And welcome to the Generation Segment, What Does the Bible Say About That? Josh, it's a brand new segment we introduced, and folks, Joshua Hueso joins us. on this edition, and Josh Osriso is Director for our Publications Ministry as part of the Generations team. And Josh, it's been great working with you all these years. Yes, it's a joy. Iron on iron, growing together, edifying each other. And one of the things I appreciate about you, Josh, is that you are in the Word of God, you know the Word. It's been good when I have a question, when we get a chance to talk about difficult issues, we can work that word together. Amen. That's a great resource. God has given us much wisdom. Yes, yes, yes. And the segment, What Does the Bible Say About That? is basically, I see the fundamental of a biblical worldview. Do you got a biblical worldview? Well, you're going to ask the question, what does the Bible say about that? Somebody asked, well, let's talk about divorce. Let's talk about you know, having children, let's talk about birth control, let's talk about this or that. And the first question that comes to the mind if somebody has a biblical worldview is what? What does the Bible say about that? Does the Bible say about that? Exactly. Not what does Kevin say about that, not what does Josh say about that. But what does the Bible say? What does God say? And what does that mean? That means that our authority is really based in God's Word. God holds authority, truth authority for us. And we're going to check out His Word first. That's right, and the Bible speaks to all areas of life in some way or another. It's just a matter of us seeking out that wisdom. Exactly. Well, we've issued this question to the entire listening audience of the Generations ministry, and anybody out there, please just email us at host at generation.org or mail at generations.org, either way, and ask the question, what does the Bible say about that? And so we've already received a number of questions, and we're going to hit a few more on this edition, Josh. First one, what can I do besides praying for my husband daily to motivate him to be more involved with the Word of God and ministering to our family? Great question. And by the way, we get this everywhere. I think I was speaking at a small little homeschool conference in Uganda, Kampala, Uganda. And you have the Q&A session afterwards. And, you know, a Ugandan stood up, a young lady, I'm not sure if she was, you know, with her, with her husband or not, but she asked a question similar to this. So I think folks all around the world are always asking this question. Of course, the Word of God gives us an immediate answer to this. 1 Peter 3, verse 1, and I think we should start here. Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the Word... Well, there it is. They're not obeying the Word, so what do you do? You don't stress out, you don't nag him. What do you do? Well, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives. When they see your respectful and pure conduct, do not let your adorning be external, the braiding of hair, 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 is God's sight is very precious. So let's say from the outset that here's what God says, is that for some reason the most powerful means by which a woman will win her husband is given here, is this strategy. Apparently it's the quietness, it's the hidden person of the heart, it's the gentle and quiet spirit, in God's sight very precious. So that's the first thing. Now not to say that they don't pray for their husband, absolutely. As this sister put it, she says yes, pray daily, yes. But is there anything else to do? Now I would say also that you want to be on the same page with your husband as much as possible. That's right. And so one of the things that I think every wife should do is talk to basic objective goals, values that they have within their own household. You know, as in, what do we want our children to become when they grow up? Where do we want them to go? We obviously have struggles with, you know, Junior, he's kind of disobedient. He's unkind to his sister. He tends to be dishonest. He's lazy. You know, we have these issues and we have issues with everybody, obviously. So, husband, what do you think? What's the goal here? Where do we want to go with this? Not to get angry, not to get upset about this, but what are our goals and objectives? Obviously to know Jesus, to grow up in some of these areas, but I think just having conversation in terms of basic values is good. Again, not to nag. Not to say, what's wrong with you? What's wrong with me? You know, we wound up with a son or a daughter that has these issues. Obviously, we're all having issues here. But how do we raise these children to the end that we achieve the objectives we would like to see? Well, and Kevin, I think that's a good context where a woman who is a woman of the Word can share verses with her husband and say, you know, I think these are important. God has given us these priorities. We have Deuteronomy 6, and both the husband and the wife have a role in discipling those children, right, throughout the day. And so she can say, here's the ways I want to grow in this, and would you consider this? There can be that kind of humble, godly appeal that a wife can bring. And then she leaves it with the Lord, leaves it with Him to consider. But that's a great way to frame the discussion rather than a frustrating and nagging kind of situation. How do you distinguish between you know, proper appeals and sort of this nagging, dripping spirit thing that the Proverbs speak of, because I know every godly sister wants to avoid that. Right. So how do we, how do you distinguish that? Yeah. Well, I guess maybe the first thing that comes to mind would be the