Does Modesty Really Matter?

Welcome back to Clearcast. I'm your host, Tim Dukeman, and I'm here with Pastor Dave. Clearcast is a ministry of Clearant Church in West Indianapolis, and today we're going to talk about modesty. And some of you just sucked your breath in, because this tends to be a bit of a controversial topic. Partially because of the age we live in and partially because there aren't exactly a Bible verse saying thou shalt not wear skirts shorter than 12 inches or explaining precisely how tight your clothes can be. And also, our culture has a very strong sense of legalism on this topic and wants to say that any discussion of Modesty is going to be necessarily purity, culture, legalistic. There's all these ways that we can get wrapped around the axle. But at the same time, any serious Christian has to realize that obeying God does require us to get into these issues. It does require us to think about it carefully. And so, Pastor Dave, what does the Bible say about modesty?

You always ask these questions at the beginning. Open-ended. There's a big softball. What does the Bible say about modesty? Well, I think we should start with, I want to read 1 Timothy 2, where it talks about women adorning themselves modestly. It says, as is proper for women making a claim to godliness. A woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness. And so what modesty, when we think about it, the Bible says it's good. It doesn't, I'm struggling to recall a place in scripture where modesty is addressed to men. Though I think at some point in this conversation, we're going to have to get to the, once we unpack sort of what modesty is and why it's important.

how it's important for men as well. So this is not just an issue for women, though it is an issue for women. It's not either or. But modesty is something that is commendable. It's something that is beautiful. It's something that we ought to seek after. In that passage, it says that women ought to adorn themselves properly. And then it describes that modestly and discreetly, talking about their clothing, and then it talks about jewelry and some different things. And then it says that this is proper for women making a claim to godliness. And so for those who are Christians, I'm not surprised when I see unbelievers dressed immodestly. I don't think modesty is the sort of – it's an archaic word in the sense that we don't like what it represents, but it's not an archaic word in the sense that we don't know what it means. If you tell someone to be modest or if they're dressed – if you say to a woman she's dressed immodestly, if her HR department gets a –

complaint, and then they call her in and want to talk to her about that she's dressed immodestly. She's not like, well, what do you mean? It's like she knows exactly what outfit she was wearing when they said that. And so modesty, the concept's not lost on us. Our affirmation of its goodness, yes, but what it is, I don't think is so foreign to us. When I think of modesty, what I think of is behavior, mannerisms, clothing, appearance, the aim of all of those things is to draw attention to yourself in some way. That you're trying to catch particularly the eye or the attention of other people. And so to act or dress or behave immodestly is aimed at saying, hey, look at me. Pay attention to me. Look over here. I'm more important than what you got going on. Now, Am I saying that that is what's going through the hearts and minds of people or women who are dressing inappropriately? No, actually, I don't think that's what goes through their mind. I almost wish that was what was going through their mind. I wish someone would tell them, hey, I think you're just trying to draw the attention of men. You want them to stare at you. I think it would be a good thought. Well, they shouldn't. You hear the arguments with purity culture. Well, they shouldn't do that. Men shouldn't do that. I'm like, well, okay, granted, but you shouldn't dress that way either.

And it's just not appropriate or acceptable. If you make a claim to godliness, the scripture is clear here that you ought to dress modestly and discreetly. You ought to be covered up. There ought to be things hidden. It's appropriate that they would be hidden. Yeah, I think it's instructive that when you talk about a woman dressing immodestly, if she's inviting one of her girlfriends over to watch something on Netflix, or watch a movie or something, she's not probably wearing a low-cut shirt when that girl comes over. That's probably not happening. And I think there's just a tremendous amount of self-deception that goes on with this topic, where we want to pretend like we don't know what we're doing, and we want to pretend like the reason we're wearing that is something else other than what it is. Yeah, there's a line from a controversial...

teacher these days that says what's unusual these days he said there's been times where in history where uh the culture was more prudish women dressed more chastely men were expected to behave more chastely as well and there's been times where both both ends were looser but what's weird right now is women are expected to dress very provocatively and men are supposed to pretend they do not notice yeah yeah i think when i think about modesty i think what is What we're trying to do is deal with the issue of beauty and what should be done with beauty and form and really the human body as God's made it. Character and behavior and different things are integral to this. But maybe a better way to ask the question or talk about it is say, what is attractive or what is beautiful?

