Here we are, part five in our posts about modesty, and the second to specifically take a look at the scriptures we use when talking about it. Here are the previous posts:
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Modest or Immodest: a Handy Guide for Telling the Difference
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Topless and Totally Modest (a look at culture’s effect on modesty)
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“Make sure that your outfit won’t cause any of the men to stumble.”
The idea of “causing others to stumble” is often trotted out in Evangelical conversations about modesty. It typically communicates that if women make the choice to dress “immodestly” that men will have no choice but to sin by lusting. So let’s take a look at that, shall we?
Unlike the word “modesty” the concept of “causing to stumble” pops up in scripture a decent amount (almost 30 times!). The word is σκανδαλίζω (skandalizō) and yup, that’s where we get English words like scandal, scandalous, and scandalize. Hooray for Greek!
It gets a little complicated because the semantic range of this word (it’s not a phrase) is pretty broad. It can mean something like “cause to stumble” or “lay a trap” or “offend” or “fall away (from the faith)” or “take offense.”
Complicating things further… Jesus “skandalizōs” people with some regularity in the gospels. Nine out of the 29 occurrences are from Jesus offending/causing to stumble/causing to fall away, et cetera. Sometimes it’s to the Pharisees and sometimes to his disciples, but Jesus is definitely doing this to people, one way or another.
Let’s focus on two occurrences: I Corinthians 8 and Matthew 18:1-14.
The basic argument in I Corinthians 8 is this: eating meat that has been sacrificed to idols is fine, because idols are nothing and you’re not worshipping them. But some of the younger believers come out of a background where they regularly worshipped by sacrificing to idols. To them it’s not “fine” it’s a creepy act that feels like betraying God. So even though there’s nothing wrong with eating that food, if you eat it and the young believers see you and think, “Hey, that guy is much more mature spiritually maybe he knows more than me I guess I will eat some idol food, too” then they may take an action that goes against their own conscience. It’s not sin to YOU but it would be to THEM. So hey. Don’t do that.
Things to note:
- Paul is speaking to people with spiritual maturity, encouraging them to think of the younger, less-experienced, or, as Paul says “weaker” believers.
- Note that the exact same actions (eating food sacrificed to idols) can be a sin or not a sin depending on the person doing it.
- Paul is saying, please don’t encourage someone to embrace the same freedoms as you when it will violate their conscience. Don’t, in other words, teach them to sin.
Jesus says something similar in Matthew 18.
He has a child from the household (Mark tells us this was in Peter’s home… might have been his kid, even!) come stand with him and tells everyone if they want to enter God’s kingdom they need to be like children. Then he says if anyone skandalizōs a little child, it would be better for that person to be dead. Violently, horrifically dead. He goes on to say that if you have body parts that are skandalizōing you, you should probably hack those off and throw them away because it’s better to maim yourself and “enter life” than to go to Hell intact.
Things to note:
- Jesus, too, is talking about those with maturity (the adults who are listening to him) interacting with those who have less maturity (children).
- Jesus is talking about those who would purposely entice or teach children to sin… to try to make them fall away. He’s not talking about “accidental” sin here.
- Jesus shifts immediately from talking about the adults causing others to sin to the things in their own person that may cause them to sin.
All that to say: the idea of “causing someone to stumble” is in scripture. Frankly, in the Greek, the “cause” piece isn’t really there but it’s hard to translate otherwise. Skandalizō is a verb, but “Whoever stumbling blocks his brother” sounds weird. But that’s the idea: whoever sticks out his leg and purposely trips his brother. Whoever lays a trap for a child.
Put all these things together, and I think you can see why I’m not a fan of using “causing your brother to stumble” in the context of a woman’s wardrobe. To fit well into the framework Paul and Jesus were using, it seems to me that a woman would have to be trying to convince other women to wear her style of clothing despite that clothing violating the other women’s conscience.
Or, she would need to be wearing that clothing with the intention of tempting or ensnaring someone.
I will add this, as I think it’s important:
Matthew 5:27 is often brought up in this same conversation. In this passage, Jesus is speaking and it is often translated something like, “If a man looks at a woman lustfully he has committed adultery.”
So women are told, “If you dress a certain way, men will lust after you because they will scarcely have a choice and you have caused them to commit adultery.”
But friends, if that’s what you think it’s saying, the translation isn’t clear enough. It’s VERY CLEAR in the Greek that what is being said is, “If a man looks at a woman to lust, he has committed adultery.” In other words, if he has made a conscious decision to purposely look at the woman with the intention of engaging in lustful fantasy, then he is engaging in adultery.