impatience of constantly bringing it up. So it's one thing if you say to your husband, here's Deuteronomy 6, 7, here's Ephesians 6, 4, these are God's priorities. And I want us to grow as a family in these things. Well, do you, do you bring it up every week? Do you keep pressing? Do you constantly chide about the ways that he's not doing that? Um, there's going to be a frequency component too, as well as an attitude component. in honor issue. So heart check, attitude check. Right, those are a few things that come to mind. Maybe there's others that you could think of as well. Right, right. And to always, always, always consider ourselves before we consider others. You know, you can be really irritated by everybody else in the family, everybody else in the church. Now wait a minute, what about me? So spending just a little bit more time confessing our own sins and really bringing that before the Lord is essential. Okay, well those are just some things that we address concerning this question. We have an actually bigger question coming up next on legalism, modesty. These are big questions. Next on Generation, so stay with us. Hello, my friends. For the last 15 years, the Generations team has produced a Christian curriculum specifically for families who want to give their children a God-centered, Bible-saturated, Biblical worldview-based education. Our commitment is to restore the Christian faith, generational faith in an age where we are losing faith in this country and almost anywhere around the world, where Christian children attend secular schools or use secular curriculum and imbibe secular culture. Now, we're not relying on the pre-Christian Greeks for an educational model here. We're not relying on the post-Christian secularists for the education model either. Our curriculum is based in a biblical worldview. We put hundreds of Bible verses in the history books and integrate the truths into the subjects. We want to glorify God on every page of the science books. We immediately integrate knowledge into life application and natural revelation with special revelation. We keep Christ at the very center of the history books. with preparing the world for Jesus and taking the world for Jesus. I believe God is calling this generation in this highly secularized age to a radical change in how they disciple their children. Please check out our program for education of your children and grandchildren at www.generations.org. And friends, we're back on Generations and asking the question, what does the Bible say about that? Really submitting ourselves to the wisdom of God's Word here. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, Josh, for the edification of God's people. To equip us for every good work. That's right. It doesn't matter what kind of good work it is. And that all Scripture appeal applies to both the Old and New Testaments. So something to remember. In fact, I think Paul is referring to the Old Testament. Yeah, predominantly, because he's saying, Timothy, you knew these scriptures from your childhood. So it must have been the Old Testament. Yes, absolutely. So even the Old Testament is given to us in order to equip the man and woman of God of every good work. So here's the next question. Very thoughtful. I really appreciate the way that this person put this together. I don't have a name here, but here's what they said. It seems to be a common notion that any sort of clothing standards, beyond covering private parts, is legalistic because the Bible supposedly isn't specific. Are we Christians to be satisfied with thinking that as long as we're more conservative than the declining culture, then we're just fine? Is being bothered about clothing choices in the church always a symptom of a weak conscience and personal sin issues? What is the heart of God from Genesis to Revelation? What are the underlying issues that inform clothing and other lifestyle choices? And how do we embrace godliness without legalism, the ultimate shut-up line in the church? Huge topic, but seems to be need regular revisiting. Thanks an absolutely huge topic Yes, we need to be talking about these sorts of things because they bring up not just the clothing issue, but every issue Yes, I mean really it's it comes down to well external internal Which do we look to and there are always two sets of ditches we talk about this Josh a fair amount If you can only see one ditch, you're probably in the other probably in the other So if it's always, you know, legalism, legalism, legalism, you're probably in the antinomian niche. But if it's always antinomianism, antinomianism, antinomianism, you're probably sitting over there in the legalism niche. So there is the antinomianism, legalism, there's the hard hands, the external-internal. So which are we concerned with? I would argue we're concerned with both of these things. I think we ought to focus in upon the eternal, upon the heart. That's what matters. But we're not completely ignoring the external. I don't think anybody completely ignores the external. Josh, if you think about it, your two-year-old is running around without his pants on. you're probably going to say, that's an issue we need to get our pants on. If something's just not right, your child's got mud all over his face, we're about ready to eat dinner, you're probably thinking to yourself, better clean up his face before we Have some dinner here. You know, we pay attention to externals, but we're most concerned, yes, we are most concerned with internal. Because that's where it's, internal is going to be where everything else flows from. It flows out of your heart. Because out of the heart these things come, but then there is going to be external applications. Exactly, exactly. So briefly, I know I threw the words out, antinomianism and