!

I beg someone to reveal my error if you disagree.

Legalism, Again

We’ve been here before; the discussion of legalism. Legalism is the catch word now days meant to tear down any shred of conviction or standards in the believer’s life. Something came to me that I wanted to share…

I’ve noticed a common tendency, one I think is a big problem, among the legalist-accusing folks. ALMOST always, when I hear someone accuse another of legalism, the accuser asserts that “the legalist” is keeping rules or standards because he thinks it will make him more godly, and he expects others to keep his rules also. This last assertion is almost always an assumption. I’ve personally never heard anyone who is a “dresses only” lady tell others they must stop wearing pants to avoid being in sin. And I know quite a few.

As Mr. Phillips pointed out in the last post, some of the issues of ethics (birth control, education, etc) warrant careful study of the Scripture and may have definitive lines in a Christian’s life. I’m not even talking about those subjects here.

I’m using “modesty” for illustration purposes, since that’s one of the most common areas of disagreement among Christians. This thought can be applied to any topic.

I am defending those who are accused of legalism. But hear me…I’m not defending it because it is so personal to myself. I love dresses, I love femininity, and I wear a lot of dresses. But we do not have a strict, “dress only” code in our home. Just want you to understand that so you can see that I speak from a less biased starting point than you may think.

Everyone agrees that the Bible says “dress modestly”. What we don’t agree on is the definition of modesty.

So when one family decides to “err on the side of caution” as a reader pointed out in the last post, why are they so prone to be called legalists? (By the way, dresses have as much to do with simple femininity as they do modesty for those who wear them…)

For illustrations sake, consider the command: “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” Again, agreed.

I know many couples, including my husband and me, who “err on the side of caution” in this area. Barring an impossible situation, we’ve just made some RULES, across the board, to keep us above reproach and temptation. Stuff like not allowing ourselves in the position of being alone with someone else, not having exclusive friendships with members of the opposite sex, etc.

These RULES are not written in Scripture. They are our own standards to protect from potentially harmful consequences. They still do not make us immune to sin, but they represent a deep honor and desire to do all we can to remain faithful to our vows.

I submit that many “dress only” families subscribe to a similar concept. Would you call me a legalist because I purposely avoid being together, alone with another man? Why not? Isn’t that a “man-made” rule?

Could I remain faithful to my spouse if we didn’t have those rules? More than likely, yes. So the rule in itself is not where my trust is. The rule is simply a visible guideline that keeps us from creeping, accidentally over into forbidden territory.

And if a lady wears dresses only simply for the sake of feminity, how tragic the act of being called a legalist! It would be the same as being called a legalist because you choose to only wear “warm” colors after the beauty consultant told you those were the most flattering.

I would hope that those of you who have different standards of modesty would reconsider your thoughts of legalism toward others. Understand what legalism is, and understand that you cannot, under most conditions, accurately label someone a legalist.

In Scripture, if someone had a higher standard about something not explicitly written, the “lower standard” people were to submit to the others for the sake of not offending a weaker conscience.

Just something to think about