I’m trying to be more modest because even though my personal preferences haven’t changed, my conviction has. But as I’ve tried to embrace modesty, I’ve been forced to examine what exactly it means and what it should look like practically applied.
Depending who you are or who you ask, you could get so many different answers. Different women in the same church might even give you drastically divergent interpretations.
And maybe that’s why the Bible doesn’t give us strict guidelines about hemlines or silhouettes.
I care about the way I look, and I always have. I’ve never been a big fan of throwing on a t-shirt and leggings if I’m going to be in public. I remember an old roommate asking if I wanted to ride along with her to the grocery store, and her telling me to change my outfit because I was “too dressed up.” I had known a former colleague turned friend for probably a year before she saw me in jeans because I wore them so rarely.
On top of dressing deliberately, my taste was pretty eclectic. An old coworker described a dress I wore to the company Christmas party as something that a villain in the Hunger Games would watch poor people fight to the death in.
Whether we had a close personal relationship or just knew each other in passing, what I wore was one of the most memorable things about me.
As I reread scriptures like 1 Timothy 2:9-10, I wondered if to truly obey God, I couldn’t just refine my style, but I had to abandon it altogether.
“I also want the women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, adorning themselves, not with elaborate hairstyles or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God.”
I wondered if my natural inclination towards the dramatic and the bold wasn’t something I had to rein in, but forfeit in its entirety, and if the only way I could genuinely please Him was if I started exclusively wearing shapeless brown and gray burlap sacks.
Since I was a teenager, I’d gravitated to scandalous, low cut, revealing clothing and thought that by ignoring that instinct, I’d be obeying God.
And I guess that was at least partially true, but I began to contemplate whether that was only the beginning of what God wanted from me.
It took me years to make peace with the idea of concealing my cleavage and not flashing a flat-ish stomach to the world every time I got the chance, but I did it. The idea that true modesty required me to go full colonial Williamsburg and completely give up the affection for fashion I’d had since I was a child didn’t feel the same.
The thought brought me to tears.
The concept of giving up a wardrobe I’d been curating since high school and spending my remaining years on this earth dressing like a Mennonite devastated me.
Was this what God meant by dying to self?
Was I supposed to give up anything that brought me remote joy in the world, and every aspect of my personality?
I had done hard things for God before. I had given up things that made me happy in pursuit of holiness. But this didn’t seem like a bittersweet surrender that would challenge me, but ultimately make me a better servant. This felt like a betrayal that made me second guess who I was, and who I was supposed to be in Christ.
I understood that we weren’t made to glorify ourselves, and that we all had to fight our flesh in pursuit of God. We all have different vices that we’ll struggle with, but this didn’t feel like a moral failure or liability I had to overcome; it felt like something God had intentionally designed in me. And I struggled reconciling a God that would make me who I am on purpose with the idea that I was supposed to completely destroy what He had seemingly written into my DNA.
I wrestled with the idea for a while, because even though it broke my heart, I didn’t want to delude myself about what God really wanted from me.
Even if it was uncomfortable, even if it felt impossible, I wanted the truth.
If it was what God really required, I knew I’d rather spend 50 years dressed like I was in the Handmaid’s Tale than eternity in hell.
I prayed for discernment.
And as the words reverberated in my head for days on end, it felt like the Lord was clarifying them to me in a way that I could actually understand.
I want to be clear: I am not a biblical authority, or a theological scholar. I could be wrong about this, and if I am, I plead for the Lord’s correction.
When Paul said that women shouldn’t adorn themselves in gold or pearls or intricate hairstyles, he didn’t follow up with a list of acceptable garments or accessories. He said that they should adorn themselves with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God.
I don’t believe Paul is actually forbidding women from having nice things, or putting effort into presentation. I think he’s telling women that the most important thing about them shouldn’t be their appearances, but their works in Christ. I think he’s telling women that they should want to be known not for the way they look, not for their possessions, and not for their style but for the way they reflect God’s love. He wasn’t banning aesthetics; he was rebuking vanity.
At the same time, I was making my way through Proverbs. And when I got to the end of the book, in what’s widely believed to be the blueprint of biblical womanhood, I noticed that it described her in linen and purple, and her family in scarlet – all signs of wealth and nobility. And while it could have been a metaphor, the fact that it goes on to mention her selling linen led me to interpret it more literally. And if the mascot of godly femininity is allowed to wear elegant outfits, why would she realistically be prohibited from donning equally upscale hairstyles or jewelry?
In perhaps the most popular verse of Proverbs 31, the noble wife is described as being clothed in strength and dignity and laughing without fear of the future as a result of her faith, again making the case for Christian women being able to indulge in luxury and beauty as long as it’s not the foundation of their identity.
I thought about Amish communities and how strict their rules and regulations are. In some ways, their natural and minimalistic way of life is beautiful, fostering a unique appreciation for God’s creation, but in other ways, they seem to overtly reject beauty. Most of them aren’t allowed to have printed wallpaper, decorative art, or patterned curtains. And when you contrast that with a grande centuries old cathedral that feels like a monument to the divine, you see opposite ends of the spectrum. One avoids excess entirely, while the other embraces it as a form of worship.
It made me consider whether an overly dogmatic evaluation of modesty actually obscures our view of God. God loves beauty because He is its Author. Everything good, beautiful and true is a gift from Him – but like everything He’s given us, we’re capable of corrupting it, idolizing it and abusing it.
If He embedded beauty into creation and even temple worship, then maybe the point is not to suppress it, but to herald it in a way that always redirects to its Architect.
It’s much more easily said than done – and I can understand why Paul warns us about it.
On shows like Real Housewives, you get a front row seat to what happens when women become consumed with status and displays of it. When a woman becomes obsessed with the way she’s perceived, more often than not, it ends in flames. She wants to be the prettiest and ends up with cartoonish plastic surgery. She wants to be the best dressed and spends money she doesn’t have on clothes she doesn’t need and can’t afford. She wants to look rich, so she pushes her husband for completely unnecessary vacation homes and new cars, only to lose her family and fortune down the line. I don’t say that to ridicule these women, but because others can and should learn from their mistakes.
As I grow in my understanding of biblical modesty, I think less of a rigid dress code and more about the motivations behind our choices.
That’s not to say that modesty is some “diy” abstract social construct that we can redefine at will, but from my point of view, it has more to do with the posture of our hearts than price tags. And instead of a long list of specifics, God equipped us with the Holy Spirit to shape us, convict us and redirect us where necessary. It means caring more about how we mirror God than about how we look in a mirror.
As I’ve read, and prayed, and waited, I’ve found a new sense of intimacy with God as a Creator, Father and Friend, who formed me with all the care in the world, who wants better for me than I want for myself, who will admonish me for my own good, and who cherishes my quirks and idiosyncrasies while knowing the best version of me is found in Him.
In short, I don’t think Paul is telling women that they have to make themselves invisible – but that they should want to be seen not for the material, but for what actually matters.
what do you think?