On Friday, my psychiatrist-and-Christian cousin from Texas mentioned the name Nancy Leigh DeMoss and her radio program Revive Our Hearts. He said that he found her talks for women sound, and asked if I had listened to her. I had not so much as heard her name mentioned (not surprising considering that the body of ought-to-know information I do not know far outweighs what I do know).
So I listened to many of her talks on the subject of modesty, and found them very good. Click here to get to the first of these talks. I have asked my daughters, who have holidays, to listen to her archived talks available on the Internet.
(Our family has just heard Pastor Al Martin’s message entitled Validating the Gospel in Modesty. Pastor Al Martin’s message is an intense plea, a reprimand of sorts, of a concerned pastor to a congregation that loves and respects him for his many years of labour in their midst. In contrast, Nancy has a friendly approach to the issue. Both approaches are excellent in their own way.)
I read that she “receives much inspiration from Charles Spurgeon, John Piper, and Elisabeth Eliot.” This confirms to me that I would be able to relate to her theological position. I also find her books listed in the Reformation Heritage Books site. She has been featured in the Mahaney family blogsite, Girl Talk.
The subject of modesty is not a new one fro me, but I did come across some ideas for the first time. For instance, under the subject Godly Garments, she says:
. . . “And the Lord God made for Adam and his wife garments of skins and he clothed them.” God made garments of skins; this is God’s provision. God is saying, “You cannot solve your sinful problems on your own, you need to do it my way. Your plan won’t work. You made for yourselves these fig-leaf aprons, but I’m going to make a provision.”
The word garments is the word that is translated elsewhere in the Bible coats, tunics. It’s a word that consistently talks about a garment that covers the body from at least the neck to the knees, sometimes going down mid-calf or even all the way to the feet.
Then God clothed them. That word is a Hebrew word that means to wrap around, to put on a garment or to clothe someone. You see, Adam and Eve covered their private parts, but what did God cover? Their bodies.
God said that it wasn’t enough that their private parts should be covered. Now that they had sinned, their bodies needed to be covered.
Of course, the major point of this passage foreshadows that when Christ would come He would be the Lamb of God who would be slain so that we could be covered in His righteousness . . .
and again:
. . . I think we need to remember this as Christian women, as we try to reach women in our secular culture, who aren’t clothed. Let’s keep in mind that what they’re wearing, or not wearing, is not the heart of the matter. It’s not the most important issue. It needs to be dealt with in its time, but it’s not the first issue to deal with.
Rather, God was concerned about the relationship that had been broken. . .
This subject of modesty is of special interest to me because I have daughters who need encouragement as they strive to live by God’s principles. How different they must appear to their peers comes home to me everytime we shop for their clothes. Buying clothes for them can be quite an ordeal.
I have also written a couple of articles on this subject for some girls in a small church in Madurai.
Courage to tremble 