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As Jesus followers, is it okay that we want to look younger, thinner, and prettier?
We live in a world obsessed with appearances. Everywhere you look, someone’s getting fillers, enhancements, or posting a “perfect” version of themselves online. In this episode, Juli and Hannah take an honest look at these questions—not to hand out a new list of rules, but to invite you into a bigger story.
Juli (00:02.35)
Hey, friend, welcome to another episode of Java with Juli. I am Juli Slattery, your host, and this podcast is a production of Authentic Intimacy, which is a ministry helping people make sense of God and sexuality. Well, today we are headed into some territory that I think will be interesting for people and also a little controversial. We’re going to talk about modesty, but not in the way that you think we are not going to talk about Daisy Dukes or spaghetti straps or anything like that. We’re going to talk about the concept of modesty, which I think is a lot broader than we usually talk about it. And to flesh this out, I have invited again Hannah to be with me. So Hannah, thanks so much.
Hannah
Anytime, Juli. You know, what’s funny though, when I showed up, I got the email of we’re talking about modesty and I just had a couple bullet points under it. And I said to you, I don’t think we should call this modesty. You said, exactly.
Juli
I don’t know what to call it.
Hannah
You were like, I want to rework the definition of modesty. But as someone who grew up in Christian school, I have a very specific definition of modesty. And I was like, I don’t think this is what we’re talking about. I like that you want to widen the understanding.
Juli (01:11.328)
I do. Yeah, I think that’s a lot of what God has taught me through the journey of Authentic Intimacy is so often we take a topic and we want to debate rules. want to be like,
Hannah
Juli, we love rules. We love a very defined box and a yes or no.
Juli
Yes, we do. And we love to fight over the rules. And I think that’s a lot of what has happened with this conversation of modesty. But what we want to do instead is like blow up the conversation and say, this is a whole lot deeper and broader than we’ve been defining it as. And actually, I think this applies, we’re going to talk about it in reference to women, but it applies to guys as well. This is an episode that I hope people are going to want to share with their friends and maybe start some conversations. And speaking of that, if you love this podcast, and let me just ask you if you’d be willing to go to your podcast app and just rate and review it because that is a way that other people find this podcast. So that’s a way you can help us out.
Hannah
And you could say, man, love the modesty episode.
Juli (02:13.698)
The quote-unquote modesty episode that wasn’t really like about modesty.
Hannah
Okay, so you want to, in your own words, blow up the conversation on modesty. Yes. Okay, so you have the floor, Juli. What do you, how do we begin? Blow it up, Juli.
Juli
Yeah, again, it’s, I don’t think the conversation is primarily about should you be wearing that top or wearing that dress to prom or whatever. Like I think we get there some ways, but when we talk about modesty so narrowly, it seems to affect only certain people.
Hannah
Women.
Yes, women and probably women in a certain age range. But when we think about the word modesty and when the scripture calls us to modesty, what it’s actually talking about is really more humility. Like if you think of the opposite of modesty, it’s look at me, look at me, look at me. And whether that’s look at me sexually, look at what my body looks like, it can be selfies, like look at my Instagram profile, look at all the great things I’m doing. It can be like this over emphasis on appearance.
Like I said, it can be for guys, look at how cut I am. Look at how much I work out and all the protein I’m eating. For women, it can be, I look 15 years younger than I am. And so it’s so much broader than that. God actually is calling us in the scripture to have a modest attitude that is not, look at me, but look at Jesus. Look at the people around you. Have a posture of your whole life that is not self-centered.
And so when we start talking about modesty from that framework, yes, it gets into the choices that we make about clothing, but it’s so much more than that, including, I know this is a hot topic today, but things like plastic surgery or cosmetic surgery, things we do to make ourselves look better than we actually are, the filters we use, like all of it.
Hannah
Okay. All right. I see how you’re beginning to blow it up.
Juli
Did that blow it up?
Hannah
We’re beginning. I mean, I wouldn’t say that was like a bomb, but it was pretty close. We’re like getting, we’re starting to blow it up. Okay. So Juli, is there a certain scripture or passage that you’re thinking of as we start having this conversation? Or is there somewhere in the Bible that you feel as though we often go for this concept of modesty? Like, where did this begin as a word that as a church we’ve talked about so much or want to focus on?
Juli (04:43.82)
Yeah, I think that concept of modesty has traditionally been linked to sexuality. So we look, for example, a lot of the narrative in the Old Testament about the importance of women being virgins, and there’s a high emphasis placed on that for a reason. That isn’t necessarily in the same way carried into the New Testament, because the church becomes the bride, and that’s the whole theological thing we don’t need to get into.
