Women and nudity!

Women and girls do seem to be wearing less and less clothes. Several times at church, I've had to do a double take at the lack of covering. A couple of times, it's been kids I've taught and started over to talk to them ONLY to notice that their mamas also had on an insufficient amount of garb.

Now at school, we've got stricter standards. I've actually called parents to tell them their kids were out of dress code and had the parents say, "What's wrong with that too-tight shirt or too-short skirt or drawers that show off my son's cute boxers."

Somehow we've neglected to educate here.

 

The is something like another thread in my mind.

If public nudity or near nudity is wrong it is wrong - be it on a public street or a public beach.

There seems to be a mixed message here - it is acceptable to be nearly naked in public if you are close enough to water, but it is wrong if you are too far from the water.

Why does the proximity to water determine how naked we can be in public and still honour Christ?

 

But have they given their lives to Christ? Are they following Jesus?

Can they trust in "the shed blood of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of their sins" if they don't actually trust their lives to Him? Jesus said, "Follow Me!", not "make a verbal assent of a few theological fact to provide payment for your sins so you can enter Heaven and then live life the best you know how".

True Christians learn to live the life of Christ by emulating His practices and following His teachings as a disciple (or apprentice). Through this training, their character is transformed into Christlikeness, and they will know how to dress in an appropriate manner without having to resort to legalistic rules that only have the power to changes appearances, but do nothing to transform the real needs in the heart.

 

Wonder if the Lord had of been in that booth what they would of said, or would they have run home first and put some clothes on?
Reminds me of "dust on the Bible".

 

There does indeed to be a lack of "shamefacedness" in the church today.

 

Originally posted by mcdirector:

"Somehow we've neglected to educate here."

Bitsy, I agree! I think it's largely a lack of following the Titus model of the older ladies teaching the younger, and sadly, that includes the moms who don't teach the daughters (another point you touched on in your post.) It seems "what's in style" takes precedence now over any Biblical standard of decency or modesty. I see a lot of girls and women on Sundays who apparently have never heard of a camisole or a slip. (Now it's popular to wear a camisole as the only blouse!! ) Every week on the wedding pages in the newspaper I see young ladies who were married in Baptist churches who look more like they were dressed for the wedding night than the ceremony. I realize that's almost all you can find in the stores nowadays, but why do Christians let current fashions dictate their actions? And if the moms aren't going to teach the girls, where are the dads?!
Ok, I just stepped off my soapbox.

 

But there is a different dress for different places and activities. My one piece bathing suit, that I feel is perfectly modest for my time in the pool, is not appropriate for wearing down the street. I've had girls come to school in shirts that were quite a bit more revealing than my bathing suit.

 

No problem with your comment Bitsy. I agree with place appropriate dress and modesty - the question here is near nudity in public - we must agree that that is always wrong for God's children

 

Pamela,

I think this stems from the fact that the church has been so anxious to get people into the church that they were so afraid to offend anyone that we have gone for a period with no teaching on propriety.

I'm SBC and we used to (way back yonder in the dim regions of my memory) had a time on Sunday evenings that we called Training Union, we taught about what Baptists believed and church history. In GAs, we taught manners and modesty in addition to a multitude of mission-minded things. We used to have two week Bible schools where we taught about the cooperative program and missions in addition to having fun and snow cones. I'm not saying that being user friendly is a bad thing for our churches, but I do think that in many cases we've become so user friendly that we threw the proverbial baby out with the bathwater.

And then there is society telling us to do anything that we want to because it's our right. It seems we have also bought that hook, line, and sinker.

 

Oh good! I would be broken hearted if I ever said anything that offended you Roger!

And yes, I agree.

But I'm just seeing more and more bikini kind of wear in public that isn't even appropriate for the pool.

And I vividly remember my son and his friends -- convicted beyond belief -- praying for the conviction of so many girls in their school (the same one I teach at by the way!) and their dress. It was both a wonderful and terribly sad experience for me as a mom.

 

How do women who insist on immodest dress as their "right" answer this?

The word "shamefacedness" has the idea of "bashfulness" and from what I have studied at least, the concept of "easily blushing."

Where is the shamefacedness in the church in general?

 

Re:women or men ?

This OP and 2 or 3 others in general deal with the same topic but from different views, angles or paradigms. IMO at the real heart of the questions lies to important view points.

First how I view Christ as in is he omnipresent? If we see Christ as everywhere present, we understand that though no one else sees Him he is none-the-less present and cognizant of what we wear, say and do. How we dress is appropriate by who accompanies us and where we take Him.

Secondly it is a matter of Holiness, be ye holy because I am Holy. As a body of believers, Christendom has lost their understanding and appreciation of holiness. I must confess in this regard I have struggled with an answer for years because in my opinion I have not yet seen it modeled and yet even in the diversity of the times I know it has. The only man that comes to mind in my life time and obviously I have not known all or many is the late John R. Rice who lived a life of holiness in that his manner of prayer and living brought conviction by just being in his presence. I am not saying he was not human nor am I advocating his being placed on a pedestal and worshipped. What I am saying is that holiness is missing in Christendom and we need to discover once again what it is but it helps when it is modeled.

