Let's Talk about Sex: Modesty

Has anyone ever tried reading Shakespeare in his original phrasing, not a modernization of Shakespearian language, the real old stuff?

We sometimes call this Olde English, but its actually not, Shakespeare is middle english. It’s very different from the way we speak, so much so that linguists regard it as a different language, but even Shakespeare would have had difficulty understanding someone speaking true Old English, most of the words are totally unrecognizable.

See, languages are living things, as people speak and write in them, new words are created, pronunciation and spelling shifts over time, and old words will often change definition because of the way they have been used in a culture to describe one thing, and over time it is associated so much with that one thing that people forget the original definition. I find it fascinating how some words have a pretty drastic change in meaning over time, usually due to cultural reasons.

Words which changed definition over time...

Tell me what you think the original meaning of these words may have been...

Awful

Something which fills you with awe, or wonder. A waterfall, a rainbow, but originally it would have only been used to describe God, God fills you with a feeling of Awe. Awful has shifted its meaning and instead we created the word awesome to serve this old purpose.

Terrible

Something which causes a sense of terror. Something scary. You could see how the meaning shifted over time, terrible monsters are scary, but now it just means bad.

Cheater

When someone died and they didn’t have any sons or male heirs; because daughters didn’t count, their land would be turned over to the king, and the kings cheater, oversaw these land transactions and the return of the escheats to the crown. So eventually you had guys walking around with fake seals of the king, claiming to be the kings cheater, showing up at funerals to claim the property of men without sons, and steal the deed for themselves. Which is not super different from how debt collectors treat widows today.

Nice

Nice, originally meant stupid, ignorant, unintelligent. The person who is so dumb, gullible, easy to trick; that girl who never gets the jokes and is oblivious to everything around her; she’s so nice.

Gay

This one’s easy. Most of you know this one. Gay meant visibly and outwardly happy and elated. You may or may not be able to see how that one shifted in meaning.

Tonight we’re gonna talk about a word that has shifted meaning pretty substantially but I think you’ll be able to trace it back and see where the culture shifted the meaning for us.

The word of the day is.

Modest

Unassuming, moderate, limited.

So modest is an adjective that can be applied to any number of things;

Houses, cars, a person’s attitude. Anything that is intentionally limited so that it isn’t over the top or drawing the attention of others.

Man so, if that’s what modesty means in definition, how in the world didi we get to this place where modesty is measured by the amount of skin a woman covers with her clothes, or how much of her body she hides from view. That feels like a jump. Well, let’s see how the culture changed the meaning of the word over time.

How does the Bible describe modesty, as it relates to clothing?

Well, it comes up one time of real significance. This is the passage that everyone goes to when they want to talk about how important it is for teenage girls to cover their collarbones in class. It’s from 1 Timothy chapter 2. It’s talking about how the worship service, when a local church meets together, is supposed to be orderly and people should behave. Look at this.

1 Timothy 2:8–10 CSB

8 Therefore, I want the men in every place to pray, lifting up holy hands without anger or argument. 9 Also, the women are to dress themselves in modest clothing, with decency and good sense, not with elaborate hairstyles, gold, pearls, or expensive apparel, 10 but with good works, as is proper for women who profess to worship God.

Ok, so you should recognize a few things here immediately from this text.

It offers seemingly unrelated instructions to men & women.

There’s no mention of women having to cover a certain amount of skin.

Virtually all of the things listed here are now considered ok to wear to church.

In fact they’re even encouraged.

So how did we get from these verses to tshirts in the swimming pool and skirts longer than your fingertips. Hang on. We’re getting there.

First lets deal with these unrelated instructions. This is one text of scripture with one meaning, its just broken down into a how that meaning effects different groups of people.

In fact, if you read on these verses flow directly into a discussion of authority and positions of honor in the church. Right, so the flow of though, put more simply is this. When you come together as a church for worship, men don’t fight and argue with one another, women don’t wear your flashy clothes and jewelry, in fact ladies you should be submissive and not be the ones preaching and taking authority over the church. Men, if you want to take on that role as pastor/elder/bishop that’s a good thing but here are the requirements you have to meet.

