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Originally Posted by Trouvere
[SIZE="4"]I was reading Mark Yandris's thread this am on standards and wondering after being part of the apostolic movement for twenty plus years
some things that maybe some of you have thoughts about.
1.Is it a sin to be beautiful? Do we have to hide our women behind amish(sorry Bro.Hoover) and period costumes?
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There are several statements in this one.
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Is it a sin to be beautiful?
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Of course not. Who would think otherwise.
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Do we have to hide our women behind Amish & period costumes?
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What does adorning & modern dress have to do with beauty? When one is beautiful then one is... well... beautiful. The second part of the question is not asking about whether it is a sin to be beautiful. It is asking why it would be wrong to adorn oneself in modern fashion.
There are no clear cut answers here but I see that the word tells us that "Favour [is] deceitful, and beauty [is] vain: [but] a woman [that] feareth the LORD, she shall be praised. Give her of the fruit of her hands; and let her own works praise her in the gates."
The search for fulfillment in an outward beauty is fruitless and an end is never found to it's constant desires. The word tells us that God will give us the desires of our hearts. But who will let Him? Who will let him give us a new set of desires that can actually be fulfilled and which lead to a fulfilled life?
The word also says...
1Pe 3:1 Likewise, ye wives, [be] in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives;
1Pe 3:2 While they behold your chaste conversation [coupled] with fear.
1Pe 3:3 Whose adorning let it not be that outward [adorning] of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel;
1Pe 3:4 But [let it be] the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, [even the ornament] of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.
1Pe 3:5 For after this manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own husbands:
I don't believe that the purpose of these scriptures was to call it a sin to do this or that but to let us know that defining our "beauty" by our adornments is corruptible and will always leave you short of what one had hoped to feel while the adornment of that beautiful spirit that a woman of God exudes is incorruptible and in the sight of God (and man I believe) of great price.
Now... is this to say that shiny buttons & colors outside of black & white are wrong? Of course not. But the word offers us sage and wonderful instruction as to our priorities and our definitions of what beauty is that would go a long way in curing some of the ills of our society whose definition of beauty has the youngest of our lovely females involving themselves in the endless and fruitless journey of finally achieving "beauty" while beauty was inside them the whole time.
Men miss the wisdom & the beauty of Gods word when they take scriptures as I have stated above and use them to make hard & fast rules as to the wearing of this or that being wrong. But many people also miss the power of the word to finally bring happiness & peace into their lives when they believe what God said and walk in a way that is higher, wiser, more fulfilling and attainable rather than the way that appeals to our base human instincts, never fulfills and can never be attained for more than very short periods of time.
There are other questions that you posed but due to the length of my response to your first point I will defer for the moment.