# Women and Iron Sharpening Iron



## sotzo (May 14, 2007)

This post is in no way meant at some kind of finger pointing one gender over another...my concern is biblical balance so please correct me where my own fulcrum is off-center. 

Women can be quite scornful and judgmental of one another. Especially in middle / upper class congregations where weatlh abounds, women look at each other's rings, dresses, houses and cars with the same heated lust that some men stumble into over p0rnography. Yet, rarely (if ever) have I heared women in the church challenge each other to avoid being concerned with upping the house size or buying the custom kids' clothes, etc. 

Weight/physique is another issue. One woman sees another in worship with an exposed back dress who has a tan and a trim waistine and is jealous...another sees a heavier set women and rejoices she doesn't have that figure. 

I bring this up because: 1) I know of women who feel they are on the "catwalk" when they get to worship and spend Sabbath preparation worried about what the children will wear, will it match, my hair needs color, etc. and 2) husbands, especailly younger Christian husbands, are not as bold to fight this and so, opting for the easy what out, permit more of the household spending to go to more stuff.

Am I making too much of this? Beyond the obvious need for modesty in worship and living in community, is there a need for women to take more seriously simple living?

By the way, this is not to say men don't covet...obviously they do. However, I do believe women take some things more personally, that is, it really effects their view of their status before God...especially when they feel like they are in competition with each other.


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## Puritanhead (May 14, 2007)

sotzo said:


> husbands, especailly younger Christian husbands, are not as bold to fight this and so, opting for the easy what out, permit more of the household spending to go to more stuff.


 The Lord giveth, and women taketh away.


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## LadyFlynt (May 14, 2007)

On the house and jewels and garb...that's where each house needs to set standards so they don't fall into that trap. On tan lines...personally they shouldn't be showing. On the overweight issue, it doesn't help that it is going around the churches the "responsible" ppl watch their weight. This takes into consideration no one's special issues that prevent them from doing such (health problems or meds that cause weight gain.

Yes, women should be exhorted in this area. Why I find an inner city churches or live in an area where ppl stash their money into the bank or land and live realistically preferable.


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## puritan628 (May 14, 2007)

*Caring about not caring?*

I have struggled with this issue, but not because I have competed with others; quite the contrary: I have never cared about those appearance-things. But that's where it has "gotten me." I have worried that there was something wrong with me or that someone was going to think I was "trash" simply because I was "plain." I've always gone with whatever makes me comfortable.

Now I am aware that comfort and appropriate are not always the same things. I have to dress up a bit more when I attend a special meeting or a special event. But to me that's even more reason why I feel like I should be comfortable in God's house. It should not be a once-a-week special time that we dress up. We should be as comfortable walking into God's house as we are walking into our brother's, sister's, best friend's, parent's house.

Just my .


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## Augusta (May 14, 2007)

Any woman doing those types of things should be admonished by her husband or elders to read and emulate 1 Timothy 2:9-10. I believe, and maybe someone who knows the greek can correct me, that "modest" here denotes simple or plain and not modest in the sense of not skimpy. Especially in light of the second half of the sentence. 

9 In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in *modest apparel*, with shamefacedness and sobriety; *not *with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array; 

10 But (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works.

This is totally overlooked today even in churches. I think someone dressed in something inappropriate at church should be admonished. I would be interested in what people think now a days about that passage of scripture. It is very neglected instruction in our day and age. If women obeyed this passage there would be a lot less of that type of nonsense. I say all this as someone who has had to change my own ways in this regard.


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