modesty

[The Lords son]

Today’s teen girls look to many places to pattern their sense of self, but none more consistently than magazines such as Teen People, YM, Teen, Seventeen, Jump, and CosmoGirl. Surveys reveal that an amazing 77 percent of girls ages eleven to eighteen read fashion and beauty magazines.

Christian girls are not excluded from this transfixed demographic. They tend to view these magazines as often as other girls. Exactly what are they reading? Well, the parents of every teen girl should look for themselves. Many have horoscope readings and other articles that reflect cosmic humanism and new age philosophy. Most have sexually explicit articles, often including teens’ real-life experiences.

Girls also take their fashion cues from teen magazines, which often promote clothing that is, in a word, inappropriate. What alternative should a parent offer? Certainly, to avoid the issue of fashion altogether is fruitless and not in line with Scripture. Beauty and fashion aren’t condemned by the Bible. On the contrary, beauty seems to be nearly synonymous with God’s glory. Beauty is one of God’s greatest expressions. It seems only fitting that those created in His image would strive to express themselves in beauty.

The catch is learning to express beauty through the lens of a biblical worldview, which certainly includes modesty. After putting those racy teen magazines aside, girls need to be able to look to positive role models who dress modestly but with flair.


Teen girls will not be the only ones to benefit. Teen boys struggle with the contradiction of girls who claim purity but whose attire sends a different message. When a group of teenage boys were asked, what was the number one thing that caused them to be sexually tempted. One boy answered, “The way girls dress in church.” Heads across the room nodded in agreement. Another said, “Church is supposed to be a place where you don’t have to face temptation. But you walk in, and Bam! There it is. How do you avoid that?”

Fashion is one of the top issues for teen girls and one of the facets of the larger discussion about sexual purity. Teaching girls to look at their attire through God’s perspective is one of those places where the rubber meets the road in both parenting and youth ministry.





I know God expects way more then this, But what do you think?

 

[Christy74]

Do not let your adornment be merely outward--arranging the hair, wearing gold, or putting on fine apparel-- 4 rather let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God. 1 Peter 3:3-4 (NKJV)

Compromise is the problem. We have Christian ladies that are willing to compromise their modesty (and so dishonor their Lord) in order to wear the latest fashions. Some just don't get that we are called to be beautiful on the inside, not to obsess about our outward beauty.

I've even heard some of these ladies saying something like "If you weren't looking at me, you wouldn't be seeing [whatever is showing]." They don't understand that the way to show the love of Christ to their Christian brothers is to dress modestly, so as not to give them any more temptation than they already have. We are not to make our brothers stumble.

 

[Ronda]

1 Corinthians 8:9

9But take care that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak.

Yes Christy, our beauty should be an inner beauty. And for those who said "If you werent looking you wouldnt see it." the verse above comes to mind. You may lead other young ladies to believe this is ok. You may provoke young men into things that are not honoring to the Lord. No man is an island and your actions effect others, and can mar your testimony for Christ.

 

[mounty]

my eight year old niece was caught with her much older sisters copy of a teen magazine. it was taken from her but not before she got read some of it. Two days later she was caught counting the calories on a box of ceral, the magazine had said it was the thing to do to lose weight and get your man. She is eight years old and has an increasing obession with her weight and appearence ,in her words 'whats inside doesnt matter' all that matters is being skinny. Shame

 

[Ronda]

AMEN! Society places more import on the appearance than what is on the inside- this is so very sad and very unbiblical

 

[Anchovy]

We live in a day where people who design clothing and those who appear to be "on top" of things in the secualr society attempt to tell us all how to live, The problem occurs when the majority of these people are haters of God and His people and then they expect us to bow to their demands or they simply turn away from us and try to make us look like we're the "bad guys".

Modest apparel simply means "loose and flowing". It carries with it the conotation of one being covered and not revealing the "provocative" areas of the skin or do so by wearing tigh-fitting clothing.

A dress can be much more immodest due to its tightness than a pair of britches, but britches on a woman affords the male the opportunity to notice an area most men are attracted to. So britches on the female are then immodest in all occasions.

