crossdressing

Since the men wore robes during that time, it seems this is a moot question. There were no 3 piece suits or blue jeans in Biblical times.

I don't dress to look like a man but I wear my jeans and even will wear dress pants to church some Sunday mornings.

 

Only one sex is allowed to wear each named article of clothing.
1. Pants
2. Shoes
3. Belt
4. Hat
5. Dress
6. Socks
7. Coat
8. Robe
9. Shirt

I guess we just have to decide which item is for males and which item is for females because it is not possible for an item of clothing to be called the same thing and have both sexes wear them. Oh, wait a mintue, yes, we can.

Seriously, I completely agree with men and women wearing distinctively different clothing but not to the point of what English word can be used to discribe that particular item.

 

10.Kilt

 

Didn't the priest have to wear bloomers under their robes when they went up to make sacrifices on behalf of the people.

 

Well, there are women's pants out there. If a woman is wearing pants made for women, she is not dressing like a man. If she wears men's clothes and obviously tries to look mannish (and I've seen a lot of this), then that is what God is forbidding.

 

I don't think God will send you to hell for wearing the wrong clothes. Because I seriously doubt that would be your only sin in life. God will allow us to go to hell if we do not accept His son as the payment for our sin. If you have accepted Christ as your savior and then accidently wear a woman's shirt or a pair of man's pants etc. He isn't going to say "well Mark d was on his way to heaven, but not now."

 

Only one sex is allowed to wear each named article of clothing.

MALE........................ FEMALE
1. Pants....................Dress slacks
2. Shoes....................Ladies shoes
3. Belt.....................Ladies belt
4. Hat......................Ladies hat/ covering
5. Kilt.....................Dress
6. Socks....................Hose, tights, socks
7. Coat.....................Coat
8. Robe.....................House coat

For cross dressing to apply, it would seem to me the 'cross dressers' heart intent would be to appear to be the opposite sex.
9. Shirt Blouse

 

MarkD, you seem to have a genuine need in your OP on this thread. I wonder "why" you say you "struggle" with this. Is it your concern over women wearing pants to your church? Do you fear that your views have been too liberal til now and someone has instructed you that women wearing pants is a sin?

I realize that you will not want "teaching" from a woman, and hopefully a male board member will respond in a way that is very instructive for you. But I will offer my opinion along with the other female BB members who have responded to your query.

As a woman, I have worn pants my entire life (almost 47 years worth), even though I was born into a Baptist family. My mother believed in dressing us "decently", which meant wearing shorts or pants UNDER our skirts or dresses when we were at church while very young. She knew we loved to play, and she wanted us "covered appropriately" during that entire time. She, in fact (along with my dad) had to have a conversation with our pastor about WHY we wore pants underneath our dresses--something that the pastor (to his immense credit in a totally different church climate in the 1960's) agreed with. So much so, that MOST of the other girls moms started doing the same thing.

Throughout the years, I have been one who believes (due to my mother's early teaching) that one should dress APPROPRIATELY....because outward appearances often belie the inner person. At this point in my life, I ALWAYS wear pants to work and at home. It is simply what is most appropriate for me in my daily activities. AT NO TIME do I attempt to LOOK LIKE A MAN. Nor do I believe that I am dressing like one. I wear clothing that covers me modestly, serves my daily-activity-purposes, and yet still allows me to LOOK and FEEL like a woman. If I wore a dress or skirt on most of these occasions, I would simply be self-conscious and uncomfortable (due to my need to lose weight and the fact that I have some serious arthritis problems). In my case, wearing pants allows me to be MORE of a woman, simply because I am freer to be myself, rather than worry about the discomfort of my clothing. Not to mention that if I TRIP or FALL (which I do on far too many occasions, due to my arthritis), I don't have to worry about making a bigger scene if I had on a dress!

If you do a history search on men's/women's fashion over the centuries, you will learn much that may help you with this question. For many decades, it was the MAN who wore the most teased-up-high-and-long-to-the-shoulder WIG (that would now look more like what a woman should be attired in!). There was a period where it was the MAN who wore what would today be considered stockings (to the knee) and "cropped pants". Scottish men wore/wear kilts that are more like today's women's skirts (there has even always been a version of the kilt in modern American ladies' skirt sewing patterns). And, as far as a woman wearing a dress--fashion once dictated a gown so low-cut that it would be considered scandalous for wearing in church circles here. Yards, and yards, and yards of fabric were used to create dresses that were uncomfortable, impractical, and today would be extremely expensive. In short, societal "norms" for male/female fashion have changed drastically through the years--and I'm talking about in CHRISTIAN countries. In each "fashion period" there were obvious male clothing items and female clothing items. As times changed, those clothing items changed....but it was still obvious whether or not a man was trying to look like a man--no matter what he wore--and a woman was trying to look like a woman--no matter what she wore. There were TRUE "cross-dressers" in all those ages, too--even though a TRUE cross-dressing woman of the powdered-wig era would probably look more like a NORMALLY dressed woman of today. But, since she CHOSE to try to look like a man, it was what was IN HER HEART that made what she wore wrong--NOT THE CLOTHES THEMSELVES.

In today's "fashion world" the dresses that are available for women to wear are quite often MUCH more revealing--and in my mind, QUITE inappropriate for church--than pants are. They're out of clingy, skin-tight fabric, have low-cut necklines and high-riding hems. And I'm talking about things I see REGULARLY on the girls going to the churches I attend. These girls (and adult women, in many cases) don't look like "women the way God intended"--they look more like they're dressing like Madonna or Britney Spears. To me, it honors God much more--especially in His house--for me to wear decent PANTS than it does for me to try to find a decent dress in today's available styles.

So, I guess what I'm saying with all this bunch of typing, is that the other ladies on this board have hit at the REAL issue here--it's the HEART that determines the sin--not the cut of the fabric. Remember what Jesus said about what goes into a man's mouth is not the source of defilement--but rather what comes OUT of his mouth (because that reveals his heart). Would not the clothing issue fall under this same remedy from Jesus' teaching?

May God bless you as you seek your answers.
Terri

 

A Cross Dresser is a man who is trying to look like a woman in his cultural setting. Are you trying to look like a woman? And if so, then why? The issue of cross dressing has more to do with a lifestyle choice (moving into the realm of homosexuality) than it does with what kind of clothes we wear. Diane is right. It is a matter of the heart (what's on the inside) that matters, not what is on the outside.

That being said, what is on the inside that makes you believe that you may be going to hell?

Joseph Botwinick

 

You should take that verse in context and make a right application with it, like any other text. The Bible is not a wooden book. A kilt worn by a man in a culture where men wear kilts or wear it on special days (as in Scotland) is fine. They are not trying to dress like a woman.

What several posters have pointed out is that the point of this passage is that men should not dress to look like women nor vice-versa. And as some pointed out here, it is an issue that shows there is something wrong if someone cannot accept the gender the way God made them. That is what the problem is.

 

The people who lived during Deut and those Jews afterward did not wear pants. Men or women. Pants are nothing more then clothing style, there are men's styles of pants and women's styles of pants.

 

Didn't the priest have to wear bloomers under their robes when they went up to make sacrifices on behalf of the people. </font>[/QUOTE]While the priests wore b reeches, what we today call underware under their robes only while ministering the tabernacle, that piece of clothng was for priests only. For anyone to use that to say women can't wear pants(and don't know if that si what you are saying or not, but many do misuse that text)is also saying men can't wear that same article of clothing. Underware, not pants on the outside of clothing.