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What To Wear

by Elizabeth Marks  
1/10/2007 / Christian Living

in like manner also, that the women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with propriety and moderation, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly clothing, 10 but, which is proper for women professing godliness, with good works. 1 Timothy 2:9 NKJV

For the women who read this: Did you know how you dress can cause a good man to stumble?

I read For Women Only: What You Need To Know About the Inner Lives of Men by Shaunti Feldhanh recently. A girlfriend recommended it so I began reading it.

Chapter 6 Keeper of the Visual Rolodex is about why its so natural for him to look and so hard to forget what hes seen. This was really educational for me. I always knew men looked at women, but I didnt realize it was a compulsion. When a woman with a good body comes into their line of view, they are literally compelled to look. It takes the greatest will not to look. If your witness your husband, looking away to avoid seeing a beautiful woman while youre out and about, you should applaud him for his efforts to stay pure. It really does take a lot of effort for him not to look.

It also explains how once they see something it is forever locked in their minds. Every image theyve seen over their life is seared in their memories and can pop up involuntarily through the day or night. So you can image what kinds of images are popping up considering our culture? TV commercials, magazines, on-line advertisements, spam emails, and mail order catalogs are all geared towards making him look. They push sexual images out there because they know a man has to look. Our men are being taken advantage of whether they realize it or not.

Now, getting back to the opening point, how you dress affects men. Todays verse says women should wear modest apparel, with propriety and moderation. If you have a good body, men will imagine what your body looks like under your clothes. Therefore, if your clothes reveal more of your shape and provide sneak peeks of your woman-ness, youre basically setting a trap for the men around you. They are compelled to look at you and the image you portray will be etched in their memory forever. So take care of how you dress. Theres nothing wrong with looking nice. All Im saying is we should exercise restraint in how much of our bodies we choose to reveal.

I should think the last thing we want to do is cause someone else to stumble. Its like Paul talked about if someone doesnt eat meat, then you should refrain from eating meat when youre around them so you dont cause them to be troubled over you eating meat. Likewise, if your husband is a recovering alcoholic, you dont drink wine with your dinner if youre dining with him because you dont want him to be drawn back into the life of alcoholism. The same principle works with our dress. Knowing a man is compelled to look and how images stay with them, we need to dress appropriately so as not to add to the collection of images that can haunt a man the rest of his life, like a certain intimate apparel companys commercials!

If youre interested in reading more, please see my article at http://www.ideamarketers.com/library/article.cfm?articleid=134602&from=PROFILE for a detailed book review. Or order the book from my Book Reviews page at http://thinkonit.org/books.aspx .

Lord, thank you for creating men and women differently, each portraying your likeness. Help us learn to dress in modest ways so we dont cause men to stumble. May we recognize the efforts of our men to avoid looking and encourage them to keep up the fight to stay pure. In Jesus name Amen.

Copyright Elizabeth Marks, author of ThinkOnIt Devotions, has a heart for encouraging believers with God's Word. Please visit http://www.ThinkOnItDevotions.com for more devotions, bible studies, book reviews and more!

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