As a Christian, what we should be saying is modesty is beautiful. There's something that's attractive and appealing to modesty. Our society says, no, that's not the case. What's appealing is flesh, skin, shape. Nothing's hidden. Even if it's covered by tight clothing, it's not hidden. And I think that men and women hit the issue of modesty differently. What I found with women is that they want to be attractive, and I don't think that's an inappropriate desire. I think there's actually something intrinsically feminine about a woman wanting to be pretty and wanting to give attention to that, to their appearance, and to feel comfortable and to feel...

to feel beautiful. And the problem comes in with how beauty is defined. What is beautiful? If she's told beauty or your attractiveness is defined by the attention you get from men or the jealousy you can create in other women, then we've got a false or a broken definition of beauty. That's not true. I really don't think most women nowadays, when they're putting their clothes on in the morning are thinking, this is going to make men lust after me and that's what I want. That's not what they're thinking. In fact, I would say they're getting dressed not appreciating that that's the response that they get. It turns out most women don't like when men stare at them and oogle over them and can't seem to find their eyes. They don't appreciate being looked at that way, whether that's in the workplace or that's in the mall or or the church or wherever they go, they don't appreciate that sort of treatment. They don't go out saying, this is what I want. What they don't realize is that men and women are different and that there are things that her intrinsic desire to be beautiful or to be attractive is not the same way that men approach the issue. And so if they dress or behave in a revealing or

immodest way, it is going to draw the attention of men. Right. And I think that a lot of what clothing – how clothing works can be summarized in thinking about uniforms. Like if you wear a basketball jersey, there's a sense in which you're wanting people to look at you as a basketball player. And so I think it would be helpful if we spent more time thinking about the way we dress. What type of uniform are we putting on right now? And what – What type of response is that engineered to generate? Why is the clothing cut that way? And I think that's a crucial part. And if you just think about clothing as what type of uniform am I putting on, that can be really helpful in making sure that you're putting on the right uniform and engineering the right reaction that you want. Yeah, and I agree with you. And I also think that I don't know that that's going to land with a woman.

I'm trying to think of a man going to his wife or to his daughter and having that conversation. And I don't know that she's going to connect with that. What I've found in talking with my wife, my daughters are younger. We're forming habits right now of what's appropriate to wear, but we're not to the point where there's questioning of that other than like, well, I don't like that. color as much as this color, and that's just the flavor of the day sort of disagreement. I think when women get dressed, when one woman sees another woman dressed immodestly, she doesn't see the same thing a man sees in that woman. She's not staring at her private areas and lusting after them. She's thinking, wow, she's got such a nice figure and a nice shape, and I wish that I this or that or the other. Or she's looking at them and going, why is she wearing that? Doesn't she know that that's not the right cut for her? But she's not looking with an intrinsically sexual eye. Right. And that is not true when it comes to men. And if all we can accomplish in this podcast is to get you to understand that men and women see the world differently,

not just sexually, all across everything, then maybe we'll have accomplished our goal. But when it comes to modesty, I think a lot of the conflict where the Bible's not unsure about what it has to say about modesty, it's not silent about it. It's a volatile topic because men and women see the issues differently. If you tell a woman that she ought not to wear a certain... outfit or a certain cut or a certain something what you're what she hears you say is you don't want me to be beautiful you don't want me to be attractive you want me to be ugly or worse you think i already am ugly and that that's not going to help and that's not what's meant right that's not what is going on in the conversation and so the issue of modesty has to be talked about in terms of, okay, we first need to understand that God made men and women differently and that we need to accommodate and account for those differences. Because when we don't, we end up in situations or in relationships or circumstances that we didn't, that aren't good for us and that we didn't want to get into. And so it's possible to be beautiful and not be immodest. I think that

It's kind of like how I have to – my oldest is seven, and I often have to tell him that he needs to be more gentle when he's interacting with his younger siblings. And when I do that, I'm not telling him that he's weak. I'm telling him that he's strong. And I think that women ought to think of the modesty conversation as being an affirmation of their beauty. Why we're having the conversation in the first place, the power, the attractional power they have is why the entire reason the conversation exists. And so I think that's an important part of this conversation is like the assumption being built in here with the modesty conversation is that. Yeah, it's learning how to steward and govern something that was put in there by God and for a purpose.

That instead of wasting it and squandering it and giving it away to those to whom it frankly doesn't belong. So, I want to harken back to where we started. Like, we talked about what the Bible says about modesty, and I understand that that's a bit of a difficult question because depending on which translation you use, the word modesty may not appear in the Bible at all. I found, like, 1 Timothy 2 has modesty in some translations, but I think that this can be a hard topic for a lot of Christians because of the fact that the Bible doesn't speak to it in very direct ways. And so, what would be, like, let's just address the elephant in the room of the legalism charge. Like, what's your response to the accusation that having modesty conversations is actually just legalism, that we're just controlling people? I think there's real, it's like if I handed you a gun and didn't tell you how to handle it and what was safe and appropriate, like I'd be handing you a really, something that could do a lot of destruction and harm. And so is it possible to say more than the scripture says or bring particular definition to what modesty is beyond what scripture says? Yeah, I think it's almost inevitable.

