Tag: beauty

The Reality of Beauty

Does it matter that we picture women as beautiful? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I was glad Tifa wasn’t flattened.

I know many of you aren’t gamers, but the Earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof. What is happening here is happening everywhere else. When evil declares war, it leaves nothing untouched. Even if you never pick up a controller in your life, you should care about this because your friends and family do pick them up.

So Tifa Lockhart is a character in the game Final Fantasy VII. A bunch of guys (And girls) noticed when the game came out on the original Playstation 1 that Tifa was quite well-endowed. This could be because of the way the polygonal graphics looked on the system. Either way, it was something she got known for.

So a few years ago when the remake came out, I got concerned. Would they change this? Why was I concerned? Because I’m just a guy and I just care about women looking hot? No. I was concerned because if they did this, it would mean they were caving in to political pressure, a goal to masculinize women and make them less attractive. Why? To avoid the male gaze.

As I said yesterday, men like looking at beautiful women. Heck. Women like looking at beautiful women. The problem is our society treats this like it’s a problem.

You all do realize that if men weren’t interested in beautiful women the human race would have died out a long time ago. Right?

You can say that’s shallow, but in reality, beauty is the draw. Beauty is something that leads men to love. They see a beauty and they want to treasure that beauty and pursue it.

Women. You sell yourself short when you shortcut that pursuit of men. Men will often do enough to get the beauty, and then when they have the beauty, well that’s the peak. I am not saying all men do this, but many do.

So what happens if you go to dinner and a movie with a guy and you wind up sleeping with him? You have taught him that’s all it takes. You put your price on what your beauty is worth.

On the other hand also, if you say “You need to make a lifetime commitment to me” then if that man really wants you, he will make that commitment. If he doesn’t, then he told you what he thinks you’re worth and you dodged a bullet. By the way ladies, when he makes that commitment, honor it. Let him treasure your beauty and you will have a happy man indeed. A man who will keep wanting to please you as well.

For men, this also means that engagement with pornography doesn’t just speak lowly of women, but it speaks lowly of men. A man engaging in pornography is taking a coward’s way out that will keep him from having to engage with a real woman. The woman on the screen can’t say no after all. She requires nothing of him. He doesn’t have to do anything that is a risk. He just shows up.

Of course, she also doesn’t really care about him and doesn’t think he’s sexy. She doesn’t want to be the mother of his children. She won’t be there to grow old with him years down the road.

The man will not grow in love and also, when a real woman comes along, he very well could be unable to perform because he’s trained his mind to work on fake women. What man wants that when it’s time to perform? Why even risk it?

This is also why Christians should never say beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Beauty is a reality. It is as real as truth and goodness. If beauty is relative, then there is nothing truly beautiful, but thinking makes it so. Do you think you live in a world where nothing is truly beautiful or even truly ugly?

One can say beautiful women can intimidate some women, but they can also be an inspiration. We know some portrayals, such as in anime, are unrealistic, but not all are. There is debate going on saying the main character of a game called Stellar Blade has an unrealistic image of a woman.

The image is based on a 3D model of an actual woman.

We should not try to remove beauty from women because women are meant to be beautiful. We should not try to remove masculinity from men because men are meant to be men. Our culture is in a war against reality. It is a new Gnosticism and it must be won.

Celebrate beauty today and honor beauty properly.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Femininity is a Good Thing

Is it good for a woman to be a woman? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I read some of a mystery every day. Yesterday morning, I read this in the one I’m going through now where a female detective is wanting to find out how to get close to a male suspect she wants to question.

