About Modesty

A Word for the Immodest, the Legalist, and Everyone In Between.

Nobody wants to talk about modesty anymore. But in all honesty, the church has not helped much in that regard. For decades, the conversation of the Church regarding modesty devolved into the “modest elite” silently critiquing the “less redeemed” by how many inches above the knee, their skirts went, whether shoulders count, and what exactly constitutes “form-fitting.” For many young people, the smell of legalism perfumed the air, and they needed fresh air.

As is often the case, we have overcorrected. Abandoning the conversation is not the answer. Why? Well, because the Bible does not abandon it. The problem with most modesty talk is that it often starts in the wrong place. The reality that we must understand about modesty is that it doesn’t matter how manicured you’re teaching your children’s dress to be if you’re not teaching them the glorious reason behind it. With that said, here are three ways the gospel actually addresses immodesty, and why that changes everything.

1. The gospel tells you that you are already seen.

Much of what drives immodesty is the desperate need to be noticed. And as the temperatures are rising here in North Carolina, it seems everyone wants to be noticed, unfortunately. We live in an attention economy, and the body has become currency. Show more skin, get more eyes, feel more real. A spiteful voice rises in me when I see such displays and grumpily asks, “Do they have no shame? Where are their fathers? Do they hate the souls of young men?”

While those are good questions, if we teach our daughters modest dress with that at the core, we’ve detached it from grace and grounded it in burdensome law. A more proper question to begin with is:

Does she know how valuable she really is?

For the lost, the answer to that is no. An anthropology detached from the Scriptures produces all sorts of self-degradation and immodesty stands among those ranks. But we know the truth, that we are made in the Image of God to show forth His glory in this world as walking statues. That God has made man the crowning glory of His creation, and made women the crowning glory of man. We know the truth! The truth that this God, whom we have rebelled against in body and soul, came to bear our shame. Christ, being stripped naked and nailed to a tree, was clothed beneath the robes of God’s divine wrath for sin that we might be redeemed.

Does she really matter? A society bent on sexualizing your daughters says, “No.” A society bent on ripping girls apart in the womb says, “No.” A society bent on destroying her femininity shouts, “No!”

But the gospels say, “Yes. She matters.” Immodesty among Christians is often a symptom of gospel amnesia.

2. The gospel tells you that your body means something.

The secular world has two contradictory messages about the body. Their first message to you is that your body is everything (worship it, display it, optimize it). On the other hand, they also teach you that your body is nothing. “It’s just matter, do whatever you want with it!” As a Christian, refuse both.

Your body is not a billboard. Your body is not your personal property to deploy however you see fit. It is the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19-20), bought with a price, and destined for resurrection. Can there be a more glorious declaration about the glory of the human body than there is in God the Son becoming flesh and dwelling among us?

If the Son has eternally taken to Himself a human nature, that means that your body is worth honoring, because it too will remain forever yours in the resurrection. It also means that how you present yourself to the world is a theological statement, whether you intend it to be or not.

Theology is the crowning jewel of all sciences; it is everywhere and speaks into everything — even the clothes you wear.

3. The gospel tells you that love considers others.

The most tense dimension of the modesty conversation is neighbor-love. Paul’s ethic in Romans 14-15 is relentlessly other-oriented. There, he commands the strong to bear with the weak, and teaches us that nobody should live for themselves.

Look, I’m not going to go down the road of blaming the lusts of men on women. This is not about assigning blame to victims or making immodesty someone else’s moral failure. But I’ll put it plainly: Men are responsible for their sinful lusts, and women are responsible for their sinful desire to weaponize their bodies for attention.

This whole discussion is about the basic Christian instinct to ask: How does the way I present myself affect the people around me?

Love dresses with that question in mind. A modest heart asks, “If my body is crafted with divine affection, am I stewarding it for God’s glory?” Furthermore, the modest young lady asks, “If I am the crowning glory of my husband, whether married yet or not, am I honoring him by showing my body to the world?” Dear sister, the man you want leading you and your future children is not going to be the man who’ll be attracted to shameful immodesty. The kind of man you’re looking for is looking for a woman who honors herself, and with herself, the Lord.

In conclusion, I’ll be blunt in saying that there have been people who make modesty reprehensible. Not that modesty itself is somehow evil, but that they’ve raised their legalistic noses so high that they’d drown in the rain. What those ladies must understand is that the length of your dress is no replacement for the beauty of a soul brought low before the Lord. If your pride is rooted in your dress, and not the Lord, you are a reproach to Him and His gospel.

Older sisters in the Lord, teach our younger sisters with patience and grace. Do not berate them, insult them, or embarrass them for what they do not know. Teach them the glories of the gospel and its bearing on this area in their life. Most of all, pray for them.

I’m not here to prescribe dress lengths or to bind your conscience to my dress preferences. I am not the Lord of your conscience. I am here, however, to invite you to think within a godly framework. The Lord alone is Lord of the conscience. May He be praised in you, both in body and soul.

Soli Deo Gloria.