Speaking through the apostles, God calls for Christian women to dress with modesty and simplicity (1 Timothy 2:9-10 1 Peter 3:4-5) while our society pushes on us clothes designed to highlight every curve and to stimulate everyone with eyes. Of course there is a rub for those who take their discipleship seriously. Can anyone argue that what is “fashionable” is synonymous with that which titillates and stimulates? Can you handle this? is scrawled across the front of her T-shirt. Roxy is emblazoned across her bathing suit bottom. Little is concealed little is left to the imagination. The right clothes let her “strut her stuff.” They let her show what she’s got. For the most part, women’s clothes are designed to draw attention to her body. Clothes, particularly for women, become important not for what they conceal, but for what they reveal. Clothes, by God’s design, are important for what they conceal: they cover the shame, the nakedness, the sheer embarrassment of God’s children.Īnd now, a few thousand or tens of thousands of years later, we have to decide what to wear on Monday morning-and how far from the Garden we’ve come! Our fashion designers have reversed God’s gracious purpose for clothing. Animals had to die because of Adam’s sin. When Adam and Eve paraded through the garden wearing their new outfits, their attire testified both to the grace of God and to the wages of sin. Certain body parts now needed to be covered, and God himself made the clothes. The first couple was alienated-alienated from their God and alienated from each other. Now there was a gap between who they were created to be and who they really were. They were no longer comfortable without clothes. Sin tainted the image of God in Adam and Eve.

After Adam and Eve sinned, there was, in fact, much of which to be ashamed. Their wearing of clothes testified loudly to the new order of things. Adam and Eve made the first fashion statement in human history.Īnd what was that statement? When the first couple put on suits of animal skin, their attire spoke volumes. God made clothes: he replaced the fig leaves with garments of animal skin. I heard you and hid because I was naked and therefore afraid, Adam replied. And when God showed up in the Garden, it was time to turn tail and hide in the bushes. In a pinch, they used fig leaves, not Abercrombie & Fitch. Their eyes were opened, and the view was not entirely pleasant. Eve bit into the proverbial apple, and Adam followed suit.

Girls Gone Mild by Wendy Shalit