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During the course of a sermon, a "pastor" (loosely-termed) came to 1 Timothy 2:9-10 and read it in the KJV: "In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array; but (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works."

Instead of exegeting the passage, this pastor said, "I'm not going to touch this one with a ten-foot pole." This is a true story; I heard him say it on tape.

Why did this "pastor" abrogate his "pastoral duty" when it came to the modesty of women? To anyone who saw how the women were dressed in his assembly, the answer is obvious: This "pastor" was afraid to get into specifics as to what constituted modest dress, because if he did so, he would face the wrath of the shamelessly immodest women of the assembly and would be called a "fundamentalist" or a "legalist."

Yet passages on the modesty and immodesty of women are found throughout the Bible. If God put them in the Bible, we had better not ignore them.

Why does the Bible focus on women rather than men when it comes to modesty of dress? As Solomon said, "That which has been, it [is] that which shall be. And that which has been done, it [is] that which will be done. And there is no new [thing] under the sun" (Ecclesiastes 1:9). As it is today, so it always has been: the women of the world love the glitter and glamor. They love to behave and to dress in such a way as to be sexy and seductive. The men of the world love it and feed into it. It is a truly disgusting dance of whoredom.

Whorish dress has not stayed outside of the professing church. In most cases, the women in the professing church and the world look no different. Their "everyday" clothes are whorish, their "dress-up" clothes are whorish, and their "recreation" clothes are whorish.

But this is not how true Christian women are to dress or conduct themselves. They are to adorn (arrange) themselves in modest, proper clothing, with shamefacedness and sobriety.

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Why are most women's clothes made the way they are? What do most fashion designers have in mind when they design clothes for women? All you have to do is listen to a women's fashion clothing designer talk about why he or she designed clothing a certain way. The fashionable clothing is designed to be purposefully sexual. Almost all the clothes in the women's clothing departments and stores are designed to make the woman sexually attractive.

There is no denying this fact. Look at the difference between men's and women's clothing. Why is there a much higher prevalence of low-cut blouses, shirts, and dresses among women's clothing than among men's clothing? Why are so many v-necks or scoop-necks in women's clothing? Why do many women's fashions try to bare something, whether it be a part of the back or the front or the leg or even the shoulder? You cannot get around the fact that these things are designed the way they are because the designers have wicked things in mind. Whenever my wife and I go shopping with our children for clothes for the females in our house (one woman and two girls), we get angry. It is disgusting to see that stores (even K-Mart, Wal-Mart, Sears, etc.) expect all girls and women, including my daughters and my wife, to dress like whores. Take something as benign as shirts. In the stores, there are separate sections for girls' shirts, boys' shirts, women's shirts, and men's shirts. One would expect, if there were no other motive than to clothe people, that the girls' shirts would be designed the same as the boys' shirts, and the men's shirts would be designed the same as the women's shirts, maybe with some color differences. But no - they are noticeably different. The first thing one notices is that the hole for the head is noticeably bigger for the female shirts. Why would this be? Is it because females' heads are bigger than males' heads? Of course not. Upon closer inspection, the hole is actually shaped differently as well as being bigger. What is it for? It is for the neckline to be lower on the females' tops! When one looks at button-down tops, most of the females' tops do not button as high as the males' tops. In addition, shirts for females are shorter than the shirts for males.

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Little girls of the world learn that femininity means whorishness at a very young age. The dolls they play with have whorish clothing. The animated Disney movies they see always have the main female character dressed in whorish clothing (usually something strapless). It is all around.

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Finally, there is the swimsuit. It is nothing more than underwear worn in public. Why is it that women would be ashamed to be seen in a bikini walking down the sidewalk in a city, but it all of a sudden becomes acceptable when there is sand and water? Do the standards of modesty change when one comes upon sand and water? These are the same women who would be very upset if someone walked in on them in their bedroom when they were only clothed in their underwear, but when there is sand and water around, the shame is gone. The hypocrisy is evident. Can a woman wearing a modern swimsuit in public ever say that she is obeying 1 Timothy 2:9? And how many women in a beauty pageant would qualify for shamefacedness? It should be obvious that beauty pageants of any sort, whether or not there are swimsuits, are wicked.

Christian women and girls - be modest, be proper, be discreet, be decent, be shamefaced!