a new gimmick reported by fox news

Joshua,

I don't condemn anyone, it's not my place. Just like you had your view, I have mine.

I am a woman so I can not minister to people, but I do try to witness when I can. I am dealing with that now. A new family moved in accross the street and they are catholic. My daughters got friendly with their daughter, same age. She is a troubled teen and was sneaking out at night with boys etc.. I was warned about this girl by people in town. Luckily I was a troubled teen myself, so I tend to be drawn to them. To make a long story short, she started asking me about God one day.
Out I came, was pouring my heart out witnessing to her. I invited her to church that night and praise God, 2 weeks later she got saved.

She loves going to church and looks forward to it. She comes everytime we go which is often, she has joined our choir and all.

Problem, we wanted to baptize her and the mom won't allow it. The mother and Aunt tell her she can loose her salvation and if she is bad she will go to hell. She runs tome and asks me about it and I try to reassure her that you can never loose your salvation. So the jist of this is, if I could reach every teen in the world I would. But I don't believe THAT magazine will do it.
I am all for the concept of it, but decency is key.

Well didn't I go off on a rabbit trail!
Sorry, I guess I needed to let people know about that situation.

LB

 

I must be getting old. I didn't see anything on the magazine cover either. I better get new bifocals....good grief, there is so much to get concerned about, and that just doesn't seem to be much for concern.

Cheers,

Jim

By the way, a school principal in London wrote a portion of the Bible in Cockney Rhyme to try and get teens interested in the Bible.

 

Boy, Joshua, I think you are the misguided one! Do you have daughters? I have a 5-year-old daughter who has already learned to dress very modestly. She will understand between now and when she becomes a teenager that what she sees on the covers of those sinful teen magazines is NOT what God wants to see.

If you don't teach your children modesty and chastity (sp?) now, when they are young, you will be one of those parents who end up with a pregnant 13 year old and wonder, why me?!

Putting a half-naked young GIRL on the cover of a magazine to promote Bible reading is horrible. In the same line as it would be to put Religious advertising on the front of a strip club.

Parents/Adults get real!!!! Instill good/godly morals and way in your children when they are young. If you don't, you will be hanging your heads in shame.

 

Modesty and chasity are matters of the heart. Having grown up in legalism disguised in spiritual terms such as "standards" and "convictions" and seeing teenage girls who wore coulottes to remain "modest" end up pregnant and disgraced, I resent the attitude that someone's personal preference is the determiner of what is modest and appropriate and what is not.

Living in the closet of legalism will definitely cause one to judge another based strictly upon the outward first with little regard for the inward. Such is life in the land of religious bondage. This thread is a perfect illustration as to the innate dangers of legalism.

As a father of two beautiful daughters, I am far more concerned with loving them in a way that they know they are special to God and to me than I am forcing them into a pair of coulottes in the guise of a man-made "standard".

Just my opinion.

 

This line of reasoning is so pathetic that it should be deleted by the moderators. Of course I recognize that part of living in the world of legalism is employing extremes to try and prove an illogical point.

 

SBCbyGrace Said:

Hummm, I thought it was God who said " that women adorn themselves in modest apparel". I did not know that was man made.

I think I will stick with what God said.

 

Thank you Jailminister. Do you go to Adult jails/prison or juvenile?

We have a missionary who goes to the juvenile facilities of our whole country. We had him visiting our church in July. He read us letters from youngsters who were already in "the system". They, themselves, told Brother Blankenship, that they were the way they were because of being brought up with "worldly" views.

The last time I looked, GOD told the women/girls that they should dress modestly, not man!!!!!! WAKE UP PEOPLE.

I would like to see what would happen if that girl on that cover would have to bend down to pick something up off the ground!! On second though, maybe not.

I actually have two (2) daughters. One is 15 and was not brought up with Christian values. She is living in Texas with her father. My other is the 5-year-old I was talking about.

Anyway, I can already see a huge difference between the views of both girls. My 15 year old doesn't think twice about loading up on the makeup, hiphuggers, crop tops, etc. And, to top it off, her father thinks that it is perfectly fine, although I have voice my opinion/view otherwise. Her father doesn't think twice and neither does she about having boys in another room where her father cannot readily see what they are up to.

I was not raised in a Christian home. I had rules that could be considered Christian. However, I remember wearing the short-short skirts and hiphugger (peanut) jeans, etc. All it does is make the young boys' hormones go wild.

My 5-year-old on the other hand already knows that she should not show her thighs, midriff. She already know that you should not wear a shirt where the whole world can look into it when you bend down. She knows to sit like a lady.

We allow our children to live "worldly" and then wonder what is wrong with our youths today.

Through Brother Blankenship, I can see clearly what is wrong with our youths today. They are getting mixed messages. The Christians of today need to get back to the basics. The Preachers of today need to preach the "whole" message, not just the ones that make us feel warm and fuzzy inside. The Preachers of today need to preach messages that stir our insides.

I work in a close custody adult male prison as a processing assistant. I see, first hand, the end result of children receiving mixed messages or the wrong messages. The ball gets its first push in the home. I have seen what happens when that ball finally stops. It is not a pretty sight. It is actually quite sad.

The ladies who work here are not allowed to show skin. Our dresses/skirts must be below the knee and if pants are the chosen attire, they must be down to the ankle. Shirts must not have low necklines and must not be sheer fabric. Perfume is to be minimal as well as makeup. Fingernails can be no longer than 1/8 of an inch past the fingertip. Wow, it is amazing that the dress code for prison employees seems to be quite biblical. I wonder what they have learned that many who have never experienced being here have not.

