By Emily Harris Fisher
In the grocery store getting our weekly food items, I turned the corner of an aisle and saw a woman coming from the other end, laughing loudly about something with a teenage boy beside her––I assume her son. I averted my eyes quickly out of embarrassment, for the woman was wearing a pair of short shorts and a bikini top! As I looked down at my grocery list, I thought to myself, “Where have all the ladies gone?”
I was coming into the assembly to worship God one Sunday morning and saw a teenage girl in a sundress that exposed all of her shoulders and half her back. As I grew concerned for the men, both young and old, in worship that day, again, I thought, “Where are all the ladies?”
For so many today, being a lady has lost its meaning. We see everyday in our media, magazines, and public places women desiring attention and wanting to stand out in the crowd. They often do it by the clothes they wear, the words they speak, or the actions they take. This is not a new strategy. Solomon wrote more than once about immoral women, “Her mouth is smoother than oil, but in the end she is bitter as wormwood… her feet go down to death… her ways are unstable” (Proverbs 5). He used words such as “crafty, loud, rebellious, lurking, impudent, enticing, flattering, seducing” to describe such women (Proverbs 7; Ecclesiastes 7:26). There has been a lack of ladies at all times, but it seems more prevalent and widespread in the twenty-first century as more women forget God and choose to walk the broad way (Matt. 7:13).
In His Word God describes the characteristics of a true lady. Proverbs 31 is one of the most well-known passages providing us with her picture. The Holy Spirit through the author describes, “The heart of her husband safely trusts in her…she does him good…works with her hands…provides food for her household…rises while it is yet night….on her tongue is the law of kindness…does not eat the bread of idleness…her children rise up and call her blessed…charm is deceitful and beauty is passing, but a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised” (vs. 10-31). Let us study in depth all the verbs used in connection to the lady of Proverbs 31 and apply them to our lives.
In the New Testament, Paul writes for women to “adorn themselves in modest apparel with propriety and moderation, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly clothing, but which is proper for women professing godliness with good works” (1 Timothy 2:9-10). Again, the writer addresses Titus to teach the women to “be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things––that they admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the Word of God may not be blasphemed” (Titus 2:3-5). Christian women are to attract others to Christ by our good works, not by our good looks or half-dressed bodies. There are numerous Biblical examples of ladies to read about, study, and learn from (Ruth 3:11; 1 Samuel 2:1-10; Luke 2:36-38; 2 Timothy 1:5; 1 Peter 3:1-6).
As we have seen, our modest apparel is one way we can show we are ladies. Revealing too much skin not only shows that we are hypocritical in our trust of the Lord but causes conflict and doubt in other’s belief of our Father (1 Peter 3:5; Titus 2:5). As children grow and come to the knowledge of the Truth, they need to see Mommy (and Daddy) dress appropriately in public every day. If we want to win souls to Christ, as the Lord commanded (Matthew 28:18-20), we will not cloth ourselves in such a way that tempts others to think evil thoughts or brings reproach on the Lord’s church.
Some may ask, “How short is too short?”, “How low is too low?”, or “How tight is too tight?” Let us remember that the Lord desires His children to be a people that the world views as different and when looking through us, sees Christ in our lives. We are here to glorify God in all aspects of life (1 Corinthians 6:20; 1 Peter 4:16). We cannot bring honor to His name if we are trying to keep up with the worldly fashions of the day in order to bring honor to our name. How we look outwardly in clothing reveals the inner character of our hearts. As already referenced, Peter wrote that the incorruptible part of us is the hidden person of the heart, and in that context he is encouraging ladies to have a “gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God” (1 Peter 3:4). That means we are to be more concerned about out inner beauty than our outer beauty. We are to be working more towards laying up treasure in Heaven than in laying up treasures in our closets (Matthew 6:19-21).
The Word shows us how to be ladies. May we be such ladies and take His Word into our hearts and exhibit it in our lives. May we have the courage to be different from this world and lovingly teach those who have been entrapped by it for far too long.
