The One Body
Be it understood at the outset and on through to the end that this is not an article on women's dress but one on the handling of a passage of scripture.
The words, "modest apparel," in 1 Tim. 2:9, are generally taken to mean clothing that covers all that part of a woman's body that the particular writer or speaker thinks ought to be covered. The word, "modest," occurs only this once in either the King James or the American Standard version; and whatever may have- been the attitude of Paul, as the Holy Spirit guided him, in this passage he was not speaking of undressing but of overdressing. The contrast he employs is not modest apparel with scanty apparel but modest apparel with showy and costly apparel. It is true, of course, that "modest" means "not suggestive of lewdness," but it also means "not pretentious; not ostentatious."
"Modest" occurs only once in the Bible. The Greek word "kosmios," from which it is translated, occurs twice — just twice. First Timothy 2:9 is, of course, one place. The other place is 1 Timothy 3:2, where it is mentioned as a qualification of a bishop. The King James version renders it, "of good behavior"; the American Standard version renders it, "orderly."