that you're going to, because the Bible doesn't say, and this is what the women, they can wear, this is exactly right, this is, it doesn't define all that stuff. And so, if we come and we start talking about the tightness of clothing, the cut of the clothing, the style of it all, we've gotten beyond what exactly the Bible says. But I think it's a matter of wisdom. And even as soon as I say that, I'm like, okay, well, people are going to say, well, it's a matter of wisdom. So that really, that just means as long as I think it's okay, then it's all right. And it's like, no, that's not what I mean. That's not what I mean. I think this is an area where women would do well to listen to their dads and their brothers, their husbands about it and just say, you know what? I'm going to let.

a man tell me more about how men view this issue, how it hits them, how it's tempting to them, what stands out, what doesn't, I'm just going to defer all of that data to him. And I think there are areas where the opposite is true, where men need to say, listen, I have opinions about an issue, but I am going to just trust that my wife knows more about this than I do. and i'm not going to fight her about it i'm going to say okay we're going to we're going to listen to what you have to say and we're going to go with what you're going to you say because you understand this in a way that i don't and and so when it comes to an issue of like what is appropriate dress for a woman i think if she it's not like does the the question like does this make me look fat is not the point it's not the question but like if your husband

If you're a husband listening to this, what I'd say to you is if your wife or your daughter's wearing something that catches your eye and you notice it and then you look back again, you just need to realize you're not going to be the only man that day that's going to do that to your wife or to your daughter. She doesn't know even about what she's wearing necessarily is eliciting that response. But something is. And you need to, you would be a fool not to. to recognize that danger. And something I've thought a lot about is that I think it is especially difficult for women to have a good read on this issue before they get married. Because marriage tends to facilitate growth in that area in, I think, a lot of natural ways. But women who are not married, I think, especially have a hard time. And what this makes me think of is that the risks that The dangers that are most dangerous to you are the ones you don't fully understand or you underestimate. And I think about in my job, we recently came out of an environment – I'm a financial advisor – where a whole bunch of people in 2022 lost a whole lot of money investing in bonds and did not think that was possible because they didn't actually understand the risk. They didn't think interest rate risk was the thing. And this is –

We can get into the weeds on how that works. But the things that we ought to be concerned about are the things we don't really understand. We can't properly gauge the risk. And I think about this. It's the same thing as getting a kid who's 16, 17 years old to understand that driving extremely fast in a car is a bad idea can be very difficult. I say this as someone who just drives too fast. And so I just think that we ought to try to be more humble. when we come to conversations like this, that maybe the way we conceptualize that risk is wrong. And maybe there's more danger here than we thought. And if you read Proverbs, it talks about the adulterous woman who entices men and her steps lead down to death. Well, some of those adulterous women didn't set out to be that. They weren't actually trying to become that person, but they ended up there. And maybe there's risks we haven't thought about. Yeah.

I think that this is an issue, like you said, that women are, there's a naivety about it. And I'm afraid that there's a cultivated naivety. And I want to lay some of that blame at the woman's feet. And I want to lay the rest, a lot of that blame also at her dad's feet and her mom. Like, this is not something that just dads teach their daughters, though it's essential that you teach your daughters these things. But moms, this is really important for moms to be talking to their daughters about it. So the only way mom's going to have, her knowledge of this is going to grow and expand if she had a dad who taught her, parents who taught her, or she has a husband who said this is where the boundaries lie and what's appropriate. And there's things that you want, I think there's appropriate for you to want your daughters to feel uncomfortable wearing certain things that are immodest. Right. Like I would not.

want my daughter feeling comfortable wearing a bikini right ever like i don't want i want her to feel like oh that's weird i don't feel covered up and i think she she can have those like she's wondering about that when she's little when i see little girls being dressed that way if you're at the pool or the beach or whatever i'm just like what you're doing is you're teaching that girl that being that uncovered is normal in public yeah when in fact no it's not i mean We call it a bikini and we go, oh, it's okay to prance around like that at the pool. I'm like, but where else do you let your daughter, like, would you let her go out to get the mail in her underwear? No, I'd never do that. I'm like, well, but you let her go to the pool where there's probably way more people around. And it's a weird thing in our minds. It's just like we have these ideas like, oh, well, this is what's appropriate or acceptable or fashionable. And as Christians, I think we've got to be able to take a step back from that and say, is this, in this question, in this topic, is this modest?

Is this appropriate? Should we be wearing these types of things or not? So, what would you say about modesty as it relates to honoring God? Because I think there's a tendency in America for us to want to say, well, God doesn't care. Well, 1 Timothy 2 says He cares. That's my first response is that He does care. But I don't say that to say – I think modesty, actually being modest is a lot harder to attain than simply what you wear. I've known both men and women who their modesty was not ultimately rooted in what they wore. It was a character flaw. Was it a desire for, would you define it as a desire for attention? Yeah, some of it's a desire for attention.

