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| To me it’s as clear as glass |
Well here we are on the last two weeks of reading in our Community Bible Experience. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Beside getting to the end of our task, I find it an intoxicating prospect to have opened up this new year with completing the New Testament. I have been extremely blessed so far in my reading and I am hopeful that you have had the same experience as I have. Some of the days have been tough, not only for the length of reading, but also the texts that we have read and their direct challenge to each and every one of us.
Today we read 1 Peter and it is in the context of this reading that I experienced one of those tough (yea verily), challenging passages. I actually saw two. One had to do with remaining faithful as a believer in the face of persecution (which, by the way, we do not really experience here in the good old USA) and the other was a discussion on what is real beauty. I am going to chat on what real beauty is. If you want to know what I think about the other subject, read the book I wrote a couple of years ago, called Righter’s Block. You can get it here.
What I got from my reading today.
Peter writes that beauty (and in the context of this passage it is a woman’s beauty) should not come from just the outward appearance. Now it is undeniable that the fairer sex has been throughout the ages lifted up as the epitome of what beauty is all about. If you were to do a search online using the word “beauty,” and do the search for images (PLEASE MAKE SURE YOUR SEARCH IS SET TO “SAFESEARCH”), you will find pages and pages of pictures of women. There will be NOT ONE PICTURE OF A MAN. To get that, you would have to look up “beast.”
Look, beauty launched a thousand Greek ships to fight the Trojans and the war lasted 10 years. Beauty was used by nations to negotiate peace. Just look at Solomon and all his gals. Beauty has been the impetus for art (Mona Lisa), architecture (Taj Majal) and beauty has caused the poets heart to sing of their loves and their longing for the same (look it’s even in the Bible in the Song of Songs).
But Peter says something that flys in the face of the traditional understanding of beauty. He says, beauty is not just the outside stuff (although he does not deny there is beauty there). He emphasizes that real beauty, lasting beauty and godly beauty is that of “the inner self.” It is the gentle and quiet spirit of the heart, which pleases God, and is an intoxicating potion to the godly man. This is true adornment. This is the real “red carpet” beauty.
I know this doesn’t sell well in 2015. L’Oreal won’t be able to hawk it, neither will Maybelline. Theirs is totally external. Theirs is for a day or a night, but it is not for eternity. The beauty that God affirms is the beauty that has allows been beautiful. It is putting one’s hope in God, submitting, in the marriage context, to one another in God’s most wonderful love (this is mutual submission, the woman for the man AND vice versa). It is the outward expression of the inward reality of a heart given to the Lord and all He would have for such a one. It is being given to God.
The image is clear of waking to the day and putting on the gifts of God, remembering the blessings of God, focusing on the goodness of God and moving into the day with the very hope of God shrouding the heart. This beauty is not sold and you cannot acquire it in any other place than in the gracious hands of our Lord.
Do you want to be beautiful? It won’t be in your “do,” your jewelry, your outfits or your makeup. Beauty is really in the heart. Audrey Hepburn said, “True beauty in a woman is reflected in her soul.”
I think Peter would have said, “Amen!”
See you tomorrow when we’ll tackle 2 Peter. Blessings!
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