Welcome to the Church and Family Life podcast. Today we're going to talk about my new book, Beyond Modesty, which is a biblical theology of clothing. When most people think about modesty, they think about skirt lengths and things like that. This book gives the broad picture of why God created clothing. We have Jeff Pollard with us.

Hope you enjoy the discussion. Okay, Jason, so we just released a book called Beyond Modesty, which is a biblical theology of clothing, but we have Jeff Pollard on the line to talk about this subject. Jeff, I think, wrote the best book on modesty in the last 25 years. He wrote about 25 years ago, almost. And his focus was on, particularly on women's clothing in Titus 2.

My book is much broader. It really begins in Revelation, or it begins in Genesis and goes to Revelation. But that book was really, really, Jeff's book is really helpful to me. Now, He is the birth mother of this new book. Congratulations, Jeff.

So it's good to see you. It's good to talk to you. What an introduction. Well, I've never been introduced as a mother before, so it's the first time for everything, I guess. Well, you're very kind.

My book was published in the first by Chapel Library in 2000, and I don't know that it was the defining book, but at that time I couldn't find one that really went into the Scriptures without just taking a proof text here and there, and then generally blaming women. I originally wrote that booklet for pastors and for fathers. I was surprised at how many women did read it, and thankfully many of them profited from it. So I'm thankful for that. Yeah, so it was, in my mind, it was the most biblically honest book on the subject, because in the 1990s, and the 1980s, and the 1970s, the church really quit talking about it because it would cause so much pain in their churches because the culture had had drifted so deeply into an immodest kind of expression.

So I thought your book was was really really fantastic. Now now my book Beyond Modesty really traces the doctrine of clothing from Genesis to Revelation, and it explains step by step, you know, section by section in the Bible, what God designed for the use of clothing. So that's really sort of the whole thing. And so anyway, I think we want to discuss this matter of the larger doctrine. I think you've done a wise thing in revisiting the subject with your book, and I certainly hope that it will be widely read, because you deal not only with the issue of modesty, but you, as you said earlier, you deal with what the Bible says about clothing in general and doing it from a biblical theological perspective.

I think that was a really good idea. Yeah, let's pound, let's pound through some of the general propositions in this book. I divided it up as first of all dealing with the Old Testament and then and then dealing with the New Testament, and then I wait until all that groundwork is laid to get to any practical applications. And one of my concerns over the years has been that, as I've just continued to read the Bible, the Bible has so much more to say about clothing than just women's modesty. In fact, most of what the Bible says about clothing applies to both, and in several places exclusively to men.

So the doctrine doesn't just apply to women, it does apply to men as well. And so that's why I start out in the New, I start out, that's why I start out in the Old Testament. And the first chapter sort of casts a general vision that clothing is, it's a tutor, actually, for timeless truths. It's actually a metaphor. Clothing is something, but it actually points to something else.

Yeah, I think in these things sometimes we start at the... We start halfway through the discussion, and it ends up being unhelpful. In other words, you can... We tend to skip right to, how much do I have to have on? Right, exactly.

How little is too little? To back up and just say, wait a minute, what does the Bible say clothing is? And to go all the way back to the beginning of the category, not just skip right to the hotspot, sometimes really helps advance the understanding. Right. So, so how, how is it actually that clothing is a metaphor for timeless truths?

Well, it begins back in the garden. It is plain that the scriptures tell us in Genesis chapter two, that Adam and Eve were naked and they were not ashamed. When you say the word naked today, there's an obvious response in most people's minds that might be connected to shame. I would say our culture has lost that idea altogether, but at least among Christians there is some association still with shame. But in chapter 3, it's very clear that God covered them because they were now sinful.

And that covering is a wonderful picture of what God does for sinners in Jesus Christ. He covers us in the nakedness of our sins as we stand before Him. He covers us with the righteousness which Jesus Christ won for us. You know, I make the point in this book that the first impulse of Adam and Eve was really to turn to their own impulses, and that their first clothing of themselves was a manifestation of autonomy and self-righteousness. And so God corrected that and he clothed them in more substantial clothing.

Yeah, if you actually study it, the first attempt was our own attempt to clothe ourselves, and it was inadequate. It was the sewing together of essentially a waistcoat, which is just covering the midsection only. And then if you study the word of the garment that God gave to them made out of skins. It's actually a shoulder-to-knee or a shoulder-to-ankle kind of covering. So our attempt of what we thought would be an adequate covering did match God's assessment of what we needed.

Yeah, and part of that had to do with concealing nakedness. It was to cover shame as a metaphor of, like you said, Jeff, of our sins, but It was also an expression of God's desire to cover our nakedness, which I think is related to covering shame. But the Word of God uses this language of concealing nakedness. It's worth adding to that scenario that when God covered them with skins, it meant the death of an innocent sacrifice. Once again, pointing to the glory and the beauty of Christ Jesus and His sacrifice to cover our sins.

Yeah, and I think that points to what really is the purpose of clothing, and that is to remind us of our sin and the love of God and Jesus Christ to cover our shame and to cover our nakedness. And it's really important that you understand that, you know, before you go out and buy your clothes, because there's this broad principle that, you know, when you look in the mirror, are you asking, does this represent the covering of my shame? Does it represent the concealing of my nakedness before God? Because clothing is a representative thing while it is a thing at the same time. Scott, let me ask you a question.