“Rob Saunders is obviously a bit of a Casanova. You’re a young, pretty girl. You could use that to your advantage.”
“What? You’re not telling me to seduce him, are you?” cried Ellie.
“Oh, don’t look so shocked. I’m not suggesting that you sleep with him,” said Aunt Olive, clicking her tongue. “But a man like Rob… well, now, he’d be easy to interrogate if you know how to play him.” She saw Ellie’s expression. “Oh, come on, poppet! Calculated seduction is a time-honored tradition in intrigue and espionage! I know it’s not politically correct to say this nowadays, but you can achieve a lot with a suggestive smile and a show of cleavage.”
“Aunt Olive! You’ve just set the women’s lib movement back fifty years or something!”
“Rubbish!” snorted her aunt. “A woman who knows how to use her feminine charms to get what she wants is the one who’s truly empowered.”
I realize some people might think the language here is a bit crude and no, this is not a Christian work, but ultimately, as I read this passage, I had to agree with Aunt Olive in her basic point. The empowered woman is not the woman who tries to deny her femininity. It is the one who knows how to use it properly.
The feminist movement has really been very anti-woman. One of the main problems is that they set up a sort of competition between men and women. Men didn’t have this problem. Women did. Women wanted to be able to focus on a career, not worry about children, and not be seen as a piece of eye candy.
I am not against a woman having a career and not every woman will be a mother. Certainly a woman shouldn’t be treated as an object, but the way women went about these goals was wrong. It was not by being better at what they were, being women, but by trying to in essence not be women and be men.
So a man can have sex and not have to worry about carrying a baby for nine months as a result. No problem. Use birth control and if that doesn’t work, get an abortion. Deny your biological clock (Which men don’t have) and just work at your career and you decide when you want to have a baby, if you ever do. If men can walk around topless, women can too!
It hasn’t worked well for women.
Believe it or not women, if you want to get a real man, a man wants a woman who is a woman. He doesn’t want a woman who is trying to act like a man. He likes the things in a woman that set her apart from men.
That includes beauty.
That beauty is a good thing also. Yes. A woman can do a lot of damage to a man if she misuses her beauty and seduces him into doing things that he shouldn’t. However, she can also use that beauty to greatly inspire and motivate a man.
Consider Jacob in the Bible. When he sees Rachel, he’s immediately impressed by her beauty and when asked what his wages will be, he already knows. He wants Rachel! The text says he worked seven years, but they seemed like a short time because of his great love for her. I can imagine him easily out in the fields working hard and here comes Rachel walking by with a cute smile, the breeze blowing through her hair, the grace of her figure, everything, and Jacob just thinking “Soon.”
Then when the seven years is up (Is Jacob counting down the days), Jacob is awfully brazen and just goes to his future father-in-law and says “I’ve done my work. Give me your daughter. I want to sleep with her.”
That’s what the text literally says! I honestly can’t imagine going up to my former father-in-law on the day of the wedding and saying “You ready to give her up? I’m wanting to sleep with her.”
Now in the story, Jacob had to work seven more years for Rachel, but he did it. Why? Because female beauty is highly inspiring to a man. A man can do things he never would have dreamed of doing before just for female beauty. My ex-wife did cause some major good changes in me just because I was motivated by her beauty, something no one else could do.
Ladies. Keep this in mind also. Perhaps a guy who asks you out isn’t a ten in your minds, but consider this. If he is of good character, go out with him and see what changes can be brought about in him just because he wants you. You can inspire a man to be a man in ways he never was before just because your beauty has that effect on him. (Consider how in the Christmas special, Rudolph flies immediately just because Clarice says she thinks he’s cute.)
It’s the way God made the system. Enjoy it. He knew what He was doing.
In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: Rembrandt is in the Wind

What do I think of Russ Ramsey’s book? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I’m not much of an art guy. I just don’t see it in a lot of art. There have been exceptions. I use to go see a pastoral counselor at a Baptist church and I would sometimes get there early since I came from somewhere else and would go to a room to pray and there was a beautiful stained-glass picture of Jesus gently knocking on a door, no doubt based on Revelation 3. I really loved looking at this one and would love to find it again.

Ramsey is getting me to consider giving more paintings a second chance. He does this by introducing us to the artists and telling us about their positions. No. Not all of them are Christians. Still, all of them did produce art and that art is remembered today. Some I had heard of. Some I had not.

However, this book is about art and artists secondarily. It is primarily about beauty. As the author tells us, that means it is about brokenness as well.