legalism, and they mentioned legalism here. We need to define legalism and I think people don't define it. Sometimes they think anytime you talk about anything relating to the law of God, the Ten Commandments, being kind to your sister, etc. etc. Man, you're just being legalistic here. Why are you talking about rules and law and legalistic things that God wrote in his word? Now, that is a sloppy way to define legalism. Legalism can be defined different ways. As you know, it can be defined as justification by works versus faith. That's legalism. But it can also be defined as displacing God's laws with your own set of rules. That's right. And Matthew, yeah, Jesus brings that up in Matthew 15, that they were displacing the commands of God with the traditions of men. And the irony is that in thinking that they were obeying God most fastidiously, they were disobeying him at the end of the whole thing. So legalists end up being antinomians in the sense that they displace God's law, they make their law fundamental. In that case, they were very fastidious about washing hands before eating. Which, by the way, we require that of our children from time to time. Yeah, it's a good practice, isn't it? Yeah. But you've got to be careful with it. And not as fundamental as honoring your father and mother, which is what they were displacing, right? Exactly. And ironically enough, the reason why you want to exhort your child to wash his hands before he does each dinner is because they're supposed to obey mommy and daddy. That's right. That's the fundamental thing. Not so much the sixth commandment as much as the fifth commandment. if they have less germs. It might save their life, especially if they've been messing around in the mud. But at the same time, Jesus said the bigger issue is the fifth commandment because that's what God said. God didn't have this long list of rules relating to washing your hands before eating, although we like to see our two and three year olds doing that. God is most concerned with his own commandments, which are summarized in the 10 commandments. All right. So that's the first issue, is we have to be sure that we're not giving way to displacing God's laws with the commandments of men, which is so easy for us to do. We have to be cautious with that. For example, somebody asked me this week, do you believe that people do not homeschool their children, they're in sin? And my answer was, no, I don't believe that. Because there's nothing that says in scripture, no delegation, and you've absolutely got to be sitting at the kitchen table doing your math. There's nothing in scripture that tells us that. There are principles in scripture in which I believe we're to integrate the word of God into every part of our children's lives. Deuteronomy 6, 7, the beginning of wisdom and knowledge of the fear of God, et cetera. Those are the principles. that need to be incorporated. Now, I give the example sometimes of families that went across the whole United States from Maine to Alaska on bicycles. Took them a whole year. Now, you can imagine a sort of legalistic, you know, horn rim glasses type, you know, homeschool leader saying, now, wait a minute, you, you weren't homeschooling. You were a bike schooling, right? Nomad for a year, no math. You weren't sitting at a kitchen table. You weren't in a home. You were on bikes for a year, right? You know, you're in sin, sin, sin. Well, now somebody responds that way. they have replaced God's Word, the principles of God's Word, with their own application, their particular application of God's Word. So we have to be cautious with this. And the real question then with the bike example is, did they raise their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord while they were on the bikes? Because then they would have obeyed God's commands. Were they singing How Great Thou Art while they were cruising up the Rocky Mountains or whatever? That's the issue, right? It's possible they could have obeyed those commands. Right, exactly. So there's also, let me just tie in a few things, and Josh you can step in at any point here, because she asked mainly about clothing. Now I get it that there's a legitimate mistrust of the world. The world doesn't bat a thousand. Yes, that's clear. That's clear. Yeah. Okay. And we have an incipient mistrust of the world, but we have to be careful that we don't throw away our toothbrushes and everything else the world produces. So you have to be caught in clothing and so forth. So we have to be cautious with that. There's also a jurisdictional element in application. That's important. That is families make their own choices. And so as the church, we have to be cautious. With this issue, people make their choices and they're going to be somewhat individualistic to individual households. And so there's that element. Nevertheless, the communion of the saints does require a degree of agreement on principle. So we want to come back to principle. What does the Bible say about that? And the Bible does give us principles on this. The Bible says in 1 Peter 3, I think we just read this, do not let your adorning be external, the braiding of hair, the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear. This is the ESV version, I thought it was pretty accurate the way they put it. Let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit. Also 1 Timothy 2 verse 9, basically says the same thing, likewise, that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair, gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness with good works. All right, there's a lot there. Now, what I would like to do is simply say, here you go. Take it home, memorize it, think it through. And here's one other thing I usually say is, as you consider these things, don't run down to