 

Well, I'm "lost" in this discussion. I mean no disrespect, but I didn't know the Bible specifically mentioned dress length, pants, clothing fabric, and fingernail length. (Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong! )

I believe the Bible admonishes women to dress modestly, and as a Christian woman, I do; however I didn't realize "biblical modesty" incorporated the "rules" you have listed.

And I appreciate, and agree with, your humble opinion, Joshua! We seem to be going ballistic over the cover of a magazine when it possibly could attract teens to read something they could care less about reading in it's present "packaging'. I honestly don't see a problem with that, but maybe I'm just blind. Personally, I don't see her "outfit" as being completely out of line, as some do. Looks to me like it's pretty standard for a lot of non-Christian teens today. Right or wrong, people who have no Christian influence in their lives for dress guidelines probably dress like that...ADULTS included.

Very well said, SBCbyGRACE.

And, personally, I originally was trying to "come to grips" with the idea of a Bible in magazine format BEFORE we got off onto how one girl was dressed!!

 

No one is arguing against modesty. But here comes the wake-up call: YOU ARE NOT THE DETERMINER OF WHAT IS MODEST AND WHAT IS NOT. You are entitled to your opinion as to what constitutes modest and what does not, but the moment your preference is forced upon others, you have entered the world of legalism.


Newlady: Your entire post proves my previous post ... legalism is far more concerned with the external than the internal.

Can you point us to those texts that outline the dress code you describe above?

I lived in your world, and I have witnessed firsthand the devastating results of an outward focused religion. Thank God I can testify with Paul: "It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery."

 

A yoke of slavery?

 

SBCbyGrace, I was once where you are now, but I found out that words had meaning. They were not subjective to preference. God does give us liberty, but that liberty is not to choose to do wrong. Lets look at the definitions first.
Main Entry: mod·est
Pronunciation: 'mä-d&st
Function: adjective
Etymology: L modestus moderate; akin to Latin modus measure
Date: 1565
1 a : placing a estimate on one's abilities or worth b : neither bold nor self-assertive : tending toward diffidence
2 : arising from or characteristic of a modest nature
3 : observing the proprieties of dress and behavior ecent
4 a : limited in size, amount, or scope b :Unpretentius
One entry found for decent.
Top of Form 1

Bottom of Form 1
Pronunciation: 'dE-s&nt
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle French or Latin; Middle French, from Latin decent-, decens, present participle of decEre to be fitting; akin to Latin decus honor, dignus worthy, Greek dokein to seem, seem good
Date: 1539
1 archaic a b : well-formed : Handsome
2 a : conforming to standards of propriety, good taste, or morality b : modestly clothed
3 : free from immodesty or obscenity
4 : fairly good but not excellent : <decent wages>
5 : marked by moral integrity, kindness, and goodwill <hard-working and decent folks>
synonym see Chase

Modest means that there is a standard of decency. I have learned that if you have no standards then how far will you go. A young lady that may look fashionable, but yet brings attention to herself is not being modest. Look at the definition. If a person is wearing clothes that are too tight or too revealing then it does not match the definition of modest. Now you as a parent can allow your children to dress as you want, but I would rather see God glorified by honoring His word.

I am not trying to confrontational with you, But I know what "is" means.

Thanks, Newlady. Our main ministry is with adults. The ages are from 17 up. God has richly blessed our ministry. We preach to about 120 people evryweek in 2 services. We average over 200 decisions for Christ every year.

 

Pardon me while I digress one moment from the topic of discussion! LauraB, I found this to be an interesting comment. What exactly do you consider "ministering to people"? Would not witnessing be a ministry? Would not raising your daughter to be a Godly woman be a ministry? Would not taking a meal to a family who needed it, for whatever reason, be a ministry? Would not serving in the nursery at your church be a ministry?

Just curious. "We now return you to your program. Thank you."

 

Suffice it to say that it's pleasing to the Holy Spirit that both men and women adorn themselves in modest apparel (we Christians tend to forget that).

But what constitutes modest apparel is often open to debate. IMO, the dress of the girls on the cover of the NT in question is not immodest.

Frankly, if a guy looks at the picture and becomes sexually aroused, he's got a problems that he must deal with.

 

I somewhat agree. However, if a person dresses in a way to attract some one of the opposite sex, then they must share the blame also.

 

What part of Paul's words do you not understand? Do you have to have it in KJV language? Here you go: "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage."

 

1Peter 2:16 As free, and not using [your] liberty for a cloke of maliciousness, but as the servants of God.

2Pe 2:19 While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.

 

Your very words stand in direct contradiction to what you have previously said. But the sad reality is that you cannot even see it (thus another defining mark of legalism).

You do not have to explain word meanings to me. I have had over 30 hours of biblical Greek. I am well aware of what words mean. That has nothing to do with the point. The point is this: you are not the determiner of what is modest and what is not. What may be "immodest" to you may not be "immodest" to another. When looking at the picture, I in no way thought the girl was dressed immodestly. It was not until the legalists hijacked the thread that I started having flashbacks of the bondage.

Please do not spiritually patronize us by implying your personal preferences are glorifying to God and others are not. Jesus had a lot more to say about outward-based religion than he did regarding coulottes.

No one has suggested modesty is not a biblical teaching. The point is simply that your standards do not determine the definition of what is modest and what is not.

When you can offer some biblical evidence that your standards = God's standards, then we can begin to discuss this logically. Until then ...

BTW, confrontation does not bother me. God has brought me through a journey that cannot be thwarted by a few misguided extremists.

Not trying to be confrontational either

 

Great verses. Point???

Again, your definition of separation or modesty is not what determines what is malicious and what is not.

 

I gave you the definition of Modest.

I use those verses to show you that you do have liberty to do what you want to do. You can dress modest or you can dress immodest. That is not a question of salvation. However, when you go along with the stles of the world, then you have to suffer the consequences.