 

[The Lords son]

Whats funny is why would someone buy only half a shirt...lol

 

[trucker]

Great post. As a christian man, it amazes me how revealing the clothes of christian girls have become. I will be blunt but it needs to be said.

Girls who say, you should not be looking, need to understand that men are driven by sight. When girls wear tight clothes, low cut shirts, form fitting dress's with no slip, thongs that show when they bend over are a huge stumbling block to men. I won't even mention the bathing suits women wear today. Dental floss offers more covering.

I can not tell you how frustrating it is to be talking to a women and trying to concentrate on her face while her breast are pushing out her low cut shirt.

I see young girls at school wearing clothes that are sending a signal that says, I am loose by the clothes they wear.

Growing up, most women wore clothes that you noticed. The outfits were stunning and it really made the women attactive. Today its all about revealing flesh. I have seen so many attractive women wear modest well made clothes and it was very refreshing.

Women, if you want to look sexy, do it for your husband behind closed doors and have at it. Why do you want every guy on the block leering at you as you go by. Looking sexy for your husband should be private, not for all to see. I know I do not want everyone lusting after my wife. God gave her to me, not others.

Trucker

 

[The Lords son]

Your right Trucker, I like the way you said.

Women, if you want to look sexy, do it for your husband behind closed doors and have at it. Why do you want every guy on the block leering at you as you go by. Looking sexy for your husband should be private, not for all to see. I know I do not want everyone lusting after my wife. God gave her to me, not others.

Women can look good but must be Modest.

 

[MavMin]

From my book, "The Power of Holy Women"

Holy Women ARE Beautiful!
1 Peter 3:1-6

We live in a society where sex sells and sells big. Sex is used to sell everything from acne medication to every type of material possession imaginable. Everyone wants to be one of the "beautiful people" and will buy, sell or sacrifice all to be in that select group. To be sexy is everything and even eight and ten year olds seek that look. I have seen ten-year old girls dressed up and made up to look like cheap harlots. They are already trying to be sexy before they even know what sex is all about. Sadly, pedophiles do know and when we dress up children up like adults we just whet the appetites of the perverse and place our children in jeopardy.

It is no wonder for even Barbie and Ken and friends are babes and hunks. If I have seen the new more realistic Barbie I have not noticed much of a difference. They were supposed to make her more portioned like an average women to prevent young girls from becoming anorexic trying to achieve an unrealistic goal for their bodies. I guess I missed the change. I like the bumper sticker I saw that says, "If Barbie is so great why do you have to buy all her friends?"

What causes this is an over emphasis on the external and a total rejection of the internal or spiritual. The flower of youth soon fades, but the soul is eternal. It is far better to have a beautiful soul than a body that will wither in forty years and then left to decompose until the return of Christ.

Vogue, Cosmopolitan, and Vanity Fare and all the rest of those magazines do not desire you to be truly beautiful. Their only goal is to make money and they do it through the promise of great sex. Worldly beauty totally revolves around that concept. Just read all the advice articles in those magazines. Sex is everything and if you want to have sex you have to be desirable or beautiful and the designers and counselors of this world will show you how to become that.

Sadly, many Christian women fall for the same illusion the world creates while they would not seek its solution in unbridled or illegitimate sex. A point in case would be the mini-skirt. It is making a comeback in some areas. The designer of the mini-skirt said that she designed it to tell the world that she was ready for any man, anywhere, and anytime. That is not exactly a spiritual goal. Yet, at a homecoming in a NC church they had photos of the church and members from the sixties. In the front row of one of those pictures was the wife of one of my college professors. She was wearing a mini-skirt. Not a micro-mini, but still a mini-skirt. I know that neither she nor her husband would espouse or endorse any such philosophy as that designer's. Nevertheless she was wearing the uniform of the philosophy thinking it harmless and just fashion.