Recently, I went to a beach with some friends and as I looked at the ocean, I thought about beauty. The ocean is a place of beauty, but it is also a place of destruction as well. How many lives have been claimed by the ocean? How many lives have been claimed by creatures in the ocean?

Beauty draws us in, but beauty is also extremely destructive. I am highly considering that everything in the world that has beauty also destroys as well. Some of you might think “Seriously? What about a newborn baby?! What does a baby destroy!”

Oh, nothing much but the couple’s regular lives together as they normally spend at least the next eighteen years caring for the child and perhaps more. Note this is not always a bad destruction, but it is a destruction. What I know about people who have babies is the constant message that life is never the same after.

And of course, God is the most beautiful of all, and if you do not think God is destructive, you have not met God. When God comes into your life, He does destroy it. He does break you, but only to put you back together better than you were before.

In all these artists, there is going to be some brokenness. Some of these artists lead tragic lives. Consider Vincent Van Gogh who is said to have shot himself in the abdomen. Ramsey does say some scholarship considers that he might have been shot by hooligans, but Van Gogh was in many ways a broken man.

The first artist considered is Michaelangelo. In him, you see a figure who took a slab of stone that everyone considered useless, and from that, produced the David. It is one of the natures of art to take what has no semblance and put it together to give it beauty. The first person in Scripture said to have the Holy Spirit was an artist.

If Michaelangelo lived a devout life, the same cannot be said of Caravaggio who was on the run from the law constantly and was wanted for murder and other crimes. Still, he had to paint biblical scenes because the church was in charge. The key to being a great artist is to go through the church, yet even in paintings of the profane, which would refer to the common, beauty shines through.

I found the chapter on Rembrandt disappointing. It’s not because of Rembrandt, but because so much of it was devoted to the stealing of paintings by Rembrandt. I found this a shame since Rembrandt was known as the master even in his time and was thoroughly devout, and yet I don’t remember learning a lot about his life.

Vermeer was the next artist and here you see how Vermeer had to work with the people of his day. No artist painted in an island. It’s quite likely Vermeer had a friend who developed lenses who he worked with.

The fascinating thing about Bazille was about how there was a group likely dismissed by the rest of the artists of the time working together called impressionists. Monet and Manet and others all worked together. It’s interesting that I suspect we know few of the names that rejected them, but we sure know their names today.

While Tanner was interesting, the disappointment was that Ramsey said he wanted more than just white men. I really don’t want to have an artist picked as say a token black artist. Give an artist a spot because the artist is good. The race of the artist doesn’t matter.

Van Gogh is one of the most well-known today and is indeed a tragic figure. It could be that he was painting perhaps three canvases a week somehow. He longed for recognition in his life. It could be tempting to look down on that, but do not many of us want the same? Don’t we want to be known and loved for who we are?

Edward Hopper was someone I hadn’t heard of either, but it was interesting how he painted his wife in so many pictures, and yet their marriage seemed to be chaos. I saw nothing that said he cheated on her, but he was willing to cast her to the side for his own career and she was often willing to be cast aside. However, it looks like as he got further and further long in life, he came to realize how much he needed her.

Lilias Trotter at the end was a strange choice. I wondered if Ramsey was wanting to get a woman in and yet if that was the case, why not someone like Mary Cassatt? Trotter apparently had a lot of artistic skill and was a prodigy of sorts, but chose to focus on ministry and go to Algeria and serve. I am not knocking that, but it seems odd to have a book about artists and yet end with a lady who set aside the dream of being a great artist.

At any rate, the author’s goal was to get us to learn to appreciate beauty more, and he succeeded with me at least. I think I will try to take a deeper look the next time I see some paintings. Also worthwhile is Ramsey gives tips on how to go to an art museum and appreciate the art more.

Check it out and see if you do the same.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

Book Plunge For Fun: Mollie McQueen Is Not Getting Botox

What do I think of book three of Lacey London’s series? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

We live in an age where image is everything. As a single man, I am on dating apps and if I told you that how a lady looks to me doesn’t matter, that wouldn’t be accurate. On the other hand, it would be just as wrong to say that that’s all that matters. Also, it is common for people to be ashamed of their age and not want anyone to know how old they are. I have no problem now telling people that I am 42.

