Modesty - Part 1

I can’t write the date of September 7 without remembering that it was 34 years ago today that I became a mother! And what a wonderful ride it has been! Happy Birthday, Tim!

I told you last week that I was going to talk about modesty today, and I will. I briefly covered some things related to this topic on June 2 when I was covering Titus 2. However, since then I did some more extensive study on the topic and taught it in our church Ladies Bible Study, so I want to cover it more thoroughly now.

This is a topic about which I am VERY passionate, and I pray that I can pass some of that passion on to those who read this. I first of all want to remind all of us that God created the genders and He created marriage and the normal attraction between the genders. He created men to be visually stimulated and to be attracted to females in a physical way in order that His design for marriage and reproduction might be fulfilled. (Genesis 2:24 and Malachi 2:15) He created females to be responsive and very relational in order that they might be able to love their husbands and nurture the children that are God’s intended fruit of that marriage union. So, the fact that men respond to the sensual manner of dress among women that we see flaunted so brazenly in our culture, is not a surprise to God and it shouldn’t be a surprise to us. It should however, be a caution to us as women to be careful how we dress so as not to defraud our Christian brothers (or those outside the Body who don’t even know how to control the stimulation they receive from seeing such things). (Just a note here on what it means to defraud someone – It is like placing several bowls of fine chocolate around my house and then telling me that I can’t have any! When we “tease” our Brothers by what we wear, but then there is no way, either righteously or any other way they can act upon their desires, we are defrauding them!)

Now one thing that we need to make perfectly clear is that men are totally and solely responsible for any acts of immorality that they commit! Women, however, sin when they consciously or carelessly place temptation before men (defraud) so as to cause them to lust sinfully! (I Thessalonians 4:1-6)

I would like to mention a few comments I heard on a tape called “Not Even a Hint” by Joshua Harris. (If you think you are familiar with that name, I will remind you that he is the young man who wrote the book, “I Kissed Dating Good-Bye”.) I trust that these thoughts stated by him will help make the case for why this is such an important issue and why we as Christian women need to be educated on this topic. I fear that, though some flaunt their bodies knowingly before men, many are just plain not aware of or simply don’t care how this affects men or of the mandates in Scripture concerning this very important issue!

Here are the statements from the tape, and though maybe not verbatim, they are close to direct quotes:
1. “Modesty is about saving the delight of your body for ONE man, your husband.”
2. “Modesty is a matter of the Heart, Life, and Manner of dress.”
3. “God has given women a precious and powerful gift.”
4. “The purity God calls us to is a ‘gift’ for us.”
5. “Sin has infected and affected everything that God created.”
6. “Our culture encourages women to flaunt their sexuality! Fashion trends exploit sexuality and emphasize sexual parts of the body.”
7. “You are the only person on this planet who can protect your spouse sexually.”
8. Then Josh quoted Al Mohler (President of the Southern Baptist Convention): “Men are tempted to give themselves to pornography, while women are tempted to commit pornography.” (Josh Harris: “When women dress in such a way so as to arouse sexual desire in a man, they are committing pornography.”)

My heart desires to share this material in a straightforward manner so as to cause us to be aware of the problem and to build up a love and concern for our Christian brothers that will manifest itself in our desire to protect them in any way we can and help to build them up spiritually (Romans 15:1; Hebrews 10:24) and not break down their defenses. Please pray about your response to this and let’s search the Scripture to see how we can accomplish this goal. Next week I will give more specific guidelines and Scripture that will help us to grow in this very important area.