When I was in college in the early eighties, the slit dress was just becoming popular and many Christian women picked up on the fad. I told you before that the college had a rule that the slit could not go above the knee and one young lady in Pharisee or lawyer fashion tacked it at the knee since the rule did not mention holes and now she had a slit and a hole.

 

[MavMin]

When I did a study on I Timothy 2:9 and the concept of modest apparel I found that the slit dress was not a new design. The author of the commentary I was reading had been dead about a hundred years and thus had no vested interest in the current controversy. He described the various types of attire during the time of Paul's writing and one fit the description of the new fashion. It was only worn by very young children for ease of elimination and by prostitutes who were given a long Greek name that translates as showers of the thigh. Solomon was right when he said there was nothing new under the sun. Human sexuality without God has not changed since the fall and will not change until conversion or the New Jerusalem.

The school was considered legalistic by many of the students because of the rule banning that style of dresses. However, if we stick to our belief that we interpret Scripture by its historical context as well as the grammar than it would be very easy to see that if Paul would have considered that type of attire immodest in his day it is most likely still immodest. There are other artistic things like vanishing points and subconscious symbolism and even the concept of neon signs that could be used to show that style and others are really not modest apparel. Paul says that men are to treat women "as mothers and sisters in all purity." I Timothy 5:12. When you buy into the fashion that passes away and is certainly not of a godly viewpoint you make it much harder for men to do this. I Corinthians 7:31

I grew up lost in the sixties. I have been in three branches of the service and have served in Europe and Asia as well as stateside. I have worked in several career fields from unskilled to skilled and professional. I've been in a lot of locker rooms and sat around many lunch tables. I think I have a fairly decent idea as to how the average lost man thinks and how he views women. Trust me, it is not good. I would be greatly embarrassed if I went into any great detail. Being exposed to worldly and sensuous attire in the workplace is bad enough, but it is disheartening to see it in church or on Christian women who should know better. Maybe they do not know better and there is a need for such training. Older women are to teach the younger and maybe they have failed or they have been ignored. May God dispense a fresh level of discernment to His people.

To borrow a phrase from the sixties, we march to the beat of a different drummer and the world or kosmos is not to dictate beauty to us. Indeed, the world is fickle and commercial and what is hot today is not tomorrow, but if you hold on to your old clothes they will be back in style in about fifteen to twenty years, even quicker if you are talking about ties or lapels.

 

[MavMin]

If you are to be beautiful, you must do it God's way and thus my contention that holy women are beautiful regardless of their lack of worldly attire or their physical attributes. Let us look at what God says through Peter.

Peter starts off in verse one by repeating that non-nineties antiquated concept of submission and to an unbelieving husband at that. You say what has that got to do with beauty? This is an introduction to a concept and we will get there.

How many women have made the mistake of marrying an ungodly man despite the warning of Scripture and then tried to whip the guy into salvation by nagging and beating him with a Bible? You do not correct a mistake by making more mistakes. Some married a saved guy, but he is not real mature in Christ and she is determined this boy is going to grow or else and she shoves books in his face and drags him off to deeper life seminars. You have to ask the question of motive. Do they want their husbands saved and mature for the glory of God and the good of their spouses' souls or to alleviate their embarrassment or to improve their home life? If it is a selfish desire, they are neither helping themselves or their spouses and without the grace and mercy of God will never see their desires come to fruition.

God leads like the Shepherd that He is. He does not drive like a trail boss. He wants you to lead in submission. And all the ladies said Huh? You heard me correctly. If you want your husband saved or to become the spiritual leader he was meant to be you have to show him what a godly woman looks and acts like. When your husband sees your obedience to God by your submission the Holy Spirit will use that to convict the fire out of your husband.

When the passage says the conversation he does not mean mouth conversation. He is referring to your behavior. You cannot talk a good fight. You must fight the good fight and I don't mean with your husband. Your walk goes further than your talk. If you still follow the admonition of Ephesians five and submit unto your lost or carnal husband as unto the Lord you will stand a better chance of winning him to Christ. You will cause him to thirst for more of the living water by your walk than by just irritating him with your nagging about what he ought to be and how he is going to bust Hell wide open one day.

