Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - July 19, 2021


Ep 456 | Modest Isn't Hottest ... But Is It Biblical?


Episode Stats

Length

33 minutes

Words per Minute

176.64374

Word Count

5,941

Sentence Count

310

Misogynist Sentences

22

Hate Speech Sentences

17


Summary

Christian singer Matthew West released a song called "Modest is hottest" on Father's Day in which he encourages his daughters to wear modest clothing. Some people were offended by the lyrics, and there was a lot of backlash online. What does the Bible say about modesty and what does it mean to be modest?


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hello, hello. Welcome to Relatable. Happy Monday. Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend today. Not
00:00:17.000 as I'm recording this, but as you are listening to this, I'm actually in Nashville for the Candace
00:00:23.300 Owens show. So make sure that you look out for that. Super exciting. But today we are going to
00:00:29.060 discuss a controversial topic that many of you have asked me to discuss. And I've honestly been
00:00:35.580 kind of avoiding talking about it. It's not really because it's controversial. You guys know that I
00:00:41.560 don't avoid controversial subjects because, but because I haven't really decided how to properly
00:00:47.020 articulate what I think about it. But with so many requests on this and so many conversations about
00:00:57.440 this topic, which is modesty circulating on social media, especially in what's considered
00:01:03.480 ex-evangelicalism and progressive Christianity, I thought it might be time to bite the bullet and
00:01:09.880 just go for it. So that's what we're going to do. We're going to discuss what modesty means,
00:01:14.700 what the Bible says about it, what it looks like for Christian women and even men. There's no way,
00:01:20.340 though, for me to cover every part of this topic, but we're going to do our best to hit the important
00:01:26.700 points. And I want to kick this off. This is part of why I thought it was a good idea to talk about
00:01:33.460 this right now, because there was some drama that went on online centering on the subject of modesty
00:01:40.480 when Christian singer Matthew West released a song called Modest is Hottest on Father's Day,
00:01:46.220 where he talks about encouraging his two daughters to dress appropriately. I watched it on Instagram
00:01:52.020 when it came out, knew immediately what the reaction was going to be from some people. But I mean,
00:01:59.260 I laughed. I got what he was doing. It was obviously tongue in cheek. He might have been aiming to convey
00:02:05.340 a serious message that he wants to protect his daughters, but it was obviously lighthearted,
00:02:10.260 a little satirical, just trying to jokingly show that, you know, he is a protective dad of his
00:02:18.180 girls. Here's an example of some of the lyrics. I'm just going to read it to you.
00:02:22.540 Modest is hottest. The latest fashion trend is a little more Amish, a little less Kardashian.
00:02:28.200 What the boys really love is a turtleneck and a sensible pair of slacks. Honey, modest is hottest.
00:02:33.480 Sincerely, your dad. I mean, that's funny. That's cute. I mean, it's supposed to be
00:02:38.900 a joke. Ten years ago, no one would have batted an eye at that kind of thing, because at one point,
00:02:46.540 we all knew that most dads don't want their daughters leaving the house with most of their
00:02:50.780 body exposed. But some people took issue with the song. And I'm going to read you some of those
00:02:59.660 responses and a little bit of the backlash in just one second. But I've got to tell you
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00:04:34.520 slash Allie. All right, let's look at a little bit of the backlash, some negative responses to this song
00:04:45.980 by Matthew West that I think tells us a little bit about what popular culture and also those who
00:04:52.300 consider themselves maybe on the more progressive side of Christianity have to say about this
00:04:57.240 particular topic and the idea that was sung in the song. Singer Audrey Asad said on Twitter,
00:05:03.520 modest is hot as still centers men and their preferences in how women should look. Still
00:05:08.340 sets being found hot by men as the ultimate goal for women and positions all men as creeps who can't
00:05:13.640 handle seeing a woman's bare skin without turning into out-of-control monsters. Author Sheila
00:05:18.420 Gregore quote tweeted the song and said this, the age-old struggle is actually women feeling
00:05:25.260 responsible for men's sins. I know many think this is cute and fun, but obsessing over girls' bodies
00:05:30.340 without making reference to boys' responsibility is part of the problem. Let's raise girls and boys in
00:05:35.440 a healthy way instead. So those are pretty balanced and I think reasonable responses from people that