To be looked at, to be lusted after, to be the center of attention, to be thought well of. It's hard to talk about because you're taking things that in a different context would not necessarily be a bad thing to want or desire to pursue necessarily. But there are times when a woman could be... wearing a modest outfit so far as they come and her her character her behavior the way she moves the way she stands the way she talks you're like that girl's trouble she's not she's looking for attention and it's in her eyes that you can see she's looking for attention um and it really doesn't matter what she's wearing yeah and you can be immodest without being uncovered yeah yeah Yeah, and so modesty, so if we just approach modesty in terms of like, well, how long does the skirt or the shorts need to be? And what is, you know, are midriffs acceptable on purpose? Are they acceptable if they're just an accident or it's occasional? I mean, really. Give us some rules, Pastor Dave. Tell us exactly what we can and can't do. That's what we want. The rule is you cannot be immodest. The rule is you need to be modest. How's that?

How do you deal with the fact, as you're dealing with this, as you're talking about it, sorry, I was away from my mic for a second, making some adjustments. How do you deal with the wisdom aspect of modesty when you're having that conversation with your wife or your daughters? I'm asking partly because I was raised in a church world and an environment where modesty was given a high premium. And so, therefore, I never have had to get after my wife and be like, honey, you can't wear – and her blow up at me. Like, I can't imagine what that would even look like. And so, what does – how do we approach this issue for somebody that's listening that's like, I can't tell my spouse, my wife, my husband that what they're wearing or the way they're behaving is – drawing attention to themselves in ways that are inappropriate? How do you approach that issue? Well, so one of the things, I think maybe a question, or at least as I'm understanding what you're saying, is to ask, what is the utility? Is there any utility in being modest? Is there any practical outworking or reason to be modest? You hear people talk about, well, you don't want to stumble your brothers. You don't want to, and yes, but that's not what I actually want to talk about. What I want to do is step out of modesty for a second and say,

Do you have things that you are possessive of in your life or in your home or in your family that you are unwilling, and appropriately so, unwilling for other people to have access to, to just the general public? Whether those are particular family details or possessions or knowledge or stories of You have private things and you have no inhibition or compunction of saying, that's not yours to know, to have, to use. It's mine. It's mine. It's mine and not yours. And I think that if we understand that in other areas of our lives where we're just like, you're not allowed to have that. It's mine. And I think that we would do well to think about our...

ourselves our marriages our daughters our wives in that way but that's jealousy yeah it's good it's good jealousy but jealousy is a sin isn't it inappropriate jealousy is a sin but i don't think that this is i mean i get what you're saying inappropriate jealousy when we when we are possessive something that is ours in an inappropriate way or do we sometimes confuse man i don't want to direct the conversation off the actual topic but i'm just i'm trying to think Like we're, in other words, I think sometimes what we call jealousy is something very different than what you're actually referring to. Like jealousy can actually be, we sometimes use the word jealousy when we actually mean a sort of covetousness. Like I'm jealous of their gifts or I'm jealous of their, well, part of it is like a covetousness where we want all of our friend's attention when they're our friend and it's okay for them to have more friends than just us. Or we're jealous of our wife because we don't want her to,

to hang out with her girlfriends. And I don't mean like spending all time away from family, but I'm just saying it's appropriate for a wife to have a bigger social circle than just her husband and her children. Like she needs a group around her. And so we use jealousy in that way when what we really mean is a sort of hyper-possessiveness, not a biblical appropriate, I am jealous of my wife's affection and my wife's... The things that belong to me. Right. Well, I think the example that comes to my mind is actually taxes. Okay. People get real jealous of their own money. They don't want anybody having their money. That's mine. I worked for it. It's not yours. Go get your own. This is mine. Well, you should be generous with your money. No, they can go work for themselves. They can go make their own. That's not an uncommon sentiment in our hearts. We have no trouble being like, this belongs to me and not you, so you can't have it.

There's a line from the early church fathers, something like that Christians shared their table and not their bed, that what made Christians so unique in pagan Rome was how strictly monogamous they were in the marriage relationship and how aboundingly giving and sharing they were with their money. And the Romans were the exact opposite. It was like, the money that's mine is mine and nobody else gets it, but hey, you know. Women are a free-for-all. Yeah. And so I'm only bringing all that stuff up to say there are things in our lives that we're very possessive of and not inappropriately. So you call it jealousy, and I know I get what you're saying. But is anyone going to – or are we here going to argue that actually I don't – none of my possessions are mine, that I have no personal property, that I – there's no ownership of stuff now. Am I owning my wife? That's not what I mean.

