Who wears the pants in your family?

by Robert
(Waterford, Wi)

My name is Robert. My wonderfully beautiful (on both the inside and the outside) Christian wife and I struggled with this issue as we grew in the Lord. We KNEW the Lord didn't want us running around (basically naked) in our 'underwear.' We finally got a 'handle' on this modesty 'issue' when the Lord revealed to us the understanding of 1 Timothy 2.9.

1 Timothy 2.9 ----- Likewise, women are to adorn themselves with PROPER clothing, MODESTLY and DISCREETLY, not with braided hair, and gold or pearls or costly perfumes.

(Do a simple WORD study on the CAPITALIZED words above.

To paraphrase, (according to Greek definitions) the Lord commands (not suggests)that Christian girls/teens/women wear loose, long flowing garments that would not make them ashamed of what they had on. They should not wear ANYTHING (in public) that their conscience clearly reveals is shameful. AND Sally and I truly believe it is not God's plan for women to wear ANYTHING (again, in public which 'forms' to the women's hips, butt, thighs or maybe even calves. SEE LATER. In the AMERICAN SOCIETY as a whole, it is very, very difficult for a women to 'hide' all her sensual body forms IF she is wearing pants. Here's a little test. Simply ask the (honest) men in your church what do their 'eye-gates' go to when they see women in pants. Now, granted even dresses can be worn immodestly. But if a women is wearing a loose (not sloppy but modest) fitting dress a man does NOT see the women's form as he does if she is wearing pants/shorts. We don't believe it was ever God's intention for women to be wearing anything which "highlites" a woman's crotch/hip/butt/thigh area.)

In and of themselves, the braided hair, gold, pearls and expensive perfumes are not sinful. They become WRONG when Christian women wear these type of things believing that they make her 'holier' or more 'economically' beautiful than the 'poorer class' Christian women.

The Lord is not just concerned about 'modest' swimwear for the Christian. His children are to be a living testimony for Him when they are "in" the world. It's very, very hard to be a 'testimony' for Jesus when people are seeing Christians dress just like the world. One of the biggest problems I see in the Christian Church is that many believe that girls and boys should be able to do the same things. If a boy/teen/man climbs a tree a girl should be able to climb a tree. If a boy/teen/man can play sports, a girl should also be allowed to play sports. The Lord did NOT make men and women to compete with each other. The girl/teen/women was made to be a helpmate for her husband. The Lord NEVER intended women to do the same things men do. A lot of even fundamental Christians struggle with this idea. For literally thousands of years both MEN and WOMEN have been wearing dress-like outfits. But the Lord allowed men to "gird up" (gird up like a man the Bible says. That means the men (not the women) pulled up the 'hem' of the dress-like robe garment they were wearing for the purpose of "covering up their privates" so they could climb trees to pick fruit, climb ladders to build things, go out into the water to catch fish, etc. etc.) The Lord never expected women to do the same thing. He did NOT want women pulling up their dresses to gird. This would have 'exposed' a women's beautiful hips, thighs, calves and buttocks. (Men 'eye-gates' are 'opened' up to senuality by what they SEE. Most women don't have the same sensual struggle as men do.) Any ways, I believe what we today call PANTS is the 'evolutionary' result of men girding up. I recently saw a video of when the Beatles came to America (circa 1964?.) ALL (not most) of the girls were wearing dresses. Most of the older teenagers were wearing SUITS! SUITS! Look how far backwards we have gone (not only in the Christian Church but in society as a whole) in the past 50 years!!!!!

I don't know how the girls dress in your (Bible, I hope) Church. In the "Bible" Church I attend, many of the younger (teens and young adults) girls/women would have been seen as harlots or tramps (because of the immodest clothes they wear 50 to 100 years ago!

Sally and I (and other Christians who are like-minded about this topic don't believe dressing modestly or orderly makes us 'better' Christians. We dress modestly because we believe it's what God's Word says. It would be very 'easy' for us to simply put aside God's Word and just go 'with the flow' and 'not cause any waves' as we give in to immodest compromise which exits in today's Christian Church. But, we don't give up God's Word that easily. We know someday we'll look into the loving eyes of our Savior and give account of why we did what we did as Christians. We KNOW, that where there is NO LAW, there is NO SIN. So we strive to know what God's Word says about everything we do in our Christian lives.

P.S. Did you know that the Bible has more to say about how men and women's hair lengths then it does about the rapture of the church? And yet, thousands of books have been written about the rapture AND WE HAVE YET to find ONE SINGLE Christian book dealing with men and women's hair lenghts. (See 1 Corinthians 11.1-16.)
The Church does NOT like to deal with 'social" (as they call it)issues. But things like modesty, sobriety, sexual-abstenance (when not married), hair lengths, teaching your children at home, marriage, divorce etc. etc. are NOT determined by a society. These, and many more church related issues are clearly defined in God's Word.

Thanks for letting me 'rattle on.'

We love HIM ONLY because He first loved us!

Robert and Sally