Modesty and the Bible

Somewhere along the way the church took the entire Bible’s desire for inward transformation and turned topics like modesty exclusively into dress codes for woman. 

The conversation spiraled from Biblical concepts and historical accuracy into length of clothing, how tight is allowed, how low or high is correct, and what exactly is too revealing.  Almost every sermon on modesty ended up being preached to the same choir. 

Women.

The irony of this is most of the ones I have seen are preached by a man with a $10,000 watch, or a man talking about how influential he is, or sharing his personal wealth through the items he owns, somehow never considering that in that moment he might be the most immodest in that room. 

If we hear something enough it becomes a core truth, yet maybe we don’t understand modesty as well as we thought.  You can study the words of Scripture and say all the right things, but concept of modesty in the Bible was never just to woman, and never just relegated to clothing. 

Clothing has always been cultural.  There is an evolution and progression throughout Scripture.  Tunics were worn by pagan cultures, tassels as well, so the Bible is adopting what is already there and then counseling how to be set apart or holy for God.  This is important, many see modesty as clothing, and thus go back to a culture one hundred plus years ago to make them feel like they are accomplishing the biblical concept.  This simply isn’t the case.

We have allowed something that was to confront far more than our attire into something that allows us to be the fashion police, and the Bible doesn’t allow us to do that.

Modesty Before Paul

Every conversation on modesty normally utilizes 1 Timothy as the proof text.    I want to start earlier.  After all, Paul was a trained Pharisees from the house of Hillel prior to his conversion in Christ.

O people, the Lord has told you what is good,
    and this is what he requires of you:
to do what is right, to love mercy,
    and to walk humbly with your God.

-              Micah 6:8

That phrase “walk humbly” comes from:

וְהַצְנֵעַ לֶכֶת — vehatznea lekhet

The root is צנע — tsanaʿ.

The Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon connects it with being modest or humble. It carries the idea of walking carefully, humbly, discreetly before God.

This passage isn’t about a woman, it’s about humanity.  There isn’t a dress code attached to the previous verses, clothing isn’t a part of the conversation.  It’s about the relationship and walk with God as a whole.

אָדָם — higgid lekha adam

“He has told you, O adam…”

Humanity, not women.  To have a conversation about biblical modesty it must start with humanity, not with one gender.  It never started talking about clothing, or woman, it started humanity.  An argument could be made that it actually started with the Adam. 

Yet I’m not sure that is relevant to today’s article.  I can assure you that the topic of modesty was never primarily about hiding portions of the female body or placing the burden upon a woman for a man’s lustfulness.  If this could work, if this was the case, we wouldn’t see the horrific stats in Islam and other far more clothing based modest culture that we do.  No amount of physical covering deals with a internal heart problem. 

And if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It’s better to enter eternal life with only one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell. – Matthew 18:7

This never places the burden upon someone else to cover up more, it tells you to cut out more. 

Modesty was always supposed to be about humbling a human heart. 

It’s bigger than your Wardrobe

The concept of modesty in Hebrew becomes associated with the Jewish though of “Tzniut.”

If you have ever been around an orthodox you’ve probably heard “tzniut” discussed in relation to clothing.  Judaism absolutely associates traditions with appropriate dress.  These are extensions of the various roles, separations, and practices give to a man verse a female.  Things like head coverings, the sheet that separates men from woman in the synagogue and others.

Yet the concept of “tzniut” is bigger than clothing. 

The Jewish Theological Seminary points out that the earliest biblical usage deals with humility of character. Later Jewish teaching applied modesty to eating, drinking, walking, speaking, bathing, clothing, and even doing good deeds.

Rabbi Maurice Lamm likewise described tzniut through ideas such as modesty, reserve, privacy, and simplicity—and specifically acknowledged it as a virtue for men as well as women.

Modesty isn't simply:

How much of your body can people see?

It also includes:

-              Why does everyone need to see everything about your life?

-              Why does everyone need to know what you purchased?

-              Why does everybody need to know how much it costs?

-              Why does everybody need to know that you fasted?

-              Why does everybody need to know how spiritual you are?

-              Why does everybody need to know how successful you are?

This makes our social media world seem lacking in modesty.  At some point we have to realize that wearing a bed sheet for clothing means nothing if attention becomes your appetite.  If you are starving for attention, focusing only on woman’s clothing just dresses gluttony, and pride up in Christian theology and language. 

Now Enter Paul

 9 And 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. 10 For women who claim to be devoted to God should make themselves attractive by the good things they do.  

