As Christians, we’re not free to dress as we please. Because we’ve been “bought at a price” we’re to “glorify God in [our bodies]” (1 Cor. 6:20). We learn this lesson from our first parents. Adam and Eve dressed their own way by covering their loins with fig leaves. Yet God viewed their effort as inadequate and designed more substantial clothing, using skins from a dead animal. The doctrine of clothing thus points to the substitutionary atonement of Christ:  He removes our filthy garments and replaces them with robes of righteousness. 

 

In this podcast, Scott Brown and Jason Dohm, joined by special guest Jeff Pollard, break down the doctrine of clothing, explaining that it’s about far more than modesty.  If Christ has purchased us with His blood, how we dress matters. To paraphrase Abraham Kuyper, “There is not one square inch [of our clothing] over which Christ . . . does not cry, ‘Mine!’” Ultimately, our clothing isn’t about us and what we like. It’s about giving ourselves to the Lord to bring glory to Him in how dress. 

Welcome to the Church and Family Life podcast. Today we're going to talk about modesty and the biblical doctrine of clothing. And by the way, most of what the Bible says about clothing isn't focused on women, but on a far broader, more glorious subject. And we've got Jeff Pollard to join us in the discussion. Hope you enjoy the time.

Jason, this is such a great moment. We have our buddy, Jeff Pollard, to talk about a really controversial subject. So Jeff, we pull you on the podcast just so we can get some time with you. Did you know that? Yeah.

You must be bored in North Carolina. Very much so. We're bored. Yeah. Yeah.

We need somebody like you to stir up, you know, to kick up some dust, you know, so that we can run around in it. And so, oh wait, Now who is this guy? Jeff Pollard. Of course, he's been a dear friend for many years. We've done a lot together.

And Jeff is a pastor at Mount Zion Bible Church in Pensacola, Florida. And he for years has been operating Chapel Library, just one of the most wonderful sources of Christian, you know, Reformed literature pamphlets. Jeff is a pamphleteer all over the world, sends his stuff to the four corners of the earth. And anyway, we're just so thankful for you, Jeff. Thanks for joining us.

I'm delighted to be with you all. It's always wonderful to talk with you guys. And I look forward to what we're going to pursue. Okay, we're going to kick this thing off with a discussion about the book you wrote 23, 24 years ago. That's about when I read it, Christian Modesty, The Public Undressing of America.

I read this book, it totally shook me up. I think after I read the book, I called you up and I said, Jeff, you've ruined my life. Because I, hey, I'm sitting there in my mid forties, right? And I had never even heard a sermon on modesty. I grew up, Hey, I really grew up in good churches, you know, heard expositional preaching my whole life, but I, but nobody ever touched that subject.

And so it caused some changes in my family. I have three daughters and one son. And I remember sitting down with them and saying, hey, guess what? There's something that we didn't really recognize about what the Bible says about Christian modesty. And you know, we've been living in a culture where everybody's getting undressed at the beach and, and almost everywhere else.

So what are we going to do about it? So here's what I think we should do about it. So that caused a little bit of ripple effect in our family. Remember when you got that phone call? Oh yeah.

Yeah. I had never met you. I had never heard of you at that point. That was way back there. And you said, this is Scott Brown.

And I said, hi. And you said, you're the guy that's ruined my life. I said, it's nice to meet you too. So then I started ruining other people's lives too after that. But yeah, So this, I think this is one of the best things ever written.

It actually, Jeff, this book is in my mind, one of the best things written on the subject, but it became one of the most despised things written even among conservative evangelicals. Tell us about that. I know. Yeah. Slings and arrows were, you know, being launched toward you.

But the problem was that you were saying something that was contrary to a highly developed culture in the evangelical church. And so you were confronting it with scripture. You know, oh, hey, here's something interesting. In the last probably five years, I'm bumping into people now who are quoting this book. Some of them don't want to completely acknowledge that it was written by you, but they'll read sections of it.

And I know the sections. I have underlined this thing a couple of times. And even just recently I was hearing some, every once in a while I'll send you notes on, hey, Jeff, these guys are talking about your book. They're actually, they actually think it's pretty good. So there's like, the worm seems like it's turning in some places on this matter of Christian monastic.