When we read of the past holiness of God's men and women who, in our times, with all the media about, rises to the status of prompting fear should they but speak against our activities and conduct?

 

I used to work with a lady who told me she was a born-again Christian, and I was happy to learn this. But she showed me pictures of her two daughters who had each been Runnerup for Miss Iowa, and they were of course absolutely stunning. Nothing wrong with that, but the gowns they wore were just terrible--not merely off the shoulder, but showed much more than they actually covered.

That doesn't make her or her daughters any less saved (if they truly are), but I was really appalled. And then I met them both in person, and their casual clothes weren't any better--short shorts and tops that completely exposed their backs.

Something just didn't equate--here they say they are Christians, but my non-Christian friends dress more modest than that. What on earth?

I never said anything about it to my co-worker, never even brought up the subject of modesty, just talked with her about normal topics as before, but then one day she blew up at me and called me a legalistic prude, etc, etc, "you think you're so good", etc. (This started when she had stated that her baby great nephew would go to hell for his parents' sin--they were not married when he was born--and I told her that salvation was available to anyone who believed in Jesus regardless of their parents' sins, that we are all individually responsible before God and ALL have an opportunity to be saved)

I don't understand the world we live in. I had nothing to respond back to my co-worker--didn't know what to say. I have learned that amazingly, strangely, and sadly for Christians, modesty is increasingly a dirty word--even if how you apply modesty is not regulated by some guy's rules, but applied by principle instead of mandate. My secular work dress code manual both prohibits and requires certain attire. I am most certainly opposed to a dresscode manual for Christians, but even my job requires our attire to represent (and not embarrass) the company. How we as Christians have no standard at all in this issue is simply embarrassing and dishonoring to the name we claim--Christ-follower.

Ciela

 

Mima... sounds like you may have missed an opportunity to do some discipling...

Once they had established to me the fact that they believed themselves to be Christians, I probably would have admonished them to obey God's teaching about dressing modestly. At least tried to plant a seed, as it were. Though I definitely would have been in prayer about it.

Yes, we have many ignorant Christians running around...but those of us who know better need to speak out!

I was standing in a check out line in the grocery store and the young man bagging my groceries was talking extremely suggestive to another boy who was helping him, about a girl who was in the store. I stood and prayed for God to let him be the one to carry out my groceries and to open an opportunity to address him about this and to guide my tongue. As he carried out my groceries, I began to ask him about his 'spirituality'...once he had confirmed that "Oh, yes, I'm a Christian. Yes, I believe in the Lord Jesus and I've trusted him as my Savior." I then told him that if that were true, he needed to seriously consider whether or not he was living his life in a manner worthy of the Lord. I told him that from what I had overheard of his conversation inside the store just a few moments earlier, I would not have thought him to be a follower of Jesus. I then shared some scriptures about being seperate from the world, being holy and putting off sin and living godly. I urged him to seriously consider his love for Christ and examine his commitment and his walk. (The Lord truly led the conversation and flooded my mind with scriptures! It was awesome.)

I told the young man that I didn't think it coincidence that I was there at that particular time and that we were having this conversation. I told him I had prayed that he'd be the one to carry out my groceries, to which he seemed a bit shocked. I told him as a fellow Christian, I wanted to encourage him to seriously consider all we had discussed.

You know what...in the beginning of the conversation, he seemed a bit offended and had attitude, but by the end of our conversation, he was being very polite and even said "Thank You".

What we as Christians need is a greater love and more boldness.

 

amen Cielaraise:

 

I am appalled by how some of our young girls are dressing now to come to church! Instead of arguing whether women/girls should wear pants... the issue should be to cover up!! No, I'm not talking burka's of course. But don't come in showing belly-buttons and thighs and tattooed backsides, and wearing low low low-cut blouses. I want to ask them, are you coming to worship God, or to be worshipped by the men/boys? I would much rather see a woman in church wearing a nice pantsuit, than the way many women and girls are wearing their short skirts, tight dresses, spiked heels, and revealing tops. What a sad state our Christian women are in today.

 

I think we should keep in mind that clothe are the effect of sin. Man was naked and would still be naked had we of not fallen. Or way of determining someone's salvation or relationship with GOD based on dress is actually backwards. Wouldn't a naked person be closer to GOD?

 

Is that a serious question? God gave us clothing. God has commanded that we dress modestly. Therefore, those that dress modestly, would be closer to God.

 

I had a neighbor lady that ran up and down the road "naked" hollowing "I see Jesus" but she now is in a home for the mental retarded.:smilewinkgrin:

There were some men in white coats that came and looked up in the air where she was pointing and didn't see nothing, so they took her away!