I will share a personal experience here. When I worked for the assembly line of Strick, Inc., I had small Bible studies at supper and witnessed to folks on breaks if the opportunity arose. I worked when I was supposed to and I had no problems with the company. The plant foreman saw my Bible one evening and wanted to know if I was having church. I told him we talked about things at supper. I said if I could get these guys saved, I could save the company a lot of money. He looked at me strangely and I explained that if I could get the guys to stop their absenteeism and stop coming to work drunk thus lowering the accident rate, etc it would benefit them and the company. He may have thought I was nuts, but he did not stop me and he would have promoted me into a management position had not the economy forced the second shift to close down.

One of the guys that listened to me told me that his wife was trying to get him to go to the church she was going to, but he was not sure it was any good. He said he would go if I went with him. Well, I took the family and we went. His fears were vindicated. The church was pretty wacko.

Afterwards, we went back to his house and his son came in where his daughter announced that Dad had gone to the service designed to get the sinners saved. They talked about him and around him, but I never felt like they talked to him and he wasn't Dad or Hon anymore. He was just that stinkin' sinner they were trying to get saved. It appeared they had no respect for him at all and if that pastor caused or assisted that attitude I pray God convicted him or ousted him because he was in great error.

 

[MavMin]

I talked to the man at work and said that while his wife's church was a bit crazed he should still seek the Lord and get saved. He could then lead his family to a better church. Sadly, the second shift layoff meant that I never saw the man again, but if he never got saved, his wife and children share some of the blame.

That woman and her children did not have a chaste or pure lifestyle mixed with fear. The word here for fear is phobos where we get phobias. It is the same word used in I Cor 7:1 where we are to perfect our holiness here on earth in the fear of God. God and your husband are watching your walk. If you are truly seeking holiness you are aware that you are always being watched by God and this gives you incentive to do well. When we forget this or lose our fear of God we get sloppy and our walk shows it.

Likewise, if you are truly seeking to win your husband or encourage him to be a leader you cannot be sloppy in your walk. Being the super holy woman at church and the nagging frump at home won't cut it. Your husband will see it consciously as hypocrisy and subconsciously will see it as disrespect or lack of love for him and there goes your testimony. You should show as much reverence or fear before your husband in your godliness as you do for God. Slipping up before either one of them is a serious thing. God will forgive and strengthen you, but your husband may not. While he will ultimately be responsible for his rejection of Christ or his role you do not want to give him an excuse or a crutch by not taking your role and responsibility to God seriously.

In verse three we get to the beauty issue, but unless you can see the necessity of living a chaste and submissive life before God and man you will miss this teaching. You will either dismiss it out of hand or misunderstand it and still justify much worldliness.
The women in Peter and Paul's day were just as human as you all. They came to church wanting to put their best foot forward. Like many in traditional churches they felt it was disrespectful to not come in their Sunday best. And as today some came to show off their wealth and finery. They wanted to be beautiful and have folks comment on their beauty.

Peter redirects them away from the temporal outward to the eternal inward for true and lasting beauty. You are beautiful when you adorn your soul. If beauty is what we put on then many of us will never be beautiful for we cannot afford Neiman Marcus or even a few steps below that. Wal-Mart is the Baptist Neiman Marcus and I fit in there quite well.

You have something that lasts when you do it God's way. Gold can be stolen and even the most expensive clothing wears out though it is often thrown out long before it wears out. The hidden man of the heart is not corruptible. It will not wear out and no one can steal who you are unless you allow them. Psalm 90:17 says "Let the beauty of the Lord be upon us" not Vogue or Mary Kay's beauty.

You have the favor of God when you adorn your soul. You want expensive ornaments? How about a humble and quiet spirit which in the sight of God of great price? Do I care more about how humans see and value me or how God values me? Do I want the changing value of men that fluctuates worse than the prime interest rate or the enduring value of God? "The King's daughter is all glorious within." Psalm 45:13 How do you value yourself? You will be in despair if you use the world's standards. "He has made everything beautiful in His time." Ecclesiastes 3:11 Ladies, He created you and He thinks you are beautiful and will make you even more beautiful if you let Him.