Well, the churches of America are in very deep trouble spiritually, it's obvious. Problem with our country is not all the things that are on talk radio. Those are simply the symptoms of the fact that the churches are weak, many of them pathetic, many of them are apostate. We must have a clear, spirit-empowered preaching of God's Word, calling men and women out of darkness into the light of Christ and to the Lordship of the one who loved us and gave himself for us. So he is the Lord over everything in our lives.

That means how we present ourselves in public matters. Everything matters because we belong to him. So what we were is part of what we are, what we're saying to the world. And there are those that don't agree with how I've understood that. That's perfectly fine.

I'm ready to wait for the day of judgment, but I can say at this point, most churches simply will not even address the subject. So, Jeff, I'm so glad that you started really broad. A lot of times the conversation around modesty gets narrow really fast, and we just want to know about neckline, hemline, and there's really nothing in between. So here's, let me quote Paul, just two verses from Paul. The first is Romans 12, 1, where Paul writes, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service." So he's actually starting an extended argument and he starts it by saying, it's actually reasonable to present your body as a living sacrifice.

Why? Well, because of the many colored mercies of God. People who have received all their mercies, all these mercies from God ought to offer back their lives to him. The second says much the same thing, but in a different way. It's 1 Corinthians 620 where Paul writes, for you were bought at a price therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit which are God's.

So he doesn't even mention the price but we know the price. It was the life and the blood of his son. We were bought with the life and blood of the Son of God, Jesus Christ. And that means he owns our bodies and he owns our spirits. We belong to him.

So this is really the right place to start a conversation on modesty is we're not our own. We're precious to God. We've been bought by God. We belong to him. And whatever he says about how we should do anything in life is how we should do anything in life.

Yeah. You know, Jeff, in your book, you do a historical analysis of the 20th century and how progressively we have taken off our clothes. And I thought that was very helpful. Then you do a deep dive into the modesty texts, you know, in the New Testament particularly. But since you wrote this book, I kept noticing clothing popping up in the Bible, you know, as I would be preaching and just reading through the Bible in my own personal life, I start, I was just noticing that the things that you stated in this book actually go all the way back to Genesis chapter three, that there is actually a biblical doctrine of clothing.

And so I began to piece together over the last probably decade different stopping points, different coordinates in a biblical theology of clothing. A biblical theology of course begins with the doctrines introduction in the Bible and then works sequentially to try to explain the unfolding of that doctrine. And I ended up coming to the conclusion that these modesty texts actually exist in a much broader context in the biblical doctrine of clothing. And that clothing actually was designed by God to demonstrate his central action among humanity. And that is that he rescues a bride, he removes her filthy garments, and he replaces them with robes of righteousness.

And this is the doctrine of justification by faith. And clothing, my conclusions over the years are that clothing actually was meant to be a reminder that Jesus Christ covers sinners with his robes of righteousness. And there's specific language in the Bible that actually talk about these robes. What are your thoughts on that? Jeff?

Well, I fully agree. When I wrote my booklet, it was over the course of about 10 years. And I, not that I worked on it every day, but I kept waiting for men of great gifts and great exegetes to write on this subject. I And after years of waiting, it never appeared. So I thought, well, I'll go ahead and write something.

And it'll be so bad that, you know, a hundred books will have to be written to correct it. And we'll have a very great variety of men saying, here's what the scriptures really say. You know, so, yeah, there's a doctrine of clothing, And far too often, as Jason said a few moments ago, that this issue of modesty just immediately comes down in the discussion to, you know, my hemline, or how much of my breasts can I show? So, I mean, you know, it seems to miss the point, and people immediately want to drag it into the issue of Christian liberty. And that is so across the board, what people think fit into that particular doctrine, that the discussion often goes nowhere.

So there is modesty is a subset of the doctrine of clothing. And so it appears that the book that you are going to write or in the process of writing is going to address the larger picture before you get to the issue of modesty. And I think that's a good idea. Yeah. And the way I've got the book broken up is I start in Genesis 3 and just work sequentially through.

You don't get to the modesty texts, of course, till you get to the New Testament, but there's actually quite a bit in the New Testament that gives this picture. Clothing is a picture. It's a metaphor of something greater. And I've come to believe that God gave us clothing so that the Christian would be reminded from the beginning of the day when he puts on his or her clothing that he's been clothed by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and that his clothing ought to reflect that grace of God and his life. Yes.