Hannah
Come on. No, I’m just kidding.
Juli
I mean, that is a topic for another podcast. But then you have passages like, don’t cause a brother to stumble or fall into sin, which when Paul wrote that, he wasn’t talking about modesty at all. He was talking about how we use our freedom. And so it would include modesty, but it wasn’t specifically directed towards women don’t cause your brothers to sin by what you do.
Hannah
Yeah, don’t wear a tank top.
Juli
We look at passages that talk about, I think it was Peter who wrote about, to women specifically, let your adornment be the inward qualities of a beautiful spirit. Like don’t spend all this time adorning yourself with jewelry and beautiful clothes, focus on the inward beauty. And so those are some of the key passages that I think we’ve gone back to again and again, historically to say modesty is about sexuality, it’s about covering up your body.
Juli (06:06.198)
It’s an emphasis on women. But Hannah, if we look at, again, the word modesty, it overlaps with words like humility and meekness, which are all throughout the New Testament of the kind of posture that Jesus calls all of his followers to, men and women. And so the outward expression of a meek or a modest heart is going to be that we dress differently than the culture would dictate.
It’s ultimately about the heart posture. And if the heart’s not addressed, if we’re just talking about the external choices we make, we miss what Jesus is actually calling us to.
Hannah
And it is, has been, I think, a conversation that it has been much more about external choices when we’re talking about modesty. Okay. So if you’re defining the opposite of modesty as “look at me, look at me”, which is an amazing definition. We all understand what that means and can relate to that. And modesty as more of this idea of humility. Can you help us with an example of what a difference in those two things would be? Because we are much more used to thinking of this idea of modesty as rules we follow. And again, I’m speaking as a Christian school-raised girl, where it was very specific on what we could and couldn’t wear. And it was always the word modesty.
Juli
Yeah, so it’s not the opposite of “look at me, look at me, look at me”; don’t look at me necessarily. Like that can be insecurity. It can be, I hate my body, I hate myself. That’s not where we’re talking about. The opposite is really what the scripture tells us, which is you are bought with a price, you are valuable, you belong to God, the Holy Spirit lives within you. And so live your life in such a way and that you do the will of God, that you point people to Jesus, that you glorify Him, that you’re concerned about other people. And so it’s not that you disregard all your physical appearance or any of that, but it’s the heart attitude of how you actually walk in life. And so it doesn’t mean that you can’t have an Instagram account or whatever the example might be, but it’s what’s the heart posture there?
And what comes through, is it truly like, I want you to look and see how beautiful I am or how accomplished I am? Or is it, I use everything I have for the purpose of exalting Jesus, loving other people, sharing hope. And so it’s a completely different heart posture that might use some of the same channels or, you know, like things of the world. But then again, it breaks down into like really practical choices, like do I get Botox? Or do I wear makeup? Or, you know, like how much money do I spend on clothes? Do I color my hair? Like all these sort of decisions we have to make in real life. It’s like, okay, how do we go back to the right heart posture and not just react to what’s happening in the culture around us?
Hannah
Hmmm. Juli Slattery. Okay, we’re getting some layers here. I like it. So, while it isn’t this rule-based list of outward decisions, it has an impact on these outward decisions. Yes. Okay, so you brought up some of these words. Your producer sent us this list of really a lot of data and figures even around cosmetic procedures, the Botox, the lift, the eyelid lifts, the tummy tucks, the boob jobs. Like this is something that is growing, growing, I mean, the statistics and numbers of how much we’re seeing of this and how young people are getting this. I mean, Juli, if I’m on Instagram, pretty much any, I feel like large account influencer who may or may not also talk about God is showing here’s my, you know, recovery time for my I lift and here’s what my thing looked like for this boob job. Like it is so common. Yeah. So much younger and younger. So what do we do with this conversation as believers? And I don’t know, what do we do with all that?
Juli
Yeah It’s interesting Hannah, because with cosmetic surgery, I think back in the day, people would never admit that they had it.
Hannah
Interesting.
Juli
Now it’s like they’re bragging about it…
Hannah (10:43.726)
Juli, they’re bragging now. Yeah. I mean, it could still be done in secret, but you’re right. It’s much more commonly talked about as, yes, I’ve been in some conversations where it feels like talking about what vacation you’re going on next. People are just talking about what procedures and things they have gotten done or are getting done or would like to get done.
