My weekend paper had a recent feature: “A bloke’s guide to summer”. It opened by saying, “Guys, remember when all you needed to do when the sun shone was break out a Hawaiian shirt and put some beers on ice? Now, so much more is required: ribbed abs, tight trunks, waxed torso—and expert barbecue skills”. Yet my guess is that even as the writing bemoaned that fact, all of the photos accompanying the article had been edited.
Jesus was a man who was true to himself and true to others.
Something has indeed shifted: there is now far more attention paid to how we look. It’s no wonder, then, that in a survey of 11-16-year-olds by the youth charity YMCA, 62% said they felt anxiety about how they would look in photos. Surely that’s a sign that our culture’s message on what bodies should be like has gone seriously awry.
So what is the Bible’s message on our appearance? For centuries, Christians have recognized that beauty must be allied with truth and goodness. The Bible doesn’t actually use the word “beauty” very much. (It tends to be more concerned with “glory”.) But in an essay on beauty, the seminary president Al Mohler makes the point that all of the Bible passages which describe the Lord as beautiful are describing his goodness. They focus not upon his physical attributes (how would you?) but upon his character.
Take as one example Psalm 96:
For great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised;
he is to be feared above all gods.
For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols,
but the LORD made the heavens.
Splendour and majesty are before him;
strength and beauty are in his sanctuary.
(Psalm 96:4-6, ESV)
There is a moral context to beauty. You cannot call something beautiful which is not true or good. And you cannot call something good which is not true or beautiful. But when beauty meets with truth and goodness, then it really is wonderful. Perhaps it’s simplest to write this as an equation:
Beauty – truth and goodness = ugliness
In this sense, an attractive woman in an airbrushed photograph cannot be described as beautiful, as this is not true beauty. So here’s a challenge for you—a way to really, actually apply this: stop editing your pictures. Don’t even add a filter.
There is a moral context to beauty. You cannot call something beautiful which is not true or good. And you cannot call something good which is not true or beautiful.
And if that thought horrifies you, stop and ask yourself why that is. (“Because everyone else does”? “But it’s winter and I’ll look pasty”?) Then stop and think about what that tells you. Seriously—take time to engage with this little “thought experiment.”
Now, the Bible does commend beauty, and there’s no virtue in becoming as dowdy as possible. The Scriptures have nothing positive to say about the slovenly man or unkempt woman. Yet we mustn’t miss its challenge on how much we care about physical appearance. At the risk of stating the obvious, the most attractive person in the Bible did not feel the need to alter his image:
He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
(Isaiah 53:2-3)
Jesus was a man who was true to himself and true to others. He was “real” with everyone: no pretence, no exaggeration, no airbrushing or touching up. In his speech he never sugarcoated the truth. Jesus would have been difficult to work for if you were a PR agency, always wanting to present your client in the most appealing light. And yet there is something undeniably attractive about this man of complete integrity. His followers are called to be people of integrity too.
This is an extract from Be True to Yourself by Matt Fuller, a book that unpacks what it means the biblical perspective on this culturally common philosophy.
Matt Fuller is the Senior Minister at Christ Church, Mayfair in central London. Before working as a minister Matt was a secondary school teacher teaching history and politics.
