An article on modesty

I wrote this for our April church newsletter. No one has thrown anything at me yet...


It is spring once again. Time for warmer temperatures. Time to shed those sweaters and pull out the spring and summer clothes. Time for short shorts, tank tops, bikinis---wait a minute!!! What about modesty?

Modesty?? Have you been shopping lately? How can a person be modest these days? And modesty isn’t what it used to be. As long as your clothes are not as bare or as tight as the world’s standard, you are modest. Right??

What does the bible say? 1 Timothy 2:9 says “I want women to be modest in their appearance. They should wear decent and appropriate clothing and not draw attention to themselves by the way they fix their hair or by wearing gold or pearls or expensive clothes (NLT). The key to this verse is not “don’t fix your hair or wear fancy clothes”. It is to not call attention to yourself through your outward appearance or put fashion before God.

Jesus said that if a man looks at a woman to lust after her, he has already committed adultery in his heart. Both 1 John and Romans tell us not to set “stumbling blocks before our brothers”. If you are accentuating certain body parts with your clothing, you are inviting people to look at those parts. Are you causing someone to stumble? The NLT version of 1 Peter 2:12 says “Be careful to live properly among your unbelieving neighbors. Then even if they accuse you of doing wrong, they will see your honorable behavior, and they will give honor to God when he judges the world.”

In our over sexualized, over commercialized world, modesty can be hard. It is hard to find clothing even for little girls that is modest. It is also hard to ignore fashion. We don’t want to look frumpy and ugly! But it is important to think when we are shopping, or dressing—is this appropriate for a Christian? There are many rules out there about what may be considered modest—but the bible doesn’t have these rules. We do not have rules that say “no makeup, dresses only, dresses to the ankle”. And I do not believe any of those things. But people are so desensitized by the culture today that we do not even realize that we may be distracting or tempting others or mocking our own faith. We need to examine ourselves and ask—is this appropriate, am I trying to make people look at me, am I making it hard for a man NOT to look at me?? And we need to remember that modesty is not just for church services, it should be something we think of out in the world so we do not tarnish our witness for Jesus.

I like the definition of modesty that says “modesty is humility expressed in dress, a desire to serve others, neither promoting nor provoking sensuality or lust”. If our hearts are really modest, then our dress, speech, and attitudes will reflect that. We have a gospel mission to preach Christ and live in a way that is consistent with our profession of faith. It is true that “Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart” (1 Samuel 16-7). God does care more about our heart than our appearance, but MAN looks at the outward appearance—we all judge each other by appearance, like it or not. So, this time of year, when we pull out those clothes for warmer weather, it may be time to ask ourselves if we are pleasing to God or are we trying to please man--or just ourselves.