Modest Dress?

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, "'But we did not yield in subjection to them "'for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel "'would remain with you.'".

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

We're here to take your calls as well. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. That's pretty much how I start every show. Today is Tuesday, and today we have a special radio studio guest, Pastor Steve Cooley. Buenos dias. Well, welcome. Today we wanna talk about issues in the local church, but before we do, we want to invite you to a special concert in West Boylston, just north of Worcester.

The church is Bethlehem Bible Church, and it's a special Christmas concert, Friday, December 4th, 7 p .m. And basically we'll have wonderful music, kids singing, choirs, more classical styles of music, I'll preach the gospel, and you're welcome to come and hear that.

I just heard one of our violinists is not going to be here because she'll be at the Hartford Philharmonic Orchestra playing that night, so.

She's great, but you know, the whole concert last year was so good, I just can't say enough about it.

I would have paid to come. I think I was getting paid to come. I think I was on the clock as a pastor that hour. It's December 4th, 7 p .m., and what we wanna do is a couple things. We wanna exalt Jesus Christ by song, and then we want to have you bring your friends, bring an unbelieving friend.

If you'd like to come, we'd like to give you the phone number to get tickets. You can either email us or call 508 -835 -3400. 508 -835 -3400. We wanna invite you to a concert at Bethlehem Bible Church, a Christmas concert, bring your unsaved friends.

Legalism and Modesty in the Local Church

So Steve, today, Tuesday, what do we have on the docket? We're almost done with this series, aren't we? The series that never ends?

Yes, and then we're gonna have to start something else. So yeah, we're dealing with a baker's dozen of legalisms, and you wanna hear today's topic,.

Or you want me to keep you in suspense?

Yeah, let's just talk a little bit more about legalism. If somebody's tuning in to 760 AM WVNE, and they think, what is legalism? Now, we know, first of all, biblical legalism, when you talk about it from a biblical perspective, typically those words are used of adding works or adding human achievements, adding some kind of human merit to have God declare you righteous based on who you are, what you've done.

And Paul addresses legalism in Galatians, for instance. And so there's, throughout this church centuries, they changed it around a little bit. So when I say legalism today, most people don't think of Galatians 3.

What do they think of? Legalism, I don't know, Sarah Palin. No, they think of, it's a sin to drink alcohol. Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we think of legalism today, when we're saying that, we don't mean you're adding works to the gospel, that is heretical legalism.

But today, in today's parlance, in today's vernacular, in today's, what's another synonym for those two words? In today's vocab. I like it, that was good, very good on your feet. We are going to talk about legalism when it comes to, oh, that church is legalistic.

Watch out for that church because they think smoking's a sin or watching movies are a sin. We've got another thing to talk about today. And Steve, what's that?

We're going to talk about duress. Specifically, there are people who will say things, for example, it's a sin for a woman to wear pants, particularly to church.

How dare she? Steve, I'll never forget it as long as I live. I was in a church in Connecticut and I went to a conference. And so I was going to the conference and I wore, I think, just a nice shirt, buttoned up shirt, collar with a tie, but no jacket or anything like that.

It wasn't a suit. And I started walking to the church. John Whitcomb was there, he was the speaker. And I saw the dress code for men and women on the church door.

I could not believe it. And you were a scandal on because you did not have a It's exactly right.

I was thankful it wasn't Sunday because I probably wouldn't have been allowed in.

Well, you know, it is important for every Christian to be properly decked out when they go to church, because if you're not, you can't worship God in spirit and in truth.

It's funny, just another side note. I think the listeners of For No Compromise Radio might find this interesting. I went downstairs to the track table and one of the first tracks I found was the heirs of the John MacArthur study Bible.

And I thought, boy, I'm just not fitting in. So I met one of the pastors there and he said, oh, you're a pastor? I said, yes. I said, I am. And he said, what school did you go to? I said, the Master's Seminary.

And you should just see his face. And I thought, oh no. Why has your countenance fallen? I know. Let not your top come down. I think that's, I digress. Okay. Yes, you do.

Yeah, and so what would we say to someone who says, listen, the ladies need to come to church in a dress or they need to have a skirt on or they need to not wear any makeup or they need to wear makeup or they need to, or they need to, or they need to.

The men must wear suits. They must wear ties. And by the way, they can't have fake clip-on ties.

My son has began to wear some ties once in a while but I told him about the heirs of the clip-on tie, the heretical teachings. We wanna back up a little bit and ask this question. Are you glad when unbelievers come to your church?

Number one, you should be. Number two, are you glad that unbelievers come but when they come, they actually look, dress and act like unbelievers? And so we wanna make sure that unbelievers are welcome.

Now, if somebody comes into church and I guess they have no clothes on, we should probably redirect them through the usher board. But short of that, when unbelievers come to church, they're not going to dress like people who are mature in Christ.

