Does The Bible Speak Against Nudity?

[farouk]

What people choose to wear to the beach or church or shopping or nights out is really only up to them. It is nobody else's business. We do not want or need policing on these matters. Personally I do not like men in suits unless for formal occasions - and that doesn't mean church.

@Pearl Nothing to do with real nudity, but you are blessed in the UK to be away from some of the more extreme culture of some strict Fundamentalist churches in North America.

Variously some ppl will claim:

*No pants on women
*No wine with meals
*Going to the hairdresser risks one's inclusion at the Rapture
*No bikinis
*No facial colouring
*No women going out to work

(Not all at the same time; but there are many, many extremes...)

 

[Ronald Nolette]

Or between doctor/nurse/midwife and patient. Or even in families who are open with their children.

Well disrobing before a doctor is not considered nudity in the biblical sense, for it is of a medical nature.

And I see no biblical warrant for families traipsing around in front of their children without clothes on.

What people choose to wear to the beach or church or shopping or nights out is really only up to them. It is nobody else's business. We do not want or need policing on these matters. Personally I do not like men in suits unless for formal occasions - and that doesn't mean church.

I agree we are not to be morality police! But when clothes are provocative ( how about wearing a bikini to church) we do need to address the situation. Not to condemn or harass but to exhort and edify!

Let us be real here. there are clothes that by their very nature are very provocative to wear. A well endowed woman wearing less cotton to the beach than what is in an aspirin bottle is going to tempt men! Women going braless with a near see through blouse is causing temptation to hang around to cause trouble. We as believers should ask, would I want my daughter wearing this in front of a group of men! If you have doubts then teh answer is no!

 

[Ronald Nolette]

@Pearl Nothing to do with real nudity, but you are blessed in the UK to be away from some of the more extreme culture of some strict Fundamentalist churches in North America.

Variously some ppl will claim:

*No pants on women
*No wine with meals
*Going to the hairdresser risks one's inclusion at the Rapture
*No bikinis
*No facial colouring
*No women going out to work

(Not all at the same time; but there are many, many extremes...)

Yes and all those are based on gross misinterpretations of Scripture! But wearing skimpy clothes that leaves little to the imagination is not misinterpreting Scripture, but is a clear temptation.

 

[farouk]

Well disrobing before a doctor is not considered nudity in the biblical sense, for it is of a medical nature.

And I see no biblical warrant for families traipsing around in front of their children without clothes on.



I agree we are not to be morality police! But when clothes are provocative ( how about wearing a bikini to church) we do need to address the situation. Not to condemn or harass but to exhort and edify!

Let us be real here. there are clothes that by their very nature are very provocative to wear. A well endowed woman wearing less cotton to the beach than what is in an aspirin bottle is going to tempt men! Women going braless with a near see through blouse is causing temptation to hang around to cause trouble. We as believers should ask, would I want my daughter wearing this in front of a group of men! If you have doubts then teh answer is no!

@Ronald Nolette Well, I take your point, yes.

Really it's about context.

Context, yes

Legalism, no

 

[Pearl]

( how about wearing a bikini to church)

Now that is just a completely ridiculous scenario. The older women in a church are supposed to teach the younger ones by example. But I have discovered - not in my own church but on this forum - that some fold are very picky about what they think is correct dress for church and they would be appalled by the dress code in my church. Bu I love the freedom of not feeling I have to dress a certain way or wear a hat or my husband a suit and tie. Everybody is decent but mostly informal. We should not need to put on a fashion parade to go to church. If we do it precludes those who can't afford good clothes and to me that is not right. I'm pretty sure somebody will disagree with me. But hey . . .

 

[TLHKAJ]

Well, sometimes all the young women in church probably are wearing ubiquitous skinny jeans, but I really wouldn't classify them as nudity: a big leap of logic, I reckon, imho....

There's only one reason for wearing skinny jeans and that's to be seen. Women aren't stupid. They know men like to see curves. Motives, man.....

 

[TLHKAJ]

Well, I don't think it would be profitable for some guy in church to start rating my wife's pairs of jeans as to 1) whether they are skinny or not; 2) whether she should wear them in some places but not others; 3) whether she should take some or all of them to the Salvation Army....

(I was just commenting on the jeans part in my last post...)

As her husband, it's your role to protect her, and nourish her. If she feels confident in your love and desire for her, she won't feel a need to be looked and gain approval from other people. Hopefully, you speak to her and build her up in your love, and in God's love ...and she can feel confident that you're looking out for her and protecting her.

