By
Lydia Jane
Greetings to my family in Christ,
I am writing today to address the topic of modesty for young
women. I have addressed the issue of modesty somewhat when I wrote a post responding
to a meme I saw that I did not agree with. (https://made4hisglorysite.wordpress.com/2016/11/02/please-just-stop/)
This time, however, I would like to show a more in depth perspective of modesty
for the young Christian woman specifically. Some of you who may be reading this
might be thinking, “Here we go, another let’s tell women about modesty post.” Perhaps
you may even be asking, “Why don’t these Christian bloggers ever address
modesty for men?” For those who are thinking the former that this is just
another modesty post, I hope you will not dismiss the issue as it will always
be an issue as long as the world is fallen, and for those who wonder why the
modesty issue is not being addressed for men, there are those who do or have
addressed that topic, but for now I will be addressing the young women, as I
have had to learn the lesson of modesty myself as a young lady in Christ. I
thank you for taking the time to read this, and I pray God uses this blog post
to strengthen and encourage you.
_______________________________________________________________
Modesty in the modern western world has a reputation of
being an old fashioned concept that has stuck around primarily for the
religious folk. Ironically, from what I have seen in my experience, those who
believe that it is old fashioned still push the concept as the thing “good
girls” do when raising their own daughters. Some are moving away from that
trend, but many in the secular society still prefer their precious baby girls
to hold to some idea of decency through modesty. While this may be the view of
the world, as Christians we are to have a different view of modesty in light of
God’s grace to us. Unfortunately, do to societal pressures we often have a hard
time viewing modesty for what it truly is. Yet, I believe that as long as we
are truly striving to be more like Christ we can always capture the true beauty
of real modesty.
So what is modesty?
Often when we think of modesty we typically think of
clothing styles. Yet, true modesty is more than that. Clothing (though how we
dress is important) is actually just a fragment of all modesty entails. For us Christians,
modesty is more than clothing. In fact, I believe the first thing we should
recognize (as it has helped me) is that modesty has a source. Modesty for
the believer is a calling on our lives from God. I am sure that many of you who
have been raised with Christian backgrounds are familiar with all of the
rhetoric concerning why you should dress modestly according to such and such
passage. However, if you are anything like I was then it feels like a burden
when you get to see all of your female secular role models, and girls around
your age, dressed in ways that would get you in trouble with your God fearing
elders. Yet, what helped me was when I began to see that it was not just a
matter of some passage of scripture said such and such, but realizing that the
scripture is the very word of God, and therefore God is the source, and God’s
commands are not burdensome. In fact the commands He has given us are an act of
His love, and if we remember that then the things He tells us to do is because
He loves us, it makes it easier for us to follow Him.
1 John 5:2
For this is the love
of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome.
Following God seems like a burden in any respect when we
forget that love is the driving force behind our Christian walk. God began that
love in our lives, by demonstrating His love towards us by suffering and dying for
us while we were still sinners. He was willing to sacrifice His life for us to
save us. For us Christians we should always strive to remember that love that
saved us in times when it feels hardest to follow what He said, including when
it comes to modesty. We should think if God can sacrifice His life in love for
us, we should be willing to be modest in our walk with Him especially if we say
we love Him. So, the source of our modesty is our God who loves us.
The second thing we should note about modesty is that true
modesty proceeds from the heart. It is a calling of God on our lives to
be modest, but modesty also shows where our hearts are. I can recall times in
my life where when I was most rebellious modesty slipped from my hands. I may
not have been as immodest as some women of the world, but I definitely was not
modest according to the standards of modesty I knew. It is easy for me to claim
all sorts of reasons why I chose to not be modest, but in hindsight my lack of
modesty really spoke of the time I was at a real struggle in my faith. My mind
just was not focused on God, and so modesty was not really something on my mind
at all. However, when I look at outfits from times I follow Christ from my
heart I always noticed one thing, modesty mattered to me. Even if I did not get
it right, I still cared that I did. I realize modesty is not about clothing
alone, as I mentioned before, but choosing modest clothing is often a
reflection of our faith as Christian women. I can say that at least for myself
personally. When I consider what I wear I often ask myself questions such as “Will
this intentionally cause men to stumble?” “If I wear this what will this say to
people about Christ?” I care about these things, because it is a sin to intentionally
cause others to stumble (Matthew 18:6),
and how people perceive Christ because of me matters. I do not want to
intentionally be the reason people mock God or His people. God gave us modesty
as a sign of our dignity in Him.
Those are essentially the two major components of modesty.
Modesty is a command from God’s heart, and an act of love for others that
proceeds from our hearts.