She's your wife. Yeah. Well, I mean, 1 Corinthians 7 actually says that the husband doesn't own his own body. The wife does. And the wife doesn't own her body. The husband does. And so there is an important sense in which Scripture teaches us on this particular topic. You are not your own. You don't actually belong to yourself. Right. And so I think you've got to ask the question, like, why am I so averse to or ignorant of these impulses when it comes to modesty? Why am I not more possessive of my own body? And why am I not more possessive of my wives and daughters or my sons? I actually do want to talk about boys and men and modesty in a minute, but... Excuse me. I think it's appropriate that you should be possessive of those things. Right. And the thing I think about is if you have... If a husband and wife go to a party and...

Like get separated and then the wife looks over and her husband's talking to another woman and she's batting her eyelashes at him and doing everything she can to keep his attention. The wife is going to get involved at that point and she's going to feel completely justified in doing that. And modesty in many ways is like if you want to talk about a woman dressing provocatively, that's the same thing as batting her eyelashes at another man. it is the exact same thing and so we we just need to be a little more consistent i think sometimes in how we apply these standards yeah and i think that it's it's i think part of the reason the the defensive walls are broken down here is just because the world is so sexualized and so into skin sex flesh everything nakedness right and so we're just sitting here being like well how do i even get along in a world where there's this huge disagreement Between scripture and what goes on around me. And to say, well, we can see it that way or we can see it as an opportunity to profess and to express our faith. Right. That this actually is an area in which we're different. And we can see the, it's incredible our ability to see behavior, see the consequences of behavior and not associate the two.

and say, oh, well, when you do this, this is the type of thing that happens. If you dress that way, men are going to, like you will, not only will men notice and look, you will gain a reputation as a certain type of woman. And then you'll spend your time arguing that that's not true of you. And you say, but you're loudly saying it is. Yeah, you're wearing the uniform. Yeah, I remember when I was young, I mean, as an adult young man. And it was before I was a Christian. And I was out with my friends and stuff and with these guys. And there were some girls that came over and were talking. And this one lady was, this young girl had a very, very, like, way low-cut top on. And she said to one of the men, because he was staring at her breasts, she said to him angrily, my face is up here.

And he said to her without missing a beat, if you wanted me to look at your face, you didn't, I don't remember exactly what he said. He said something to the effect of, if you had wanted me to look at your face, you would not have worn that shirt. When you put that shirt on, you decided that you wanted men to be looking at your breasts instead of your face, because that's what you're showing them. And she had no idea what to do with the comment. And that was the end of the discussion. And then they went back on, and he probably felt a little bit of shame for getting caught, and she probably felt a little bit of shame for the way she was dressed. She might have put a jacket or something on. But that was just the interaction between them. And so, excuse me, I think this is an area where we as Christians have to say, we're going to do what God says here. I think one of the questions is, why?

I mean, why is this important? Is it just a thing? I think when we get to, this is how long your dress needs to be, or this is the type of shirt tops you're allowed to wear, and they can be this size or that size or this cut or that cut. Part of the reason we're asking all these questions is because we're like, I don't understand what the point of this is. Why do I have to do this? Can I give you a quote? Sure. I just pulled up a book. I don't know if I can actually commend this book just because Pastor Dave hasn't read it.

I've read it, and I think it should be in our church library. It's called What's Up with the Fig Leaves by Heather Theinemann, and it's a book on modesty. It's, in my opinion, it's a great book. And she has this quote, modesty's purpose then is not only to keep men from lusting for what they shouldn't have, it is to keep them enthralled with what they do have. Modesty is not just a security guard against sexual perversion, it is also a bodyguard for sexual pleasure. And what she says near the end of the book is, That if we view modesty like Brussels sprouts, then we just eat as little of it as we can, but we know we have to eat it and it's nasty. But instead, if we view modesty as brownies and it's delicious and it's good for us and good to us, then we pursue it. We don't try to – no one has ever asked before, do I have to have brownies at the end of my meal? Like, your kids don't go, do I have to take some of the cookies?

Can I just have one? Like I've never had one of my kids say to me, daddy, can I just not eat my cookie? Right. Yeah. So paradigm. It's how we look at it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think one of the practice in line with, I think that quote you just read is that one of the, excuse me, one of the biggest reasons for is that, is that immodestly is inextricably linked to fornication and to adultery. It's not a benign thing. It's not like, oh, well, the problem is the cut of the top or the length of the shorts or the skirt or whatever. It's that it is a fabric with things that are destructive to your soul and to your marriage and to your children. So it's not just, oh, well, if I wear this, then I'm doing a good thing. And if I don't wear it, then I'm doing a bad thing. It's like you were describing, Tim, with...