NOT, “Oh hey, that lady is really beautiful oh dang it I just committed mind adultery.”
I can’t find anywhere in scripture that attraction (sexual or otherwise) is equated with sin. Once again, intention matters.
I’m not arguing here that we shouldn’t be considerate of others or appropriate in how we dress. I am saying this:
- Women, if you are dressed in a way that you believe is appropriate and a man chooses to lust when he sees you, you’re not responsible for that. You did not “cause him to stumble” in the sense it’s talked about by Paul or Jesus.
- If there are certain types of clothing that violate your own conscience personally, hey, don’t wear those things.
- Men, allowing women to think they are responsible for our thought life is incredibly passive and self-centered. If you are blaming women for your sexual fantasies, wandering eyes or porn problems, it’s time for you to take a look in the mirror and stop making excuses.
What has been your experience with the phrase “cause to stumble”? Have people used that term when talking about modesty? How about other issues? What other thoughts, insights or questions do you have?
Still to come:
What scripture says about nudity
14 replies on “Are you causing men to stumble in how you dress?”
Thanks for all of the clarification. Also, the caption for that picture is priceless.
I agree — now I know where earthquakes come from —
Ha ha ha. Well. Glad you liked it.
This has been a “fun” series to read and a though-provoking one too. I remember going to a Christian concert with a famous woman Christian singer (whose name escapes me now) and she did a wonderful job singing — but her “modest” clothing was very distracting. She had brown hair, brown clothes and though the dress showed her legs, the collar was high and sleeves long. Now this was in the summer time and outside in a baseball stadium and she not only didn’t look good, she didn’t look comfortable. I’m not sure she dressed like that for modesty sake or she just didn’t have any fashion sense or she was from Australia and she forgot it was summer in the USA — but she just didn’t blend in and looked very, very uncomfortable. On the other hand, I’ve been to a couple of Amy Grant concerts. She always looked stylish and beautiful. I don’t remember what she wore because while I know it looked good on her, it wasn’t distracting. So in my opinion, all though the first singer’s were definitely modest, they were also distracting. Amy Grant’s concert on the other hand was right on spiritually despite her stylish wear.
That’s really interesting, Candace. And taking into account some of the earlier posts, it seems to me that if your clothing gets so much attention that in itself could be immodest! Which is pretty mind-blowing.
Hey Matt.
You said that a woman would fit the context of those passages, and thus need reprimanded if “she would need to be wearing that clothing with the intention of tempting or ensnaring someone.”
This feels like a really slippery slope to me, as understanding our intent usually is. Things are done with very mixed intent. This is a reality of the fall. Nothing is wholly righteous. Intent is always corrupted short of eternity. But you’re right, intent matters.
OK. Say a woman is standing before her closet about to choose clothing for the day. What’s going on in her head? What are her intentions in choosing clothes for the day?
I’m not a woman but I’m gonna guess:
I want something comfortable.
I want something cute.
I want something appropriate.
And probably many more good intentions.
But also, even if its just a small intent or a fleeting desire…
I want something that will make me look sexy.
I want something that will turn that guys head.
I want to look desirable.
See the slippery slope? What is a woman’s intent for yoga pants or bikinis or whatever others examples we’ve used? I’d caution that if she can relate, at any point, to twisted intentions, then she should stay away. Thus the gouge out your eye stuff in context with the passage above.
And I honestly wonder if any honest, self-examining woman can say they are completely void of those corrupt intentions. They may be, but I have a hard time believing it — mostly because I’m pretty in touch with the nasty corruption in myself.
I think we’re largely in agreement here. Certainly mixed motivations are the norm for most of us. In the circles I grew up in and sometimes run in now, though, there’s an assumption that the “sinful motivations” are primary. I think that largely comes from a low view of women and a cultural expectation of “woman as temptress.” And I think that’s what gets communicated to women, that they are evil and causing trouble everywhere they go because they’re not covering up enough. And the “enough” is dictated to them by someone else, not from their own conscience or good sense….
Another thought regarding your final point 3.
This was a much needed word to men. Though I will say that it hasn’t been my experience that men are the ones having this conversation with women, but rather women with women. I realize that may be a rarity, but just wanted to say that I do think this conversation can be super fruitful amongst women. I am sorry that it appears you have been around a bunch of scumbags that have passed off their shamefulness onto the women around them. That makes me so sad.