Juli
Yeah. Okay. So let’s kind of reverse engineer this then and go back to the heart.
Hannah
You’re good at that, Juli. Help us with that. How do we take this back to a heart issue if I should get my boobs? Yeah.
Juli
Okay, so if we go back to the truth of what we know in Scripture, that I’m precious in God’s sight and my body belongs to God, I’m the temple of the Holy Spirit, then that means we ask God about everything. God, this is your body. Do you want me to get a boob job? Like, I don’t know if anybody’s ever prayed that, but I think the disconnect of even thinking about wrestling with that at spiritual level and praying about it helps us see that we don’t take the scripture seriously. You know, we really tend to compartmentalize and say, this part of my life belongs to God, but my body and how I look like that belongs to me. And Hannah, I really think that a lot of this comes down to a stewardship issue. It really comes down to, okay, God has given me a body.
Juli (12:11.116)
The purpose of my body is to glorify Him on earth, to accept the weaknesses of my body, to accept the limitations and the aging process. And we have a culture that consistently pushes against those things and says, your value is in what you look like. It’s in the shape of your body and your loved based on your physical appearance. And we’re trying to be immortal. We want to get rid of every sign of aging, every sign of like deterioration. Like there’s a lot of conversation today about we want to use gene therapy to live another 50 years and we’re trying to be physically immortal. And the scripture tells us that our early our bodies are going to waste away, that this is a tent and that what really matters is inwardly, like who are we becoming internally?
Now that is a very different framework to use when we’re wrestling with these questions than what we’re kind of discipled in our culture. so that’s, those are some of the themes that I think we need to be talking about when we look at is it right or wrong to get these procedures done. And again, just even things like how much emphasis to put on fitness and diet and it all comes down to this issue of how do we steward this life well? How do we steward the bodies that we’re given well? And what is the internal motivation?
Hannah
Yeah, there was a quote from a blog called, pastors should preach on body images. And it was on In Christianity Today. I just thought this was a interesting statement, It said, Countless women prepare for worship on Sunday morning, not by quieting their hearts or minds before the Lord, but by putting on makeup, curling their hair and squeezing into a pair of spanks. These women then walk into church, distracted and insecure, comparing themselves to women around them and wondering if they measure up, focusing on God is a battle. Yeah, I could relate to that.
Juli (13:59.512)
Yeah, what woman couldn’t? I mean could you imagine just getting up, rolling out of bed and spending time with God to prepare for church and
Hannah
Instead of physically getting ready to prepare. Yeah. Okay, so that sounds like, wow, what a challenge. But then when I think about it, I think that’s not actually practical. Am I actually going to just put my hair up in a ponytail and go?
Juli
Yeah, and other people would say that’s disrespectful. You know, like we want to give God our best, we want to honor God. And that’s Hannah why I think we have to be so careful against kind of always and never language or legalism because it’s really a matter of the heart. You know, our bodies matter. It’s not just like this soul that has a machine, you know, that we go around earth and like we are embodied creatures. Our bodies matter.
And so it’s not just like you disregard your body or how you present yourself or how you care for your body, but it’s what is the motivation and are you stewarding it well? Are you stewarding it to the glory of God or is it all about an insatiable desire to be more attractive, to be younger, to compete with other people, to compare yourself with other people? Like that’s a trap that you get into. Like how much plastic surgery is enough?
Like when the wrinkles come back, are we going to do this again? And you know, as a woman who’s aging, It’s like, where do I get to the place where I’m like, no, I’m 56.
Hannah (15:36.544)
This is what I look like.
Juli
And I can’t be ashamed of that. You know, like it’s okay. I’m content with the season of life that I’m in. I don’t have to look like I’m 40 and I can settle into the fact that there’s beautiful things about being an older age and… being more of a mother in the church and the wisdom and maturity that you get over the years that you can pass down to younger women. So where are the role models of that? And I think they’re hard to find in today’s day and age because we’re so obsessed with looking a certain way.
Hannah
Yeah. And we’ll sacrifice time, finances, and a lot of effort to maintain that. we kind of talked about it and giggled a tad about, yeah, I mean, if you’re thinking about getting your boobs done, pray about it, ask God about it. And you’re like, has anyone ever done that? So could we get that more a little bit practical if you’re saying these phrases like, it’s a heart issue, it’s more of this internal thing. I mean, for the listener who is saying, I don’t know, Juli. Yeah, I get Botox every eight weeks, but I also get my hair colored. No one’s in Christians making a big fuss about that. What is the heart issue? What is that question that we’re asking as we’re talking about these different external pieces?