At the party where the husband and wife are separated and the wife sees the husband talking to some woman who may have just approached him and he's trying to get out of, you didn't say. But immediately the buzzers go off and we say there is danger in the marriage here. There's danger with my daughter and the sort of attention she's going to elicit, ignorantly perhaps, but she's still going to elicit it. And to think that if she won't handle, if she didn't see the danger coming, to think that she will handle the danger well when it arrives is very foolish. Who can pull fire into his lap and not be burned? If you go do foolish things, you're going to get the outcome of doing those foolish things. And so I think that it's important for us not to ignore the danger, but to draw those connections. That there are certain women who have reputations.

Like you said at the beginning of the podcast, they didn't start out wanting to have, but they did end up with them. And we need to be able to draw that connection and say, we end up in places that we didn't intend to go because of our apathy, our ignorance, our rebellion, and say, no, I'm going to play with fire, but I'm not going to get burned. And I just say, well, what makes you think you're so special? Why do you think you're going to be able to do that and not? end up with the result that everyone else ends up with when they do that. So you put a pin in the discussion of modesty for men. So I'd like to bring that back up as we're wrapping up here. What are your thoughts on modesty in men? Because I think a lot of men think of modesty as a women's issue. It's not something that we have obligations to. Yeah. So when you live in a – so really quick, broad brush.

Men tend to be more visually stimulated and attracted than women are. And so historically, you would have said things like pornography, for an example, would have been a predominantly male problem. Like women, that's just not one of their struggles or temptations. But if you look at the research and you are involved with people's lives, what you're going to find out is that pornography is very much a problem now with women. Yeah. And so the watching of or the consuming visually of things that historically were more geared toward men, almost exclusively geared toward men, are now very much in play with women. And so one of the things that means is that where men used to be the ones who were more visually stimulated, our culture has cultivated in women this sensibility, this masculine trait.

Where all of a sudden now it's not just the women who are being lusted after by men, but men are being lusted after by women. And they appreciate the attention. The men appreciate the attention. I think having been neck deep into lifting weights and bodybuilding and that stuff a long time ago, the men want the attention from the women. That's why they do it. I was just talking with one of my sons or with my boys. And I said to them, I said, there is no reasonable end or goal associated with bodybuilding. It is the end. The end is I'm going to lift a little bit more weight. I said, okay, so you can bench 225. Great. That's when you have two plates on either side. That's like a benchmark for people under 200 pounds because they're like, oh, yeah, now I'm a big, strong guy. I said, are you satisfied? What's the next goal? Three plates?

So then you get to three, you can bench three plates since 315 and you're, oh man, we're big, strong guy. You satisfied? No, not satisfied. What's the next goal? Next goal is four plates. Cause that's, that's significant. 405 pounds. That's a lot of weight. And it is a lot of weight. And I said, but what happens is you get sucked in to this world that doesn't have any practical, tangible benefit anywhere. It's not health related. There's no clear link between being able to bench 300 pounds and being healthier than somebody who can't. Well, I would even say there's a big difference between being able to move a lot of weight and bodybuilding. Yeah. Because bodybuilding is just about looking a certain way as opposed to even being able to move weight. Think about the difference of the semantic connotations of bodybuilding versus weightlifting. Yeah. So weightlifting, the focus of the word is on the weights. What are you lifting?

weights right bodybuilding the focus is on the human body the appearance yeah how can i make this look better and so after you know when i would when i said earlier about women when they dress i said they don't see it the way that that men see it they're either doing when they look at another woman they're either saying oh wow she's beautiful and i'm not because she's shaped this way or she's looking her and saying well i'm better than her and i've spent a lot of time in the gym and you know when i was young and that's exactly what goes on between men that's exactly what goes on And the gym runs competitions. And I was telling my boys when we were talking, I said, you know that one of the competitions, I remember them running at the gym, and it was because I was near the top of it, was grip strength. That's a silly thing. Who measures grip strength? Why does it matter? What's the utility of it? Unless you have to grab things, really heavy things, and pick them up for a living every day.

Why does grip strength matter? Well, I had a really strong grip strength because I climbed trees for a living. So I was constantly pulling my big self up and down trees every day. And so my grip strength was really high. And the amount of pride I took in that, because there were guys who had bigger muscles than me in the gym. My grip strength was way better than theirs. And they knew it. And I knew it. And we talked about it. And so that's the competition. That's what's going on. But then you ask men, like, okay, well, is that all it is? Is it just a competition between you and other men? No, it's not. Because when you're concerned about your appearance, your appearance is associated and related to attention from the opposite sex. That is what it's about. That is almost entirely what it's about. And so that is the practical outworking. It's not health-related. Maybe it's self-esteem-related.

