Perhaps one of the things independent Baptists are known for is modest dress. For better or worse, some fundamentalists have made dress standards more fundamental than the fundamentals themselves. I have been around some Baptists who make a bigger deal about girls wearing pants than they do about sexual scandals. On the other side, I have been around some Baptists who have almost zero discernible difference from the world in dress. I do not want to be at either extreme. I still want us to have dress standards, but I do not want to make dress a matter of holiness. I just want us to be biblical in our appearance. Now that we are in summer, we are in summer camp season, and our camp dress code, for example, has always been knee-length dresses or skirts and knee-length shorts. You might be wondering, “Why knee-length? What does that have to do with anything?” That is what I want to get into in today’s video. If you are new here, my name is Ryan Rench, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Temecula, California, and I run our California Baptist youth camp at Camp Ironwood out in the desert, where it is regularly over a hundred degrees. So we are in shorts all week.
Where Do You Draw Your Line?
Styles go from baggy to tight and back to baggy every few years. We will probably be in some baggy shorts this year, but there has been a trend the last few years toward shorter shorts. I was talking a few years ago with someone who said the knee-length line was just an arbitrary line we inherited from previous generations, and that they had a different line. To me that is actually fine. I am friends with lots of people who are different from me, and you might call me a liberal for that. But I asked, “If your line is different, where do you get your line? How do you define it?” I was not being snarky; I genuinely wanted to know. I appreciated that it was a well-thought-out answer, but the answer was based more or less on society. It was basically, “Our shorts are not as short as the rest of society’s, so that is where we draw our line. We are still separated from the world.” I appreciate that. But then I asked again, not trying to be a smart aleck, just genuinely curious: “What about biblical nakedness? Does your definition of modesty include an understanding of biblical nakedness?” Theirs did not, at least at the time. So I shared a brief rundown of the verses I will share in this video.
I was helped in a series I preached by the book Yes, It Matters by Tom Brennan. I just have a paper here, not the physical copy, because I was working from a digital Kindle edition. I appreciate that in this book he distinguishes between commands, which are obvious in the Bible, and principles, which are truths discerned from the teachings of Scripture. From those come convictions, things I am convinced about. From those convictions we build our standards, which are often set in order not to violate the convictions. So if I have a conviction about modesty in dress, for example, that conviction includes covering nakedness and appropriateness. We dealt with that in our series a couple of years ago, but what exactly does the Bible mean by those two things?
What the Bible Means by Nakedness
What does the Bible mean by nakedness? I think when most people hear the word naked, they immediately think of complete nudity, but that is not the case in the Scriptures.
“And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.”
This of course speaks of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. You can look it up in a Bible dictionary: the aprons they made were like loincloths, covering at least the private areas, but they were an insufficient covering. A few verses later, in verse 21, God makes something different.
“Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them.”
These coats are different from the aprons. They are like tunics, fuller coverings. So I believe there is more to it than just covering the private areas, and that pretty well strikes out a Speedo or a bikini. Those are insufficient coverings; they are not enough. Then you go over to Exodus 20, where God tells the priests that as they go up the steps to the altar, their nakedness must not be discovered.
“Neither shalt thou go up by steps unto mine altar, that thy nakedness be not discovered thereon.”
Obviously the priests were already clothed. So whatever this nakedness is, it does not simply mean having no clothes on. God explains further in Exodus 28.
“And thou shalt make them linen breeches to cover their nakedness; from the loins even unto the thighs they shall reach.”
So God connects covering the thighs with covering nakedness. Isaiah 47 makes a similar connection. God speaks to Babylon in a progression: make bare the leg, uncover the thigh, thy nakedness shall be uncovered.
“Take the millstones, and grind meal: uncover thy locks, make bare the leg, uncover the thigh, pass over the rivers. Thy nakedness shall be uncovered, yea, thy shame shall be seen: I will take vengeance, and I will not meet thee as a man.”
Again, exposing the thigh is connected with nakedness. That is what I am saying: I believe the Bible teaches that nakedness is broader than nudity. There is such a thing as insufficient covering. Now, where exactly is that line? I do not know. The Bible does not say how many inches your shorts should be, so let us not make the Bible say what it does not say. But it does give us principles, and we have to apply those principles with wisdom. For our church we have simply stuck with the standard of knee-length shorts. Not because the Bible says knee; there is no verse that says “thou shalt wear knee-length shorts.” It is just that somewhere above the knee is the thigh. I am not convinced that thigh means only the hip and rear-end area. The Isaiah passage speaks of a progression, uncovering the leg, the thigh, and passing over the rivers, as a euphemism. I am convinced the Bible word for thigh is the same word we use today: the portion of the leg above the knee. So knee-length shorts are simply a practical standard that helps us cover what the Bible calls nakedness.
Appropriateness
That leads to my second thought: the Bible also teaches appropriateness. In John 21, Peter is out fishing, and when he realizes the Lord is on the shore, he puts on his fisher’s coat before jumping out and swimming to Him.
“Therefore that disciple whom Jesus loved saith unto Peter, It is the Lord. Now when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he girt his fisher’s coat unto him, (for he was naked,) and did cast himself into the sea.”
Apparently there was a difference between what was appropriate while working and what was appropriate when presenting himself publicly before the Lord. I think we understand that fairly naturally. There are clothes you wear around the house, clothes you wear while working, and clothes that are appropriate in public. So covering nakedness needs to be part of the biblical understanding of modest clothing, but so does appropriateness. If your shorts slip up when you sit cross-legged, for example, and show some of your upper leg, I do not personally consider that sin. I do not believe Peter was sinning there in John 21 when he was in the boat without his outer covering. But he is called naked, because not having the full, appropriate walking-around clothes was not appropriate for certain situations. When men would gird up their loins to run, for example, they would snatch up their long robes and tuck them into their girdle or belt as they ran, and certainly some of their upper leg would be exposed as they ran. But that was not their normal walking-around clothing; it was not appropriate for everyday life.
Does This Honor the Lord?
So when we talk about dress standards as Christians, the question should not be, “Can I get away with this? Where is the line? How about this?” I think the better question is, “Does this honor the Lord?” I want our appearance to honor the Lord from the heart. I never want to elevate dress standards to a place of holiness. But it does come from the heart first; the heart always comes first, and I have said that over and over. But the Bible never says the heart is the only thing that matters. God changes us from the inside out, so when it starts with the heart, I believe even our outward clothing ought to reflect that He is changing us. That is a quick ten-minute summary of the biblical view of nakedness and why we have a knee-length line for our camp and for our church activities. I hope it is a blessing and a help and clarifies some things for us. God bless you as you grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. We will see you in the next video.
“But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen.”