So how does clothing
play into modesty?
As I mentioned earlier clothing is a part of modesty. It is
not all there is, but it is important. Clothing ultimately is the reflection of the
heart, so the question then becomes “What do we wear?” Now there are
some groups of believers who believe women should only where dresses, and some
who are okay with pants outfits, others say anything that is at least knee
length and unrevealing is acceptable, and the list goes on. So what do we do with
a multitude of information?
I think first we need to consider that modest clothing has a
cultural aspect to it. What is considered modest can vary from culture to
culture, and it is often determined by what is considered sexual or not. Here
in the west when we see clothing as modest there is a general agreement that
our modesty covers the whole torso. There are places in the world where modesty
is a lot less in covering. In fact, I remember learning of a tribe of people
that were completely naked, but assigned modesty as making sure the opening of
a female’s genitalia was covered when she was sitting down. I personally would
not agree with that, and I would argue that that is evidence of how far mankind
has fallen, but I digress as that is another topic for another day. So, back to
my point there is some cultural aspect to modesty. In the United States, where
I live, we can see modesty shift from group to group. Navigating all of these
different things seems difficult, but I believe it is best if I come from
personal experience when it comes to how I have navigated modesty and perhaps
it will help you.
When it came to modesty in my life there seemed to be two
sets of modesty; 1) Church modesty, how I should perceive modesty in the church
setting and 2) Home and social modesty, how I should perceive modesty in pretty
much any setting that was not church.
When I was younger, like most young people, my elders were
the primary enforcers of my dress code; and I feel it is important to take note
of that first. At the time, my family went to churches where dresses were the
standard for girls. I remember I had developed a love hate relationship with
dresses, because while dresses were pretty and made me feel just as pretty for
a little girl, I was chastised for running around and playing in them. I laugh
looking back on it, but at the time it irked me to no end. Yet, when I was not
at church I was allowed to wear pants. I liked my pants, because I could play
in them without getting in trouble. In the summers I used to even wear shorts. (I
stopped wearing shorts when I grew older, because my figure alone was enough to
turn those things into a scandal.) I remember most tops were acceptable the only
rule was to be careful not to show any cleavage or my midriff. The cleavage rule
was easy to follow, but I struggled with the midriff rule because I liked the
look of crop tops and belly shirts. (I am not sure if the official name of that
style was belly shirts, but I remember that is what we called it when girls
tied up their shirts in a knot.) That is how it was for me, a fight against
culture that my parents were trying to instill. It wasn’t until after I came to
Christ for myself, and started to develop a love for God that I started to look
at modesty in a different light. I remember I stopped fighting with the love of
the cropped look, but I still had an issue with always wearing dresses to
church. Then came the day, I was a teenager at this time, my family started
attending a new church and my parents told me I didn’t have to wear dresses if
I didn’t want to. I remember I couldn’t put on jeans fast enough for church
service. I finally was free to play games with others after service. It was
great! Yet, this became what was the first time I entered the world of a
morally gray modesty; where my church and social modesty were fused into one.
Then there were days when my family visited other churches and they wanted to
encourage me to put on dresses again, and I wondered “Why?” I had finally been
freed from having to, and that showed me I did not need to where dresses to be
engaged in my faith life at church. My parents would try to explain at these
other churches they preferred a more formal modesty, and all I could think was
I would listen to them, but that to me was just stupid.
It wasn’t until sometime later that I realized the issue of
conforming to various modesty styles for different groups was a God honoring
thing. While my wearing jeans was not sinful for me, it was a matter of
Christian liberty, it could potentially harm the faith of others. In Romans 14 the same issue had already
been addressed. While the issue of modesty is not specifically mentioned in
that passage, it does call us to not pass judgment on the opinions of those who
are different in their thoughts on cultural engagement, which I clearly did by
thinking they were “stupid”, and by thinking my wearing jeans was better than
their desire for dresses. Instead we are called to do as they would, so that we
do not hinder their faith in Christ. I learned I was not better than the dress
wearers, and that they were doing what they could to grow in Christ and obey
Him just like I was.
That is how I learned the answer to what do I wear. The
answer is always whatever is befitting the occasion that will not intentionally
cause others to stumble. It is an act of love for all. In doing so I am saying,
I care enough about your faith that I place you over my desire to wear certain
styles.
Philippians 2:3-4
Do nothing from
selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as
more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal
interests, but also for the interests of others.
God bless you all in
the love of Christ,
Lydia Jane
About the author:
Lydia Jane is a Christian blogger from the USA. You can follow her blog at https://made4hisglorysite.wordpress.com/
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