They're not gonna dress like people who are mature in life. And so we wanna be very careful to say, number one, when someone comes to church as an unbeliever and you don't think they're dressed appropriately, they have too many tattoos, too many nose rings, too many ear pierces, too many, you know, et ceteras, then you just need to love them anyway.

Wouldn't that be a good place to start?

I think that'd be a great place to start. I mean, you've just been preaching through James on Sunday evening and you know, the whole idea of, you know, kind of seeing somebody and then deciding in your mind that you're going to treat them as less than an image bearer is just, is wrong.

Well, think about these poor people back in the Bible days. They only had one thing of clothes, one outfit, if you will. And they worked all day in those clothes in an agrarian culture. And they were dirty.

Or agrarian. Agrarian, that's what I meant. Pro-offered, proffered. They were dirty. They were smelly. It was a difficult situation. And so we wanted to, number one, not judge people's worth based on what they wear.

Dressing for Worship Without Legalism

Number two, I'd like to say this for our listeners for No Compromise Radio. We believe there is a right philosophy for dressing to go to church. And here's what I mean by that. For me, it's always time and place.

If you are a lady and you'd like to wear some kind of slinky outfit and you're married, I don't really have a problem with that. As long as a slinky outfit is for your husband at home by yourselves, not at church.

Is there any place at all in a local church for immodest dressing? And it happens for men and women, maybe, but this is pretty much a woman's issue, don't you think? Well, sure.

But I mean, I would hate to see any of our guys show up looking like Fabio, you know, from one of the covers of those romance novels or something.

I'm so glad the leisure suits with the low-cut kind of V-neck collars and the bad chest hair and the gold, fake gold is gone. I'm glad for that.

Yeah, I just cleared it out of my closet. We usually don't look at each other.

When we're doing the show, but Steve just looked at me and gave me the eye. I don't know what the eye was. Hey, I have some of those clothes at home, or Mike, you do and quit wearing them. No, I never did.

There's somebody in my family who once did, but my brother will be nameless.

When you go to church, if you're a lady, one of the things you want to do is if you'd like to dress nicely and you say to yourself, I'm going to worship the king, and if I was going to go see Queen Elizabeth, I would put some nice clothes on.

If I was going to a wedding, I would dress up. If I was going to a funeral, I would dress appropriately. I think there's an appropriate kind of way to think about wearing clothes for Sunday. And I don't mean you have to always wear a dress, or if you're a man, you always have to wear a suit and a tie.

We don't mean that. I think people can come any way they want. If you want to wear flip-flops or you want to wear shorts, I don't really care about that. I'm wanting your motives. I'm wanting your actions spinning out of your motives.

And so I think one of your motives should be, I'm going to worship the king. Should that affect the way I look at my wardrobe? To even be cognizant of the fact, oh, I think I'm going to church. Should that flesh itself out in what I wear?

Absolutely. I mean, if we actually considered— I mean, if Christ were physically present, would we dress the way that we're dressing? And I think for a lot of us, the answer would be no. You know, we would think again about how we were coming to church.

And that's not to say that everybody has to wear, you know, tuxedos. I don't know. That they don't have to get dressed to the nines, as they say. But I do think that certainly, you know, getting back to the ladies' outfits, you ought not to dress in such a way as to make someone just stare at you, you know, or even want to stare at you.

That just should not even be an issue.

Well, when I see someone at church, maybe they're a brand-new Christian, maybe they're just a visitor, and they're a woman, and they have a low-cut top on, it is a bad thing for me, because then what am I doing?

The whole time I'm saying to myself, look in her eyes, look in her eyes, look in her eyes, don't look lower, don't be tempted to look lower. I sometimes want to look lower and go, what are you thinking wearing that?

But I just have to keep my eyes looking straight at her. Why do we go to church as women sometimes and want people to look at our bodies and wear some kind of things? It reminds me back of Jeremiah 6.

They were ashamed and they did not know how to blush. Some things are just inappropriate at church. Steve and I are not, by the grace of God, legalists. I don't think there's anything wrong with some kind of slinky clothes, again, if it's for your husband at home.

That's a perfectly appropriate place to wear those things. But why do I have to tell people at the church, Steve, who do special music? I don't ever want to tell them this, and for the most part, 99 of the time, our ladies don't need to know that.

But if you're a lady and you're doing special music, why do I have to say in a memo form or through someone else, I don't want to have any cleavage shown? Should that even, why do I have to say that in our culture today?

Shouldn't, but I think for some ladies, it just doesn't, either it doesn't register, they just don't think about it because this is how typically they would dress, or frankly, maybe some people just want the attention.

Well, you're right.

Here's something else, Steve, and your girls are grown now and godly girls and married. For my children, it is difficult to find dresses for young ladies, young girls that aren't super high when it comes to length and aren't super low when it comes to how much of the, how much under the neck does it show?

