How Much Jewelry Is Too Much Jewelry?

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:02.580 | - Welcome back to the podcast.

00:00:06.160 | Well, how much jewelry is too much jewelry?

00:00:09.240 | It's a question of concern on the podcast

00:00:10.920 | because you ask about it.

00:00:12.320 | And more importantly, it's a question of concern

00:00:13.980 | because it's a topic of concern in the Bible,

00:00:16.920 | specifically in 1 Peter 3, 3,

00:00:18.920 | a text that has provoked many emails to us over the years

00:00:21.800 | on how to limit adornments.

00:00:23.880 | Here's a representative question I pulled out

00:00:25.820 | from a husband and a father.

00:00:26.960 | Hello, Pastor John, I thank you for this podcast.

00:00:29.500 | My wife and I are trying to figure out

00:00:31.040 | if it's good to allow our daughter to wear nail polish.

00:00:33.920 | She's two and loves to play dress up.

00:00:36.640 | I don't want this to become a necessity,

00:00:38.280 | but I suppose it's fine as an expression

00:00:40.120 | of her childlike creativity.

00:00:42.080 | It's ultimately a question for my wife as well.

00:00:44.100 | She doesn't wear makeup or jewelry often

00:00:46.040 | and I'm happy with that.

00:00:47.720 | She does however, enjoy having her toes painted

00:00:50.440 | and considering 1 Peter 3, verses 3 to 4,

00:00:52.920 | I don't know many people who argue

00:00:54.400 | that all feminine adornments are bad,

00:00:57.160 | but clearly some are wrong.

00:00:59.040 | So where do we draw that line today?

00:01:01.880 | Let me start with a general observation

00:01:05.860 | and analogy from the New Testament

00:01:08.540 | and then talk about some specifics.

00:01:11.320 | Consider the analogy between adornment of hair

00:01:15.860 | and stylish clothing and use of makeup on the one hand

00:01:20.520 | and riches and wealth on the other hand.

00:01:24.680 | Here's the analogy.

00:01:26.400 | The New Testament does not call riches and wealth evil

00:01:31.400 | in and of themselves,

00:01:34.280 | but almost the entire New Testament

00:01:37.240 | has the trajectory away from luxury,

00:01:41.880 | away from opulence and toward simplicity,

00:01:46.880 | toward a kind of wartime lifestyle

00:01:51.280 | that is aware of the dangers of money

00:01:55.060 | and the appearance of loving this world

00:01:57.080 | more than we love God.

00:01:58.960 | Now then the comparison or the analogy is

00:02:02.480 | the Bible does not call fashion or makeup

00:02:06.920 | or hairstyling evil in and of itself,

00:02:11.920 | but the trajectory of the New Testament

00:02:15.160 | is toward simplicity and modesty

00:02:17.920 | and inward beauty of character

00:02:20.980 | and what you might call on distracting personhood revealing

00:02:25.980 | as opposed to body revealing apparel.

00:02:31.160 | Now that's my general observation.

00:02:33.780 | Let's take a few specifics.

00:02:36.000 | It would be good to put in front of us first, I think,

00:02:39.860 | two of the most straightforward texts

00:02:42.380 | about women's clothing and adornment

00:02:46.100 | and how she presents herself.

00:02:49.040 | And there are, you can see in these,

00:02:51.480 | clear implications for men as well,

00:02:53.360 | but they're addressed to women.

00:02:55.120 | So first, 1 Peter 3, 3 and 4,

00:02:57.800 | "Do not let your adorning be external."

00:03:00.760 | Saying this to wives who are married to unbelieving husbands

00:03:03.200 | probably because the temptation to use

00:03:05.920 | their sexual reality

00:03:10.640 | to somehow influence this unbelieving husband.

00:03:13.080 | And he's saying, "Do not let your adorning be external.

00:03:16.880 | "The braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry,

00:03:20.600 | "the clothing that you wear,

00:03:21.960 | "but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart

00:03:25.880 | "with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit,

00:03:29.040 | "which in God's sight is very precious."

00:03:31.920 | That's 1 Peter 3.

00:03:33.400 | Now here's 1 Timothy 2, 9 and 10.

00:03:36.900 | "I desire that women should adorn themselves

00:03:39.560 | "in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control,

00:03:45.260 | "not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire,

00:03:50.260 | "but with what is proper for women who profess godliness,

00:03:57.060 | "that is, with good works."

00:04:00.020 | Now, from these two texts, we can say the following.

00:04:03.660 | First, "Don't focus more on the external beauty

00:04:08.660 | "than the internal beauty."