Walmart or Target, try out something, take a selfie in the new outfit, send it to the pastor. and ask Him if this is appropriate. No, no. Love God with your mind for yourself, right? We're to love the Lord our God with all of our mind and soul and strength and make those decisions for ourselves. So my encouragement always is to encourage, you know, the sisters, the brothers in the church to just hide the Word of God in their hearts and do their best to externalize and to apply it. Yeah. Well, and it's noteworthy, Kevin, in both the verses we read, they both talk about the external. They say, you know, wear modest apparel. But they both go to the heart in a sense. So 1 Peter 3, it says, let it be the hidden person of the heart. There's the gentle and quiet spirit. It's in the sight of God precious. So what is God most focused on here? Well, it's gonna be the heart, which will then flow out into the hands. And then 1 Timothy 2, it says they should wear proper things, externally speaking, that are reflective of godliness and good works. So again, it goes back to the heart. So I appreciate how these verses bring together heart and hands without discarding evil. Very, very good point. It doesn't ignore one or the other. No, both are there. So there is an application for both, but notably, it's just principle-based. Paul doesn't tell us, and here's the list about the inches, and here's what you can expose versus not expose. Heels, not heels. And I was thinking about how the scriptures, when it deals with the work of the Spirit, like in Galatians, for example. Galatians deals with externalisms, doesn't it? Like circumcision, feasts, etc. And when Paul goes to applying the commandments of God, he says, well, walk by the Spirit, be led by the Spirit, and people wonder, why is the Bible not super specific? Why don't we have, you know, one of the New Testament books that has a chapter on dress regulations and specifics? Well, it's because the people of God are to be led by the Spirit, and the Spirit produces maturity and wisdom and love. And so it's not that there's no external standards that we can think of, but it is to say that we're called to a greater maturity with the work of the Spirit and to think through the commands of God here and apply them to our situation. Right, and apply it with all of your mind. Ultimately, the fundamental commandment is to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. And as that love for God just increases in us, it flows out into the hundreds of thousands of proper applications. and as to how we love God in every aspect of our lives. The other thing in the application, hey, cultural context in the church community really matters. Every church is different, every community is different. Really, the cultural context in the world matters as well. We were in Hawaii for a week or so and was off to a good solid church on Kauai. And by the way, there is one if anybody wants to know. We were out in Lihue, and I did not wear a three-piece suit to church that morning. Yeah, it would not have been the normal... I went to the website, got a picture of the pastor, and thought, you know... Well, it's even dressed pretty much the way the pastor dresses. And I have to say, it was pretty comfortable. Yeah. I have to say... Did you get your Hawaiian shirt? Well, yeah. Did you get the pattern? I had my Hawaiian shirt. Oh, okay. Very good. Yeah, with a little bit of pattern on it and all that. Yeah. And tennis shoes. And he was in flip-flops, so I think I was a little... All right, you're a little above. A little messed up. Yeah. At church on Sunday. The point is that the culture really does matter. And the Bible actually is really clear in terms of principles and that is humility, and not to be ostentatious or call attention to ourselves. Right. That's what Paul is. And the obvious example is the woman sitting in the front seat with a... uh, four foot hat on, you know, with the, the, the ostrich feathers. Right. It's very attention grabbing. You can't really get past it. Exactly. Of course you could have somebody extremely, you know, immodestly in terms of so much skin and all this revealing itself to everybody. Again, drawing attention. Again, the point not being as much the sexual elements, interesting, but much more so the idea of pride and ostentatiousness that seems to be the concern here in this passage. There are two Greek words used. Again, we're talking about what does the Bible say about this, and so we want to pay a special attention to the Greek words used. And there are points at which, Josh, wouldn't you say that every man and woman of God should have an interest in the lexicons And just say, well, what did it say? Yeah. What does this word really mean? Sometimes you're going to run across ones where you're like, okay, propriety. That's what I have here. I think of the new King James. What does that mean? King James was like shamefacedness. Yeah. That's a really tough one for us. But two words, Eidos is the first, conveys a sense of modesty and reverence. I'm just reading from the lexicon here. often associated with a respectful demeanor and a sense of propriety. It reflects an inward attitude of humility and a recognition of one's place before God and others." That was good. I really liked that. I thought it was almost the fear of God idea. And then the other word is kosmi, which comes from cosmos. The idea of order, the idea of being orderly, respectable, well-behaved, It's used to describe someone who conducts themselves in a manner that's fitting and appropriate, reflecting a sense of decorum and propriety. And one obvious example to that is I'm not wearing my swim trunks to church. I don't know if that happens in Hawaii. I mean, I'm guessing the churches don't do that. I'm guessing they