Unchanging Truth - "Celebrating Biblical Womanhood"

In our latest installment of Unchanging Truth, Gender Blog is highlighting a series of articles from Nancy Leigh DeMoss on how modesty relates to biblical womanhood.

The following excerpt is from the first article in DeMoss' series, "Caution! Your Clothes are Talking." It was published in the Fall 2003 issue of JBMW.

If I tell you that there's a woman coming down this church aisle in a long, white, formal dress, what would you say is probably the occasion? It's a wedding; she's a bride. How did you know? Because clothing communicates.

If I tell you there's a teenager bundled up in a snowsuit, mittens, a wool hat and a scarf would you agree with me that the teenager is probably not on his way to a picnic?

Clothing and appearance send a message. They can communicate our occupation or an occasion we're marking. In some of the world's religions, women are clearly identifiable by their dress.

Clothing can communicate something about our socio-economic status. You can look at some people and think, "She looks like a wealthy woman." Or you might look at another woman and-purely on the basis of her clothing-say, "She doesn't look like she comes from a financially stable background."

Clothing also communicates a message about our values, our character, our attitudes. For example, you can look at the dress of some and tell that neatness is not a concern to them.

The Bible speaks of occasions when people would wear sackcloth as a sign of mourning or repentance. So, if someone was wearing sackcloth, he was sending a message about what was going on in his heart.

Scripture also indicates that clothing can send a message about our morals or the lack thereof. For example, in Proverbs 7:10 we read of the adulteress that she was "dressed as a harlot" (NASB). The woman is dressed in such a way that you can look at her and see that her motives are not pure toward this man.

In Genesis 38:13ff., we learn of a woman named Tamar, a widow who wanted to seduce a man to whom she was not married. Accordingly, she took off her widow's garments (v.14). Such garments were a specific type of clothing that would have communicated that she was a widow. Tamar, however, changed her clothes and put on the clothing of a prostitute, for the man she was trying to seduce knew her. In fact, he was her father-in-law. But when she changed her clothes, he didn't recognize who she was. He just looked at her clothes, and judging her to be a prostitute, he went in to be sexually intimate with her. Of course, I point that out not to justify him, but to demonstrate that clothing can send a powerful message.

It is just as true today that women are sending a message with their clothing. Many of them know exactly what message they're sending. Perhaps some others are naïve, having become so influenced by this culture that they don't know any other way to think about clothing.

You can read the rest of this article here.

Part 2, "Godly Garments," is available here.

Part 3, "Philosophies of Beauty in Conflict," is available here.