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Top 7 Bible Verses About The Way We Dress

Top 7 Bible Verses About The Way We Dress

Last updated on: May 11, 2016 at 10:01 am by Jack Wellman

Top 7 Bible Verses About The Way We Dress 2016-05-11T10:01:15-05:00 Jack Wellman

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Here are seven Bible verses about the way that Christians should dress.

First Timothy 2:9-10 “Likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness—with good works.”

The Apostle Paul was instructing Timothy about how women should dress but it’s probably not confined to church but also in public and that the truest beauty is that of modesty, self-control, and godliness. Some of the most beautiful women in the world don’t have to dress with braided hair, pearls, or costly attire, because they have they have the light of Christ that shines outwardly for all to see. Besides, beauty is passing away but inward beauty seems to grow with age.

Proverbs 31:30 “Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.”

There is one thing that will outlast the outward beauty of a woman and the handsomeness of a man and it is the fear of the Lord. Whoever fears the Lord is a person that lives a life that is pleasing to God and strives to live a godly example to those inside and outside of the church. You could just as easily add that a man “who fears the Lord is to be praised” because those who fear God are those who have repented of their sins and turned toward God and placed their faith in Christ.

First Corinthians 6:19-20 “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.”

Since we were purchased by the precious blood of the Lamb of God, we are not our own. We were bought with a price…a costly price, but one that we can receive freely from God (Eph 2:8-9). If we glorify God in our bodies, we are dressing modestly and not causing others to stumble by the way we dress. If we dress provocatively, we can cause someone to lust in their hearts and that is sin. If we make others stumble over the way we dress, we are responsible before God.

First Peter 3:3 “Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear.”

Since the Apostle Peter wrote this above verse, he must have had reason to do so. Apparently, even in the first century church, there were issues with the way women dressed. The adorning beauty, as I have written before, is not an outward beauty because God looks at the heart and not so much at the outside (1st Sam 16:7). Beauty is never outward but always inward as far as God is concerned.

Romans 12:2 “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

All you have to do is look at the fashions of the world and see how these images make men and women conform to them. To be conformed means to be “with” (con) “pressure” (formed), so it is a pressure that the world puts on all of us to be in the image that the world sees as beautiful, but the world’s definition of beauty is not really beauty at all but vanity or empty. This verse really says “Do not let the world squeeze you into its image” but that’s just what the world does. It should not be so with believers.

Proverbs 7:10 “And behold, the woman meets him, dressed as a prostitute, wily of heart.”

When a person falls into sin, and especially the grievous sin of sexual immorality, they are actually joining themselves or becoming one with a prostitute, male or female. Paul asks, “Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh.” But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him” (1st Cor 6:16-17) since “Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body” (1st Cor 6:18).

Matthew 5:7-9 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

Can we cause someone to commit adultery without committing the actual physical act? Yes, because Jesus said that adultery of the heart is that which we can commit with our eyes because when we look at a man or a woman with lust, it’s just like C.S. Lewis said (and I paraphrase), “I looked at ham and eggs and committed breakfast in my heart.” We can sin in our hearts without anyone (but God) ever knowing it.

Conclusion

We can cause others to stumble by the way we dress and God will hold us accountable for the way we appear to others. God knows our hearts (Jer 17:9) and that sin begins when we are caught up in our own lusts and then that lust conceives sin. Sinning outwardly is just as bad as sinning inwardly. God sees it all as the author of Hebrews writes, “no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account” (Heb 4:13).

Article by Jack Wellman

Jack Wellman is Pastor of the Mulvane Brethren Church in Mulvane Kansas. Jack is also the Senior Writer at What Christians Want To Know whose mission is to equip, encourage, and energize Christians and to address questions about the believer’s daily walk with God and the Bible. You can follow Jack on Google Plus or check out his book Teaching Children the Gospel available on Amazon.

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