Meekness is not weakness or being a doormat. Moses was called a meek man and I would not have stood up and called him weak. He was not self seeking. He sought the will of God and did it. A quiet spirit does not flaunt itself, which is how love is described in I Corinthians 13. If that is good enough for the Holy Spirit, it should be good enough for us. He does not speak of Himself, but speaks of Christ. Ladies, having that kind of spirit is how you lead your husband to Christ and maturity. You seek to be in the Spirit and have Him control your spirit and your husband will either turn or be without excuse. My belief is that more will turn. Seeing a wife with these qualities is indeed rare and jarring. The love of the Spirit flowing through your submissive, meek and quiet spirit is a knock out blow to all but the most hardened man. We know how God values that. How do you value it?

You become more holy and beautiful when you trust God. You have the example of women before you in the Scripture. When you trust God to direct your husband you become like Sara. Abraham, the friend of God, was not always wise in some of his decisions concerning his wife. When he failed to trust God to protect him he caused Sarah to be placed in a harem. Sarah called Abraham lord and did his will in this very serious issue. God rewarded her obedience to Him by submission by delivering her from the error of her husband's judgment.

If you do the same and do not live in terror or amazement than God calls you Sarah's daughter. I believe that He is promising to do the same for you as he did for her. God is the same, yesterday, today, and forever. Neither His principles, His character nor His promises change. We change usually to our hurt before we change to our benefit.

It is interesting that even after Sarah saw God's hand in her protection that she also failed to trust God to provide a child and caused Abraham to follow a worldly method of attaining an heir. Her failure to trust God to remove her fears brought her grief in her own life and has given us the Israeli-Arab conflict today. She may have believed that Abraham was not hearing God correctly because of his previous errors and thus failed to leave her husband in God's hands and direction. It was a very costly mistake.

Many women make the same error and figure they can do a better or quicker job than God. They lose their holiness, their beauty, and often their marriage. Follow Sarah's positive example and not her failure.

There are some women who may be thinking that they cannot be beautiful since I have been talking mainly to married women. If you are single or divorced God tells us in Isaiah 54:1-5 that God is your husband. You can still walk in the beauty of holiness and submission to Him. As you perfect this and your godly beauty increases you will attract a godly man and be able to fulfill the instructions of this passage because you will have been God trained and not man pained.

What beauty secrets are you using, God's or the world's? Why struggle to achieve the temporal and vain when you can submit to God and gain the eternal and priceless beauty. God made you. He made no mistakes. As God asked Adam in the garden who told you that you were naked, I ask you, who told you that you were not beautiful? Obviously, it was a fickle and wicked world that said that. God has said that, "Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee." Song of Solomon 4:7 (KJV) Dear Sisters, won't you believe it and rejoice and leave vanity behind?

 

[jiggyfly]

Good post Mavmin,

What causes this is an over emphasis on the external and a total rejection of the internal or spiritual. The flower of youth soon fades, but the soul is eternal. It is far better to have a beautiful soul than a body that will wither in forty years and then left to decompose until the return of Christ.

One thing I wanted to add, many don't see the focus on external and total rejection of spiritual that you mention. They believe that they have the ability to mix the two without compromise. But we know by HolySpirit that a little leaven leavens the whole lump. Ofcourse we can apply this same principle to any and everything spiritual. The religious system usually tries to make adjustments through dress codes and discerning for the individual what is acceptable and what is not but this method just brings about learned behavior and is only an external adjustment. The key is to help the individual to grow in their relationship with Jesus and allow the HolySpirit to convict the motivation and intent within the heart. This of course requires much patience and love and time but this will allow charector transformation.


P.S. I only read your first page when I began to post this. I need to read the other pages still.

 

[MavMin]

True, the word compromise is a favorite word in this age. Dissatisfaction is another one.