It's sometimes hard to buy that, to find those, but that's not an excuse. If you're a woman, you want to dress in such a way, I'm not saying you have to have ash on your head and you have to buy a David Byrne-size suit, super baggy, and people don't know that you're a woman.

I think you shouldn't do some kind of metrosexual thing if you're a woman, I think you should act and dress like a woman, but you don't need to have something skin tight on, you don't need to have low cut things on.

Here's what Richard Baxter said, this is not a new problem. It seems new, but it's not a new problem. Listen to Baxter, Richard Baxter, the great old Puritan preacher from Kidderminster, England. Quote, you must not lay a stumbling block in their way nor blow up the fire of their lust.

You must walk among sinful persons as you would with a candle among straw or gunpowder, or else you may see the flame which you did not foresee when it is too late to quench it, end quote.

Well, and I mean, it's even older than that, obviously. I mean, we could go back to Potiphar's wife. I mean, this has always been an issue and the idea of a woman dressing, I mean, there are different degrees, but certainly a woman who dresses, let's say, let's push the envelope and say seductively, is not really thinking about anyone else other than herself.

And we're not saying that every woman who shows a little bit of this and that or the other thing is thinking seduction, but it just takes, it can take men to a place where they ought not to go and, you know, are they responsible for that?

Yes, and ladies, are you responsible if you're wearing that sort of clothing?

Yeah. Yeah, we are not legalists who say you've got to wear dresses and you can't wear slacks and you can't do this and you can't do that. Here's what we are saying. We want your motives to be derived from not what the world says, not what, you know, Cosmo Magazine is selling, but from what the Bible teaches.

Doesn't Romans 12, verse one and two talk about not being transformed by this world, trying to put you into their mold? You need to have your mind renewed, and a renewed mind, a godly mind says, based on my justification through faith alone, through Christ alone, Romans 3, 4, and 5, I want to live out who I am.

And since I want to live out who I am, I want to not make other men stumble. Men are driven by looks to a large degree, and they are not perfect, and so they're sinful, and you don't want to tempt them.

You don't want to give them any kind of temptation at all. I'll never forget when I read Matthew 12, verse 34, and someone interpretively, through the guise of modesty, wrote this. Out of the abundance of the heart, the body dresses.

Well, that's not a bad application. Let me just put it that way.

That's right. So you say, I dress the way my heart, wants me to dress. And sometimes our hearts tell us the wrong things if they're not biblically informed. We can deceive ourselves. So we have a little rule at home, and that rule is if my daughter, my 17-year-old daughter says, daddy, is this okay?

Pretty much when she says, is this okay? I know that it might not be okay. And so if I have any question, well, it's too tight, it's too low, we just want to go above and beyond. And again, I'm not asking her to wear burlap.

This is not some kind of, you've got to look bad. You might say to me, if you're listening, well, don't you want your wife to wear makeup? Well, I think she should wear a little makeup. I think that's fine that she wears some, but she's not trying to cake it on to try to get people to look at her with some kind of ill motive.

Yeah, when my daughters were in high school, I think they almost dreaded going clothing shopping because it was so difficult. And the worst, of course, was swimsuits. Now, we're not exactly in swimsuit season right now, but that's a constant battle.

What is appropriate? What's not appropriate? And by the way, just for the audience, anybody who's under the age of 40 and doesn't know who David Byrne is, he's a singer of some note from quite some time ago who used to wear big, oversized clothes, just so that you know.

Yeah, that's what we like here. We like cultural references with a little background. 1 Peter 3 makes it clear, this is No Compromise Radio. You can write us at info at nocompromiseradio .com. My name's Mike, and I'm here with Steve.

And we're thinking about what you wear to church. Legalism says, this is the list. Godliness says, don't forget who you are in Christ and then live that way. Live out who you are. What does Peter say?

Peter says that women should have their chaste and respectful behavior seen. And he says in verse three of 1 Peter 3, your adornment must not be merely external, braiding the hair, wearing gold jewelry, or putting on dresses.

By the way, those are all fine things to do. You'll want to wear some jewelry and put on a dress, that's fine. But let it be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is the same word used of the atoning blood of Christ Jesus, which is precious in the sight of God.

And by the way, that's what the holy women of old used to do. So we're after your heart issue. And if you do that, you'll never be a legalist.

Well, and just even talking about that, the clothing issue really gets back to the heart. If you dress in such a way as to cause people to stumble, it shows that you're not thinking about others as more important than yourself.

And it also, on the flip side, no one is saying, and I think this would be the wrong thing to say, no one is saying that God looks on the clothing. God looks at the heart. So that's not the issue. The issue is not what would the apostle Paul wear?

Would he wear a suit and tie? That is not the issue. The issue is, are you thinking through things? Are you considering the fact that you're going to worship the king? Are you considering the fact that you're going to be among other saints and you don't want to cause any of them to stumble?