Juli
Yeah, I think a lot of times when we go to the principle of things, there can be competing tensions. So one of the tensions is that, you know, Paul, for example, says, I become all things to all people that I might win some. There is an element to which, you know, even Jesus said you are in the world, but not of the world. We live in this world and there’s a certain amount of if you’re reaching people, you have to live in the world, you know, like I wrestle with this, Hannah, you know, because I’m on camera a lot or in front of crowds a lot.
Hannah (17:32.942)
Juli, you’re in crowds, you’re in front of crowds so much. Honestly, I feel for you about it.
Juli
Yeah, I mean, I honestly really love the medium of just podcasting because I don’t have to worry about what I look at.
Hannah
Until now, now we got camera.
Juli (18:06.572)
Yeah I know, there you go. But I think, you know, like, I hate the pressure of what do I look like on stage? Like, does my hair look OK? Am I wearing the right clothes? My makeup look OK? It is my least favorite part of speaking and and, you know, ministering. But it’s a reality. Like if I just showed up with no makeup and my hair all ratty or whatever, like it wouldn’t be appropriate. And so some of it is the tension of, same with like investing in health or physical fitness. You know, when the Bible was written, people had it built in their daily lives that they would be walking miles a day. There was physical labor involved in everything we do. In today’s day and age, that doesn’t happen. And so, there is an element of how do I care for my body? Like I do need to focus on that. I do need to eat good foods and make sure my body is moving.
So that’s the one piece of it. But the other piece of it is when that becomes like just an obsession.
Hannah
The focus.
Juli
Yes. And it becomes, you know, if I get up and speak or I’m on camera, like I want people to notice what I look like and I want them to think I’m younger than I am.
And that becomes an obsession for me, or exercising becomes an obsession for me. So I think it’s, again, that heart issue of what is the motivation? How are you stewarding your body? How are you using your body? And am I in a place where I’m willing to ask the Lord to guide me and to convict me on those kinds of questions?
Hannah
You know, when I think about trends seeing online, Juli, I feel like even in the last 12 to 24 months with the rise of GLP-1’s medication and Ozempic, even on like TikTok, I mean, there’s a whole trend called Skinny Tok, where it’s people sharing their dosage and how much of this medicine they’re taking. Obviously, there are some people who need this medication. I’m not saying that there aren’t, but it has become this also trend of I can now take this medicine and look how skinny, look how good, like this obsession over weight. Again, while we all may have struggled with this inside our head, all of a sudden it’s becoming this very publicly talked about thing. it’s just this social media makes a lot of this more prevalent.
Juli
Yeah
Hannah (20:12.8)
If we in those, you know, free moments, if you go to, a grocery store and you’re in a checkout line or if you’re waiting in a drive-through, if you look around, people are taking those five minutes and scrolling on their phone. And if we’re getting these five-minute doses all day long, and yeah, it’s your friends and they’re posting their kids’ first day of school and there’s these cute pictures, but then the next thing you’re scrolling is something from Skinny Tok and the next thing is showing this eyelid procedure they just had. Like, it’s subtle, but it’s everywhere.
Juli
Yeah
Hannah
I mean, it’s this heart issue, but it’s also there’s so much coming in. If you aren’t being super proactive in what you’re viewing or not, if you are online, you’re seeing this.
Juli
Yes, absolutely. And Hannah, I struggled so much with body image, like as a teenager in my young adulthood. I can’t imagine what it’s like for girls today.
Hannah
It’s dicey out there, Juli.
Juli
I mean, I just can’t even imagine, like if I had social media to feed that, it would have been a bad, bad thing. And I think we’re seeing that again, not just in girls, but also in boys. There’s a lot of pressure with body image with guys as well. And you said something that I think is really key. How do you fight that if you’re getting these moment by moment drips discipling you to think this way and to think of your value this way? And I don’t think you can stand against that if you’re consuming that on regular basis.
Hannah
It’s really hard to. Yeah. I even noticed it in myself in a small way this summer where I was talking to Caleb about, and made some joke about my husband, Caleb, made some joke about, man, if I just get on that Ozempic, I’d be looking hot in here. You know, I just like made some comment about that. My sweet husband, who’s not chronically online like I am, kind of looked at me with this funny look. I was like, oh it’s just what everyone’s taking to be skinny nowadays. It just sounds really nice if I could do that.