This also extends to social media where we often come and put our best side forward and all the pictures of us are the best-looking pictures we have. I don’t remember seeing a lady take a selfie of her having bed hair or thinking she doesn’t have her make-up on properly. Our lives are often portrayed as being the best that they could possibly me and how much that one “like” that we can get means to us.

In this third book in this series, these kinds of questions come to mind as Mollie’s parents and her in-laws are both obsessing about aging and trying to look young. This involves going through some of the most extreme measures like getting medical procedures done. Eventually, this leads to even more bizarre “natural” treatments that I don’t want to go into now in case someone wants to read them themselves.

All the while, she is interacting with her neighbor, a lady who is a senior citizen, and the other elderly man next door watching them go at one another in what seems to be a contest to irritate one another constantly. Something that is pleasant to see is that the elderly as treated as people who do have a lot of wisdom. Mollie goes to see her neighbor just to hang out, but also to seek some sage advice.

Also, she’s involved with a presentation at her firm where she works to put together a campaign idea for a social media company. She is someone who hates social media thinking it has done a lot of harm to us all. However, with the benefits that could come from this position, what will she do?

As I was going through the book, at the start, i was thinking I couldn’t relate much and that wasn’t such a draw, but then it came to seeing discussions of questions of image and where beauty comes from, which is something I am definitely interested in. We got to questions of social media and I was curious to see what would happen, seeing as I see it as a mixed bag. I do realize a lot of the problems, but I am incredibly thankful for the people and relationships that I have formed through social media that I never would have otherwise.

In the end, I thought the story had an excellent ending and a note on how the next one would go. Right now there are five books in this series and I do plan on going straight through them. The aspect I like is that the characters become relatable to the reader and after awhile, you come to know them personally and are invested in them. I still hope there will be a sequel to Odd Billy Todd for the same reason.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Why Not Watch Porn?

What’s the harm? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

In a recent post on waiting for marriage again, I wrote about a recent conversation with two co-workers. That conversation about why one should wait until marriage also included talk about pornography. The guy in the conversation was definitely stunned that I don’t watch porn, though a lot of women have been stunned about that too.

The sad reality of today is it’s considered axiomatic. If a girl starts dating a guy, she will usually assume that he is caught up in watching pornography on some level. Even sadder, too many times, she’s right.

Now I being a formerly married man have got to rightly see a woman’s full body before, so what’s the harm? Why not go back to that? I mean, sure, these are women I don’t know, but why should this suddenly be forbidden grounds once again?

First off, let’s consider that rule about women thinking that their men watch porn. This is unfair to the woman as the woman will often then start watching if anything, just because she thinks she has to compete against what is on the screen. Newsflash: She can’t. What is on the screen is fantasy and acted out entirely. What is going on in reality is not acted out. It’s real flesh and blood and there are no retakes of a scene or anything like that. There are no airbrushed bodies either in reality.

No woman should think in anyway that she has to compete with a woman on a screen. Even if you’re not watching porn, I urge you married men definitely to not talk about an actress on TV or the movies that you think is attractive. That can make a woman think in a social media world that she has to compete.

Second, we don’t know the story of these women always, but many times they are caught up in sex trafficking, which still goes on here in America. Watching pornography can further aid that. Would you want to take part in anything that could enable the sex slavery of women?

Third, when I listen to the radio many times, I often hear ads about products that deal with ED. I strongly suspect the reason this has risen so much is pornography. Some men have been turned on so much by porn that they need something stronger and stronger in order to be able to respond to a beautiful woman. There are men in their 20’s and possibly younger that are struggling with this already and some that I have known like this have been struggling with pornography. Pornography has it that you need more and more to get the same sort of reaction and it has to be harder and harder. It’s the law of diminishing returns and you are damaging your brain further and further.