God gave you curly hair and you want it straight. He gave you straight and you want curly. He gave you blonde hair and you want it red you have or brown and you want it blonde. You're a A wanting to be a D or a D wanting to be an A. No one wants to be what they were given.

How do you fuss at your daughter for piercings when she see your earrings dangling from your pierced ears? Pierced ears, navel, eyebrow, nipple, what's the difference? Some have six holes in their earss and their daughter only wants one in their navel. If God meant for you to have adornment holes He would have provided them without pain and in more appropriate places.

You constantly paint yourself like a temporary tattoo so why not do it permanently and save time and money? Rough to chastise the youth for their fads and follies while we have our own.

 

[jiggyfly]

True, the word compromise is a favorite word in this age. Dissatisfaction is another one.

God gave you curly hair and you want it straight. He gave you straight and you want curly. He gave you blonde hair and you want it red you have or brown and you want it blonde. You're a A wanting to be a D or a D wanting to be an A. No one wants to be what they were given.

How do you fuss at your daughter for piercings when she see your earrings dangling from your pierced ears? Pierced ears, navel, eyebrow, nipple, what's the difference? Some have six holes in their earss and their daughter only wants one in their navel. If God meant for you to have adornment holes He would have provided them without pain and in more appropriate places.

You constantly paint yourself like a temporary tattoo so why not do it permanently and save time and money? Rough to chastise the youth for their fads and follies while we have our own.

I totally agree with you Paul said that there are many teachers but few fathers (spiritual).

 

[pjnewman]

Going back to the orgin of the thread... teens and clothing. I have a 12 year old daughter (12 going on 30). To help combat the image issues which have been already posted about, I purchased a gift subscribtion to Brio magazine by the Focus on the Family group. It's intended target is the 12-16 ages (give or take a year) and it's been wonderful to see some subtle changes in her life.

 

[pjnewman]

orginQUOTE]
should be origin... :shock:

 

[Anchovy]

How do you fuss at your daughter for piercings when she see your earrings dangling from your pierced ears? Pierced ears, navel, eyebrow, nipple, what's the difference? Some have six holes in their earss and their daughter only wants one in their navel. If God meant for you to have adornment holes He would have provided them without pain and in more appropriate places.

You constantly paint yourself like a temporary tattoo so why not do it permanently and save time and money? Rough to chastise the youth for their fads and follies while we have our own.

Maybe a concise Bible study would be best?

The ears pierced is a beautifying practice ( for women only) while other piercings are from Babylon and Egypt.

Making marks in the body is to divert the attention to other areas of the flesh, the same goes for piercings.

Eyebrow piercings are not very common now due to the infectious nature they have. Nipple and navel piercings are both vulgar and obscene.

 

[MavMin]

Holes are holes, Bro! The folks doing all the other holes would say it is for beautifying and to make them feel good about themsleves. I just don't know why God didn't get it and give women those holes in the first place and save them all the grief.

All that has been discussed is related to the origin of the message. If you don't know what constitutes modesty you are going to have a tough time teaching it and living it.

I had a friend do an illustration for his church once. He had two dolls. One dressed in what we call formal attire and the other one nekkid. He asked the folks which one was modest. Of course, everyone said the the non nude one. He then dipped the nekkid one in a can of paint. He asked if that one was now modest and it got pretty quiet because technically all that changed was color. She was "covered" as what most consider modesty today but there wasn't much left to the imagination much like what most women wear today.

I find it interesting that many women have underwear that covers more then their swimsuit but if a man walked in on them in their underwear they would freak out yet they strut the beach in thongs and a couple of Stridex pads attached with floss.

Adam Clarke has a really good comment on 1 Tim 2:9

Verse 9. In like manner also] That is, he wills or commands what follows, as he had commanded what went before.

