Woman: Why yes, I am child of God and I wear shorts, but I didn’t know that there was anything wrong with wearing them when it was so hot.
Bible: “Through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart: Who being past feeling have given themselves over to lasciviousness” (Eph. 4:18,19).
Woman: What is “lasciviousness?”
Dictionary: “Tending to produce sensual desires.”
Woman: But in what way does my wearing shorts produce lust?
Bible: “The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world” (I John 2:16).
Woman: But what if my thoughts are perfectly innocent?
Bible: “Everyone that looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery already with her in his heart” (Matt. 5:27). “It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor any thing whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak” (Rom. 14:21).
Woman: Well, what should I wear on these hot days?
Bible: “In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety” (I Tim. 2:9).
Woman: What does “modest” mean?
Dictionary: “Restrained by a sense of propriety or humility; characterized by reserve, propriety or purity.”
Woman: But this isn’t the season to wear modest apparel.
Bible: “Be instant in season, out of season” (II Tim. 4:2).
Woman: Maybe you are right, but I can’t stand to be told I am wrong.
Bible: “Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?” (Gal. 4:16).
David Roper, from West Side Bulletin July 1983