 

[Scott Downey]

Public nakedness may be associated with demonic activity
Not saying absolutely always the case, such as for the poor like here
The situation shows the evidence for the cause of the nakedness.
And for the poor and destitute, Satan steals, kills, destroys, so again demonic activity could be the cause of nakedness and being destitute..

James 2:15-16
New King James Version
15 If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit?


Mark 5
New King James Version

A Demon-Possessed Man Healed
5 Then they came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gadarenes. 2 And when He had come out of the boat, immediately there met Him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, 3 who had his dwelling among the tombs; and no one could bind him, not even with chains, 4 because he had often been bound with shackles and chains. And the chains had been pulled apart by him, and the shackles broken in pieces; neither could anyone tame him. 5 And always, night and day, he was in the mountains and in the tombs, crying out and cutting himself with stones.

6 When he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and worshiped Him. 7 And he cried out with a loud voice and said, “What have I to do with You, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I implore You by God that You do not torment me.”

8 For He said to him, “Come out of the man, unclean spirit!” 9 Then He asked him, “What is your name?”

And he answered, saying, “My name is Legion; for we are many.” 10 Also he begged Him earnestly that He would not send them out of the country.

11 Now a large herd of swine was feeding there near the mountains. 12 So all the demons begged Him, saying, “Send us to the swine, that we may enter them.” 13 And at once Jesus gave them permission. Then the unclean spirits went out and entered the swine (there were about two thousand); and the herd ran violently down the steep place into the sea, and drowned in the sea.

14 So those who fed the swine fled, and they told it in the city and in the country. And they went out to see what it was that had happened. 15 Then they came to Jesus, and saw the one who had been demon-possessed and had the legion, sitting and clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid. 16 And those who saw it told them how it happened to him who had been demon-possessed, and about the swine. 17 Then they began to plead with Him to depart from their region.

18 And when He got into the boat, he who had been demon-possessed begged Him that he might be with Him. 19 However, Jesus did not permit him, but said to him, “Go home to your friends, and tell them what great things the Lord has done for you, and how He has had compassion on you.” 20 And he departed and began to proclaim in Decapolis all that Jesus had done for him; and all marveled.

 

[Scott Downey]

In Eden when mankind fell into sin, they knew they were naked, and well they were and had always been so.
God immediately sacrifices an animal to make a covering, effective clothes for them, versus their worthless efforts using fig leaves.

This demonstrates a foreshadowing of Christ covering up our nakedness before God after we have sinned.
Man cannot cover the sin of his nakedness before God, but Christ does.
This is a spiritual concept there. Our nakedness implies helplessness to improve our situation, we are exposed to the created things of the age and in danger of injury and death. You can add in a laughingstock for the demons too and they will abuse and expose you.
Acts 19:16
Then the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, overpowered them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.

 

[CadyandZoe]

What people choose to wear to the beach or church or shopping or nights out is really only up to them. It is nobody else's business. We do not want or need policing on these matters. Personally I do not like men in suits unless for formal occasions - and that doesn't mean church.

Christians should police themselves, I think. What I mean is this. When I was a teenager, I came to grips with my body's reaction to the female form. Even today, after all these many years, I become aroused by the female form.

Not only that, but I came to grips with the fact that my body's reaction was normal. God designed the male body to become aroused by the female form. I learned that arousal itself wasn't a sin; what we do with that arousal might be. As the Lord said to Cain, sin is crouching at the door.

As a maturing teenage Christian, I realized that I needed to take responsibility for my own feelings and my own body. How a woman dresses is her business, how I feel about it is mine.

Now, I can't speak for my Christian sisters, but I always assumed that they were aware of my body's reaction to their beauty and my struggles against lust and impurity. And as maturing Christian women, they might voluntarily down-play their beauty in public in order to alleviate some of the burden we, Christian brothers carry. Modesty is, more or less, a way that Christian sisters can help carry the load their Christian brothers carry. Galatians 6:2

I think modesty should be a voluntary act of kindness on the part of Christian sisters. Amen?

 

[Scott Downey]

Christians should police themselves, I think. What I mean is this. When I was a teenager, I came to grips with my body's reaction to the female form. Even today, after all these many years, I become aroused by the female form.

