{"id":15018,"date":"2026-01-27T00:00:34","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T08:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/?p=15018"},"modified":"2026-01-28T08:20:31","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T16:20:31","slug":"true-beauty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/2026\/01\/27\/true-beauty\/","title":{"rendered":"True Beauty"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\">1 Peter 3:3-4\u00a0<em><sup>3<\/sup><\/em><em>Do not have your external adornment of braiding of hair and putting on of gold jewelry or wearing clothing, <sup>4<\/sup>but the hiddenness of the human heart with the imperishableness of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in God\u2019s.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\">Women of most cultures throughout time have put much effort and time into making themselves attractive to men. Significant money is spent today on hair, makeup, and clothing. Women\u2019s apparel is a big money-maker and widely advertised. Men, especially husbands, appreciate the beauty of women; however, it can become a distraction to both genders. The danger is when the pursuit of beauty feeds one\u2019 vanity and hides one\u2019s inner, spiritual turmoil. External adornment can become a form of hypocrisy: beautiful on the outside but torn to pieces inside with spiritual darkness and defeat.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\">Peter gives his answer for this type of situation in these verses. He urges the Christian women of Asia Minor and beyond to dress in simplicity and seek rather to have inner beauty. Paul wrote something similar in 1 Timothy 2:9\u201310. What God desires from women is a <em>gentle and quiet spirit<\/em>, more than outward beauty. <em>Gentle<\/em> (<em>prae\u014ds<\/em>) can mean humble, meek, and considerate. <em>Quiet<\/em> (<em>h\u0113schyciou<\/em>) refers to living a peaceful life and not raising issues (1 Timothy 2:2). A person with these qualities is pleasant to be around. Genuine beauty is determined by one\u2019s spiritual condition and the expression of this in Christlike ways.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\">How people dress and their hairstyle are cultural. How can we dress ourselves in such a way that is honoring to God and honoring to those around us? Peter wants wives to find their self-worth not in trying to make themselves beautiful on the outside but in making themselves beautiful on the inside with pure hearts. Both women and men can seek simple living without all the distractions of our cultures. Outward beauty fades over time, with gray hair, wrinkled skin, and sagging muscles. The inner beauty of a person does not need to fade but can grow more beautiful over the years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>1 Peter 3:3-4\u00a03Do not have your external adornment of braiding of hair and putting on of gold jewelry or wearing clothing, 4but the hiddenness of the human heart with the imperishableness of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in God\u2019s. Women of most cultures throughout time have put much effort and time into [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-devotions","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15018"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15018\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15019,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15018\/revisions\/15019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}