A PERSON with reprobate mind will ridicule the Bible, but a pure-minded person will celebrate it knowing that from it come very important instructions about farming, banking, medicine, communication, carpentry, law, marriage, procreation, midwifery, dress-making and others. A person who reads the Bible without bias and prejudice will testify of its applicability to today’s life.
One interesting skill Adam and Eve learnt at the early stage of their life was dress-making. When Satan got access into their lives, he tempted them to sin against God. Thus, Satan succeeded in ripping their protective clothing, thereby making them see their own nakedness.
“Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they SEWED FIG LEAVES together and made themselves loincloths,” (Genesis 3:7).
Certainly, Adam and Eve were not comfortable with the situation in which they found themselves, but there was very little they could do in the sense of covering themselves. They only covered their private parts, but there were no neighbours to criticise or correct them for their indecent exposure.
However, one thing is clear that when the first people realised that they were stark naked after the devil had invaded their lives, they made an attempt to cover themselves. They knew that nakedness was not good for their health, reputation and their social lives; it was not good for their relationship with God and their environment.
This realisation pushed them to think of dress-making as a solution for covering themselves. However, the material (fig leaves) they selected for clothing was not the best. Again, they only decided to cover their loins – the area of the body that includes his sexual organs.
But it is a fact that when Satan enters people’s lives, sometimes their sense of decent dressing is even affected. They put on dresses without paying greater attention to the quality of the attire they lay their hands on.
These days, some audacious people, particularly women, including some stubborn Christians, wear anything their hands lay on just to cover their sex organs. They put on these dresses and walk down the streets of cities. They call it fashion, but that is not fashion. It is a sign of depravity and spiritual death, resulting from the invasion of the devil in their lives.
Adam and Eve covered only their loins not because it was good, but because they were under the influence of the devil. When people are under the influence of the evil one, they do what he suggests to them to do.
God does not want His children to dress indecently. Our Father is a decent-dressing advocate; He loves people who embrace social, environmental and spiritual values. That is why when God saw the inappropriate manner in which Adam and Eve had dressed, He gave them better clothing.
“And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife GARMENTS OF SKINS AND CLOTHED THEM,” (Genesis 3: 21). If you look at the scripture carefully, you will notice that God was the first fashion designer or dressmaker to provide clothing for man.
God did not just cover Adam’s and Eve’s nakedness after they had fallen; He properly covered their bodies decently and appropriately with a quality material, making Adam appear gentle and Eve ladyish.
People who uphold morality do not dress indecently to expose their breasts, thighs and other sensitive parts of their bodies until Satan enters their lives. Satan influences people, especially young women, to dress indecently so that he can use them to seduce men to commit sexual sins – masturbation, rape, defilement, fornication, adultery and homosexuality.
It is important to stress that Adam and his wife provided their own clothing to cover their nakedness. But when God looked at the manner in which they were dressed, He saw that their style of dressing was not good enough compared to the goodness of the things He had created.
Thus, God made quality material to clothe them. He did not sew leaves. He gave them garments of skins. The Bible says, “Garments of skins” which means the LORD gave them more than one clothing.
As God decently dressed Aaron (Exodus 39) to serve Him as a high priest in the days of Moses, I believe, God clothed Adam and Eve to cover their breasts and thighs. There is no doubt that their dresses would also be loose enough to help them walk, crouch, bend and jump about freely.
Christian leaders must know how God dresses His children and teach today’s Christians to follow. We should enforce church discipline in the area of decent dressing to honour God and ourselves, and also draw men and women to God.
We must also know that not all the people we see entering church auditoriums have the faith of Christ or are genuine Christians with good intentions to worship God. The majority of them are agents of the devil, sent from the pit of hell, to do their master’s bidding.
The late Bishop Justice Kojo Bentil, in one of his teachings said, “God created clothing for the purpose of covering nakedness. We are in the end times, so churches must enforce discipline and train believers in righteousness, purity and holiness.”
By James Quansah
jamesquansah@yahoo.com