Updated on January 30, 2022
Thou Shalt Not Wear Short Skirts
When Religion Goes Bad
I was doing some research for a writing project based on Psalm 22. This is the Psalm quoted by Jesus on the cross. In it, David, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, vividly reveals in precise detail some of the events surrounding the crucifixion of Christ. This is centuries before the actual event and hundreds of years before crucifixion was even widely practiced. It is an amazing Psalm, but I digress a bit.
I came across a sermon that was quite good. But then, a third of the way through, the preacher goes off on a tangent on girls wearing short skirts, revealing attire, makeup, dancing etc. I stopped at that point.
Don’t get me wrong, I think modesty in many situations can be a good thing. But let’s look at this through the eyes of Christ. Imagine a stripper or waitress is convicted and is desiring to learn more about this God that gave His life for her redemption. She puts on the best attire she has and heads to the nearest church. Instead of seeing and hearing love (because God is love), she is berated about the way she looks. Do you really think she will ever enter a church again? Don’t scoff, things like this have happened.
One of my favorite stories is from a pastor friend in Louisiana whose church has grown from less than a hundred people to five or ten thousand people. In the early days of the church, the pastor was talking about the event that sort of changed his whole view of people and changed his whole ministry. He’d been, up to that time, what we used to call a “clothesline preacher.” Clothesline preachers were legalists. Their idea was to help the women be as ugly as they possibly could by telling them what all was wrong for them to wear and put on. He was great at that. In the early days of a great work of the Holy Spirit in that church, when the church was packed with people, he noticed an usher ushered down a lady in her early twenties to the front row and she was in short shorts. The pastor was just about to come unglued on the platform, trying to give ushers the body language to get that lady out. They never saw him and he was not going down to make an embarrassment of her and himself so he let her remain. He was thinking to himself, “That gal! The very audacity of that lady being in this church dressed like that!”
When he gave the altar call at the end of the service, the lady responded and gave her life to Christ and wept and wept. The pastor went over and began to talk to her and found out she was a young divorcee. She had two small children. He asked her how she got to the church. She said she was at a bus stop that evening. She’d gotten off work from her shift as a cocktail waitress. She was getting ready to go home and one of the old ladies from First Assembly was there, waiting for a bus to go to church. She began to strike up a conversation with the young woman and said, “You need to come to church. God could help you with your life.” She said, “I couldn’t go to church. I’m not dressed for church.” The woman said, “Honey, at our church we accept people just the way they are.”
God did something through that in his heart about being judgmental toward people.
George Wood Sermon
God does not condemn. He loves. He is also most concerned with the inward person – the spirit that is the real you. Look at the life of Christ. He forgave and loves the prostitute who was caught in the act, and the woman at the well, who was going through men like water. (see John 4 and 8 ) He loved them both. If he can change the inside, get you spiritually reborn, the outside will take care of itself.
Unfortunately, religion wants to change the outside first, and then, maybe, change the inside. And by the way, I define religion as anything man does in a vain attempt to reach or impress God. That is why Jesus was so harsh to the religious leaders of his day. They had hundreds of rules, traditions and laws that violated the most important law of love. If Jesus healed someone on the Sabbath, they were more concerned about their tradition of not working, than delivering someone from satan’s oppression. What brought more glory to God, a person being healed, or everyone not working?
God looks at the heart, as we should. You don’t judge a person by the way they look or what they do – that will bring judgement on you. Love them. Forgive them. Expect the very best from them. If people see the love of God in your life, they are much more likely to want to get to know Jesus, who has given you the power to love others and be a blessing to the world.
This does not mean you have to approve of sin, or a sinful lifestyle. But you need to love the person. We were all sinners before being recreated into the family of God. That is the ultimate goal – to reach the lost and introduce them to Jesus so they can be part of God’s family.
Love is the fulfillment of the Law. And if you have trouble remembering what love, and God is like, Paul spells it out for you:
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. — 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 <NIV>