Not only that, but I came to grips with the fact that my body's reaction was normal. God designed the male body to become aroused by the female form. I learned that arousal itself wasn't a sin; what we do with that arousal might be. As the Lord said to Cain, sin is crouching at the door.

As a maturing teenage Christian, I realized that I needed to take responsibility for my own feelings and my own body. How a woman dresses is her business, how I feel about it is mine.

Now, I can't speak for my Christian sisters, but I always assumed that they were aware of my body's reaction to their beauty and my struggles against lust and impurity. And as maturing Christian women, they might voluntarily down-play their beauty in public in order to alleviate some of the burden we, Christian brothers carry. Modesty is, more or less, a way that Christian sisters can help carry the load their Christian brothers carry. Galatians 6:2

I think modesty should be a voluntary act of kindness on the part of Christian sisters. Amen?

Seems to me your arousing reaction is actually a form of lust.
And just further proof that all have sinned, and that only in Christ we have a great salvation from the lusts of the world.
Do you not think the natural is also possibly evil?
Do you think Jesus in a natural body also had such an natural reaction viewing a pretty girl in a somewhat naked condition?
He did not.
We are to be like Christ.
We are not to be conformed to the moral standards of the world, which is evil, fleshly and demonic.

What the body reacts to by having an erection is a lust for sexual intercourse, the lust of the flesh.

Quite a few scriptures teach us about lusts

1 John 2:16
For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world.

 

[Scott Downey]

1. Matthew 5:28
   But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
   
2. Romans 1:24
   Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves,
   
3. Romans 1:27
   Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.
   
4. Romans 6:12
   Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts.
   
5. Romans 13:13
   Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy.
   
6. Romans 13:14
   But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.
   
7. 1 Corinthians 10:6
   Now these things became our examples, to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted.
   
8. Galatians 5:16
   Walking in the Spirit
   I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.
   
9. Galatians 5:17
   For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish.
   
10. Ephesians 2:3
    among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.
    
11. Ephesians 4:22
    that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts,
    
12. 1 Thessalonians 4:5
    3 For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; 4 that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, 5 not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God;
    
13. 1 Timothy 6:9
    But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition.
    
14. 2 Timothy 2:22
    Flee also youthful lusts; but pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.
    
15. 2 Timothy 3:6
    For of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts,
    
16. Titus 2:12
    teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age,
    
17. Titus 3:3
    For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another.
    
18. James 4:2
    You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask.
    
19. 1 Peter 1:14
    as obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the former lusts, as in your ignorance;
    
20. 1 Peter 2:11
    Beloved, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul,
    
21. that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God.
    
22. 1 Peter 4:3
    For we have spent enough of our past lifetime in doing the will of the Gentiles—when we walked in lewdness, lusts, drunkenness, revelries, drinking parties, and abominable idolatries.
    
23. 2 Peter 1:4
    by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
    
24. 2 Peter 2:10
    and especially those who walk according to the flesh in the lust of uncleanness and despise authority. They are presumptuous, self-willed. They are not afraid to speak evil of dignitaries,
    

 

[Scott Downey]

The natural man is not spiritual man, the natural man is the old man of the flesh, not the new man of the Spirit.
The natural man does not receive, and can not know the things of God, of course because he is not a spiritual man, born of God, how could he.

The natural, old man still exists as it is a part of the natural body, but people as new creations in Christ are alive in the Spirit as they are no longer just the old man of the flesh. The body is dead becuase of Sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness, read Romans 8

All the verse in NKJV with natural in them. Natural is associated with concepts like wild, ordinary, earthly, unspiritual, common, definitely not supernatural.

1. Romans 1:26
   For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature.
   In Context | Full Chapter | Other Translations
2. Romans 1:27
   Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.
   In Context | Full Chapter | Other Translations
3. Romans 11:21
   For if God did not spare the natural branches, He may not spare you either.
   In Context | Full Chapter | Other Translations
4. Romans 11:24
   For if you were cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, who are natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?
   In Context | Full Chapter | Other Translations
5. 1 Corinthians 2:14
   But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
   In Context | Full Chapter | Other Translations
6. 1 Corinthians 15:44
   It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.
   In Context | Full Chapter | Other Translations
7. 1 Corinthians 15:46
   However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, and afterward the spiritual.
   In Context | Full Chapter | Other Translations
8. James 1:23
   For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror;
   In Context | Full Chapter | Other Translations
9. 2 Peter 2:12
   But these, like natural brute beasts made to be caught and destroyed, speak evil of the things they do not understand, and will utterly perish in their own corruption,
   In Context | Full Chapter | Other Translations
10. Jude 1:10
    But these speak evil of whatever they do not know; and whatever they know naturally, like brute beasts, in these things they corrupt themselves.
    In Context | Full Chapter | Other Translations

 

[Lambano]

As a maturing teenage Christian, I realized that I needed to take responsibility for my own feelings and my own body. How a woman dresses is her business, how I feel about it is mine.