Ok, so with that whole big context in mind its more clear what the one meaning and one message of this passage is…stop showing off and fighting over who’s more important than each other. Don’t get caught up in the desire to be the alpha or the center of attention.

When men want to be the center of attention, the speak more, the argue with one another, they puff their chests out and they jockey for position. Like absolute animals some men feel a need to let others know that they’re top dog over all the other men.

Women however handle things a little differently.

It has been said often and by many people who know better than me, that women rarely dress up and wear makeup for the benefit of men. Any given day, women don’t get dressed for men. Women get dressed for women.

Gentlemen, if you think for a second that a girl spent hours of time and hundreds of dollars practicing her contour work, and then 2 hours getting ready on a school day to show off for you, you are sorely mistaken; because she knows that you are not going to notice on a level worth that amount of effort. Girls put in that kind of effort getting ready, to show off for other girls.

So in the same way that Paul is condemning this show-offy, argumentative, macho, alpha, “look at me” attitude in men; he is likewise condemning a show-offy, look at me attitude in women. It’s the same heart status, it just shows up differently in men and women. It’s the same sin issue, the desire to show off and have everyone look at you and how great you are, that is a sin issue that is found deep in your heart.

How the Bible doesn’t describe Modesty

So, how doesn’t the Bible describe modesty. Because what we’ve seen is a heart issue of pride and that doesn’t seem to translate super directly to a statewide ban on spaghetti straps so that you don’t distract the boys in your class.

And that’s the thing. There is nothing here saying, “women don’t braid your hair because it will make men look at you. There’s nothing suggesting that any part of this discussion of women dressing modestly has anything to do with what men think. Paul is not one to mince words. If he meant that women should dress modestly so that the men in the room wouldn’t be distracted by their beauty, he would have said it, but he didn’t.

In fact, what he mentioned were some things that men don’t care about. No man will ever notice how elaborate the braids in your hair are and be distracted by how beautiful that makes you look. The people who notice how expensive a woman’s clothes are, how long her hair took to do, or weather or not her pearls are real, the only people who will notice that are other women.

So the idea that this whole thing is about dressing in such a way that will keep your brothers in Christ from stumbling by looking at you with lustful thoughts, is absolute lunacy. Now, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but that’s not at all what this passage is about; and to claim that it is is to read our own cultural ideas into the text. People have taken their own ideas and then tried to read the bible in such a way as to claim that the Bible is the basis for their beliefs on any given subject.

We as a culture have our own conversations about modesty and how women should dress, as it relates to how much of their bodies should be visible versus how much should be hidden. And a lot of people have taken our cultural debates on that subject and tried to place them onto scripture to try to support their point.

Let’s chase a rabbit for a minute.

When a woman is sexually assaulted, the clothes she is wearing have absolutely nothing to do with it. Here’s how I know, because the likelihood of a woman being raped or assaulted was higher back when women only wore, long dresses, long sleeves, full bustles, and all you could see was a woman’s face and wrists. So wearing more clothes and covering more skin doesn’t fix the problem. In fact when a massive study was done to figure out how women can better to protect themselves from attackers, hundreds of convicted rapists were surveyed as to what they look for in a potential target and a lot of things were mentioned, but how much of her body was visible in her clothes did not come close to cracking the list.

The ideas that women need to dress modestly to help men avoid distraction and lust is not founded in this text or in any other available evidence.

Likewise, the idea that men are just more naturally lustful, sexual creatures is an absolute absurdity with no regard for anatomy or anthropology. Historically there are as many ancient cultures that believed that women were the more lustful of the two genders as there were those who believed men were more lustful. Anatomically women have more of the hormones, brain chemicals, and nervous system components which would lend towards lust than men; BY FAR!!

So gentlemen, this idea that you’re just more sexually driven creatures than women and men have a harder time controlling their urges, and that you are somehow less responsible for your behavior where lust and sex are concerned. This entire idea is an absolute absurdity with 0 basis in fact. Do not let anyone tell you some “boys will be boys” crap to justify a guy not being able to control himself around women. It is a lie concocted by the devil so that you will excuse your lust problems and your sin problems and blame biology for your own sin and failures. It is a lie. You don’t have some natural male lust problem; you have a sin problem for which you are fully responsible and biology doesn’t have a dang thing to do with it.