00:05:41.640 didn't agree with the message. Here is what one mom told Today. So this was picked up by some secular
00:05:49.160 outlets as well. Colorado mom Lisa Krutzinger, 30, told Today parents that she grew up listening to
00:05:54.980 Christian music and enjoyed it, but the narrative of the song is not something she would want her
00:05:59.180 daughter, Audrey Bell, to hear. What a girl wears does not equal her worth, Krutzinger said. Girls don't
00:06:04.700 wear clothes because it's what the boys really love. If you're comfortable in modest clothing, rock it. And if you
00:06:09.260 want to dance on TikTok in the clothes you love, don't let people like Matthew West tell you that's
00:06:14.020 quote, bad. There was also an Oklahoma worship pastor named Jeremy Coleman. He parodied some of
00:06:20.480 the song on TikTok. So Matthew West's version says this in one of the lines, if I catch you doing
00:06:25.760 dances on TikTok in a crop top, so help me God, you'll be grounded until the world stops. Coleman's
00:06:30.880 version goes like this. Well, if I catch you doing dances on the TikTok, wear what you want. Girl,
00:06:35.580 just go off. Hold your head up so your crown doesn't fall off. You're a queen if you forgot.
00:06:40.780 Here's the Newsweek write-up about that. It says, Coleman, who has three daughters, told Newsweek
00:06:46.040 his concern with West Song was the same concern with purity culture as a whole. We are telling our
00:06:50.940 daughters and young women that their body image should be defined by someone else's opinion.
00:06:55.280 Women should feel confident, comfortable, and free to dress and express themselves however they
00:07:00.380 want. There were several other TikTok parodies that were similar to his. Lots of mini influencers
00:07:08.300 on Instagram and YouTube talking about how toxic this idea is, how damaging it is. There were a lot
00:07:14.260 more less balanced and I would say a lot meaner responses from some people too, even professing
00:07:19.860 Christians towards this. So there was a good bit of negative media and social media attention for
00:07:26.560 something that probably, like I said a few years ago, no one would have really noticed. Now, Matthew
00:07:32.280 West ended up taking it down and he issued this statement. He said, I'm blessed to be the father of
00:07:38.380 two amazing daughters. I wrote a song poking fun at myself for being an overprotective dad and my family
00:07:42.960 thought it was funny. The song was created as satire and I realized that some people did not receive it
00:07:47.820 as it was intended. I've taken the feedback to heart. The last thing I want is to distract from the real
00:07:52.720 reason why I make music to spread a message of hope and love to the world. Proud hashtag girl dad.
00:07:58.640 So he doesn't exactly apologize, which people were upset about. And I want to try to offer as
00:08:06.520 sympathetic a summary as I can of the position of people who were upset that he posted the video and
00:08:12.660 then were upset that he didn't apologize about the video. And I'm going to get to that in just one
00:08:17.740 second. So here's what I believe the dissenters, the people who are pushing back against this,
00:08:28.980 and not just against this particular song, but really the whole Christian concept of modesty in
00:08:33.260 general or the larger purity culture in general. We've talked about purity culture on this podcast,
00:08:39.840 what the Bible actually says about purity and some of the negative parts about purity culture,
00:08:44.400 because people even within the church are fallible. And so they make mistakes that sometimes have
00:08:49.640 unfortunately damaging consequences. I think that's true of so-called purity culture. We'll talk a
00:08:54.420 little bit about that, but to try to sympathetically and as generously as I can describe what I think
00:09:02.520 people's feelings are about this song and about this subject, I would say that the argument goes
00:09:07.000 something like this. So by telling girls to be modest, they would say, we are making them feel that
00:09:13.300 the responsibility to control men's lusts and predatory behaviors is theirs. Rather than telling
00:09:20.540 men to behave, purity culture, they say, makes women bear the burden of men's sinful and sexual
00:09:27.560 thoughts. It therefore encourages a mentality of shame and even self-objectification for women and girls who
00:09:34.240 are being at least implicitly told that their bodies are dangerous or to blame for men's behaviors,
00:09:40.280 which then I think the logic goes leads to what some might call rape culture, because women are
00:09:47.160 taught that men can't control their sexual urges. And if they give into those sexual urges in the form
00:09:52.920 of predatory victimizing behavior, it's because of what the girl or woman did or said or wore. So I think
