Written by Amy K. Hall |
Friday, June 14, 2024
Love 2.0 now means acceptance and celebration, and if one of God’s moral laws seems to oppose acceptance and celebration, then obviously the second great commandment to love-2.0 your neighbor should trump that law. In other words, now love 2.0 trumps actual love. The sad truth is that anyone who rejects God’s moral commands in order to love has missed love altogether.

Ms Rachel, a YouTuber who posts learning videos for toddlers, made waves this week when she posted a video celebrating Pride Month on TikTok. After receiving some backlash, she explained her position this way:
My faith is really important to me, and it’s also one reason why I love every neighbor. In Matthew 22, a religious teacher asked Jesus, “What’s the most important commandment?” And Jesus says to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments. There’s no greater commandments than these. I believe it’s mentioned eight times: Love your neighbor.
So, yes, everyone belongs, everyone’s welcome, everyone is treated with empathy and respect. It doesn’t say, “Love every neighbor except….” There are so many reasons I stand strong in love. I stand with everyone. That’s who I am.
It’s not unusual for people to cite the second great commandment as if it trumps God’s other moral commands: “See? What God wants most is for us to love. That’s what’s most important, so that’s all we should worry about.” But this is simply a misreading of the text.
When Jesus said, “On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets,” he didn’t mean that love for God and neighbor should somehow trump the Law and the Prophets; he meant the Law and the Prophets exist for the very purpose of teaching us what love for God and neighbor looks like.
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There is a need for enterprising Christians to create clothing that is both biblically modest and elegant.  Christ is Lord of our lives and our wardrobes, so let us joyfully submit to that lordship.  We belong to Christ as His precious Bride, which our clothing should reflect.

For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.2 Corinthians 5:2-4, ESV
We recently examined our identity in Christ through the examples of Job’s wife, the woman who anointed Jesus, and the bride of Psalm 45 adorned with modest yet elegant clothing that reflects her status. Since she represents the Church, her modesty indicts the immodesty so prevalent in our churches. Under the influence of feminism, liberal mainline Protestant churches, most evangelical churches, and even some “Reformed” churches have become very effeminate and created idols in that effeminate image. They cater to womenand echo the culture’s glorification of women and subsequent demonization of men, quick to call out sins prevalent among men—like aggression and lust—but not sins more prevalent among women—like gossip, disrespect, quarreling, and dressing immodestly.  Men and women can commit all of these sins but are prone to some more than others, which is certainly true of immodesty.  This post will examine what Scripture—not culture—says about modesty so that we can all bring our wardrobes under the lordship of Christ.
My Body, My Choice?
As a single man, I approach this topic with the same trepidation as other topics primarily affecting women, like the roles of wives and submission in marriage.  Nevertheless, Scripture actually has much to say about modest apparel—more than most American churches do.  One reason churches don’t address it is that we have been so thoroughly infected by our culture that modesty elicits a visceral reaction.  People counter any attempt to place biblical boundaries on clothing by calling it legalistic and essentially saying with abortion supporters “my body, my choice”.  How can I make that parallel since abortion is about another person’s body whereas clothing is only about our own bodies?  Scripture clearly teaches that our bodies do not belong only to us.  In marriage, both spouses’ bodies belong to each other (1 Corinthians 7:3-4), but all of us belong to someone else: “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).  We emphasize our adoption as children of God—and rightly so, for it is glorious—but we often neglect the fact that Scripture also refers to us as slaves: “Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?” (Romans 6:16).  Every person is a slave to sin or of God.  As Christians, we were set free from slavery to sin in order to be not only children of God but also slaves of righteousness.  Jesus Christ is not only our Savior but also our Lord, so we are to do everything for His glory (Colossians 3:17), which includes what we wear.  Therefore, it is just as absurd to say “my body, my choice” with clothing as with abortion.
Biblical Theology of Clothing
Clothing is a central issue in Scripture.  Before the Fall, Adam and Eve did not require clothing (Genesis 2:25), but immediately afterward they were keenly aware of their need to cover themselves and their shame—and nakedness has been shameful ever since.  Thus clothing was mankind’s first invention (Genesis 3:7).  God judged their hastily-created clothing inadequate, so He made garments that adequately covered them at the cost of another creature’s life (Genesis 3:21).  Thus it is also shameful to be inadequately clothed, which is especially evident in the prophets who link even partial nakedness to judgment (eg. Isaiah 47:2).  Jesus Christ as the perfect sacrifice took on shame hanging naked on the cross just as Adam and Eve were naked and ashamed in the Garden.  The risen and reigning Christ is no longer naked but fully and elegantly clothed—and the Holy Spirit conforms us that image.  Thus we see the glorified saints in heaven fully clothed (Revelation 7:9.13-14), so we too will not be unclothed but further clothed in glory (2 Corinthians 5:2-4).  In our lives we must therefore not only put off sin but put on righteousness (Romans 13:12, Ephesians 4:22-23, Colossians 3:9- 10).  Christ has removed our sin and covered us with His righteousness, but that does not change the fact that we have sinned, meaning even in eternity we will require clothing.  Therefore, any desire to cover less skin is regressive and contrary to sanctification.  The necessity of clothing also makes it absurd for a Christian to use clothing pridefully to display wealth, status, or prestige.  A. W. Pink observed:
If we duly considered the proper and principal end of apparel, we should rather be humbled and abased when we put it on, than pleased with our gaudy attire. Clothing for the body is to cover the shame of nakedness that sin brought upon us….Raiment, then, is a covering of our shame, the ensign of our sin, and we have no better reason to be proud of our apparel than the criminal has of his handcuffs or the lunatic of his straitjacket; for as they are badges of wrongdoing or insanity, so apparel is but the badge of our sin.  Arthur W. Pink, “A Crying Sin of Our Age” in Free Grace Broadcaster Issue 216: Modest Apparel, Pensacola, FL: Chapel Library: 2010: 8.
Modesty Defined
Therefore, Scripture commands modest attire for all, but particularly women: “Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear—but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious” (1 Peter 3:3-4) and “likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness—with good works” (1 Timothy 2:9-10).  At this point, some will argue that these passages are prohibiting ostentatious displays of wealth and have nothing to do with how much of the body is covered.  But the historical context does not support that view:
This instructed Christian women not to imitate the outrageous dress and hairstyles that were commonplace among the Roman nobility…the unofficial uniform for Roman court women, a uniform that was distinctive and attention grabbing. At the same time, these Roman courtesans were notoriously immoral when it came to sexual matters. These women did not dress properly, modestly, and discreetly.Robert G. Spinney, “Thinking Like a Christian About Modest Apparel” excerpt from Dressed to Kill, Tulip Books: 2007 in Free Grace Broadcaster Issue 216: Modest Apparel, Pensacola, FL: Chapel Library: 2010: 3.
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Written by Craig A. Carter |
Friday, January 21, 2022
Christian Platonism shares with Neoplatonism a hierarchical understanding of reality, the idea of teleology, and belief in a spiritual realm of reality on which the visible, material world depends. Modern philosophical naturalism rejects all these things. It insists that all that exists is what we can discover using our five senses and that our minds are not capable of knowing intelligible reality such as universals. It should be clear that Platonism has at least some things in common with Christianity and that Naturalism is the common enemy of both.

