Another Take on Modesty

I've heard some messages and diatribes on modesty but never one I really felt quite dealt truly with the Scripture on this issue.
I've heard the "l's"--"long, loose, lots." I've heard things like hide your beauty; protect the men. But I don't believe Scripture teaches that immodesty is beautiful. Modesty is beautiful, and women aren't tawdry objects that must be reined in from inciting men's lust against their will.
In contrast, from the beginning, the biblical emphasis is on the beauty of a marriage relationship in which a woman is the man's helper. Sin corrupts this emphasis when man and woman become focused on serving themselves rather than serving God and each other. Godly women should be focused on devoloping inward character, rather than cultivating outward beauty. A godly woman is marked by strength, dignity, purity, kindness, by worship of God (2 Tim. 2:9-11, Titus 2:3-5). But this focus doesn't mean godly women are not beautiful. Christians are to think about which is noble, right, pure, lovely, and praiseworthy, and those thought patterns spill over into actions(Phil. 4:8). Proverbs compares a beautiful woman without discretion to a pig with a gold ring in its snout, not a lovely picture. Real beauty radiates from within. Godly women are lovely, desireable, praised by their husbands (Song of Sol., Prov. 31). They are women you can count on, look up to. Their discretion is a part of their very real beauty.
My desire for my daughters is that they be women who are lovely, from the inside out. Modest, ladylike dress reflects a ladylike spirit; furthermore it is beautiful, more so than dress (and behavior) that is immodest. Even many nonChristians have figured this concept out. One of my first jobs was in a women's clothing store, with a largely professional clientele. I found it very interesting that the skimpy dresses and swim suits would stay on the racks far longer than the more modest ones. In fact we usually had to clearance them out at very low prices to get rid of them. The women complained that these immodest clothes weren't flattering. They looked cheap, tawdry, tasteless. They projected the wrong outward impression, advertising for something these women didn't believe they were or wanted to be. These nonChristian women wanted to be beautiful and appropriate, and they found it best accomplished through more modest dress rather than revealing runway fashion. I believe in this principle, that modesty is more beautiful than immodesty, whether or not nonChristians agree with it, and they certainly won't always; but all truth is God's, and as we're all made in God's image and live in God's world, sometimes nonChristians hit upon truth as well.

I have sons as well as daughters, and I do not at all like or feel to be scriptural the idea of representing men as salivating animals, dominated by insatiable lust that women must help them control. Men and women both are created in the image of God. Christian men, just like women,are responsible for their thoughts and actions. They too are told to think pure and lovely thoughts (Phil. 4:8). Furthermore, their actions will reflect the focus of their thoughts. If they're looking to be sexually aroused, they won't have to look far (someone will always be dressing inappropriately, and if they sin whenever they see what's inappropriate, they're in trouble), and sometimes they will see seduction everywhere, even in very modest dress. Men must answer to God for their thoughts and actions no matter what women do. Men can walk away, look away. The book of Proverbs discusses the need for men to respond this way to women who try to seduce them. Again, a great many nonChristians would agree, possibly more than conservative Christians. Men are charged with inapprpriate conduct toward women based on what they do, not what the girl wore, and this is right. Yet, women should, of course, recognize that their outward does reflect their inward and if they want people to focus on who they are, know them and appreciate them as individuals with a soul as well as a body, they shouldn't dress, think, or act like primarily a body.
Christian men can and should by God's strength and power at work within them protect themselves from lust. And Christian men can and should value true beauty, validate that which is truly beautiful--an inward beauty that outflows in outer beauty. This beauty revels in the marriage commitment and the passion involved in it but sees the difference between "intimacy" (which by its very term is "intimate") and that which is beautiful and appropriate, "tasteful" for outside closed doors. Eph. 5:25-26 emphasizes that a man's love for his wife is a purifying love. She is altogether lovely to him, not some tawdry object men must be protected from, that must be put under veils, but a woman of strength and dignity and true inner beauty, that's expressed in tasteful, appropriate, real outer beauty as well.
Clothing reveals the inner person, which is our true focus, the beauty of what is inside a godly woman, and which will come out in what she says and does and how she dresses.