One of the things that I really enjoyed in your book was the fact that you pointed the fact that Jesus Christ is the Lord of our clothes closet, as well as everything else in our lives. But you pointed that out and I thought maybe it'd be good for everybody for you to elaborate on that a little bit. When you say that Jesus is the Lord of our clothes closet, What do you have in mind? Well, we know from many places in Scripture, I'll just cite Romans 12, Chapter 1, that God calls His children to present their bodies, a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. And so everything we are, how we clothe our bodies, how we present ourselves to God through our clothing is critical.

So when you stand in front of the mirror, probably most men don't stand in front of the mirror, but if you stand in front of the mirror and you look at yourself, are you self-consciously declaring that I belong to the Lord, that my whole body belongs to the Lord. Every part of my presentation is His. It's not primarily for self-expression, certainly not for vanity, but it's actually to represent who we belong to. Just another place that Paul says the same thing, but in a really helpful way also is 1 Corinthians 6 20, Paul writes, for you were bought at a price. So, we have to enter every category saying my sensibilities about something are not the ones that count the most.

God's sensibilities are the ones that count the most. Whatever He sees as good is what I need to adopt for myself because He plucked me out of sin and destruction to be His own. So as now part of this people who are set apart, God has set apart to himself, how should I spend my time? How should I... What should I read?

What should I watch? How should I dress? It's not this one category, it's actually a cross categories. We're not our own. We were bought at a price.

And what a price it was. Yeah. And I wanted to make the point that we're not just talking about covering shame and covering nakedness, but we're also talking about the picture of the priests in the Old Testament. They were clothed for beauty and for glory. There's no diminishing of beauty in the Christian thinking about clothing.

And My proposition in this book is that the Old Testament priests and their clothing is a figure, it's a metaphor, it's a type. We're not going to dress exactly like the Old Testament priests, but it does, but the biblical testimony does express a particular principle, and that's what we believe about the law of God. In every law of God is a principle for life today, while maybe not applying it with exactitude in the Old Testament. The ceremony of law has passed away, and it's fulfilled in Jesus Christ. But that doesn't mean that we stop thinking about our clothing in a biblical way.

Scott, part two of your book is practical considerations and applications. I really appreciated the entire book, but when you got to that portion, I thought you did an excellent job with the idea of applications. In chapter 19, you spoke of clothing and culture. Chapter 20, immodesty on display. Chapter 21, sports, swimwear, and skinny jeans.

Chapter 22, questions men and women should ask. 23, a word to heads of households, chapter 24 victims of the fashion industry. And finally a chapter 25 God's daily reminder. And you're thinking what was the most important application that you made there? Well, I think the same application runs through all of those applications.

And that is when you stand in front of the mirror, what are you saying with your clothing? And that includes clothing for all kinds of activities that we engage in. And we do, Every culture finds itself as victims of the fashion industry to some level. And so we have to think biblically, whatever the fashion industry is throwing at us, and they'll keep throwing different things at us. The fashion industry in first century Israel is not the same as it is today, but the principles applied in the early church, just like they apply today.

So God's given us these principles, and the question we should ask is, does this cover shame? Is it for beauty and glory? Is it for manhood and womanhood? Is it an expression of worldliness? Does it express the preeminence of Jesus Christ?

You know, all of those things are critical. So how do lines move over time? Meaning, how do we see these shifts that happen? Why do they happen and how do they happen? I think normally the world moves and normalizes something that a generation or two generations before wasn't normal and would be considered shocking.

So, but when the world normalizes, all the shock value is lost, and then the church over time just one degree at a time becomes insensitive to it. And maybe we don't go as far as the world did, but what is considered to be acceptable, the line moves. And when that happens three or four or five different times, you end up so far from actually the biblical ethic. And like we were talking about before, this can actually be in any category. The world moves, they normalize it, we become insensitive to it, and so we begin to think certain things are acceptable that two generations earlier would have been shocking in the church because they had a more calibrated to Scripture view of where the line actually should be.

Now I would add one of the primary reasons that I wrote my booklet and one of the reasons I truly appreciate your book, Scott, is that the Church of The Lord Jesus Christ is the representative of our holy Savior. He is the representative on earth of Him that is altogether lovely, altogether beautiful, altogether holy. And Paul addresses this subject in the context of worship. Our worship should reflect the holiness of our God. It's not a fashion show.

It's not for learning anatomy. It is for God's people to come together in the love of Christ and one another to magnify and glorify Him. When we dress in any way, whether it's simply prideful, showing off what good taste we have, or whether someone is showing off their body, they are setting themselves up for robbing the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. So when we come together, whatever anybody thinks about what they wear at home or in playtime, the fact of the matter is when we come together as his people, We want to magnify Jesus Christ as men and women who understand humility, who understand a genuine modesty, and who understand that we're there not to show ourselves off to anybody, but to magnify Christ with one heart and one voice. Well, Jeff, that's really why I wrote this book.

I think your summary is really, really helpful. I want people to see the beautiful design that God has for clothing and for believers to just find joy in that moment when they're standing before the mirror and they're realizing, I belong to God. He has covered me with his robes of righteousness. He loves me. And so every part of my life should reflect that.

That's really what I hope to try to accomplish, you know, in this book, I want people to see the beauty of it. And so Jeff, thank you so much for joining us. It's always a blessing to be with you. You're welcome, brother. I love both of you and the Lord, and I'm very thankful to be here with you.

I hope many will read your book and profit from it. Thanks, Jeff, so much. And thank you for joining us on the Church and Family Life podcast and I hope you can join us next time. Church and Family Life is proclaiming the sufficiency of scripture by helping build strong families and strong churches. If you found this resource helpful, we encourage you to check out ChurchandFamilyLife.com.