00:10:00.440 that is how the thinking goes of the people who are pushing back on this kind of stuff. And I truly tried
00:10:06.600 to be as accurate as possible in that. And I hear a lot of that. I really do. I really understand it.
00:10:13.480 I agree that ultimately, of course, men are responsible. We all are responsible for our
00:10:19.900 thoughts and actions. Absolutely. No matter what a woman is wearing, a man is responsible for what he
00:10:26.100 does and how he reacts. I agree that there are problems with so-called purity culture. I've talked
00:10:31.320 about a book that I read called Datable in high school, which I now realize or I realize several
00:10:37.380 years later is so toxic and damaging and wrong that compared people, young people to used cars,
00:10:44.280 losing value the more it was driven. Of course, comparing that to the sexual experience that you
00:10:50.000 have when you're younger before you get married. Or maybe you've heard of the analogy that was kind of
00:10:56.180 taught in some churches growing up of a rose that's been handled by a bunch of people. Then
00:11:01.460 it looks all, you know, torn up and wilted. No one would want the rose, right? Like you've probably
00:11:06.640 heard that kind of thing. They're terrible analogies. They're terrible. I'll never forget
00:11:10.720 watching a Matt Chandler sermon in, I don't know, 2010, 2011. I'm not sure when it was from,
00:11:17.860 but I remember watching it on YouTube when he talked about, when he was younger, listening to a
00:11:23.420 pastor giving that rose analogy. And his response in this sermon was Jesus wants the rose. And that's
00:11:31.600 exactly right. Thank the Lord. Our value and our wantedness is not diminished by how many guys we
00:11:36.960 made out with in high school, or even by someone getting pregnant out of wedlock or someone being a
00:11:41.360 prostitute. Jesus made a point to interact with women who had been sexually immoral and whom polite
00:11:46.740 society and religious legalists had cast aside. God seeks and saves the lost. He reaches and heals
00:11:52.940 the sick and the hurting. And I could see how creating shame around the body and sex can lead
00:11:59.780 a young person, especially a girl, to have a distorted view of herself and even maybe to blame
00:12:06.340 herself for inappropriate male advances and to maybe not speak up about them because she's been told that
00:12:12.560 that kind of behavior is caused by what she wears and that maybe she might have done something to make
00:12:18.240 this man give in to his lust. So I can see all of that. But here's my disagreement, or at least my pushback
00:12:27.720 to the pushback. I cannot go so far as to say that a parent just shouldn't have anything to say about
00:12:34.520 what their children, and yes, in particular, their daughters, wear. And to the Christians responding to
00:12:40.360 the song saying, well, girls should just be able to wear whatever they want to wear. Do you really believe
00:12:45.240 that? Like you really think it's good parenting to allow your 13, 14, 15 year old daughter to wear
00:12:50.860 whatever she wants dancing on TikTok? Like you're telling me that there is no standard whatsoever
00:12:56.440 that you would ask your daughter to reach when it comes to wear clothing? So if she wants to go to the
00:13:01.680 mall with her friends and she comes downstairs and clothes that basically amount to underwear, you as a
00:13:06.720 parent wouldn't say something about that? And if you do have any rules at all for what your daughter
00:13:13.160 wears, those of you who push back against, you know, something like Matthew West song, my question
00:13:18.160 would be, well, why do you have those rules? And if you don't have any rules for what your daughter
00:13:24.400 wears, you're telling me that you would be okay with absolutely anything that she wears in public or
00:13:29.640 posting on social media? Because here's the truth. If that's you, like you really just don't care in
00:13:36.800 whatever setting she wears, absolutely whatever she wants your 13 year old daughter. The truth is
00:13:42.860 there are like, whether we want to admit this or not, whether you think it's patriarchal to say this,
00:13:48.920 there are creepy predatory men on social media, watching your kids videos, whether, whether you want
00:13:56.800 to admit it or not. The vast majority of online sexual predators, harassers, assaulters, uh, people who
00:14:03.920 are rapists, groomers are men and they seek out, unfortunately, underage girls on these social
00:14:10.380 media platforms. That is a fact. So are you honestly telling me those of you who are saying, well, girls
00:14:15.640 should just be able to wear whatever they want without judgment. And it doesn't matter if your
00:14:20.840 daughter wants to wear whatever she wants dancing on TikTok. You're telling me as a dad or as a mom who
00:14:26.300 has been given the responsibility by God to protect your children, that you don't care if you're
