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The Message Dress Code: Difference between revisions
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==So what is the standard?== | ==So what is the standard?== | ||
Paul advice to Christian women with respect to their appearance is recorded in 1 Timothy 2:9-10: | Paul's advice to Christian women with respect to their appearance is recorded in 1 Timothy 2:9-10: | ||
:''I also want the women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, adorning themselves, not with elaborate hairstyles or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, 10 but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God.<ref>The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), 1 Ti 2:9–10.</ref> | :''I also want the women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, adorning themselves, not with elaborate hairstyles or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, 10 but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God.<ref>The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), 1 Ti 2:9–10.</ref> | ||
Appropriate apparel was necessary for signaling modesty and respectability, inappropriate outer adornment — flouting the acceptable dress-code — was sure to raise suspicions of promiscuity and immoderation. Apparently the pre-Christian Roman republic had passed laws meant to discourage ostentation and encourage frugality. It naturally dwelt on the various ways in which ostentation might be shown, including the dress and adornment of wealthy women. | |||
Paul lists four items. | |||
#First to be mentioned is “elaborate hairstyles.” The term that means literally “braiding” refers to the complex and fancy styling of hair—plaiting and piling it on top of the head—preferred by fashionable wealthy women of a certain sort. This style presented the exact opposite to the modest, simpler styles traditionally associated with the model imperial women as displayed in the statuary. The modest imperial style was meant to set the cultural trend, but many women of means did not follow suit.47 | |||
#After referring to hairstyles, Paul shifts to jewelry. Jewelry was regarded as emblematic of the shameful woman. “Gold” was the most valuable of metals and the precious metal of choice by women who practiced ostentation and men who desired to bring attention of this sort to their wives. It came further to be linked with the dress code of highly paid prostitutes. | |||
#“Pearls” also occupied a place in the caricature of imprudent ostentation. | |||
#“Expensive clothes” completes the profile of the immodest Roman wife. Modest clothing associated with propriety and respectability was simple and full. What is envisioned by this description, found widely in the literature, is the showy expensive apparel that came to be associated with the woman drawing attention to herself—the prostitute and the promiscuous woman. The critique is precise. It prohibits the kind the dress and adornment that would associate Christian women with the revolutionary “new woman” already in evidence in the East. Were that connection to be made, the church would be open to allegations of endorsing this departure from traditional values. | |||
Paul’s language implies that the standard was known and generally accepted. At first sight, the shift from apparel to conduct (“good deeds”) seems abrupt, but as already pointed out, in this kind of ethical discourse “adornment” was code for behavior. The shift allows a fuller description of the modest adornment encouraged for Christian women in v. 9. | |||
First, he characterizes Christian wives as “those who profess to worship God.” The language of “professing” suggests a serious and perhaps public claim to be believers. The content of the claim is expressed with the term theosebeia. It is equivalent to the term eusbeia that defines authentic Christian existence as the integration of faith in God and the behavior that demonstrates this (2:3 and Excursus). Its choice selection here over the more frequently used term may correspond to the specific reference to wives (or to the language of the claim they were making), but in any case it indicates a claim to be authentic worshipers of God. | |||
Second, he redefines appropriate adornment (the infinitive “to adorn” is still in effect) in terms of “good deeds,” which is shorthand for the visible dimension of authentic faith—action done as the outworking of faith to benefit others. In Paul’s formulation of the concept the inner reality (knowledge of God, faith) and outer action come together in a life of service in accordance with God’s truth. The sphere in which wives/women are to perform these deeds of faith is not limited to the worship setting, but would include the household and more public places of life. | |||
The whole of verses 9–10 thus forms a challenge to a group of well-to-do Christian wives for whom the emerging trend of the new Roman woman, with its emphasis on outer show and rejection of cultural norms of modesty, was becoming a potent attraction. The language of the prohibition identifies this cultural trend rather specifically. Equally, reference to modesty and self-control identifies the dress codes and symbols of modesty and chastity that the new women were spurning, though as Christian virtues they have been deepened by the Christ event. Ultimately, Paul calls these Christian wives to give proof of their claim to godliness (1) by dressing modestly, (2) by living a life characterized by modesty and self-control and (3) by doing works of Christian service.<ref>Philip H. Towner, The Letters to Timothy and Titus, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2006), 208–210.</ref> | |||
It is clear that the New Testament contains no prohibition against women wearing pants. However, women were required to dress respectfully and modestly but that did not mean they could not wear pants or any other specific type of attire. | |||
=Arguments used by Branham's followers= | =Arguments used by Branham's followers= | ||