Fourth, this really makes you less of a man. There’s no need to go out there and really impress a real woman. Nope. Just go and watch a woman who doesn’t even know you take off all her clothes in front of you on a screen. That doesn’t make you a man. You might feel like one, but if anything, you are less of a man. You are really telling yourself you are incapable of getting that in reality, so you might as well go to porn.

Personally, I see a woman as a privilege and I want it to be that assuming I remarry, which I definitely hope for, that a lady will know I waited for her and when she shares her body with me, there is no competition. She doesn’t have to compete against a computer screen. She is the one and only.

And ladies, if your man is watching porn, declare war on it. Don’t accept it. It’s either you or porn. I’m not saying he will necessarily quit cold turkey. It’s a struggle. Still, he has to be willing to get help. It’s a form of adultery in the marriage and it should not be tolerated.

And always, please do work on your marriages. I can tell anyone easily that divorce hurts. In some ways, it hurts every single day to this day.  Please work on your marriage so none of you has to go through with this.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

No Shame

Is nudity shameful? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Genesis goes on to tell us that the man and woman were both naked and unashamed. Why would this need to be said? Because Moses knew about his own time, (Presuming he wrote this which is secondary to the point anyway) and he knew that there was shame in his day.

That shame has extended to our day. Why is it this way? Is the body something we ought to be ashamed of to hide before everyone else?

Genesis ends with a favorite verse that says “What you intended for evil, God intended for good.” Indeed. Unfortunately, what God intended for good, the human body, is often used for evil.

Of course, you could ask why that would be the case today. Why would people be concerned about how their bodies look? Do people still think that way?

Hey. Have you seen that show with all the hot females in skimpy clothing?

Odds are, you might have thought, “Which one?”

That’s the problem.

I want to focus on women first because most women I know tend to have this problem. When I hear news stories about concerns about people struggling with image due to Instagram or Facebook, it’s teenage girls. They look at all the other girls around them and they think they don’t measure up.

These women tend to shame themselves with their bodies. They might think there is always someone prettier out there. The truth is in some aspects, someone will always be better at you in something out there. No human today is a master of everything.

However, the #1 person to compete against is really yourself. Are you doing enough to make yourself a better person today? Not just a physically beautiful person, but an internally beautiful person. That is the most important beauty.

And ladies, if you are married, you no longer have to compete. Your husband already chose you. If he tells you he thinks you’re beautiful, believe him.

Of course, there is that one exception.

Guys. Stop watching porn, especially if you’re already married. Whether you mean it or not, you are telling your wife that she is inadequate. Yes, women. In that case, I fully understand you distrusting your husbands. Their actions and their words are not lining up.

Some women unfortunately go the other way. They go all out freely offering their bodies to most anyone who comes along. The idea of nudity is really saying how much you trust someone. The problem is people are saying “I trust you totally with my body, but I don’t trust you totally with a lifelong commitment.” It’s a way of being used.

When a man and a woman come together in matrimony and are engaged in sex, what they are saying is they alone are the ones who trust each other entirely with their bodies. Marriage is the place for that total trust and commitment. Marriage is where that promise has already been made and then the action of sex lines up with that promise. It is a way of saying that here there is no shame.

It is a recreation of Paradise. When you have covenant love fully going on, you are to have Paradise. In this way, some secular artists do have it right. Intimate love is often compared to Heaven and Paradise. They’re right in that this is a microcosm of what God has for us. They’re wrong in thinking that this is indeed Heaven and Paradise. The finger is great to point at the moon, but it is horrible to mistake the finger for the moon.

Now on to men.

Yes. Men themselves struggle with this. I have had my own difficulties. I weigh just a little under 130 and I am 5’7″. Technically, I am underweight, but I am incapable of gaining weight too much due to the steel rod on my spine being designed for a certain weight.

I well remember as a man in my 20’s working at a grocery store in the back room on break and seated with the girls and here them talk about some guy going by and one of them jumping up to pursue him because “You’re so hot.”

Yeah. I’m just some guy in the room.