Going back just a little bit to what you were putting into the big picture, it's a fact that as we go through the scriptures, when we read Genesis to Revelation, Genesis to Revelation, Genesis to Revelation, we began to get a larger picture than just proof texts. There's a place for proof texts. But, you know, I had a pastor say to me once, there's one verse in the Bible about modesty. That's it. And you're making it like it's a big deal.

And I agree with Richard Barcellas, who said that the context of any verse in the Bible is every other verse in the Bible. You know, and when you begin to get the large picture of the Scripture, there are things that become so plain and so clear, how much God talks about adultery, about fornication, about purity, about virginity, the things that lead to sexual sin, then you begin to realize that the issue of clothes fits very perfectly into that discussion. The Westminster larger catechism, when you read the Seventh Commandment about committing adultery, It talks very plainly about the clothing that can help to lead to this. So, I mean, they understood whole Bible Christianity, much of modern Christianity just does not get that. And not only that, they want a, I grew up in a chapter and verse, chapter and verse, chapter and verse, give me a verse that says that, you know?

And you know, the simple answer is, is then well, then abortion's not bad. There's not a verse that specifically says, in those words, adult have an abortion, there isn't one, but there is, thou shalt not murder. And we can define it, and we can see and plainly understand that is applicable to the issue of abortion. And it's the same thing with modesty. As we go through and see what God demands as far as purity, then how we dress speaks to what we think about purity, about virginity, about even righteousness as you're talking about.

So, you know, Jason started out with Romans 12.1 And, you know, it brings up in my mind that great quote by Abraham Kuyper, who said, there's not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign overall, does not cry mine. And, you know, in the same way, God wants to govern our time, the thoughts and meditations of our heart and our clothing and everything else. And there's not one square inch of our clothing that God does not say mine. And that's, I think that's what I want to try to accomplish in this book is to just encourage people to understand what God meant by giving us clothing so that we don't think of clothing as our own personal expression. It's not our look we're looking for.

It's actually a reflection of something far greater than ourselves. Yeah, I think the spirit of the age says, What is going on in your heart is the only thing that matters. But in the two verses I just quoted by the Apostle Paul, in the first one it says, present your bodies a living sacrifice. And in the second, it says that we're bought with a price, therefore our bodies and our spirits belong to him. So it's clear that the thing that is going on in our heart is the most fundamental and important thing, but there's an expectation that this informs what's happening on the outside as well.

That's one of the real problems. I addressed that a little bit in my booklet. I've been wanting to revise it for a long time, and I've had some critiques against it that I thought were very helpful, and I could do some clarifying by revising it. But the point is, the scriptures make absolutely plain, just as you were saying a moment ago. If Jesus Christ purchased us with His blood, if we are the blood bought people of God, then if Christ is the Lord of everything in my life, then how I present myself matters.

It matters. And the scriptures speak of that. It speaks of the clothes of a harlot, and it doesn't give us a picture. But quite obviously, there are ways of dressing that do not speak of a life of purity. It's obvious when we read the whole Bible, and we are called upon to live a life.

In other words, we're to externalize what Jason was talking about a minute ago, what God has done to us internally, when He has changed us, regenerated us, taken us out of darkness into His glorious light, given us his spirit, given us his word, and then given us his people so that we can grow together as we walk toward the celestial city. You know, then we have a number of things to think about. First of all, it isn't just about me and what I like. It's about giving myself to the Lord in every aspect of my life to bring glory and honor to him, and I'm ready to jettison anything that doesn't speak of Christ. Here's what I started realizing in reading the Bible on clothing.

It's an inspiring vision. It's massively inspiring. And why did God create clothing? To cover your shame, to cover your nakedness. You know, you get into the clothing of the priests for beauty and for glory.

For it's and it's for manhood and womanhood. Deuteronomy 22 five is to proclaim the God's passion for purity. It's there are so many layers to why God created clothing and it really is an inspiring vision. And I want a new generation to really understand the inspiring vision. Hey, clothing always makes a statement.

It doesn't matter what you're wearing. You are making a statement. And either the world is going to control that statement or your own heart, or God's ways are going to inform that statement that you're making. But we're here to say that clothing makes a statement. You should make the most inspiring, beautiful, biblically faithful statement you can make.

So Scott, in preparation for our time here on the podcast, you sent out some verses that you thought should be informing all of the people of God about how we think about clothing. The one that caught my eye because I didn't recognize it was Zephaniah 1.8. So in Zephaniah 1.8, God through the prophet is pronouncing a condemnation on the people of God on Israel. And this is the relevant part of that verse. It says, and all such as are clothed with foreign apparel.

