Why do conservative churches care so much about women’s apparel? Is it just Baptist culture, something we inherited from a previous generation, or are there actual biblical reasons for it? If you are new here, my name is Ryan Rench, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Temecula, California. In a video a couple of weeks ago, I tried to articulate why our church and our youth camp use a simple knee-length standard for shorts and skirts. But that raises another question: what about the top? Are there actual biblical reasons for covering the torso, or are Christians just being prudes? Are we just uptight about this, or are there biblical foundations for those standards too? People say, “Well, what about women’s liberation, and removing coverings and restrictions?” There are movements that range from advocating for nursing in public to, on the other side, removing all dress restrictions on public beaches, for example, trying to remove the cultural expectation of a covering on top. So I want to look at the Scriptures. What should Christians think about covering? We are always going to go back to the Scriptures.
Not Objectifying, but God’s Design
When we do that, are Christians just objectifying women by saying they should be covered, or is there something in God’s design of women that is different from men? Sometimes the pushback Christians get when talking about this is, “Well, you should not be looking.” And in some circles, even Baptist circles, I get the impression that some are saying, “If only girls would dress right, the guys would not have problems with lust.” That is certainly not true. I am absolutely not blaming a man’s lust on the woman; that is his problem, for sure. But there is definitely something to the joke, “Excuse me, eyes up here.” I am convinced people are just pretending that it is not a problem at all, that dress does not affect a man’s mind, or that we all have the freedom to do whatever we want. Deep down I think everyone pretty much knows what is going on here, and I am for not playing games. The attraction between men and women is an age-old thing; it has been happening for thousands of years. Let us not be coy about this. Alluring dress is very rarely a case of “I just did not know.” If you say, “I did not know,” well, maybe I believe you, and maybe I do not. So let us not pretend men are not attracted to women. But that is not a man thing or a culture thing; it is God’s design. It is not just the way we have been programmed; it is the way God has designed us. God designed a husband and a wife to be physically attracted to one another. God created Adam and Eve, and it was good, and the sexual one-flesh union between them is part of God’s command to be fruitful and multiply in Genesis 1:27-28: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” So there is a part of God’s design that makes a woman’s body attractive to men. To me it is very obvious and basic. Most men do not need this spelled out for them; it is pretty intuitive, because it is by God’s design. There is a sexual attraction to a woman, and to certain parts of her body in particular. That is not objectifying her; it is pointing out the obvious.
First, It Is Scriptural
By God’s design, a woman’s beauty is to be reserved for her husband. “Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love.” It is the Bible that connects a woman’s breasts with the marriage relationship: “let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love.” Song of Solomon 4:5 says, “Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins, which feed among the lilies.” And later, in chapter 7, verses 7 and 8: “This thy stature is like to a palm tree, and thy breasts to clusters of grapes. I said, I will go up to the palm tree, I will take hold of the boughs thereof: now also thy breasts shall be as clusters of the vine, and the smell of thy nose like apples.” Perhaps if you grew up in a purity culture where you did not hear about this much, as I did, it makes you blush a little. But God is not embarrassed by it. He is the One who created sexual attraction within marriage. To say that a woman’s breasts are sexual in nature is not just a product of our culture. Again, we are not objectifying women. This is by God’s design.
Second, It Is Biological
So, first, it is scriptural. Second, it is physiological, or biological, we could say. In God’s design of the physical makeup of the body, there are obvious reproductive purposes for a woman’s body parts. She is uniquely designed to carry and deliver a baby and then to feed the baby with milk produced by the mammary glands. Some would say a woman’s breast is merely utilitarian, meant only to feed babies, with no other purpose. But no, as we saw, there are purposes of intimacy within the marriage relationship. And in her body there are objectively sensual characteristics of a woman’s biology: sensitive nerve endings and changes that happen in the body when stimulated. This is the body confirming what the Bible says. You do not have to be taught this stuff; some of it you can figure out by common sense. What gets me is when people argue against God’s natural design or try to normalize indecency. No, the Bible’s truth is that sexual satisfaction can be righteously acted on only within the bounds of marriage, and everything outside of that is fornication. Hebrews 13:4 says, “Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.” Proverbs 5:15-17 says, “Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well. Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets. Let them be only thine own, and not strangers’ with thee.” That is Proverbs 5, the same chapter we read earlier about a woman’s breasts: they are only for her husband. So if God intentionally connected this part of the body with marital intimacy, and He intended that intimacy to be reserved for a husband, it should not surprise us that Christians have believed it deserves modest covering. That does not mean we are shaming the body. On the contrary, I believe we are valuing the body.