00:14:32.040 underage scantily clad daughter is dancing on TikTok, where, you know, there are probably gross
00:14:36.780 men watching her. Now it is not her fault that those men are creepy, that those men are predatory
00:14:42.360 and that they're looking for videos of underage girls. That's not her fault, but those men do exist.
00:14:48.120 Like I said, that's a fact. And even off of social media, are there no standards of decency and dress
00:14:54.260 that you hold your kids to as far as covering parts of their body? I mean, of course there are,
00:14:59.380 of course there are. You wouldn't let your kids walk outside. I mean, you know, walk somewhere in
00:15:05.060 public, like the mall or somewhere in their underwear. Why not? Because it's inappropriate.
00:15:10.820 So if you will admit that, can you also admit that having rules for what your children and teens wear
00:15:18.160 with an aim toward protection and decency is okay? I'm just saying anyone who says that parents
00:15:24.560 shouldn't tell their daughters or just your kids in general what to wear or not to wear at all.
00:15:29.580 You're either terribly irresponsible as a parent, which I don't think that you are. I don't think
00:15:34.380 that's true of many of the people complaining about this particular song. But the other option is that
00:15:40.580 you're being disingenuous because most parents are going to have some kind of regulations around what
00:15:46.700 their kids can wear in public and on social media. The question is, what should those regulations be?
00:15:55.120 Not just for our kids, but also for ourselves. And more importantly, why? Because for the Christian,
00:16:01.640 it's about more than just rules. It's about more than creepy guys on social media. For the Christian,
00:16:07.400 we have to seek what God says about how we dress. And I'm going to get into the theological aspect
00:16:14.000 of modesty in just one second. So like I said, for us, it's the why that matters the most. That is
00:16:27.320 the thing that we must understand before we talk about how long your skirt should be or how high
00:16:33.840 your neckline should be. We have to know why there is even a conversation about modesty. Should there be
00:16:39.360 a conversation about modesty and what we wear or what we don't wear? I think there should be because
00:16:46.420 the same God who pours out grace and forgiveness on us, no matter what we've done, the same God who
00:16:52.780 wants the rose, who sees his children as righteous and holy and good, not because of what we've done or
00:16:59.360 who we are, but because of who he is and what he's done through Jesus on the cross does have something
00:17:05.240 to say about how we present ourselves and how we dress. This God, who as 1 John 4, 8 tells us is
00:17:12.580 love, who loves us so much as John 3, 16 says that he sent his son to die for us so that we could be
00:17:18.740 reconciled to him and spend forever with him, also says that how we dress and what we do with our bodies
00:17:25.620 matter. I grew up going to a Southern Baptist church, went to church camp where we were always told
00:17:32.800 the importance of waiting to have sex until we get married, not putting ourselves in situations
00:17:39.360 with the opposite sex where things could go too far, dressing in a way that doesn't cause guys to
00:17:46.000 lust. And so I'm familiar with all of this. And I will just say for me personally, though I can see
00:17:52.060 how some of these things and how they were taught could have negatively affected people, it didn't lead
00:17:58.840 me to be embarrassed about my body or into the mentality that sexual assault could be somehow my
00:18:05.620 fault or afraid of having sex one day. There's a lot of people who say that being told sex is bad
00:18:12.400 until marriage makes sex difficult once you get married. And that's probably true for those people, but
00:18:17.940 it really wasn't difficult to flip that switch. It was just, okay, sex before marriage shouldn't do it.
00:18:24.480 Sex after marriage should do it. Cool. A lot of the shame that I know some people feel from what
00:18:31.160 they say is a result of purity culture, um, just wasn't the case for me or for any of my friends
00:18:37.660 that I know who grew up in the same world that I'm not invalidating what other people felt or
00:18:42.160 experienced. I'm just saying for a lot of people, it was okay. Like it wasn't perfect, but it was okay.
00:18:49.320 And then for a lot of people also like the whole true love weights campaign actually was super
00:18:54.220 helpful for them and changed their mentality about sex and dating and their bodies for the better.
00:19:00.420 But here is my big beef with most of what we learned about abstaining from sex and what leads,
00:19:09.040 uh, leads up to it, uh, growing up, even though I didn't experience any like trauma from it.
