An Examination of the debate on dress standards

Deuteronomy 22:5 "The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the LORD thy God." The issue of dress standards has been contentious at times, with extreme positions taken by many on both sides. It is undeniable that the acceptable standard for men's and women's clothing has changed over the years. Now many would ask or even demand that we give up this debate, but I cannot do so. The Scripture is clear that there must be a distinction between men's and women's attire. Some will argue that the law has passed, yet some parts will never pass. When the scripture declares something to be an abomination unto God, it is declaring it to be against the very nature of God. Since God never changes, those things declared an abomination to Himwill always be an abomination to Him. Some will argue that at the time the Law was given men and women both wore robes, yet that was not completely the case. In Leviticus 16:4 we see the High Priest commanded to wear linen britches on the Day of Atonement. In fact, all Jewish men wore britches, or shorts underneath their robes. We get many of our ideas for how people dressed by looking at Egyptian and Greek archeology. Yet both of these cultures rejected the Lord and His laws, often to extremes. It is not wise to turn to ungodly cultures to see how godly people behaved. Some will often then advance the argument that a woman cannot be modest doing all activities in a dress. To this I will agree. However, I will state this, there needs to be a clear distinction in men's attire and women's attire. Some will state that in I Timothy 2:9 the phrase "modest apparel" should be translated "robe type garment." To this I will reply that a careful word study of the phrase used in this passage reveals that it is used in the sense of a generic garment. However, this passage gives us another important principle to follow, that clothing should not only be distinct, yet also modest. Unfortunately, most styles of women's attire today either are immodestly tight, or are to similar to men's attire. Good men may often disagree on the application of these principles, yet at the same time, they must acknowledge that to teach dress standards for men or women as doctrine is not wrong. Doctrine simply means teachings. The Bible has many things that we consider doctrine. As for me, I will continue to hold to my position that women's atttire needs to be modest, and distinct from men's attire.