00:04:12.260 | 1 Peter, "Do not let your adorning be external,

00:04:15.240 | "but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart."

00:04:18.980 | So there's the great principle for women,

00:04:21.380 | and I would say that's just obviously for men as well.

00:04:26.000 | Like bodily exercise, you know, that analogy,

00:04:30.100 | we like to quote this,

00:04:30.940 | "Bodily exercise is of a little value,

00:04:33.400 | "but spiritual exercise is of value in every way."

00:04:36.860 | And so outward adornment, you could say,

00:04:39.220 | is of little value, and internal adornment,

00:04:42.860 | that's valuable in every way.

00:04:44.260 | So that's the first thing we can infer from those texts.

00:04:47.640 | And then the second thing is this.

00:04:49.420 | Peter's and Paul's restrictions are not meant to be total.

00:04:54.420 | And the reason we know that is because right after saying,

00:04:58.780 | "Don't let your adorning be the braiding of hair and jewelry,"

00:05:03.180 | he says, "Don't let your adorning be

00:05:05.080 | "the clothing that you wear."

00:05:07.220 | That does not mean don't wear clothing.

00:05:09.660 | It means don't devote your main efforts

00:05:13.300 | and concerns to your clothing, but to inner beauty.

00:05:16.780 | So it doesn't mean no jewelry, no hairstyles either.

00:05:19.900 | Third thing we can say to this is the language of Paul

00:05:24.340 | in 1 Timothy 2, 9 and 10 about clothing

00:05:28.120 | is almost entirely about what is, quote, "fitting,"

00:05:33.060 | or, quote, "becoming," or, quote, "appropriate."

00:05:38.060 | (speaking in foreign language)

00:05:40.460 | Becoming attire.

00:05:42.500 | (speaking in foreign language)

00:05:44.020 | These are Greek phrases that I made sure I got right.

00:05:46.980 | With respect for convention or what's fitting.

00:05:51.900 | (speaking in foreign language)

00:05:55.460 | Not in costly attire, not lavish or gaudy.

00:06:00.980 | (speaking in foreign language)

00:06:04.900 | As is proper for women who profess godliness.

00:06:11.980 | Now, the implication of these guidelines seems to be

00:06:15.700 | within an ever-changing, highly corrupt culture,

00:06:20.700 | then and now, with fringe elements of grunge

00:06:25.500 | and gaudy and provocation,

00:06:28.340 | focus on what your clothing and adornment and makeup say

00:06:33.340 | about you as a person, not you as skin or you as shape.

00:06:40.340 | Paul calls this what is proper

00:06:45.580 | for women who profess godliness.

00:06:49.660 | So now, back to the question about the little girl

00:06:53.420 | who wants to paint her nails.

00:06:55.140 | Okay, that's where we started.

00:06:56.580 | Now we're back.

00:06:57.740 | This brings up the issue,

00:06:59.660 | and it's just such a relevant, hot issue,

00:07:02.340 | the issue of male and female sexuality and what they are.

00:07:07.340 | What's the difference between male and female?

00:07:12.140 | Which, 20 years ago, we might have felt like,

00:07:15.780 | we don't need to talk about that.

00:07:17.460 | Everybody knows what that is.

00:07:20.100 | Well, now, we need to be alert to the fact

00:07:23.740 | that our little girl should grow up

00:07:26.420 | with a happy, thoughtful awareness

00:07:30.380 | that God made her a girl and not a boy.

00:07:34.580 | And our son should grow up with a happy, thoughtful awareness

00:07:39.580 | that God made him a boy and not a girl.

00:07:44.460 | So I will unashamedly say we should be happy

00:07:50.580 | when our daughter, at two years old,

00:07:53.300 | wants to paint her nails.

00:07:54.700 | And our son does not want to paint his nails.

00:07:59.660 | And we should affirm her inclination

00:08:03.180 | toward this expression of femininity.

00:08:06.300 | And we should discourage our son's dabbling

00:08:10.620 | in this expression of femininity.

00:08:13.500 | And there are sensitive ways to do that.

00:08:15.900 | And I use the term expression of femininity

00:08:20.060 | because I'm fully aware that nail polish

00:08:23.340 | is a cultural expression, not an innate one.

00:08:28.220 | It's not in her genes that nail polish

00:08:30.940 | has to be on her fingernails.

00:08:32.700 | Girls aren't born with painted nails.

00:08:36.140 | But what is innate, God-given innate,

00:08:39.900 | is that healthy boys moving toward mature manhood

00:08:44.420 | are inclined by God, God-given nature,

00:08:48.780 | to embrace culturally appropriate expressions of manhood.

00:08:53.740 | And we should help them with this.