00:19:14.940 My problem is I don't remember very often hearing why, what we wear and how we conduct ourselves
00:19:23.340 sexually matters. I don't remember hearing it tied to the gospel and to God's grace, but I rather heard
00:19:30.020 it tied to guilt tactics. Like, you know, you're really not going to want to tell your future
00:19:35.140 husband what you did with this guy you're dating now in high school. Cause after you tell him, he might
00:19:40.120 not want to be with you anymore. If y'all are engaged or dating, like you're going to be, or
00:19:45.400 there's something like you're going to be struggling with shame about this for the rest of your life.
00:19:50.080 And it's going to make your marriage really hard. Or for a guy, you're going to be thinking about
00:19:54.260 every girl that you ever done stuff with when you're having sex with your wife. And then girls
00:19:58.040 hear the same thing about their future husbands. And it's just like this whole idea of purity is tied
00:20:03.580 to what your future spouse is going to think. And when you're a teenager, there's no,
00:20:08.140 there's no guarantee that you're even going to get married. So what's the motivation for people
00:20:11.800 who aren't going to get married? If it's just tied to the shame that your future spouse might
00:20:17.580 make you feel. And while I think it's good to know what your spouse has done sexually before you
00:20:23.900 get married, especially after they became Christians, how I was told that those hypothetical
00:20:30.100 conversations about the past with my future husband would go down with tears and sadness and
00:20:35.360 shame and not knowing if like we can handle the thought of us having had, you know, been involved
00:20:41.360 with past significant others. It's just not how it happened. Like it doesn't mean it's fun to think
00:20:47.280 about, but we loved and love each other. So there was understanding, there was grace, there was
00:20:52.680 gratitude that through all of that, that we're together, there was just happiness that we have
00:21:00.340 each other. And I just don't think that the veiled threat that your future spouse may not want you
00:21:06.560 anymore. If you go too far with someone now is a good way to inspire abstinence before marriage.
00:21:12.280 It's just not, that's not a healthy mentality. And I think making modesty primarily about what other
00:21:19.120 people may think is also ineffective because these things are not what drive our conduct as Christians.
00:21:26.180 What we do, we do not do from fear, but from love. First John 4, 19 says, we love because he first
00:21:34.460 loved us. And John 14, 15 says, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. So because we love the
00:21:42.020 God that loved us so much that he sent his son to die for us, we seek to do what he says. We seek to
00:21:47.920 follow his commands because we are no longer who we were before we met Christ. We are no longer our own.
00:21:54.200 We are not our own authorities. We don't just do what we want or even wear whatever we want anymore.
00:22:00.540 There are three passages on that that I want to read. Ephesians 2, 1 through 5.
00:22:04.760 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of
00:22:09.500 this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons
00:22:14.060 of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires
00:22:20.080 of the body and the mind. And we're by nature, children of wrath like the rest of mankind, but God
00:22:26.880 being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our
00:22:31.520 trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace, you have been saved. Ephesians 4, 22 through
00:22:38.440 23, put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful
00:22:45.240 desires and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds and to put on the new self created after the
00:22:51.740 likeness of God and true righteousness and holiness. And then 2 Corinthians 6, 18 through 20, flee from
00:22:58.160 sexual immorality, flee from it. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually
00:23:04.660 immoral person commits sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the
00:23:12.700 Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own for you were bought with a price.
00:23:21.640 So glorify God in your body. So if you are a Christian, a follower of Christ, you've accepted
00:23:30.160 by faith that God sent his son as a payment for your sin, and you are by faith committing to live
00:23:36.080 in accordance with what God says is good and right and true, then you are no longer your own. Your old
00:23:41.580 self is gone. The God of self that you used to worship is dead. So all of this self-empowerment talk
00:23:47.720 about you doing what you want to do when you want to do it is totally irrelevant in the conversation
00:23:53.260 about what life in Christ looks like. We're supposed to die to ourselves because we are now his. He