Guys worry that they don’t compete with other guys as well. Maybe not as much as women do, but that is there. Men have a tendency to want to one-up one another in anything. It might be the stupidest kind of contest ever, but we want to be #1.

Years ago I remember working at the Christian Research Institute and sitting in the break room with some of the guys there and we were talking about painful physical experiences in our lives. Slowly, I noticed that after one of us told our story, another guy had to come and say “This is my story.” We weren’t just sharing stories. It was along the lines of, “You think you went through a lot? Let me tell you what I went through!” It was as if the bigger man had the bigger story.

By the way, I think I won when I brought up my back surgery.

When I was married, I remember going to the Titanic museum in Pigeon Forge with my ex-wife. There, you could stick your arm in water that was the temperature that the water was around the iceberg when it was hit by the Titanic. I thought I would roll up my sleeve and show her what a man I was by putting my arm in there as long as I could.

I think I lasted about a minute.

So yes, guys do have those insecurities, but I noticed when I was married, I had none of that around my ex-wife. In my mind, I was already accepted. Why hide? Not all guys are like that. Insecurity is real.

Shame has distorted what God meant for good.

We somehow think if our bodies are less in some way, we are less in some way.

Our values are not determined by if we have a super hourglass figure or how tall we are or if we have six-pack abs or how much we weigh on a scale. These can matter to some extent, as we should try to be healthy, but they don’t determine our value. Our value is found in being in the image of God.

Every marriage is meant to be a microcosm of the love of God and man together. This includes even a secular marriage. Just because it wasn’t done in a church doesn’t mean it’s not something from God.

We are to have no shame before God. We are to have no shame before our spouses. Treating the body like it’s just something common and anyone can see is a false view as not everyone is worthy of that covenant relationship. Marriage is a way of saying one person is.

Treat your body well. Respect it, and save it for someone who is worthy of it. You are worth that too.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Eve’s Beauty

What makes a woman beautiful? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Adam is alone and God decides to give a companion for him. He takes a rib from Adam’s body and when Adam wakes up, out comes Eve to him. We also know that she was naked as the text says they both were and had no shame. Adam sees Eve and says “This is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman for she was taken out of man.”

Now I don’t know Hebrew, but I know people who do, and I have been told that a direct Hebrew way of understanding what Adam said there is “YOWZA!”

Adam was impressed.

Now I’m going to look at the whole one flesh statement another time, but it deserves something on its own so today, I just want to focus on Eve. Who was she?

Now when I was growing up, Eve was one part of the Bible that I sometimes wished had been illustrated. Just think about it. A woman that God Himself hand-crafted. What a looker she must have been! She must have been a total beauty queen! Every man would be thrilled to see her. Helen of Troy has nothing on her!

Now, I’m not so sure of that.

Let’s consider that we have three races. Now usually, if a girl buys a baby doll at a store, she will buy a doll from her own race. After all, that’s the kind of kid she’s likely to have someday. Many people do often desire someone of their own race. Not all do, but we all have our preferences.

Some guys like girls that are slim. Some like girls that are heavier. Some like a certain hair color. We could go on and on and since this is a blog I would hope a family could read, I don’t want to go too far down this road.

So let’s talk about Eve. What do we not know first off? Well, I’m going to have to use modern standards, but there are several things we don’t know.

We don’t know her height.

We don’t know her weight.

We don’t know her race.

We don’t know her hair or eye color.

We don’t know how long her legs were.

We don’t know what her bra size would have been.

We don’t know what her voice sounded like.

We don’t know about her complexion.

And there’s no universal idea of what a woman should look like here so it could be some guys today would see Eve and think she’s no big deal. Others would and be going internally crazy at the sight of her. Some guys have a wife they gush on and on about her beauty and their friends just don’t see it, but that guy sure does.

Here’s the important fact. Adam thought she was beautiful.

That’s all that matters.

And thank God then we don’t have a description of Eve. Can you imagine if we knew Eve was a brunette for example? Every woman who was a blond could think there was something wrong with her and she wasn’t the ideal woman. Every woman who had a different bra size or legs of a different length or was of a different race could feel like they have to compare themselves and many a man would compare his wife to Eve.

