What is a beautiful woman?

In continuation from last months short pointers on
Women of Noble Character
is

What is a beautiful woman?

It all depends on the stance one takes. Famous sayings like: ‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder’ or ‘Beauty is skin deep’ come to mind. Looking a little deeper, Anne Ortland in “Disciplines of the Beautiful Woman” highlights that the Bible says that only once – beautiful woman, referring to Sarah (Gen 12:11) and literally they mean a woman of beautiful appearance. Surely that can’t be all? Beautiful appearance! What about women who are crippled, disfigured in some way, blind and so on?

Sarah was certainly some woman, physically, but, she laughed at God’s word in disbelief that she would bear a son and then lied, denying it and she was jealous of her maid Haggar. So, physical beauty can’t be everything.

Proverbs 31 describes an admirable woman; her good qualities seem to be in opposition to physical beauty: “Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised.” Proverbs 3:30. In the New Testament, 1 Peter 3:3 – 5 says: “Let not your adornment be external only…….but let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God.”

Therefore a beautiful woman can be summed up as one who is disciplined, chaste, discreet, deferring, gracious, controlled, “together”. This kind of woman God considers godly, which means she has qualities and she’s close to his heart. This is “his” kind of woman – his kind of beautiful woman.

More thoughts to follow……

By Molly Manhanga