00:24:00.880 purchased us with his blood and he alone has every right to tell us what to do and what not to do,
00:24:08.440 how to dress and not to dress. And he does so not because he enjoys nitpicking, but because he loves us
00:24:14.860 and is dedicated to our holiness, we obey him. He wants us to be set apart. First Timothy 2, 8 through
00:24:21.820 10 says this, I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger
00:24:29.200 or quarreling. Likewise, also that women should, uh, should adorn themselves in respectable apparel
00:24:35.180 with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what
00:24:42.520 is proper for women who profess godliness with good works. So just for some context, this is a
00:24:48.540 letter from the apostle Paul to his son in the faith, Timothy, giving pastoral instruction. He gives
00:24:54.120 some theological reminders, but is mostly giving practical advice about orderly worship, proper
00:24:59.160 behavior for the Christians in the church and things like that. So this verse in chapter two is
00:25:04.440 talking about in the context of the church, pointing to the importance of not distracting from worship,
00:25:10.440 either by causing other women to envy, uh, flashy clothing or encouraging men to look at them.
00:25:16.200 But because the word for modesty here in the original Greek, which is a he dose, uh, means
00:25:22.120 humility and reverence and really the opposite of self-focus or the desire for other people to look at
00:25:27.820 you. And because Christians are always called to humility, we understand that the call to modesty
00:25:33.860 also extends beyond the walls of the church. Colossians 3.12 says, uh, put on then as God's
00:25:40.600 chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.
00:25:48.260 So what this tells us is that while there are external signifiers of modesty, first and foremost,
00:25:54.620 it starts in the heart. It starts with a heart that is totally in submission to God.
00:25:59.160 So focused on all the, uh, so focused on the, on all the, the attention and glory going to God
00:26:11.140 that she will do nothing, uh, to distract from that. Now we don't read here that women have to
00:26:19.120 wear a potato sack or can't wear makeup or brush their hair or look pretty. We simply read that she
00:26:25.400 dresses herself to point to God and not to point to herself, um, and to herself. And because modesty
00:26:32.280 is first about what comes from within, there may not be hard and fast rules about what women should
00:26:40.320 and shouldn't wear. And I say women, because this passage addresses women, not men about modesty and
00:26:46.380 how we dress. Now that does not mean that men aren't also called to modesty because like we've said,
00:26:51.780 Christian men and women are called to humility at all times. And that means men are also not to
00:26:56.440 dress in a way that intentionally draws eyes to themselves, but either for men or women, it is
00:27:02.420 of course, subjective. I haven't always gotten this right. That is for sure. I haven't always been as
00:27:08.020 modest as I could be, um, in how I dress, the older you get, I think like the, the more mature you are,
00:27:14.120 the less tempted you are to kind of toe the line when it comes to clothing, the more conservative,
00:27:19.280 probably your standards become, um, the appropriateness of dress may depend on the setting.
00:27:24.960 It may depend on the body type. It may depend on who's around you, but it's a little like the
00:27:30.520 legal definition of obscenity. Like, you know, it, when you see it, you know, modesty, when you see
00:27:35.080 it, there's too short, too tight, too low, too skimpy showing too much of, or getting too close to
00:27:40.700 showing anything that would qualify as indecent exposure. If revealed, uh, those are all possible ways
00:27:47.020 something can be immodest, but again, not primarily, not primarily because of the clothing itself,
00:27:53.760 but because of what it does and what it says about our hearts. That's what the Bible says.
00:27:59.700 And it's about to whom we are trying to give attention. And you might say, well, I wear this
00:28:05.980 for me. It's not for other people to look at me. Well, again, I would just say, even if that is true,
00:28:11.700 if you are a Christian, you were still bought with a price. And even if you wear that for you,
00:28:18.960 the question is never, well, what can I get away with? But rather as Christians, the question is
00:28:24.580 always, how can I most glorify God with what I wear? That may mean setting some rules for yourself.
00:28:31.440 And yes, for the kids to whom God has given you to steward, that is normal and good and responsible
00:28:38.400 and right. That is not teaching kids to be ashamed of themselves or that all men are predators who may
00:28:44.660 be provoked to rape because a girl's skirt is too short. That's not what teaching modesty means to