So, wow, there's a lot wrapped up in there. It means that the people of God, it assumes that the people of God are dressed distinctly and that the world dresses in a very different way and that the people of God shouldn't just be adopting what the rest of the world is wearing. And hey, just that thought by itself should make Christians really sort of pay attention and say, well, how should the people of God dress? And the answer is whatever it is, it's not foreign apparel. It's not what everybody else is wearing at the mall.

Yeah. And that, yeah. And I think that verse has to do with, with clothing that, that explicitly has risen out of paganism. It's odd. It's strange.

I mean, I think of, you know, I, I think of, you know, the modern runway where people are dressed in just crazy ways, But here's the reality. All of us are dressed, even right now, in ways that are appropriate in our culture. And you can dress modestly in probably almost any culture. I think we could make some exceptions that are obvious, but a Christian has to look at his culture and dress in a way that's modest in comparison to the biblical principles. We're not walking around in robes like Jesus did, but we're dressed modestly now.

Another thing when you learn is most of what the Bible has to say about modesty isn't even focused on women's clothing. It's actually focused on both men and women. It's really only till you get to the harlot passage that Jeff referred to and then and then in the modesty texts which are explicitly directed to women in the church, how they dress in the church. Most of the clothing texts are applied to both men and women, and we shouldn't just relegate this to women. I would agree with that.

The issue, of course, is that when we do get to the New Testament, as you were alluding, Paul does specifically address women, and it is often because women are more attracted to adornment. Men adorn as well, but, you know, t-shirts, slacks, and sneakers is, you know, fine dress for a lot of men. The idea in Scripture, when it comes to our clothing ultimately, is that we are set apart for God. We are set apart for God. Women are more tender, the women are often more artistic in their thinking, though there are many men who think artistically, you know, And they love to adorn.

They adorn the house. Men love to put the heads of dead animals on the wall. Women don't usually think in those terms. And so, and when speaking in a broad way, sure, there's always exceptions, but the scriptures are very plain. We are a people that are set apart.

And as we look at this subject, I can say now after years, a couple of decades after having written this, many of the pastors that are on the planet that I've encountered or that I've heard from are cowards. They're not going to touch this subject. And then when they do, very often they either say so little that it didn't matter or they go so overboard that you do run into certain forms of extremism. But on top of that, in many households, the women, the wives, the mothers, and the children run the house. The Father doesn't run the house according to the Word of God, because he doesn't want to bring up the idea of saying, you know, sweetheart, I know you think that's a very pretty outfit, but there are some things about it I think that we should discuss.

They don't want that discussion. They don't want that. And there is an absolute unholy paranoia about being called a legalist. So that's the first word you have to bring out when you say the word modesty and the discussion's over but I think thoughtful people will have to scour the scriptures and begin to ask themselves if the fashion world writes books about the language of clothing and they will tell you that beauty means sexuality. That's their definition.

So in order for them to dress you, they've got to dress you in a way that makes you sexy, not holy, not pure. That's not the words they're thinking. You know, so I mean, the fault of almost all of this is Christian men and pastors. So, so we do need a broad scope of why clothing, and I think your book should answer that. Why clothing?

You know, why does it matter? What language is it speaking? And then how do we see the Scriptures in this? You know, as we read and study the Word of God from Genesis to Revelation, How does God intend for us to speak of the glories of redemption in every aspect of our lives? We have to include our clothing along with everything else, how we speak.

And one more thing, because of the radical individualism in which we live, you know, that's that's what people hang tight on when it comes to their clothing. This is me, this is my statement. Well, you know, the scripture is very plain that everyone has a conscience. And as believers, we need to be thinking about the consciences of others in how we dress, and especially when we are in worship. Amen.

Wow, well, we could go on and on, but we're kind of out of time here. So, hey, maybe we can keep talking about this. When I'm finished with my book, especially, Jeff, maybe we can talk about it again. But Jeff, thank you for joining us, man. I really, really appreciate it.

Always happy to be with you all and to speak of the things of the Lord Jesus. Amen. And thank you for joining us on the Children and Family Life podcast. Hope you read this book, The Public Undressing of America, you can get it from Chapel Library. And then also for my book that comes out, Beyond Modesty, a Biblical Doctrine of clothing.

So there you have it. Hope to see you next time. Www.churchandfamilylife.com