Principles About Dress
Does the Bible give us a verse that says exactly where the neckline is? No. Just as in the previous video, we did not read a verse that says specifically where the nakedness of the leg starts. That is not usually how the Bible works. We said previously that the Bible gives commands and teaches principles, and we form convictions, things I am convinced about, and from those convictions come standards, guardrails set in from the cliff to keep us from going over the edge. So what principles does the Bible give about dress? A primary passage on modesty is 1 Timothy 2:9-10: “In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array; But (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works.” The point of those verses is not to draw attention to self. Shamefacedness and sobriety mean being reserved and self-controlled, even limiting personal liberty at times to serve other people out of love for them. The words adorn and apparel tell us we are dealing with clothing. It is not that fashion is somehow evil. We live in California; fashion is a big deal here. Beauty is not bad; it is just, according to Proverbs 31:30, vain. It is empty; it is not the main thing. 1 Peter 3:3-4 says, “Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.” So yes, ladies, do your hair, do your makeup. Please look nice; please do. That is fine. But your greatest beauty is not outward; it is inward. Beauty standards change across cultures and throughout history. In some cultures, the more plump and pale a woman was, the more it meant she ate well and stayed indoors, which was a sign of wealth, which was attractive. In our culture it is now the opposite: thin and tan. But I am not talking about things that change like that from culture to culture. Some would say, “Well, there are cultures where nudity is normal and socially accepted, and Christians are just being legalistic.”
The point of today’s video is pretty simple. There are some objective standards in the Scriptures, and we believe a woman’s body has been designed by God with objective beauty, but her sexual beauty is meant to please one person only, her husband. So when a church like ours sets dress standards for camps, or for those involved in ministry or on the platform, we are just trying to reflect God’s desires for that body. As to the covering of that body, there is apparel that can be called the attire of an harlot. Proverbs 7:10 speaks of it: “And, behold, there met him a woman with the attire of an harlot, and subtil of heart.” There is dress that at a glance you can see is an advertisement for the sensual, and for some reason Christians have sometimes defended that. That boggles my mind. So there is attire that highlights the sensual, and there is attire the Scripture calls modest, intentionally downplaying the attention-grabbing parts of herself. So for a lady, what does coverage look like on top? Someone recently told me, “God gave us a neckline for a reason.” At Bible college they measured from the neckline as an objective line, to make sure the dresses or camisoles or whatever came up to a certain line just below the collarbone. There is not a verse that says how high your neckline should be, and different churches might draw that line in different places, but the principle remains the same: if God designed a woman’s beauty to be reserved for her husband, Christians should seek to dress in a way that honors that design rather than pushing the boundaries of showing it off.
Balance
Let me end with some balance. Men are responsible for their own thoughts; Jesus made that very clear in Matthew 5:28: “But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.” So a man can never blame his sin on someone else’s clothing; his heart is his own responsibility. But at the same time, women are called to dress modestly. Those two truths are not contradictory; they are two sides of the same coin. Ladies are given this special gift of beauty. Some use it as a tool for evil, and some are perhaps naive or ignorant of its power, but God wants you to be wise and to carry yourself for His glory. So this whole video is a snapshot of modesty in our culture. A woman’s body is a precious treasure, designed to be honored, not passed around and cheapened. I do not intend to draw your lines for you, but I do want our church to think about how we display God’s treasure. There are right and wrong ways, according to Scripture, so let us follow the Lord in this and be very, very careful. God bless you, and let us continue to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. We will see you in the next video.