The fact that a woman might ever have to be concerned about what she wears around you is shameful.

Ok, off the rabbit trail and back to the text.

So what actually is biblical modesty?

Well, if what the Bible condemns is dressing in such a way as to draw attention to yourself and make other people impressed with or envious of your appearance; then biblical modesty is to dress in a limited, unassuming, moderate fashion. It seems like we’re gone back to that original definition.

See dressing modestly for women always meant dressing in such a way that you won’t be the center of attention. Wearing plain, simple clothes, without a ton of jewelry, makeup, or elaborate hair. But that changed in the early 20th century when women started wearing shorter skirts and dresses with short sleeves. Think the flappers of the 1920’s. Young women started wearing clothes that allowed people to see their arms and legs, and in doing so they attracted a lot of attention to themselves, and new beauty standards developed around that.

So suddenly, this is the way that you dress to get peoples attention and the standard of modesty quickly becomes how many square inches of skin are showing on a woman’s body.

So Modesty does have cultural standards when it comes to how you dress, but when it comes to the status of your heart it’s still the same.

Biblical modesty is dressing in an unassuming, moderate, understated, limited way. So as not to make yourself the center of attention based on your appearance.

Modesty in the context of dress is humility applied to how you look at yourself in the mirror. and that’s going to be a little different for everyone.

What are the things in your closet or in your vanity that you wear when you want everyone to see you and think how attractive you are?

What are your “look at me” clothes?

And that might be about how it’s cut in relation to some part of your body, that might be about a certain brand name, that might be a pattern or print. If the thing that you wear hoping that everyone will notice how good you look today is cheetah print, it doesn’t matter if it’s a cheetah print mumu; if what’s in your heart is “I want everyone to notice how great I look today” then that’s the issue not how much skin is showing. Whether it’s a mumu or a bodysuit. What is in your heart that made you choose to put that on?

If the thing you put on to impress people is a brand name, and you want everyone to notice how much Tommy Hilfiger or Ralph Lauren you own and how expensive and nice your clothes are, it does not matter if you are covered ankle, wrist, and collarbone and it equally does not matter if you’re dressed for for the cover of the swimsuit edition.

If your goal is to make everyone look at you and remark at your physical appearance then you are dressed immodestly.

Does this apply to men too?

So if that’s what it means to dress modestly or immodestly; does this apply to men too? Well yeah. Guys, you also have “look at me” clothes, and I know you do. But your look at me clothes are more likely about a brand name, or a type of clothing. If you wear your good felt stetson hat not to keep the sun out of your eyes but because you’re hoping others will notice, that is no different than a female wearing leggings because she wants to post her butt on tiktok.

Let me ask you this, because we all have one, what is the part of your body that you most like to show off? Don’t tell me, keep it to yourself. What is your best physical feature? When you take weightlifting class at school, on vanity day, when you get to pick a muscle group to work out just to show off, what is it?

For me it was always arms. Vanity day in the weight room was every friday and I would spend an hour straight cycling between forearm curls, nosebreakers, and bicep curls. and then wear shirts specifically to show off those muscles that I so wanted people to be impressed by. You can tell I haven’t taken a weightlifting class in a while.

But look, if you’ve never missed leg day and you know you’ve got the biggest calves in the county, modesty comes into play when you deciding whether or not to wear shorts to show off those calf muscles.

Ladies, if you know that you have been blessed in certain areas physically, modesty when it comes to choosing a swimsuit for summer camp is not determined by whether its a one piece or a two piece. Modesty is determined by whether or not your choice of swimsuit is based on showing off your favorite assets. What is in your heart?

Ok, so what do we do with this.

we believe that every time God’s word is preached it requires a response.

Maybe you need to clean out your closet of some of those “look at me” pieces; guys and girls.

Maybe you need to stop blaming your lust problems on what someone else is wearing.

Maybe you need to find value in yourself outside of your appearance.