Without knowing what she looked like, no comparisons can truly be made.

And you know why that is?

Because every woman is truly meant to be Eve.

Eve is the pinnacle of God’s creation. If I have a daughter in the future, I want to name her some variation of Eve, like maybe Eva. Why is that? Because I want her to know that she is a representation of God’s beauty on this Earth. Woman in the account is the last created and I think the jewel of creation. Certainly in beauty. Nothing on Earth compares in beauty to the beauty of a woman.

All women somewhere in them have that beauty. All are to be treasured somewhere. That beauty should also be sacred and not shared cheaply. Sadly, too many women are doing that today. This is especially so in the porn industry where a man can see a woman’s body without having to make any real effort to be a man.

A woman does not have to compare herself to Eve, but she is still meant to be Eve. She is meant to represent the beauty of God on this Earth. As a man, I am amazed at the handiwork of God when I see a beautiful woman. It boggles my mind how many women don’t see just how beautiful they are in the eyes of their husbands. They live their lives in shame of their bodies and we are sitting back thinking “What the heck are you thinking?”

Ladies. Every time your husband compliments you physically and you argue against it, in some way, you are calling your husband a liar.

Adam saw Eve and he was pleased. The two became one flesh.

This we shall talk about another time.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Pastor. Your Eyes And Heart Need Work.

What are wives required to do for husbands? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I heard yesterday about a video going viral. In it, a pastor was giving a sermon and sometime in the middle, he went on a tirade that is extremely derogatory towards women. If you want the highlights, here’s what someone posted about it.

As a husband to my wife and father to my daughter the things he brought out such as:

“Don’t give him a reason to look elsewhere”

“men are going to look so be sure to keep your self attractive enough he only wants to look at you”

“My friend set a divorce weight for his wife”

“It’s really important for a man to have a beautiful woman on his arm”

“Women stink”

“Weight control”

“Food never taste as good as skinny feels”

“Dress appropriately, dress your age, dress your body type…just look good”.

Now someone could look at this and say, “Well isn’t it true that a wife should care about her appearance?” Yes. It is. Unfortunately, the way this guy spoke will not encourage any wife and places the blame on her and some statements are just hideous.

Let’s start with don’t give him a reason to look elsewhere. If this was a playful challenge given as an encouragement, that could have been one thing. “Women! You’re already beautiful! Your husband is tempted to look at other women because he is a man, but be a feast for his eyes and he will always return to you.”

Instead, what the preacher said was, “If you lower your beauty, your husband will look elsewhere.” When you’re a Christian man and dating, you already know that a woman is beautiful. When you marry, you learn that she really is much more beautiful than you realize.

If you are a man and you look at a woman and don’t see something beautiful, it is not the woman that needs to change but you. This is especially so for your wife. Every woman is beautiful in some way. If you are not seeing beauty, then work on changing yourself.

I honestly cannot easily picture Christ referring to any woman physically as ugly. He might think that their behavior is awful, but He never rejected a woman who came to Him for help. Jesus was incredibly kind towards women.

That being said, it is true men are going to look. I remember a young Catholic priest telling me about how he can look too and he always says, “She is a beautiful gift, but she is not for you.” A man might notice a woman and have a momentary thought, but a good man just moves on then.

I don’t think a man is responsible for his momentary temptation that flies through his mind. Now if he stares or leers or something else, that is different, but it is a struggle for the majority of men out there. A wife should not take it personally. At the end of the day, he chose her.

The comment about a man setting a divorce weight for his wife is one of the worst. I don’t know of anything in Scripture that says, “If you start thinking your wife is putting on too much weight, you may leave her and trade her in for a less heavy model.” This pastor doesn’t need to be condemning the women. He needs to be condemning his friend instead.

Now it is true that a man likes to have a beautiful woman on his arm and whenever I have had to take Allie somewhere, I have been delighted to show her off to everyone. If anything, I always delighted in telling everyone the story about her winning a beauty pageant. When I went to my 20th year high school reunion, I remember being eager to show her off to everyone I went to school with. Yes. I did get married and I married a beautiful woman.

