From the comments and emails I've received, it seems that TPC readers are thinking afresh through the modesty issue. Must be early spring fever! So over the next week or so I'll put up a few more from last year's modesty series. Here's another. This one was titled "Modesty and Other Women's Husbands."

Modesty deals with a lot more than just our clothing. When modesty is discussed, the focus is typically on low necklines and short skirts, but what about modesty of our person? Do we stop to think about the fact that revealing too much about ourselves can be immodest too?

There is a time and place to open up and share our sin struggles and personal concerns, but with the exception of family members, the people to whom we reveal ourselves best not be other women's husbands.

Does that include pastors? Most of our pastors are married; are we being immodest in taking our concerns to them? Certainly not. They are our God-provided shepherds. However, there is a way to open up to them without foregoing modesty of our person. It's one thing to seek our pastor's counsel, perhaps repeatedly. But there is a difference between a genuine need for his wisdom and our desire for his attention and involvement. Countless phone calls and endless emails are probably going too far. This is the point at which wise pastors will likely redirect us elsewhere.

Modesty of our personhood is a must in the workplace. Today women and men work side-by-side doing the same jobs, and they do so for the majority of their waking hours. Working people spend more time with their business colleagues than with their spouses. Naturally, friendships arise. Working together is a bonding experience--all the more reason we do well to restrain what we share about ourselves with our coworkers. The same principle applies to church committees or coaching children's sports leagues where men and women are regularly spending time in one another's company.

"Wait a minute," we say. "We're just friends! There's nothing wrong with that." Oh, but there is. Real friendships inevitably involve the sharing of personal thoughts and feelings, and we have no right to enjoy those intimacies with another woman's husband, to distract his focus away from her and onto ourselves. Even in the best of marriages, there are going to be seasons where the monotony of daily life can tempt a man (or woman) to be attracted to something or someone novel. The new and different is exciting to almost everyone, which is why even the most trivial sharing of a personal nature can be dangerously alluring.

And, of course, there exists the very real possibility that friendship with another woman's husband, however innocent at first, will morph into something more. Thinking that this won't happen in our particular case makes the possibility of it happening even greater. "Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall" warned Paul. Our only safety lies in the humble acknowledgment that it could indeed happen in our case. We're not above it. None of us is. Affairs rarely begin because a husband or wife wakes up one morning and decides out of the blue to seek out an adulterous relationship. They typically develop one conversation, one shared laugh, one lunch meeting at a time.

The modesty of personal restraint is glorifying to God, and it is one of the best ways we can love other people.