-              1 Timothy 2:9-10

When it comes to the Western church we normally hear “modesty” and think skin.  This comes from years of purity culture preaching within the church.  I consider myself conservative in my approach to theology, raising children, and practices.  Yet the current testimonies, facts, and stories coming out the purity culture, the abusive leadership, the damage that has been done to young men and woman is horrific. 

In my years of the Messianic movement, I heard and saw the same things.  The ones who made their children where the most covering of skin attire ended up testifying of horrible abuse within the house.  This includes ministries who promote heavy female outward based “clothing modesty” only for one day to have their skeletons revealed at the depravity of abuse and sexual issues.  You cannot irradicate sin by making someone else do something.  Sin can only be conquered by you taking responsibility for your issues.

We think “skin” but Paul thought something else.

Paul links character, wealth, status, and self-control to modesty.  Not how much skin is or isn’t’ revealed. 

Look at the examples he uses hair, gold, pearls, expensive clothing, or gawdy clothing.  Paul’s focus isn’t whether the woman had “enough” clothing on he is describing someone walking into the gathering following the Roman culture.  In that culture these things said something, and Paul is describing a woman who wants everyone to know: I have money, I have status, I’m important, look at me. 

This verse in context casts doubt on the majority of our modesty sermons.  We have spent decades telling woman how much skin the line for male lust is, while building entire Christian cultures based upon the very thing Paul was warning us about. 

Church culture’s that focus on the cars, shoes, house, followers, success.  You can cover cleavage and still expose pride.

Examining the Greek

Paul uses three important Greek words in this passage:

κόσμιος — kosmios

αἰδώς — aidōs

σωφροσύνη — sōphrosynē

The first, kosmios, carries the idea of being respectable, appropriate, orderly, and becoming.  Nothing in this concept is revolutionary. 

But let us keep reading because in the very next chapter Paul starts talking to Timothy about male overseers. 

“So a church leader must be a man whose life is above reproach. He must be faithful to his wife.[a] He must exercise self-control, live wisely, and have a good reputation. He must enjoy having guests in his home, and he must be able to teach.”

-              1 Timothy 3:2

That same word kosmios is used here to address men.  Paul uses it in chapter 2 to address women and turns around in chapter 3 and requires it of male leadership in the church.

Modesty in the letters of Paul cannot be primarily taught to woman, when Paul equally talks to both genders.

This One Stings

Paul also uses sōphrosynē.  This is moderation, soundness of mind, and restraint.  You cannot talk about Biblical modesty as a dress code and what someone else must do without the fact that Paul tells us we must confront ourselves. 

You cannot talk about what a woman wears using Paul’s words without confronting your own eyes, desires, ego, spending, need for affirmation, and sexuality.  Paul isn’t placing a dress code to measure the body; he is telling us to confront the forces that measure and examine our heart. 

Religious debates continuously choose the measuring stick and ruler and Jesus continues to tell us you examine the heart.  You can cover every hair fiber down to you toes and still be a sinner.  Gluttony, lust, ego, pride, and all manners of evil don’t disappear because you put a blanket over it. 

The Cart Before the Horse

I have heard for decades: “Ladies, you need to dress modestly because you don’t want to cause your brother to stumble.”

There is absolutely a biblical principle of loving your brother or sister enough to consider how your behavior affects them.  Yet here is how this teaching has evolved in many circles.

Men cannot control themselves, so women must control themselves for them.

Absolutely not.  When Jesus is recorded in Matthew chapter 5 talking about lust, He puts the full responsibility squarely upon the person who is doing the looking, not the person being looked at.

This is the opposite of most modesty and purity teachings. 

“If your eye causes you to stumble” Jesus doesn’t tell you to assure her skirt was long enough,  or her shirt was high enough.  He puts the responsibility where the sin happens, not on her, on you.

Jesus doesn’t rebuke her; He tells him to deal with his eye.

This isn’t a popular message because it means you cannot project your issues onto someone else who has done nothing wrong.  You cannot blame someone else’s body because you refused to disciple and conquer your own body. 

Men and women are invited to pursue holiness, and self-control.  If a man wants to lead he should probably tackle his own demons before trying to cast out someone else’s.

You Are Fully Clothed and Complete Immodest

Isalm and many other cultures have already proved that a woman can walk into a church covered from head to toe and covered in a bed sheet type of fabric and people would call her modest. This has done nothing to stop lust.

Yet weekly women walk into church covered from neck to ankles in designer clothing, wearing thousands of dollars of jewelry, and everyone know immediately she is wealthy. 

We need to have an actual biblical modesty conversation. 

