Controversial Bible Verses #1: On Modesty

Disclaimer: I am not a seminarian, and I possess nothing approaching a degree in biblical interpretation. I am just a laywoman with a degree in economics that loves God and his Word. 

I'm blessed to have been reading the Bible for a number of years now, and I have of course come upon some of its more controversial verses multiple times. The whole second half of 1 Timothy 2 most certainly falls into this category. It tells women in the Ephesian church how to dress and how to act--and the instructions are not exactly compatible to today's modern woman.

The controversy starts in verse 9-10, the famous verses about modesty:

9 I also want the women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, adorning themselves, not with elaborate hairstyles or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, 10 but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God. (1 Timothy 2:9-10 NIV, emphasis mine)

Ahhh, modesty. For five decades now, women's fashion has been raging against this concept. First, the miniskirt came in around the '60s, taking hemlines to where they'd never been before. Then came crop tops, especially in the '90s, and the midriff was exposed for the first time. The early 2000s brought in bralettes as tops and low-rise jeans. Today, all of these trends have combined to make war against the concept of modesty as we know it.


From left to right: Girls in "New Look" dresses from Seventeen from March 1968; an ad in Seventeen, April 1992; Paris Hilton in 2001. The first two are taken from justseventeen on Tumblr, and the picture of Paris Hilton is from Popsugar.

With this battle comes questions: how sexy, exactly, is a little bit of midriff? Is it bad if the midriff is a little sexy? Is modesty repressive to today's working woman? What exactly is or is not modest, anyway?

Much of the battle comes back to this question: what is modesty?

In the 2010s Western cultural context, modesty as we know it largely refers to a movement in fashion. Modest women repudiate the trends that I mentioned above. Their skirts and pants don't go an inch above the knee; their tops are never cropped, and are usually high-cut enough to cover any sort of cleavage. Many times, modest women account for factors that "less modest" women wouldn't even think about, like covering their shoulders or hiding their curves. The reasons to adhere to this movement vary, but for the most part, they're religious. Muslim women are the most consistent adherents of this movement, often adding hijabs to their modest ensembles. Where the movement has become most famous and most controversial is among Christian women; the ones who do adhere to this seemingly stringent dress code often cite the verses above.


Modest fashion of the 2010s. Honestly, all of these outfits are really cute IMO. Credits go to Pinterest.

Like many concepts within Christianity, this concept of modesty has become a debate. On one side, adherents of modest fashion cite these verses (which are very much biblical). They have also said that because men are created as more "physical" beings than women, that Christian women need to dress in a way that doesn't lead Christian men into temptation. The Bible does certainly warn against leading other believers into temptation (Mark 9:42 is an obvious example), but this assumption about men is not obviously cited in the Bible, and at any rate, the Bible tells men and women to "flee from sexual temptation" (1 Corinthians 6:18).

The revival of feminism in the second half of the 2010s has brought modesty into a war like almost never before. Feminism, by definition, takes the woman's side in every conflict. It says that women should not have to cater to men in any way. The notion of women having to dress a certain way to curb man's primitive tendencies is absolutely repulsive to the feminist's perspective. Women on this side of the conflict say that if men and women are to flee from sexual temptation, that it is not the woman's job to help/repudiate a man who is loath to get running. They cite the very real examples of women who despite being dressed in somewhat "modest" clothing, became victims of rape and other sexual crimes. These examples lead these women to say that modesty is a failed system, and yet another example of the repression of women throughout the centuries. The feminists of the 2010s are not the bra-burners of the 1970s, but they do take pleasure in showing off their bodies, proclaiming that to be sexy is to be confident and modern in this age.

As always, in a debate, there are people who find themselves in the middle. Here we find the Christian women who want to honor God with their clothing choices as modest women say they should, but they also want to be confident and modern. These are the women who find themselves wondering what is modest and what is not many, many times. After all, the verses don't exactly tell us how long our skirts should be, or whether we should even be wearing skirts, for that matter. They mention nothing about whether tops should be cropped or not. They instead mention "braided hair" (KJV), gold, pearls and "costly clothing". In fact, on another glance, we can't even be certain that 1 Timothy 2:9-10 says much about clothing at all.

9 I also want the women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, adorning themselves, not with elaborate hairstyles or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, 10 but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God. 

So what is modesty, then? The original Greek word used here for "modestly" is "kosmios". Strong's Lexicon defines this word as "orderly, i.e. decorous--of good behavior, modest". Thayer's Lexicon adds "well-arranged" and "seemly". The word "kosmios" is a derivative of the word "kosmos"--as in the English word, cosmos. It speaks of a harmonious arrangement of things, such as the stars, which occupy their precise positions in the universe. Overall, the word "kosmios" seems to denote order. Interpreted this way, Paul wants the women to dress in an orderly fashion. Seen this way, the words "decency" and "propriety" thrown in right after this word make complete sense. It appears, then, that the issue of "modesty" actually has very little to do with how much skin you show.

The rest of these verses confirm this notion. Paul cites "elaborate hairstyles", gold, pearls and "costly clothes" as things that women should shy away from. In the Roman times in which Paul lived, fashionable women would wear elaborate braided hairstyles that immediately drew attention. Gold, pearls and costly clothes, as in our times, drew plenty of attention as well. Paul charges that Christian women should not draw attention because of their clothes, but because of their good deeds. Christian women, in this case, should be known more for what they do and who they are than what they look like.

In his first letter, Peter repeats this sentiment, but uses slightly different words:

3 Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. 4 Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. (1 Peter 3:3-4 NIV)

In modesty talks when I was younger, people would always say that "modesty, at its core, is an issue of the heart". I had no idea what that really meant until I studied these verses. In the end, modesty has little to do with how short your skirt is, and it has absolutely nothing to do with men. It instead is an issue of what you want people to know you for. Do you want people to remember you for the amount of body you showed in that dress, or for the lives that you impacted with your good works? Do you want to promote your own brand, or do you want to promote God's kingdom? These questions (especially the second one) should guide not only how Christian women dress, but how they act and who they are.

The essence of modesty is this: wherever you are and whatever you do, you show the light of Christ to others.

You can read part 2 of this series here.


Scripture quotations are from the New International Version via BibleGateway.
Strong's Lexicon and Thayer's Lexicon are from blueletterbible.org.