[Faith-talk] Daily Thought for Saturday, August 23, 2014

[Paul]

Hello and good day to most of you once again.  I hope that your day is going well, by God's matchless grace and His providential care.

As stated earlier in the day, today's article is dedicated to the ladies, so I won't make any comments here.  However if you wish to discuss this piece among your circles, whether off line or online, be my guest.  The article in question was written by Dorcas Hieropolis and is entitled "Adorning Ourselves for God" which originally appeared in the January 2014 issue of a British Christian magazine called "Evangelicals Now." It is rendered as follows:

Female modesty has been a hot topic for a long time.

Recently both burquas and bare breasts have become weapons in the fight against misogyny; as I write, Miley Cyrus's "twerking" is still front page news.  There's plenty of rhetoric about rights and liberty, empowerment and exploitation, and everybody has an opinion.  Maybe you have joined in expressing disgust at scantily clad women in pop videos.  Maybe you too have shaken your head at the niqabs in schools or courts or hospitals.  But if either extreme is unacceptable, what is right in regard to modesty and how do we relate to our deeply confused and conflicted culture?

Heart Attitude

There is plenty of debate about the surprisingly few Qur'anic verses which discuss veiling.  Many would say that the practice has roots in historic customs more to do with rank in society and separation of the sexes than in any divine mandate.  But whatever the roots of the practice, veiling and the command for Muslim women and men to cast their eyes down are intended to prevent sexual interest.  Muslim women say how they feel protected and safe within their covering; they feel free from the hostile and sexual gaze of men.  Christian modesty, however, is more than this; it is more than a marker between believer and unbeliever, more than a protection for the wearer or viewer, more than a traditional practice or contemporary radicalism.  Christian modesty is first and foremost an attitude of heart.

Our public face

When Paul teaches Timothy to instruct women to "dress modestly, with decency and propriety, adorning themselves, not with elaborate hairstyles or gold or expensive clothes" (2 Timothy 2:9-10) his focus is not on sexual attraction but on the heart attitude of the woman tempted to put her trust in outward show.  Clothes are our public face.  They are the one thing we can easily change to present ourselves to the world.

We dress to impress in interviews, wear clothes our friends will approve of when we meet up, and choose colours that will either stand out or fit in depending on our personalities.  Clothes reveal our ambitions and identity:  yummy mummy or business woman, preppy or hipster, streetwise or sophisticated.  All to often a teenager wearing immodest clothing isn't actually trying to be sexually provocative; she's just trying to impress her friends.  To be immodest is to display yourself, whether that means wearing insufficient clothes, or expensive clothes or showy clothes, or even, dare we say, ostentatiously religious clothes.  To be modest is to display God's goodness instead.

Covering our sin and need

This is hard.  John Newton writing 250 years ago identified the struggles women still have today:  "If a woman, when going to worship, looks in the glass and contemplates, with a secret self-complacence, the figure which reflects to her view, I am afraid she is not in the frame of spirit most suitable for one who is about to cry for mercy as a miserable sinner".  Does that seem quaint? I think it hits the nail on the head! We can quickly feel so self-assured in our fashionable get-ups that we fail to see what is underneath--our sin and need.

The confidence we place in looking right only needs a little massaging to turn into pride, and pride in our appearance quickly turns to a sneering at others, or a desire to outdo their attempts at elegance.  Of course, sin can take us in the opposite direction; we look in the glass, and instead of pride we feel shame--"I'm a mess!" We say, "I can never look like ...", we go to an event and feel we've got it wrong; everyone else looks so much better, and rather than prideful self-absorption we fall into the snare of self-pity.  The antidote to such feelings is surely modesty, that cheerful self-effacement which simply says, "It's not about me".

Working it out

So what does this mean in practice? I've not seen many Christians literally applying "dress modestly ... not with braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes" and so dispensing with plaits or jewellery, dressing only in the very cheapest of clothes.  But if we are to obey the spirit of Paul's injunction then surely this means that we should eschew ostentation and aim for simplicity, neither agonising over cost nor wasting God's resources.

What we wear should not be dominating our thoughts or our bank balances or our time.  Jesus teaches us again and again, "Why do you worry about clothes ... do not worry saying ... "what shall we wear?" for the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them" (Matthew 6:28-32).  He tells us that a pre-occupation with material things shows a lack of trust; rather, we should have faith in the Provider God, the one who is best able to create beauty.

Controversial advice

Paul and Peter are unembarrassed to say that godliness of character (1 Timothy 2:10 and 1 Peter 2:4) and good deeds are the most attractive adornment we can have.  What controversial advice! And what a relief! Women's magazines are full of "this season's must have"; the Bible provides us with essentials that will never date--gentleness, quietness and good deeds.  These have eternal value and make a lasting impression on the one whose opinion matters.  And as we go about our good works we can enjoy the physical world God has given us.  We live in a world of beauty, of subtle and brilliant colours, of rich natural resources and great variety.  Surely, if we follow a God of such immense creative power we do Him honour as we make and wear clothes that are practical and beautiful.  Proverbs 31's epitome of a good woman is of one dressed in fine linen and purple as she went about caring for others.

Helping others

So as we adorn ourselves for God, with good deeds and right thoughts, we will be concerned about others.  Not about keeping up with them, or impressing them, but about helping them.  While Islam sees women as a danger to men, covering them up lest a bare wrist or neck might entice a man to sin, Christians see men and women as equally responsible, and ultimately hearts, not bodies, as the problem.  Jesus addressed men specifically in the Sermon on the Mount when He condemned the lustful thought as adulterous.  Throughout Proverbs is the call to young men to stay away from the lascivious woman (Proverbs 7:11).  Women can help men obey these commands by watching how we dress.

Making those right choices is hard.  Our liberal and post-feminist culture has encouraged women to reclaim femininity as a means of independence from, and power over, men.  And this sexualisation is reflected in even middle of the road fashions.  From Marks and Spencer to Primark, clothes have become tighter, skirts shorter, and tops more revealing; in the church it sometimes seems that as long as we are less immodest than our unbelieving neighbours we are fine.  But this exposure of our bodies demeans our dignity and draws attention to our sexual features.  If our mouths say "no" and our bodies say "yes" we confuse others and endanger ourselves.  Be rigorous with your wardrobe (a good place to start is googling "modesty heart check") so you can be confident that yu are not causing anyone to stumble.

The answer, however, is not to don a hijab, which one Muslim said "is simply woman's assertion that judgment of her physical person is to play no role whatsoever in social interaction", or to take the line "modest is hottest"; rather it is to celebrate the gospel by living to please God.  Our physical persons do play a role in our social interaction.  By dressing modestly our physical persons give testimony to the gospel; by desiring God and doing good we bring glory to God.

And there you have Dorcas's article which I trust was enlightening to you.

And now may the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob just keep us safe, individually and collectively, in these last days in which we live.  Don't forget that tomorrow, Lord willing at about this same time or maybe a bit later, that our weekly Bible trivia game-poem will be presented.  Your Christian friend and brother, Paul