That women adorn themselves] kai tav gonaikav ev katastolh koamiw. The apostle seems to refer here to different parts of the Grecian and Roman dress. The stolh, stola, seems to have been originally very simple. It was a long piece of cloth, doubled in the middle, and sewed up on both sides, leaving room only for the arms; at the top, a piece was cut out, or a slit made, through which the head passed. It hung down to the feet, both before and behind, and was girded with the zona round the body, just under the breasts. It was sometimes made with, sometimes without, sleeves; and, that it might sit the better, it was gathered on each shoulder with a band or buckle. Some of the Greek women wore them open on each side, from the bottom up above the knee, so as to discover a part of the thigh. These were termed fainomhridev, showers (discoverers) of the thigh; but it was, in general, only young girls or immodest women who wore them thus.

The katastolh seems to have been the same as the pallium or mantle, which, being made nearly in the form of the stola, hung down to the waist, both in back and front, was gathered on the shoulder with a band or buckle, had a hole or slit at top for the head to pass through, and hung loosely over the stola, without being confined by the zona or girdle. Representations of these dresses may be seen in LENS' Costume des Peuples de l'AntiquitÇ, fig. 11, 12, 13, and 16. A more modest and becoming dress than the Grecian was never invented; it was, in a great measure, revived in England about the year 1805, and in it, simplicity, decency, and elegance were united; but it soon gave place to another mode, in which frippery and nonsense once more prevailed. It was too rational to last long; and too much like religious simplicity to be suffered in a land of shadows, and a world of painted outsides.

With shamefacedness and sobriety] The stola, catastola, girdle, &c., though simple in themselves, were often highly ornamented both with gold and precious stones; and, both among the Grecian and Roman women, the hair was often crisped and curled in the most variegated and complex manner. To this the apostle alludes when he says: mh en plegmasin, h crusw, h margaritaiv, h imatismw polutelei? Not with plaited hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly raiment. The costly raiment might refer to the materials out of which the raiment was made, and to the workmanship; the gold and pearls, to the ornaments on the raiment.

With shame-facedness or modesty, meta aidouv. This would lead them to avoid every thing unbecoming or meretricious in the mode or fashion of their dress.

With sobriety, meta swfrosunhv. Moderation would lead them to avoid all unnecessary expense. They might follow the custom or costume of the country as to the dress itself, for nothing was ever more becoming than the Grecian stola, catastola, and zona; but they must not imitate the extravagance of those who, through impurity or littleness of mind, decked themselves merely to attract the eye of admiration, or set in lying action the tongue of flattery. Woman has been invidiously defined: An animal fond of dress. How long will they permit themselves to be thus degraded? Those beautiful lines of Homer, in which he speaks of the death of Euphorbus, who was slain by Menelaus, show how anciently the Grecians plaited and adorned their hair:-antikru dÆ apaloio diÆ aucenov hluqÆ akwkh? douphsen de peswn, arabhse de teuceÆ epÆ autw.

aimati oi deuonto komai, caritessin omoiai, plocmoi qÆ oi crusw te kai argorw esfhkwnto.

II. xvii., ver. 49.

Wide through the neck appears the ghastly wound; Prone sinks the warrior, and his arms rebound.

The shining circlets of his golden hair, Which e'en the Graces might be proud to wear, Instarr'd with gems and gold bestrew the shore, With dust dishonour'd, and deform'd with gore. POPE.

Or thus, more literally:- Sounding he fell; loud rang his batter'd arms.

His locks, which e'en the Graces might have own'd, Blood sullied, and his ringlets wound about With twine of gold and silver, swept the dust. COWPER.

The extravagance to which the Grecian and Asiatic women went in their ornaments might well be a reason for the apostle's command.

Kypke, however, denies that any particular article of dress is intended here, and says that katastolh is to be understood as coming from katastellw, to restrain, repress; and he refers it to that government of the mind, or moderation which women should exercise over their dress and demeanour in general, and every thing that may fall under the observation of the senses. All this, undoubtedly, the apostle had in view.

When either women or men spend much time, cost, and attention on decorating their persons, it affords a painful proof that within there is little excellence, and that they are endeavouring to supply the want of mind and moral good by the feeble and silly aids of dress and ornament. Were religion out of the question, common sense would say in all these things: Be decent; but be moderate and modest.