put on a shirt. Probably not, unless they're doing beach church, I guess. Well, that may be an exception, but a propriety is something very, very important here. And just a few things about clothing reflecting reverence, a fear of God, love for God, and humility. There's one other point I think we need to make, is that there are a lot of proud people who wear extremely modest clothing. And there are a lot of people who don't fear God, they wear extremely modest clothing. So just the fact that you're dressed a certain way, doesn't mean the heart is in good condition. And this is the point I want to make as we consider others within the context of the church. We should be looking deeper. We should be looking to other issues. And I realize that your eyes tend to pick up people's externals pretty quickly. What did God say to Samuel concerning David? You remember, men look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks upon the heart. That's it, right. Exactly. So we tend to do that. Our eyes just gravitate towards the externals. And while we all make judgments, we have to be careful that we're not turning this into a long series of judgments. And we also want to edify the brothers and sisters. We want to speak a word in season, but usually the word we speak needs to go deeper than nice hat. mm-hmm or not enough material in that blouse honey right yes follow me there a little bit more depth that's and we should be concerned for ourselves and for others it's not just the clothing that really constitutes where we are in the spiritual sense yeah digging into this you know maybe I have a pride issue that's exhibiting itself not just in clothing but in you know, I'm always, every time I turn around, I'm bragging about myself, my accomplishments, you know, there's more to it than just that is what I'm saying. Right. And so the external could, can be a clue to the heart, but you better not assume, you know, the condition of the heart just on the basis of the outward appearance, which means if you have a young man or young woman you're concerned about, uh, you might want to talk, you're going to talk to them. You're going to ask them how they're doing. You're going to ask how you can pray for them. Maybe if you're a, If it's an older man and a younger man, he can take him out to lunch and they can talk more and learn about how he's doing. Then you'll have a better understanding of why that clothing manifestation is coming out. In this superficial glance over here, let me tell you what I think about you. that's not loving, that's not spending time, that's not getting to the root of some of the issues that this brother or that sister is dealing with right now, and you need the passport, nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care. You're listening, you're digging, you're wanting to know, how can I pray for you? what are the real issues going on in your life right now? So I think these are the sorts of things, these are the sorts of people we want to be. We don't want to be flakes. And flakes tend to focus on the superficialities. Again, not to ignore all of the superficials. They can be a clue, as you said, but there's more to it than that. Right. Dig deeper. And then eventually you might get to the clothing discussion and be able to speak to it thoughtfully because you've gotten to know that person, what's going on there. Exactly. And what we're seeking for is a godliness with good works. A godliness to worship God, to obey God, to love God with heart, soul, mind, and strength that exhibits itself in tens of thousands of applications. You know, DRESS is only one out of 10,000 daily applications whereby we express love for our God and for our brothers and sisters as well. Well, friends, that wraps up the discussion. Anything else? No. I think I was just going to add with the beatitudes too, you know, you can like go back to the list of the fruit of the spirit or go back to the beatitudes. That's the fundamental like spiritual issues that we want addressed. You think of a young man or young woman who is poor in spirit, meek and hungry and thirsting for righteousness. They should have an interest in how their clothing is an outflow of that. That's fundamental. And so much of the Proverbs deal with not just the externals, there's a little bit of external throughout, and you certainly get that. And certainly Proverbs 31 is an extensive chapter on the things that really matter most for the woman of God. And of course, the entire book of Proverbs is to equip the man of God for every good work. I mean, right from the fear of God for love for God, trust for God on the inside, all the way to the external manifestations of so many things. And we really want to raise our children with a thorough understanding, a digging deep into the book of Proverbs. And that's why I'd recommend the Proverbs Bible Study Guide, still available at The Generation's offerings. Really, I consider this the core of family worship, and don't forget, friends, we've got our brand new gospel family bio-study guides just released for Luke and Mark. Now we have all four gospels in these. And by the way, our family's going through Mark right now. Just released, hot off the press. Yeah, that came in a week ago, I think. Just came out, yeah. So we've got another couple thousand of these to get around. Friends, we really need you guys into the Word. That's the basic stuff. Let's make sure we're bringing the Word of God to our children through Daily Family Bible Time, that's what we call it, Family Bible Time, and encourage you to use the Family Bible Study Series available at Generations.org. This is Kevin Swanson and Joshua Huiso in studio today, and we want to invite you back again next time as we continue to lay down a vision for the next generation.