Modesty, along with many other aspects of morality has ‘changed’ over the last few years.  To many people today, dressing modestly is only another set of rules that the older generation has tried to impose upon the younger.  Could it be that the older generation was correct in its judgment concerning morality and modest dressing?  In times past, mainly prostitutes and those who were sexually promiscuous wore revealing dress, and that which accentuates the shape of the body.  Today however, this is common among our young people, as well as those of the baby boomer generation.  Are we going over board with our judgments when we as Christians insist that other Christians dress with dignity and modesty?  Are we just old fashioned, as some would claim?  The plain truth of the matter is that the attitude of people has changed.  The same reasons for modest dressing long ago are the same reasons today.  Dress makes the person.  This has always been the case.  Remember Judah and Tamar, Judah mistook her for a harlot simply because of the way she was dressed (Genesis 38:15).  Today is still the same.  Harlots and prostitutes are recognizable by their dress.  Society still recognizes improper dress as conducive to dissolute behavior.  Prisons have dress codes for their visitors; the blouse cannot be cut low, no shorts, no short skirts etc.  Why would they have such rules?  To prevent the problems that would arise from the sexual connotations from the dress.  The military insist upon its soldiers wearing uniforms to bring about the correct attitude.  The dress makes the person.  When people dress themselves as harlots, they soon act like it.

The relationships that are spawned from the attraction of the illicit apparel are rarely more than merely physical.  As a result, unwanted pregnancies, babies being killed by the parents, both in and out of the womb (abortion and those who kill their babies after the birth), sex crimes, divorce, venereal diseases, all are a result of the behavior spawned by the immodest dress.

The Christian’s goal in life is not to associate themselves with the world “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.  And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (Romans 12:1-2).  Our desire should be to please God and keep ourselves pure and unspotted from the world (James 1:27).  Fornication, lasciviousness, filthiness, and all uncleanness must be avoided by the Christian (Ephesians 5:3-5).  These things should not even be named among us “For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret” (Ephesians 5:12).

A child of God must therefore dress himself professing that, which he is, a Christian.  It is a sad occasion to see Christian men and women alike dressed as harlots.  If we are Christians, then it is time we not only professed it with our mouths, but with our actions, and our dress.  “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God” “Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry” (Colossians 3:1,5).
 

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