Lyndon Unger is a pastor, teacher, and blogger at Watch Your Life and Doctrine Closely…. He recently wrote a series on Biblical modesty, and joins the show this month to discuss what he found in his study on the subject.
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Outline of the Discussion
- Lyndon's wife approached him for his take on some books she had been reading on the subject, seeing that they didn't seem right. He dug into it more deeply to see how accurately the books handled the subject.
- Lyndon sees four groups of women that might be inclined to investigate the subject:
- The women who want to be biblically modest.
- The women who want to be historically modest.
- The women who want to be culturally modest.
- The women who want to be Christian hotties.
- The clothing worn by Roman women in Paul's day would have been quite conservative, and modest by today's standards. The question of modest dress seemed odd in such a context.
- Timothy would have known that it was wrong for women to dress “like a hooker,” so for Paul to address the subject in a pastoral letter/epistle seems pretty unnecessary.
There never was a golden era of modest apparel. The 1950's, which many people think of as being particularly modest, was not necessarily so. The people of different times and places certainly had their problems with modesty as we do now.- Breaking down the term Katastole to its constituent parts, as many are prone to do, would be to commit the “butterfly fallacy” (as Lyndon calls it.) Butterflies have nothing to do with either butter or flies.
- In Roman culture, men wore the toga, and women wore the stolla and the palla. Prostitutes, or women who wanted to dress provocatively would wear a toga made from Coan silk, a semi-transparent fabric.
- The hair was the way women would distinguish themselves. Stollas were commonly similar, but hair could be decorated elaborately. The more wealthy the woman was, the more elaborate her hair would be. The most wealthy women would have multiple slaves dedicated to making up their hair.
- It's tempting to see people of financial means as being more spiritual than the rest of us. This is not Biblical.
- In regards to dressing in ways that are not provocative, Lyndon simply boils the relevant scripture down to: cover your nakedness.
There never was a golden era of modest apparel. The 1950's, which many people think of as being particularly modest, was not necessarily so. The people of different times and places certainly had their problems with modesty as we do now.Scriptures Referenced
- 1 Corinthians 12:23
- 1 Timothy 2:9
- 1 Peter 3:1-6
Additional Resources
- Addressing the Dressing I: An Introduction
- Addressing the Dressing II: Biblically Understanding “Modestyâ€.
- Addressing the Dressing III: Clothes and Roman Culture
- Addressing the Dressing IV: Hair and Roman Culture
- Addressing the Dressing V (Part 1): The “Other†Modesty Text
- Addressing the Dressing V (Part 2): 1 Peter 3:5-6
- Addressing the Dressing VI: Bringing It All Together…Almost
- Addressing the Dressing VII: The Right to Bare Arms
