Again, lets go back to a historical-grammatical hermeneutic and we can know what Paul considered modest dress. I love the old commentators for they are not affected by our fads. As a man, I knew slit dresses were imodest from the get-go. Nothing is new under the sun for they had them in Paul's day and only children (for ease of toileting) and immodest women (for ease of access) wore them. There was also a shorter dress somewhat like our mini-dress, which by the way the woman designer stated that she designed that dress to let the world know she was ready for any man, any time, any where. Should we think that any other designer is concerned about modesty when immodesty/sex sells? I trow not! Yet, good Christian women follow the fads and wear slits, minis and sprayed on pants. None of those would fit what Paul is defining as modest.
2887 kosmios (kos'-mee-os);from 2889 (in its primary sense); orderly, i.e. decorous:
KJV-- of good behaviour, modest.
2689 katastole (kat-as-tol-ay'); from 2687; a deposit, i.e. (specially) costume: KJV-- apparel.
1 Timothy 2:9
1 Timothy 2:9
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;
[In like manner also] That is, he wills or commands what follows, as he had commanded what went before.
[That women adorn themselves] Kai (grk 2532) tas (grk 3588) gunaikas (grk 1135) en (grk 1722) katastolee (grk 2689) kosmioo (grk 2887). The apostle seems to refer here to different parts of the Grecian and Roman dress. The stolee (grk 4749), stola, seems to have been originally very simple. It was a long piece of cloth, doubled in the middle, and sewed up on both sides, having room only for the arms; at the top, a piece was cut out, or a slit made, through which the head passed. It hung down to the feet, both before and behind, and was girded with the zona round the body, just under the breasts. It was sometimes made with, sometimes without, sleeves; and, that it might sit the better, it was gathered on each shoulder with a band or buckle. Some of the Greek women wore them open on each side, from the bottom up above the knee, so as to discover a part of the thigh. These were termed phainomeerides, showers (discoverers) of the thigh; but it was, in general, only young girls or immodest women who wore them thus.
The katastolee (grk 2689) seems to have been the same as the pallium or mantle, which, being made nearly in the form of the stola, hung down to the waist, both in back and front, was gathered on the shoulder with a band or buckle, had a hole or slit at top for the head to pass through, and hung loosely over the stola, without being confined by the zona or girdle. Representations of these dresses may be seen in LEN'S Costume des Peuples de l'Antiquite, fig. 11, 12, 13, and 16. A more modest and becoming dress than the Grecian was never invented; it was, in a great measure, revived in England about the year 1805, and in it, simplicity, decency, and elegance were united; but it soon gave place to another mode, in which frippery and nonsense once more prevailed. It was too rational to last long; and too much like religious simplicity to be suffered in a land of shadows, and a world of painted outsides. (from Adam Clarke Commentary)