Preach it. We want to glorify God in our dress, men and women. We want to please him and honor him for who he is and what he's done. And I think Joshua Harris, in his book, Not Even a Hint, scores big time with theological points.

When he says this, quote, there's a difference between dressing attractively and dressing to attract. What do you think the difference is?

Well, if you walk into the sanctuary and everyone turns to look at you, to see what you're wearing, I think you've probably crossed the line.

D. Edmund Hebert, in his commentary on 1 Peter, he said this, it goes without saying that this passage does not encourage slovenliness or indifference toward appearance. Stop there for a second. We're not saying you should just look like a bum.

You should just dress down. Oh, I'm going to church today. I should dress in such a way that would be typified by beige man, a gray looking, something like that.

Roll out of bed and put on your sweatpants and just go. Absolutely.

Well, we have to probably tell the people the word cosmetic comes from the root word cosmos, which comes from the word world, means the word world. And so the world needs what?

Well, I don't know. I always thought of it as you're putting the world on your face.

We are the world. We are the children. The world needs to be, the world is out of arrangement. And so sometimes when people get up and put cosmetics on, it means they're arranging their face because they wake up with a disarranged face, a de-arranged face, rearranged face.

Rearranging their world, cosmetology.

Show me someone who's walking with the Lord and who is wanting to do what the Bible says regarding sanctification based on their justification. And I'll show you someone that says, I have to think about other people and love my neighbor as myself.

And I should wear something that's not going to have, it shouldn't be a problem to other people. Well, let me ask you a question though.

Doesn't the Old Testament say that women shouldn't dress like men?

Well, I'm trying to think exactly what book that is. I think that's in Belle, the Dragon Slayer, or Tobit. There is a difference between a way a woman looks and a way a man looks. We believe what 1 Corinthians 11 says.

It's a dishonor for man to have long hair. That's another show, how long is long? But if someone looks at you and they say, oh, look at that nice looking lady, and you turn around and it's you, the man, well, then we've got a problem.

It goes back even back to Deuteronomy 22. Women are forbidden to dress like men and men are forbidden to dress like women. And so we want to make sure we realize we have been bought with a price, therefore glorify God with our bodies.

And so when it comes to, hey, let's think about weddings, Steve. Why do we have to, as pastors say, a man and woman who want to be married, we'd like to see the bridesmaids' dresses because we're not really wanting any midriff to show.

We don't like tons of bare shoulders, cleavage, low necklines, thin tops, tight things.

Even the wedding gown. I mean, it's like a wedding has become some kind of a New York fashion show where everybody has to kind of put their bodies on display and such things are not. That should never be the focus of a wedding.

What do we do if we're at church and we say to ourselves that there's a 17-year-old girl, she's dressed inappropriately, and the people, our church members, they know enough to be different? Do you go and talk to the 17-year-old girl or should you go and talk to the dad?

I'm going to talk to her dad, absolutely. And sometimes there is no dad in the home, then I'm going to talk to the mom because somebody needs to talk to that girl. And it probably is not the best if it's a grown man telling a 17-year-old young woman that she's dressed immodestly.

That may not go over that well and it may seem inappropriate in and of itself.

Guarding Men from Lust and Practicing Modesty at Church

Well, we've talked a lot about modesty today and we've addressed more women issues than probably men issues. But I just want to say something to the men in the last minute and a half we have. Guys, if you go to church and you think, well, I go to church because I'm single and that's the place to meet the hot girls.

A, I think you're deranged, getting back to a word that I said before. You're not thinking properly. That's wrong thinking. And B, for all guys, I don't care if you're 80 or you're 15, men are attracted to women externally and we need to guard our eyes.

I think if you look at someone with adultery, with lust, you're committing adultery. That's what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount. So how about just do yourself a favor? And when you talk to a woman, fix your eyes on her eyes.

You don't have to look any place else. You don't have to do anything else. You don't need any double looks, double takes. It's the double look that gets you, isn't it? Oh, yes. And so we want to be very, very careful.

I think you'll also do yourself a favor if you love your wife at home and you tell her you're beautiful, you're attractive, you pursue her. For me, I chase her around the house in front of the kids and say, you know, your mom is beautiful, right?

Your mom is attractive to me. There's nothing wrong with that in the right place. It's appropriate. It's healthy, but not at church.

Well, you know, getting back to what you said about the second look, think about it. It's not lust to see a woman for the first time unless you just lock your gaze on her. It's that second look. You know, what is motivating you to go back for that second look?

And that's where you can stumble.

So at No Compromise Radio, we say dress for the Lord, dress out of a heart that's been saved and redeemed by the gospel, and you'll be in good shape. You don't need rules. You need to remember your Savior.

No Compromise Radio, Mike and Steve, see you next week.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God's Word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE in staff or management.