00:08:56.260 | And healthy girls moving toward mature womanhood

00:09:00.740 | are inclined by God-given nature

00:09:03.300 | to embrace culturally appropriate expressions of womanhood.

00:09:08.060 | And I believe Paul teaches that very thing

00:09:11.140 | in 1 Corinthians 11, five through 16.

00:09:14.940 | "Does not nature teach you?" he says.

00:09:17.980 | And Romans 1, where people are acting against nature.

00:09:22.860 | So I would be thankful

00:09:25.300 | that my daughter wants to paint her nails.

00:09:27.660 | And I would, along with my wife,

00:09:30.060 | train her up in how innocent

00:09:34.020 | and utterly insignificant nail polish is

00:09:38.500 | in her worth as a person and her influence in the world.

00:09:43.500 | We want her to have a worldview

00:09:47.380 | so that even if her fingers are all cut off

00:09:51.740 | in a machine accident,

00:09:54.100 | she would know she can be a beautiful,

00:09:57.260 | worthwhile, fruitful person

00:10:00.700 | as a believer in Jesus Christ

00:10:03.540 | and as the daughter of the King of the universe.

00:10:07.540 | So besides getting our priorities right

00:10:11.820 | and embracing the goodness of maleness and femaleness

00:10:15.460 | and dressing in ways that are becoming

00:10:18.540 | and fitting our devotion to Christ

00:10:21.900 | and dressing in ways that point to our personhood

00:10:25.340 | instead of our body

00:10:28.020 | and avoiding the arrogance

00:10:30.300 | that seeks to defy convention in shocking ways,

00:10:34.820 | besides all that,

00:10:36.620 | I would add a special concern here

00:10:40.080 | that we raise our daughters and sons

00:10:44.180 | not to be sexually provocative.

00:10:47.300 | Now that means exposing less skin, not more skin,

00:10:53.340 | and it means less tight-fitting leggings, shirts.

00:10:59.820 | And if a woman gets upset with me at this point and says,

00:11:04.540 | I don't need to calculate my clothing

00:11:07.260 | according to male sexual temptation,

00:11:09.340 | which is just such a common retort

00:11:11.380 | if you try to say anything about modesty these days,

00:11:15.140 | but my response to that retort is,

00:11:18.780 | well, that's true, that's true.

00:11:20.100 | You don't have to calculate your clothing that way.

00:11:24.300 | You don't.

00:11:25.120 | But I would ask you this question,

00:11:27.340 | which I think women understand

00:11:29.700 | who want to embrace feminine beauty and feminine godliness.

00:11:34.260 | Do you believe that beautiful attractiveness

00:11:39.980 | is increased by the amount of skin you expose?

00:11:44.980 | Here's my answer.

00:11:48.400 | The eyes that are drawn to more skin

00:11:53.000 | are not drawn to more skin because it's beautiful,

00:11:57.140 | but because it's more skin, period.

00:12:01.100 | More skin is not beauty.

00:12:04.260 | It's a magnet.

00:12:05.740 | Has nothing to do with beauty.

00:12:07.220 | It has everything to do with pure,

00:12:09.580 | physical, magnetizing skin.

00:12:12.900 | The real test of whether one is beautifully attractive

00:12:16.980 | is not how sexy she can be or he can be,

00:12:21.560 | because sex and beauty are not at all the same.

00:12:26.560 | And a godly woman knows this.

00:12:29.580 | She does not want to be a skin magnet.

00:12:33.420 | She wants to say with her clothing,

00:12:36.660 | I'm thankful I'm a woman.

00:12:38.860 | I love beautiful simplicity,

00:12:41.500 | and Christ is my greatest treasure.

00:12:44.920 | - A lifestyle that speaks and influences even without words.

00:12:47.980 | Thank you, Pastor John.

00:12:49.380 | And thank you for joining us today.

00:12:50.900 | You can ask a question of your own,

00:12:52.420 | search our growing archive,

00:12:53.360 | or subscribe to the podcast all at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn

00:12:58.360 | And speaking of a lifestyle that speaks and influences

00:13:01.780 | even without words, that's the theme next time

00:13:04.340 | as we look at the godly woman's charm.

00:13:07.820 | It's right here in 1 Peter 3,

00:13:09.540 | and we return to the chapter next time.

00:13:11.300 | I'm your host, Tony Renke.

00:13:12.540 | We'll see you back here on Wednesday.

00:13:15.040 | Thanks for listening.

00:13:16.100 | (upbeat music)

00:13:18.680 | (upbeat music)

00:13:21.260 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

How Much Jewelry Is Too Much Jewelry?

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