16 Bible Verses About Exposing Your Body

Genesis 2:25

“And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.”

Reflection: The verse closes the account of the woman’s creation, just after the words about a man and his wife becoming one flesh (Genesis 2:24). The two are naked, and the narrator adds that they felt no shame. Nothing in the chapter treats their nakedness as a fault.

Genesis 3:21

“And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.”

Reflection: After eating from the forbidden tree, “the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked,” and they sewed fig leaves into loincloths (Genesis 3:7). When God calls, the man says he hid “because I was naked” (3:10). Before sending them out of the garden, God replaces the fig leaves with garments of skins that he makes himself.

Genesis 9:22-23

“And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside. Then Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father. Their faces were turned backward, and they did not see their father’s nakedness.”

Reflection: Noah had drunk wine from his vineyard and “lay uncovered in his tent” (Genesis 9:21). Ham sees and tells his brothers; Shem and Japheth cover their father while walking backward so that they do not see him. When Noah wakes and learns “what his youngest son had done to him,” he curses Canaan, Ham’s son, and blesses Shem and Japheth (9:24-27).

Exodus 20:26

“And you shall not go up by steps to my altar, that your nakedness be not exposed on it.”

Reflection: This rule about altars comes in the same chapter as the Ten Commandments. The altar is to be made of earth or uncut stone, and it is not to have steps, so that the worshipper’s nakedness is not exposed on it. Later in Exodus the priests are given linen undergarments “to cover their naked flesh” when they come near the altar (Exodus 28:42-43).

1 Timothy 2:9-10

“Likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness—with good works.”

Reflection: Paul is writing to Timothy about public worship: the verse before tells the men to pray “lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling.” The women are to dress “with modesty and self-control,” and the things Paul names in contrast are braided hair, gold, pearls and costly clothing, signs of wealth and display. What he puts in their place is good works.

1 Peter 3:3-4

“Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the 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 in God’s sight is very precious.”

Reflection: Peter is addressing wives, some with husbands who “do not obey the word,” who may be won over “by the conduct of their wives” (1 Peter 3:1-2). Like 1 Timothy 2, he names braided hair, gold jewelry and clothing, and sets against them “the hidden person of the heart.” He calls a gentle and quiet spirit “very precious” in God’s sight, and points to Sarah and “the holy women who hoped in God” (3:5-6).

Proverbs 31:30

“Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.”

Reflection: The verse comes near the end of the poem on the excellent wife, who is “far more precious than jewels” (Proverbs 31:10). Charm and beauty are called deceitful and vain, and the praise goes to the woman who fears the Lord. The last verse asks that “her works praise her in the gates” (31:31), and the poem has spent its lines on her work, trade and care for her household.

1 Corinthians 12:23

“And on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty.”

Reflection: Paul is comparing the church to a body in which every member is needed. In passing he describes an ordinary practice: the parts of the body thought less honorable receive more honor, and the “unpresentable parts” are treated with greater modesty. He uses that practice to argue that God gives “greater honor to the part that lacked it” among the members of the church (12:24).

1 Corinthians 6:19-20

“Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.”

Reflection: Some in Corinth were saying “All things are lawful for me” (1 Corinthians 6:12), and Paul answers with the case of a man joined to a prostitute. The body, he says, “is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord” (6:13), and it is a temple of the Holy Spirit. Because the believer was “bought with a price,” the body is not his own, and Paul’s conclusion is “glorify God in your body.”

1 Corinthians 6:18

“Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.”

Reflection: The verse comes in the same argument about prostitution, just after Paul quotes Genesis: “The two will become one flesh” (1 Corinthians 6:16). His instruction is to flee, and his reason is that sexual sin is committed against the person’s own body, in a way he says other sins are not.

Romans 12:1

“I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”

Reflection: The “therefore” follows Romans 11, where God has consigned all to disobedience “that he may have mercy on all” (Romans 11:32). Paul appeals by those mercies for the whole body to be offered to God as a living sacrifice. The next verse sets this against being “conformed to this world” and calls for a renewed mind.

1 Thessalonians 4:3-5

“For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God.”

Reflection: Paul reminds the Thessalonians of instructions he had already given them (1 Thessalonians 4:2). God’s will is their holiness, which here means keeping away from sexual immorality and controlling one’s own body “in holiness and honor.” The ESV footnote gives another rendering of verse 4, “how to take a wife for himself,” because the Greek speaks of possessing one’s own “vessel.” Verse 7 sums up the passage: “God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness.”

Colossians 3:5

“Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.”

Reflection: Paul has just told the Colossians to set their minds “on things that are above” (Colossians 3:2). Sexual immorality heads his list of what they must put to death, and the next verse says God’s wrath is coming on these things. A few verses later he describes the change as clothing: they have “put off the old self” and “put on the new self” (3:9-10).

Romans 13:14

“But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.”

Reflection: The verses before this one speak of night ending and day coming: “Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality” (Romans 13:13). Paul uses the language of dressing twice, “put on the armor of light” (13:12) and “put on the Lord Jesus Christ.” The last line forbids making provision for the flesh, that is, arranging things so that its desires can be satisfied.

Matthew 5:28

“But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

Reflection: In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus quotes the commandment against adultery and then places adultery in the look itself, when it is “with lustful intent.” The next two verses tell the one who looks to tear out an eye or cut off a hand that causes him to sin rather than lose the whole body.

Job 31:1

“I have made a covenant with my eyes; how then could I gaze at a virgin?”

Reflection: Job opens a chapter of oaths about his own conduct with a covenant made with his eyes. The verses that follow give his reason, ending with a question about God: “Does not he see my ways and number all my steps?” (Job 31:4). Later in the same chapter he says that if his heart had been “enticed toward a woman” at his neighbor’s door, it would be “a heinous crime” (31:9-11).