Maybe you feel insecure and so you need to go in the gym and change your appearance so you can feel a little more comfortable in your own skin. But come on, you're a man. If you're not a Christian, you'll be honest about it and say, yeah, it's because I want to be able to get a girl and I'm fat or I'm skinny and I can't. So I'm going to go get a little bigger, a little stronger so that I have better luck with the ladies. Christian men won't be that honest and say that's what's going on. But I'm like, are you really so different? You have some Christian motivation or protection surrounding you that somehow protects you from those dangers. I said, that's just not the case. And so men are, I was talking to my boys. I said, what is on every wall in a gym? It's mirrors. It's all mirrors. It's all just looking at yourself.

And you watch guys that lift weights and it's like they walk by a window and they're looking at themselves and they go and stand in front of the mirror. It's just like, come on, dude, that's gay. And appearance, I mean, this is all about modesty. I'm like, it's a crazy thing that we've come to a time where men are so concerned about their appearance. And I'm not arguing for you need to get fat and you need to be lazy and you need to not care at all and you need to not shave or shower. I'm not arguing for any of that. I'm just saying, We have become so infatuated with our physical bodies and showing them to other people, both men and women. Men want to show their bodies to other people. They don't want to show their strength, their ability to pick something up so much, but they want to show their physique off. And I think that is incredibly immodest. And men do other things aside from bodybuilding. We've been harping on that. I have been.

But there's other things men do. I was talking to my teenage boys recently, and they're high schoolers, and they have friends who are getting highlights in their hair, boys getting highlights. And I just laughed at them, and I said, that's so gay. And my kids were like, what do you mean? I'm like, first of all, you should know, when I was your age, I had highlights. So I'm telling you from firsthand experience, it's gay. And I know what was motivating me, and it wasn't a... homosexual desire that's not what i mean i just mean it was all about getting attention being cool fitting in being popular that's all that was going on and now what they've they've started asking me so we had highlights and fashion's always cyclical you know it just goes but things change a little bit we're like in the 80s right now in terms of what's fashionable right now okay the baggy jeans i told my son we were talking about skinny jeans and boys wearing skinny jeans and i said you know what's coming back man

janko jeans i don't know if either one of you guys remember that brand of jeans but they were just this giant i remember pants i'm like they're super long too i'm just telling you like in 10 years just mark my word son in not even 10 years and it will be back big huge skirt looking pants for men for boys they'll be they'll be popular the thing that came back around this time this iteration that i had not in did not experience when i was a kid was men or boys teenage boys getting perms to curl their hair and my kids one of my boys asked me a few weeks ago like dad what do you think about that I just laughed out loud and I'm like that is the gayest thing I've ever heard and I said I'm not saying your friends are gay but what I can tell you is not one of their fathers thought that this would be a thing that their son should do right like no father was like hey honey I think you should go to the salon and get your mullet permed

Because that's what they're doing. Because mullets are popular right now with a certain demographic of young boys. Cowboy boots, skinny cowboy pants, flannel shirts, and permed mullets. I mean, it's like, I'm like, are you? No, that's my culture. That's the culture my kids live in. That's the kids they go to school with and stuff. And a lot of the kids that are doing this, I'm like, I just wish somebody would tell them that that's immodest. I'm like, you got to get your hair permed? I can't imagine what would have been said when I was in high school 20-some years ago if some guy with straight hair came in with a perm. Right. We would have been read the riot act. Someone would have brought a set of clippers to school the next day and shaved our head. They would have held us down and shaved our head just to mock us and make fun of us. That's what we would have done. If you'd showed up to football practice. Oh, yeah.

We had a guy one time show up to football practice with eyeliner on. And this man, he was just goth. He was just trying to figure it out. He didn't know quite what he was. And he went on to serve in the military. He was not a limp-wristed, weak guy. He's just trying to figure it all out. He cried all that eyeliner off at football practice. Because it was relentless. But now we can't say that stuff. You can't look at somebody and be like, that is gay. You look like a woman. Girls care about that. What are you doing? With modesty. The kids nowadays, the teenagers are coming to school. One of my sons said, well, you come to school and they ask, how does it look? And I'm like, what did you say? What did you say? I don't know what I would say. I just said what I would say. I'd laugh in his face and I'd say, bud, God made you a man. What are you doing?

And someone probably should help his parents understand that because there's something being missed with regard to modesty. And so I talk to my boys about their bodies, about lifting weights, about the tightness of their clothes, whether or not they're allowed to wear tight clothes and show off their muscles and stuff. I can tell you their mother's repulsed by it. She's just like, that is pathetic. Like you won't do chores around the house and you gripe and complain if you've got to go do some physical work around the house. But like weightlifting class? Oh, we're going to be in weightlifting class. Yeah, it makes me think of the verse in Deuteronomy where it says like a man should not wear clothing pertaining to a woman. And I think there's a – like that principle applies to the modesty discussion and the bodybuilding discussion that like – if you're doing something that pertains to a woman or you're comporting yourself in a way that pertains to a woman, just stop it. Like, don't be gay, you know? And it's so hard to figure out what being a man is or being a woman is and how they dress and how they carry themselves. And I just think we have to, one, we have to learn the stuff ourselves. And it's not just like, let's harken back to the 1950s, but let's learn from scripture. What is a man?

