Buckle up, buttercups, I have a LOT to say about this one.

Today we’re talking about ✧˖°✧˖°✧˖° modesty ✧˖°✧˖°✧˖°

When we talk about purity, the topic of modesty is very quick to follow. It’s sort of like that annoying younger sibling following around their cool older sibling and her friends. You bring up purity, you gotta talk about modesty.

So let’s talk about it. How can I be pure with what I wear?

Legalism Smegalism (no, not the creep from LOTR)

Let’s start with an important distinction.

I used to understand legalism as earning your salvation through works. And that’s true. A lot of legalism can be boiled down to that.

But that’s not the only type of legalism. In She Deserves Better, Shiela describes two different types of legalism. Personal and corporate. This really changed everything for me. Personal legalism is just that, earning your salvation, your right standing with God, through works.

Corporate legalism is having a list of rules to determine who is in and who is out of your group. If a kid came to our homeschool group wearing a tank top, we knew they weren’t really part of our group. It gave everyone an excuse to dismiss them. An excuse to talk about them. If their shorts were too short, if they swore, if they acted just a little bit differently than we did, clearly, they weren’t actually in our group. We could question anything about them. They said the S-word. Are they really saved?

You can see this same logic applied to those Christians who think drums are of the devil, or have specific rules on wearing skirts, or not dancing (this one in particular grinds my bones cause I adore dancing. Also, David literally danced for the Lord, so it’s weak sauce).

Jesus had a lot to say about the legalism of the Pharisees. He called them a brood of vipers, he challenged their beliefs, and sometimes didn’t obey the rules! Now, of course, Jesus is God, and we are clearly not. But it makes me wonder, if Jesus had a problem with the heart of the Pharisees…what sort of problem would he have with us?

Let’s ask ourselves a few questions when it comes to specific rules of modesty. Is this a rule that sets me apart in a way that determines who is in our group and who is out, given me an excuse to write them off? Does this rule reflect Christ, or does it encourage shame and condemnation?

Rules are not bad. I’m not at all suggesting anarchy. What I’m pondering is, do the rules reflect the heart of Christ, pleasing God, or do they reflect legalism and pleasing man? (Coming back to Galatians 1:10, “For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.”)

This is the foundation of what I’m going to come back to when it comes to modesty and how we dress. Because how we dress should be because we are trying to please God, not man.

Clothes are just that. Clothes.

It’s all about context, consent, and your heart.

When I was a teenager and even a young adult, I stressed constantly about what I was wearing. Was it long enough? Is someone going to look at me and be pulled to lust if I wear this? This is cute, but maybe I should wear something else just to be safe…

It hit me the other day, as I was reading this, that Jesus tells us not to worry about what we wear, and I was doing exactly that. Worrying about what I was wearing.

So many of the rules we were taught to follow can fall into the corporate legalism. (Are your shoulders showing? Can we see your knees?) But we still should dress modestly. Again, modesty is GOOD.

So what should we do instead? Instead of following a specific set of legalistic rules, let’s focus on asking questions that hit the heart of the issue. Shiela also gave me these tools (seriously, can’t recommend her book enough. I don’t agree with everything she says, but a majority of it is right on.)

• Will other people be wearing similar things? (This one may seem legalistic, but think about it. Cultures differ greatly in how they dress. You want to be loving, so following this can be very helpful.)
• Are any body parts showing that aren’t expected to be seen? (Wearing a swimsuit to the beach? That’s expected! Wearing a swimsuit to church? Less expected.)
• Is this appropriate for the activity that I will be doing? (Don’t wear a dress if you’re going to play flag football. Wear a dress to church or if you want to go to a coffee shop with your friends!)
• Does this fall in line with my personal convictions that God and I have talked about? (This last one I added in myself, because I thought it was important.)

I didn’t think I was allowed to wear stripes.

Back when I was fifteen, I put on a striped shirt and had someone point out that the stripes made my chest look bigger. I’m going to level with you all for a second. I’m what some would call “heavily blessed” in the chest department. It’s not a sin, it’s how God created my body. But I was told that if I did anything that drew attention or showed my general shape, I was basically an attention whore.

So I banned myself from stripes, despite the fact that I love stripes. (I can’t help it, they’re so fun.) Cue ten+ years of jealousy for my slightly smaller friends who seemed to be able to wear any type of clothes that they wanted. Keep in mind, I didn’t pray about this at all. A handful of people who were my peers or in authority told me a rule, and I followed it. Because I wanted to please man, not God. Any time I dressed myself in the morning, the first question I asked was, “Can you see my general shape?” or “Will this cause someone else to sin?”

First off, that’s a lot of anxiety and pressure to start your day with. Not how Jesus wants me to start it at all. Again, Jesus tells us not to worry about what we wear, and I was doing exactly that. I started each and every single day with worry.

Secondly, I was taught that, if I dressed a certain way, guys wouldn’t be able to help but sexualize me.

Want the truth? It was happening regardless of what I was wearing. I talk about this a lot in my story in The Abalone (which is only printing ONCE, so get it before it’s gone!) I talk about an experience I had in a waterpark, about the boys there and their reaction to my full-piece swimsuit. (Don’t worry, it’s actually a really funny story. In fact, I’ll even spoil the title for you: My Giant Freakin Mole by Alli Prince. Get it, it’s good.)

Adhering to a specific set of modest rules in order to “protect” yourself and to “keep others from lusting” just doesn’t work. Why? Because lust is a heart problem. Not a clothing problem. Because clothes are just clothes.

It’s not about the length of your shorts or if an outfit reveals that you have legs. It’s about context (Is this outfit right for the activity I’m participating in? Is it the right context for this outfit?) It’s about consent (are any body parts showing that nobody is expecting to see right now?) It’s about your heart (am I following my personal convictions?)

Purity is single-mindedness

A friend of mine commented on my blog last week with an interesting revelation. He said, “We need to be unmixed in our devotion to God.” We get that from verses like Leviticus 19:19, but we also see that in the New Testament. Don’t be double-minded. Are you pleasing man or God?

Purity doesn’t actually have a whole lot to do with what you wear. I think it has a whole lot more to do with your heart, with your devotion to God. The legalistic rules do more harm than good. Why? Because when we talk about purity only in regard to what you’re wearing, we devalue our faith. We devalue the good works God has for us. We reduce our faith to what we wear, not what we do or who we are.

Your faith is so much more than what you wear. It’s about the good works God prepared beforehand. It’s about living, every single day, saying yes to God. Your faith isn’t determined by the length of your shorts. It isn’t determined by whether you wear stripes or not.

I wear stripes now. Because in reality, it doesn’t really make my chest look bigger and at the end of the day, that’s not my heart either. It’s just clothes.

Modesty is good. Purity is good. Faith is good. Living for Christ is Good. What if, instead of teaching people that to be seen as pure and modest and good, we told them how to evangelize, how to live for Christ, rather than the length their shorts should be?

What do you think? Tell me in the comments!

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