00:28:50.660 kids. It is saying, look, we are called to glorify God in all that we do. He tells us to dress modestly
00:28:57.840 and humbly. And in this house, here's what we think that looks like. And as you get older, we'll trust you
00:29:04.840 more and more to make those decisions on your own. I'm just kind of paraphrasing because I know those
00:29:09.480 of you who have walked through the teenage years with your kids would know better than I do. But
00:29:13.280 that's just what I'm imagining based on scripture, the conversation might go like that, hey, we will
00:29:19.500 trust you more and more the older you get based on what we've taught you. But we are still here to
00:29:24.540 guide you, to protect you, to set some parameters as long as you are under our care, because we love you
00:29:31.640 and we love the God who made you and the God who made you loves you. And this is what he says in
00:29:35.800 his word. And look, the reality that a lot of progressives don't want to face today is that
00:29:40.980 men and women are different. Like we think differently. We think about sex and the opposite
00:29:46.240 sex differently. Men are much more visual than women are. They turn to thoughts about sex much more
00:29:52.500 quickly because of a visual than women do. That does not mean women are responsible for men's
00:29:57.840 thoughts. Again, it's just acknowledging reality. And if we know that lust is a sin, as Jesus tells
00:30:04.380 us that it is, and if we love the men who are our brothers in Christ, then we should want to do
00:30:10.940 everything we can to help them out. Matthew 5, 27 through 29, Jesus says this,
00:30:17.340 you have heard that it was said, you shall not commit adultery. But I say to you that everyone who
00:30:22.900 looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
00:30:28.840 If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose
00:30:34.460 one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. So here, Jesus clearly does not
00:30:41.700 blame a man's lust or does not lay the blame for a man's lust at the feet of the woman after whom he is
00:30:51.340 lusting. So we shouldn't do that either. But we also take from this passage that lust is a huge
00:30:57.640 deal. It's an important sin. It's a bad sin, as all sin is. But it's a sin that Jesus took time
00:31:04.420 to point out. Jesus is saying that you should take very drastic measures to stop yourself from doing
00:31:11.260 this. So if we as women know that, and we know how the male mind works, and don't let anyone tell you
00:31:18.640 it doesn't work that way. By the way, you'll also notice that Jesus is addressing men in that passage.
00:31:24.640 Isn't it the loving thing to do to, within reason, dress in a way that is not intentionally
00:31:33.380 distracting? Again, you can't control what someone thinks or does. And I'm not saying that you can.
00:31:38.460 I'm also not saying that you should be ashamed of your body because your body was made by God and is
00:31:43.140 good. I'm not saying that a man that is your husband thinking about you sexually is wrong,
00:31:48.380 because God calls that sexual relationship good too. I'm talking about loving the body of Christ
00:31:54.340 by doing what we can to spur them on towards holiness by conducting ourselves with modesty and
00:32:00.740 humility. Mark 7, 20 through 23 says, Jesus says this, and he said, what comes out of a person is
00:32:07.880 what defiles him for from within out of the heart or from within out of the heart of man come evil
00:32:13.980 thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality,
00:32:21.020 envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and they defile a person.
00:32:28.340 Jesus said that. I sometimes wonder, like when people try to paint Jesus as the person who doesn't
00:32:34.460 care about sin. I'm like, what Bible are you reading? These sins are big deals and they obviously
00:32:40.120 have bad consequences. So love would say that we do what we can to resist these sins ourselves
00:32:48.060 and to help those around us to do the same as much as is within our power. So here's my conclusion.
00:32:55.380 Critics of purity culture have some good points. Absolutely. But there is no reason, certainly no
00:33:01.620 biblical reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater and say that what we wear doesn't matter
00:33:07.340 to God because it does. It does matter to him. And God loves us very much. And I have to trust he
00:33:13.320 absolutely knows what's best for us and that we will never go wrong if our desire and all that we do
00:33:19.960 is to honor him. And I pray that he gives me the grace to do that better and better and to teach
00:33:25.280 our kids to do the same thing. And I pray that for you guys as well. Tough topic. I hope that I
00:33:33.200 covered it in a way that makes sense and is helpful for you guys. I will see you guys back here tomorrow.