Yeah, I was talking to a good friend who told me that if she only had to have this conversation with women that would be refreshing, even though she disagrees with some of her female friends on the topic. Part of the issue, I think, is that men are largely in authority in many evangelical churches, which means that when it’s time to address the “official rules” they are the ones behind it either literally or through authority structure lines. Which means one way or another it’s being handed down by men… and many women when they talk about modesty, it’s in the context of “think about the men.”
It makes me sad, too. People say crazy things. No doubt I say crazy things some times, too, but of course I am much more forgiving of my own crazy. 🙂
And one final thought/request.
Would you consider a post on modest clothing through the lens of others-centeredness? I wonder if a post through that grid would be more valuable.
Meaning, rather than speaking to: women should be modest because the bible says so, or women should be modest to not make their brother stumble…. You do a post on, “Modest women desire to love others through their clothing choices because they think of others before themselves.”
Yeah, someone asked me to do a post about how I am trying to cultivate modest character in my own daughters. MIght be helpful, and would certainly touch on this.
I do think, of course, that “modesty” in the sense we’re talking about here is not really as important as modesty in the originally intended sense.
Matt,
First off, I want to say that I am currently reading your book “Imaginary Jesus” and I absolutely love it!!!! It has made me reexamine my faith, which I feel is very important for Christians in order for our faith to be a continual part of our lives. So thank you!! I also agree that modesty has a lot to do with intention, and the way you explained it is a very good example. I also mostly agree with your three endpoints. When men claim that all of their lust problems lie on woman’s hands, it is passing on responsibility to someone else. Men who maintain this attitude will have trouble recovering from their lust problems or whatever (if they have any) if they don’t except that they control themselves, even if they can’t always control where their thoughts take them at first. That they are and can be in charge of stopping that train. I do however, feel like men have the short end of the stick in our society. The standard for what woman find appropriate to wear has changed drastically, which I don’t see too much of a problem with. For the most part, though, what men in our society consider attractive has changed very little. Woman’s fashion is showing more and more skin and exaggerating certain parts of the body that our culture considers attractive. I don’t think it’s fair to blame men for being attracted to a certain part of a woman, it has been bread into them; in part by the culture they live in, and in part, by biology. In your previous article, you essentially said something along the lines of how different people find different things attractive and it would be ridicules to expect
people to adhere to all of those demands. I agree most strongly (I also found the whole “Puffy coat faddish” thing a little odd haha). However, I don’t think it’s too much for our Christian brothers to ask their sisters to consider them when they choose their outfit.
My boyfriend was addicted to porn for over half his life. He went over 10 years without missinga day of watching porn. Over the past year and a half, he has been attempting to beat this addiction and has done extremely well! I can’t tell you how proud of him I am. He has expressed to me a lot of his frustrations with how the way woman dress can have an effect on his progress. We were recently at a birthday party and one of my friends, who is a Christian, was wearing an especially risky string bikini. I kept noticing that he was having trouble keeping his eyes off of her. He was pointedly looking away, and then back, and then away. It was almost like watching a ping-pong match in his eyes. Instead of being frustrated, I felt sympathy towards him. I later told him that I noticed this, and he was very upset with himself. Seeing those sorts of things brings back memories of his past addictions, which, as with any addiction, makes it very hard to resist the temptation. I think what hurt him most about the entire situation, was that she was his sister in Christ, and he felt like she wasn’t considering her brothers, which made him feel vary betrayed. She has no idea about his struggle, so blaming her for tempting him might be going too far. But I do think that she was being a little inconsiderate towards the people around her, especially in the environment she was in. It frustrates me when woman wear things that show a lot of skin or is very low cut, and then get angry when men have trouble looking them in the face (meaning they are TRYING to look them in
the face, there is just a very large distraction below that keeps begging for their attention). In situations like that, I can’t blame the men who keep taking split-second glances down at the exposed area. Heck, I have trouble looking woman with low-cut shirts in the eyes, and I’m not even attracted to it! There are some things that can’t be helped, like every person’s specific triggers that tempt them. But I believe that there are some things that can be helped. I agree that woman aren’t responsible for the thoughts and actions of other men, but I don’t think it’s asking too much to consider our brother’s, who are extremely visual creatures,
when we dress.
Hi Mary! Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts and your experience. It’s generous of you to be so transparent with your story and your boyfriend’s. I look forward to hearing more of your thoughts.