I agree with you here. I don't want to turn my problem into the woman's problem.

 

[Scott Downey]

I agree with you here. I don't want to turn my problem into the woman's problem.

Of course you can not expect the world, whose mind is of the carnal nature to conform to Christianity as they are opposed to each other.

Genesis 3:15
And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel.”

Romans 8:6-8 New King James Version
6 For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. 7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. 8 So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

9 But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. 10 And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

 

[Lambano]

Out behind the building where I worked when I was in college, there used to be a nude swimming hole, until the city decide to crack down on it. It was very rare to see a woman out there in the lake; they know men are there to ogle them. The indelible memory I have of that place is an old, white-bearded fat man with a fishing pole standing there in the middle of the lake wearing nothing but a pair of fishing waders.

 

[Pearl]

Christians should police themselves, I think. What I mean is this. When I was a teenager, I came to grips with my body's reaction to the female form. Even today, after all these many years, I become aroused by the female form.

Not only that, but I came to grips with the fact that my body's reaction was normal. God designed the male body to become aroused by the female form. I learned that arousal itself wasn't a sin; what we do with that arousal might be. As the Lord said to Cain, sin is crouching at the door.

As a maturing teenage Christian, I realized that I needed to take responsibility for my own feelings and my own body. How a woman dresses is her business, how I feel about it is mine.

Now, I can't speak for my Christian sisters, but I always assumed that they were aware of my body's reaction to their beauty and my struggles against lust and impurity. And as maturing Christian women, they might voluntarily down-play their beauty in public in order to alleviate some of the burden we, Christian brothers carry. Modesty is, more or less, a way that Christian sisters can help carry the load their Christian brothers carry. Galatians 6:2

I think modesty should be a voluntary act of kindness on the part of Christian sisters. Amen?

TMI

 

[CadyandZoe]

Seems to me your arousing reaction is actually a form of lust.
And just further proof that all have sinned, and that only in Christ we have a great salvation from the lusts of the world.
Do you not think the natural is also possibly evil?
Do you think Jesus in a natural body also had such an natural reaction viewing a pretty girl in a somewhat naked condition?
He did not.
We are to be like Christ.
We are not to be conformed to the moral standards of the world, which is evil, fleshly and demonic.

What the body reacts to by having an erection is a lust for sexual intercourse, the lust of the flesh.

Quite a few scriptures teach us about lusts

1 John 2:16
For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world.

No, I don't think the natural is evil. This is what the Gnostics believed, but I don't think they got that idea from the Bible. God endowed our bodies with natural desires. But lust isn't a bodily function; lust is a mental faculty that allows us to heighten our pleasure through imagination, which is another God-given faculty. Lust is sinful; desire is not.

My point earlier was to take responsibility for my own feelings to avoid blaming the woman for them. Sure, if the woman didn't wear skin tight pants in public, I wouldn't get aroused, but how I deal with my arousal isn't her problem it's mine.

Some Christian men suffer from deflection or projection, using the emotion of outrage to mask or coverup the guilt.

 

[Scott Downey]

No, I don't think the natural is evil. This is what the Gnostics believed, but I don't think they got that idea from the Bible. God endowed our bodies with natural desires. But lust isn't a bodily function; lust is a mental faculty that allows us to heighten our pleasure through imagination, which is another God-given faculty. Lust is sinful; desire is not.

My point earlier was to take responsibility for my own feelings to avoid blaming the woman for them. Sure, if the woman didn't wear skin tight pants in public, I wouldn't get aroused, but how I deal with my arousal isn't her problem it's mine.

Some Christian men suffer from deflection or projection, using the emotion of outrage to mask or coverup the guilt.

I understand your point, but the scriptures are clear and in the last days, people reject scripture as authoritative.
The Sinfulness of Man's Natural State

 

[farouk]

TMI

@Pearl The subject seems anyway to have shifted in any case from the OP to what clothing styles ppl prefer others not to wear, etc.