And he kind of gave this look like, what are you saying? And it was really the first time I heard it coming out of my mouth of how much I had internalized. if I took this and lost some weight, I would be happier. I really didn’t even know that that thought was in there until I heard myself joke about it.
Juli
It’s, you get discipled in it. It’s so subtle. Yeah. And in my age again, it’s all about the age. You know, it’s about, you know, I have a friend who will ask me like, have you done anything? You know, like, are you thinking about doing anything? You know, like Botox or I’m like, no, I haven’t. No, I’m not, you know, but it’s, if I were online, I’d probably have that more pressure. But you know, like now I’m trying to figure out whether I let my hair go completely white because it’s really white. It’s like, okay, I’m gonna look a lot older if I do that. And I gotta figure out how to do that. But it’s like, I have this internal battle of, I wanna be authentic to who God created me to be. And I wanna be able to, again, be a woman who’s comfortable in my skin.
Juli (23:25.558)
But on the other hand, there’s that tension of, okay, well, we live in a world and… you know, how do I manage that tension of expectations versus kind of who God has created us to be?
Here’s, I think, something that has been really helpful for me over the years and getting a good perspective. We have bodies in order to do, you know, our bodies are not in and of themselves. You know, we have arms to hug, we have hands to help, we have a mouth to speak, we have ears to listen, we have eyes to see. I think when this gets out of balance, we don’t realize that our bodies are vehicles for us to impact the world and to love people well. And when it becomes about the body itself, it’s like having a car that you consistently shine but you never drive, you know, or you’re afraid to get a scratch on it.
Hannah
My goodness, we’re definitely afraid to get a scratch. 100 %
Juli
Yeah, but you drive a car and that’s what the car is for, is for transportation. You’re going to get a scratch, you might get a dent, it’s going to get mileage on it, you know, the paint’s going to fade. It’s part of the deal. And using and stewarding our body well means we use it. We use it for God’s glory and we use it to impact the world and to love people.
Hannah (24:42.718)
And the beauty in having that mindset though is like when that is the focus, it means you can still, as I did this morning, get up, dry my hair, know, curl it. I put on a little foundation for you guys today.
Juli
You look great. You should go over to YouTube and check it out.
Hannah
So my coloring was uniform. We can do that without guilt and in freedom when our heart posture is not, this is the most important thing about.
Juli (25:11.694)
Yeah, I mean if you have a car you probably get it washed every now and then and you take it to get maintenance and you know that’s how you keep it running.
Hannah
You know, and the other week I actually got my car detailed. There you go. They had some wax on the wheels. It was very nice. Got all the goldfish crumbs.
Juli
It’s just a matter of are you going to get a paint job?
Hannah
Yes. And am I going to obsess the next time my kid spills the goldfish?
Juli
Yes, okay, there you go.
Hannah
Okay, so back to the beginning, you use the word modesty for this conversation. then you so slightly started bringing up the word stewardship throughout some of our time. I know you’ve talked about this, that you see modesty and stewardship so connected.
Juli
Yeah, I do.
Hannah
So can you help us really see that?
Juli (25:57.548)
Yeah, so God has given us a body and everybody’s body is different, has different strengths and weaknesses to it, it changes over time. Stewardship is how do I use my body and steward my body in such a way that I can do what God has called me to do. I can be a winsome witness of who Christ is. And when we connect that even to the traditional conversation of modesty, it’s not about don’t wear that skirt or cover this up because honestly, cultures have different standards of what they consider to be modest. But it’s the stewardship of saying, how do I carry my physical body in such a way that it is a blessing to other people and brings glory to God? And how do I do that appropriately?
And so that means I’m gonna dress differently for speaking engagement than I am a backyard barbecue or like going swimming or with my husband, I steward my body differently in different scenarios because God calls me to engage physically differently in different scenarios. I’m always wanting to think, how do I bring glory to God? How can I be a blessing to other people? How can I use my body in such a way that I’m a blessing and it’s not all about what people are thinking about me.
You know, like the one time I think is really appropriate for somebody, a woman to be like, look at me, look at me, it’s on her wedding day, unashamedly. You know, like we want that bride to be the center of stage. Like we want her to be as beautiful as she can possibly be. We want everybody’s breath taken away when she walks down that aisle. And ultimately we know that that’s because that’s how God views the church, is this radiant bride that takes our breath away. And so I think when we have the context of what beauty means and why God has given us beauty and how we walk in this world, stewarding that beauty, it’s just a different framework.
Hannah (28:02.99)
Man, I really like that, Juli. So can I add one twist at the end of this conversation?
Juli
Course, yeah, please.