And what does he care about? And what are his priorities? And what does he need to look like and be capable of to maintain and fulfill those responsibilities? Same questions for a woman. What are you going to be? And what did God make you to be? And why would you want to be denigrating, exposing, or denying what God made you to be? It's almost more offensive to me when I see a woman... I don't know how to say it. It's more natural for me to... How would you describe it? It's not natural. It's less appalling to me when I see a woman who's dressed immodestly than a woman who's denying that she's a woman. Who's dressed in gym shorts and a baggy t-shirt and has hair that's the length of my hair and has not put any effort into...

That I'm like, God made you beautiful and didn't make you beautiful so you could show it off to everyone around. He made you beautiful for your husband, ultimately. And the scripture in Proverbs tells husbands that they should be, let your wife's breasts satisfy you always. Be content with the fountain of you. Drink water from your own cistern. These are the things that you have to look forward to and ought to be preparing yourself for. Because if you don't count the cost of the way you behave and the trouble it gets you into, the way you dress and the things that it inevitably leads to, no, it doesn't lead to it. Yeah, it does. Yes, yes, it does. And if you want to deny that, you're going to end up in a mess, and then someday you're going to end up married, and then you're going to have this mess that is now affecting your marriage in really negative ways. Yeah, so let's wrap this up with a...

A question for the people who, let's say someone is hearing this and they haven't been modest and they've spent the last 10 years dressing provocatively. What's your message to that person? Presuming that they're a Christian, I would recommend that they go to the older men. If they're a man, go to an older man in the church. And if they're a woman, go to an older woman in the church and just ask them to teach them. How do I become more modest, more feminine? Would you help me? We've had occasion to go, not me, but to take young women, my wife or other women of the church, to take young women out shopping and just help them buy clothes that actually look nice on them, that accentuate their beauty but are modest. And so on more than one occasion, that's been part of the response, is let's get you some new clothes.

I don't think it'd be good, like, hey, can we have a woman's event at the church where we learn how to do our hair and curl our hair, or we learn how to put makeup on? It turns out nobody's teaching women how to do that stuff. Right. And so those would be appropriate. Or you can do it, you don't have to have a church event, you can do it with an older woman and say, could you help me learn how to not do my eye makeup like the way I learned when I was 14 from... or Instagram or whatever, which was meant to draw attention and be immodest. It was a piece of a bigger puzzle that was meant to draw a lot of inappropriate attention. It's interesting because I think this whole conversation is part of a bigger problem, which is it's the temptation in our culture for style over substance to attract attention as a compensation for the fact that behind the facade of immodest clothing and...

egregious makeup and all that, that we're not even sure if there's anything behind all that. And we're afraid if we let go of those ways of finding people's attention that there won't be anything left of us. And I think we kind of piled in here for this podcast today, and we worked on trying to do this in spite of the fact, Pastor Dave, did you do a podcast because you didn't really have enough to do as a pastor? Enough work to do. And you're like, you know what? I can get this out here. You're like, you're somebody who stays so busy with just the grinding work that I don't even know about all of it. I don't know about most of it. Tim doesn't know about most of it. Like it is hidden work that it's actually the most important work. And we've talked about how in so many ways, the podcast, if there was one thing that was going to fall off the plate in your pastoral work, it would kind of be like,

The podcast, we're glad it's here, and I hope that it's helpful for people. And then we apply that over when we're talking about the issue of modesty, modesty for men, modesty for women is if we will nurture and cultivate an internal sense of identity and security and stability in who God has made us to be and loving and caring for the people that God has given us to love and care for, some of these things become easier to work. Does that make sense? Some of these things become easier to work through because we realize, you know what? None of the people that I actually love and care about are impressed by my immodesty. And why don't I find ways to love those people best? Instead of caring about the attention and affection and infatuation of people that I will never see again.

winning that competition, even if you win it for a little while by the world standards, you will soon not be winning that competition. Yeah. And that you'll be left with an absence of substance, godliness, true beauty. That's true. And so it's a race you don't want to enter and win. Because the verse ends with, but the woman who fears the Lord. Charm is deceitful. And beauty is fleeting. I grew up with it in a different version, but charm is deceitful. Beauty is fleeting. But the woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised. Yep, yep. Amen.