Everyone approaches the interpretation of Scripture with metaphysical assumptions, some of which may be held consciously and critically and others of which may be unconsciously assumed. A materialist will not be likely to see the soul as immortal, but a person who believes in a spiritual realm of reality beyond the material cosmos may be more inclined to entertain the idea. A person who assumes mechanism may see naturalistic evolution as possible; one who rejects mechanism will look for teleology and Divine directedness.
Throughout the history of the church and even during the second temple period as the Jews encountered Hellenism, the writing and interpretation of Scripture has been influenced by Greek metaphysical ideas. Greek philosophical ideas are visible in the New Testament just as they are in other Jewish writings of that period. The idea that the Bible is hermetically sealed off from the surrounding cultural influences is not an idea that most interpreters of Scripture historically have taken all that seriously. This is not to say that biblical writers uncritically incorporated ancient Near Eastern mythological thinking or that they uncritically incorporated Greek metaphysics into their writings. There is no reason to suppose them to be uncritical. And it is not to say that Divine inspiration did not cause them to modify or reject certain extra-biblical ideas. In fact, it seems clear to me that because the Bible is inspired it does so. The Old and New Testaments alike engage in polemical refutation and correction of pagan mythological and metaphysical ideas in their cultural contexts (e.g. 1 Tim 1:4, 7; 2 Tim 4:4; Tit 1:14; 2 Pet 1:16). (n.b. I discuss the OT polemical correction of ANE mythology in Contemplating God with the Great Tradition, 116-21.)
The pro-Nicene fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries certainly were influenced by Greek metaphysical thinking. For example, Basil of Caesarea studied in Constantinople and Athens and Augustine was famously influenced by Neoplatonic writings, probably those of Plotinus, which helped him come to faith. He talks about this in Confessions, Book VII. By late antiquity, the Platonic tradition was the mainstream philosophical tradition, and it was over seven centuries old. Plato was as ancient to Augustine as Aquinas is to us today.
Neoplatonism
The form of Platonism that was predominant in Augustine’s day has been called, since the nineteenth century, Neoplatonism. This was a mixture of Plato, Aristotle, and Stoicism as taught by Plotinus (204-70) and his disciples.
Neoplatonism was the most potent and influential form of Platonism at that time, and it was both a philosophy and a mystical religion. But it was not a religion for the masses; it was definitely an elite phenomenon, unlike Christianity. In Augustine’s day, Christianity and Neoplatonism were rivals and it was not yet clear which would become most influential in the future development of Western civilization. As things turned out, Christianity won that contest, but Neoplatonism went underground only to re-surface periodically in history.
When we talk of Augustine’s Christian Platonism, it is important that we grasp the fact that he lays out what he accepts and what he rejects in Platonism in The City of God. There is one main point at which the special revelation of Scripture corrects Platonism and two more points where biblical revelation adds entirely new content of central importance to what the Platonists knew.
1. Creation ex Nihilo
This is a huge difference between Neoplatonism and Christian Platonism. For the Neoplatonists, the universe is eternal so far as we know. The One emanates being from itself and this is where the universe originates. Matter is less pure being. There is no hard and fast Creator-creature distinction; the being of the world differs from the being of the One only by degree.
For Christianity, however, God is the transcendent Creator who brings into existence all things visible and invisible. This means that the being of God is eternal, necessary and self-existent, while the being of the creation has a beginning, is contingent and is not self-existent. The Creator-creature distinction is a difference in kind of being, not in degree.
Moreover, in Christianity, the Bible presents creation as an act of God’s will. God did not have to create, nor did he create unconsciously. He does not create as a function of his own existence. But in Neoplatonism the One emanates being without making a specific decision to do so. It is therefore more accurate to see the One in Neoplatonism as part of the cosmos, or on the same plane of reality as the cosmos, rather than as transcendent.
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