Hannah
Can you help us talk a little bit about what this looks like in parenting? I think a lot of this conversation is really great as we’re processing this in our own life and maybe how we grew up with the word modesty or maybe as we’re wrestling with some of these issues of if I should dye my hair still or get bow-tucked. But for many of us who might have grown up with more of this… do and don’t definition around modesty and in the church, maybe what you could and couldn’t wear. Do you just have any wisdom or thoughts on what this looks like as we parent, as far as having this conversation with our young men and women who are new to this whole idea?
Juli
I think there’s a lot of elements to this, Hannah. And I think where we go wrong is where it’s one conversation, the same way with sex, where it becomes about, you are not walking out of this house looking like that. Instead of laying the foundation of, of all, knowing that your body is good and knowing that your body is wonderfully made, beautiful and attractive and all those things. So fighting that insecurity that kids are going to naturally feel, knowing that home is the one place where they’re not going to be criticized.
You know, telling your kids stories about your own insecurities, not making it seem like perfection is the goal. But the real life of acne and, you know, awkwardness and BO and, you know, all the things that we deal with being human. And then I think also it’s really key to limit social media, particularly under the ages from 16. You the research coming out from the secular world is saying you should not be giving kids devices before high school age and you should not be giving them social media accounts before the ages of 16, like particularly for girls, but I think boys as well, because they’re being discipled in a very destructive idea of image and beauty and worth.
Hannah (30:10.958)
Yeah, I mean I talked about it at age 37, realizing of like, oh, I now believe that if I took Ozempic, I would be happier. And I have the wisdom of life with me, you know? So yeah, could see you seeing that more, thinking of that with our kids.
Juli
Yeah, and then I think having the framework in what you say and what you model that your body is about being a blessing, like our lives are about being a blessing. And so when it comes to what we’re wearing and even just say, what does modesty mean? Modesty means I’m not going to walk in the room and want everybody looking at me. Modesty is, hey, I have value and I matter, but I’m going to walk in the room not saying, look at me, but I see you, and how can I interact with you and love you well?
Hannah
Juli, “I see you”. I love that. Yes, that was an amazing full circle from the look at me, look at me. Yeah, I just funny having this conversation. think I mean, I have so much reflect on in my own heart and things for myself. But man, I mean, just two weeks ago, sitting with a group of friends who they all grew up playing a lot of sports and soccer and volleyball. And one of their daughters is not is interested in doing cheerleading or dance.
Hannah (31:26.562)
And she was like, I can just feel this tension that I feel as though that realm versus maybe what I grew up in doing soccer is so focused on how these young girls are looking. She’s like, I just don’t know if this is a good idea for my daughter. I don’t want her to think what I look on the outside is the most important thing about me. And I so appreciated her saying that as she has older kids in me. but realizing this is a tension for all ages.
Juli
It is. It really is. And I’m so thankful that a mom like that is thinking ahead and wrestling with it. And even if she chooses to go that route with her daughter, to be actively discipling against those messages.
Hannah
Yeah, it seems like we need this conversation of all ages. We do. you know, having maybe this box definition of modesty to begin with, Juli, I love this tying it to stewardship. And just this picture that you said of instead of this, look at me, look at me, it’s I see you. That in all realms of our life, as we’re walking into that, again, as we’re curling our hair for church, that’s not bad. But as we’re walking to church, even that question of am I coming here with his hair saying, I can’t wait for the compliments on my curled hair? Or is it, I can’t wait to see God’s bride, the church today? And my hair does happen to look nice, Lord.
Juli
And some of it is when we pay no attention to our physical appearance, we’re also saying, look at me, like we stick out. So I think it’s just, again, that idea of what’s the heart, how do we appropriately engage with our real life world that we live in. And it’s attention. But Hannah, I just feel like for so many of these topics, we have just digested the world’s view of things and Christianized it, put some words on it, instead of saying like Jesus upends every topic, including how we understand modesty.
Juli (33:51.438)
Okay, well, I warned you that we might step on some toes today and I know we covered a lot of ground. I hope this conversation is leaving you just thinking a little differently about what modesty really means and remember it’s less about rules and more about the posture of our hearts, about who our lives are pointing to. If this episode sparked something for you, maybe you want to share it with a friend.
It’s a great way to get beyond the pressure to be Instagram perfect and start digging deeper into real conversations. You’ll find a lot more resources to help you make sense of topics like this at authenticintimacy.com. Thanks for listening and I look forward to having coffee with you next time for more Java with Juli.