A man walks into church wearing an expensive watch, shoes, and spends twenty minutes in the lobby talking about the deals he closed this week, people are impressed, and he is impressed with himself.

Meanwhile, others judge the mismatched family in Goodwill hand me downs as barely making it. 

We need to have an actual biblical modesty conversation. 

Pastors and worship leaders can go on and on about how important they are, their successes, and pull all the attention away from the very one that is important.

We need to have an actual biblical modesty conversation. 

The church has an actual modesty problem:

-              You can be sexually modest and fiscally immodest.

-              You can be fiscally modest and spiritually immodest.

-              You can be physically covered and completely consumed with being seen. 

Modesty isn’t asking can people see me, it’s asking why do you need them to see you?  This is way more than how much skin you show.

Jesus and the Topic of Modesty

In Matthew’s gospel chapter 6 Jesus talks about giving, praying, fasting.  These three spiritual activities are crucial to the Christian faith, yet Jesus warns that they can be done apart from His will and desire.

He warns doing them so people can see you.  You can pray immodestly, fast immodestly, and give immodestly.  Let that sink in for a second, you can do something completely rigoutes for complete self-centered reasons. 

Jesus says, it’s nobody’s business.  Pray in secret, give in secret, fast in secret.  Stop looking for accolades for the secret times. 

Stop turning your devotion to God into an advertisement for yourself.  This is modesty.  This is where our attention should be, not the length of one’s shorts. 

Peter Backs this up

In 1 Peter chapter 3 Peter tells a woman to not make her beauty about elaborate hairstyles, gold and clothing.  She should pay attention to the hidden person in the heart. 

 It’s not a Gospel only concept of inward to outward.  This concept starts in Genesis.  Peter continues this refocusing on the inside rather than the outside.  Both have roles and value, but humanity has always painted lipstick on the outside while remaining a pig on the inside.

Abstinence moves to deliverance when outward behavior accompanies inward transformation.   You can fix the outside temporarily, but if the heart remains immodest your just one step away from destruction.

We need to balance this out in Christianity.  Christian modesty teaching has created something the Scripture speaks against shame over the human body. 

Your body isn’t dirty, evil.  Your sexuality isn’t dirty or evil.  Your beauty is dirty or evil.  God created all of them and gave them to us to be used for the glory of His kingdom, character and name. 

If your body, sexuality, or beauty were evil or dirty than God lied in Genesis 2 when he says the man and woman were naked and not ashamed. 

Then comes sin.

Your body is shameful and therefore hide it, is the underlying message of many of the modesty teachings.  This is not biblical modesty.  Biblical modesty says your body has dignity, so honor it.  These are two totally different messages.

Could We Be Missing the Point?

When we relegate the topic of modesty to clothing, we miss the entire point.  The point is humility and who we are glorifying.  Remember Israel was to uphold the character and nature of a Holy God through humility. 

Biblical modesty is teaching us against self-display.  We aren’t to be attempting to get people to look at us, our bodies, accomplishments, spirituality, or ministries.  We are to walk in humility with God. 

This is where Micah is pointing us.  Do justice, love mercy, and walk in humility with God.  Biblical modesty is someone who has encountered Jesus and no longer needs to be the center of attention. 

They want Jesus to be the center of attention.

There is a choice in Front of us

We prefer rules because it makes it easier.  Yet when God gives us rules humanity looks for a Sinai loophole.  You can measure rules, you can assure you are within the proper boundaries.  Yet to relegate following God to rules misses the entire point of the Torah, Prophets and Gospels. 

They teach us to follow the ruler, then we measure our ego, pride, need for attention against the model of Jesus the ruler. 

He deserved all attention yet consistently went out of His way to point back to the Father not Himself. 

How does one measure the heart of a person giving generously while desperately wanting everyone to know?  How do you measure a man who blames a woman for his desires while never learning to practice discipline?  How do you measure a person who seems meek while secretly wanting applause?

There isn’t a ruler against those things.  This is why we need the Holy Spirit.  This makes the topic of modesty uncomfortable for all.

Yes, a Christian should dress modestly.  Men and women alike.  But the Bible never puts the emphasis there.  It tells us we should spend modestly, speak modestly, lead modestly, give modestly, carry our success modestly. 

You cannot cover your body more modestly while carrying all of the other things of life like a billboard.  The Bible isn’t emphasizing covering your body with modesty, it’s emphasizing living your life with more humility. 

Before we continue to teach and preach to women they need to dress in a certain way, maybe we should have the actual courage to ask a much more dangerous question…..

Am I living modestly?