Women stink? I have no doubt that a woman could have a problem if she has just worked out or anything like that, but so do men. That’s part of the human condition. It doesn’t matter either. A woman is still beautiful.

The statement about nothing tastes as good as being thin feels is one often used in diet motivation. If a woman wants to lose weight for proper health reasons (Not Anorexia or Bulimia) and is motivated by this, good for her. By the way, that should be the best motivation for weight control and that is health.

Now there is certainly truth in the last part about dress appropriately, but many Christian wives don’t have this problem. They’re not going to show up to church in a bikini or something like that. This could be something said more for the teenage girls in the audience who are still wanting to get a man in their lives.

But in the end, the big problem is that there’s nothing wrong with a woman wanting to make herself beautiful for the man in her life. When Ruth approached Boaz to see if he would marry her, she was told to bathe and put on her best clothes. Yes. Men do respond to physical appearance.

The man also needs to work on being the best that he can. It’s meant to be a mutual self-giving. Also, normally if a woman wants to do this, her husband will likely have no problem with it. I remember when Allie got a new dress at Wal-Mart one time and when she came out, my jaw just dropped. I was stunned by how beautiful she looks. I even told her that for my birthday I could ask my parents and in-laws to give her dresses as well. That would be just as much a gift to me.

As far as I know, this pastor’s wife didn’t poison him in his sleep or anything like that during the night. Either way, this is a man who definitely needs to get into marriage counseling and get his attitude towards women taken care of. Also, until that changes, please don’t be in the pulpit. We don’t need this kind of attitude there.

And women, you’re already beautiful. If a man doesn’t find you beautiful just the way you are, then he’s not going to find you beautiful anyway. His idea of your beauty is conditional. Move on.

However, while you should want to take care of yourself, if you have a good man, he will find you beautiful no matter what changes you go through. It is because while he sees your body, he doesn’t see just your body. He sees you and when he sees you he sees beauty. It’s not conditional.

If you’re a man who makes your commitment to your wife conditional on what is fleeting and passing anyway, then you don’t really have a commitment to your wife. You have a commitment to a female body. Work on your eyes, and your heart.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)
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Thoughts On Eve

What are we to think about this woman? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

When your wife is away from you long-term, as mine is right now being in a facility for excellent mental health treatment, you start thinking about what it means when you want to have her around and what the absence means. Naturally, I go to Scripture first and then beyond that to thoughts from great Christian minds and my own philosophizing. When it comes to women in the Bible, the first one we get is Eve.

Now there are many interpretations held about Eve by Christians. Some are very literalistic with a YEC approach that says the Earth is young and these were the only two humans. Some are OEC and say the Earth is old but Adam and Eve were the first human creations. My view is more akin to the idea that there could have been other humans, but these two were chosen as our representatives. Some even say this is just a story and there was no Adam and Eve.

At this point, while that is a fascinating debate, it is irrelevant. That is not in terms of Biblical interpretation, but it is in terms of what I wish to say about Eve. What does Eve mean for women today?

We live in a world where women are saturated with images of how they should look. Hollywood models are put on display and magazines are full of images of women that are no doubt photoshopped, but this is held as the ideal. Even worse, a number of women watch porn to think about not just how they should look, but how they should be with men.

Leaves me thankful I have avoided porn.

Now sometimes I have speculated what Eve, if she is a real person, looked like. Imagine the woman chosen to represent all women. If we are talking about the YEC or OEC model, the idea that God personally hand-crafted this woman for Adam. I can wonder what she looked like, but the Bible never tells me.

What we are told is how when Adam saw her he said “This is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman for she was taken out of man.” That is some wonderful language that we don’t really understand today. Friends who know Hebrew well have told me a direct translation that would best capture the thought of what Adam is saying would be something like….

“YOWZA!”

But ladies who are thinking about this, please consider at this point some things we don’t know about Eve. Maybe a few we could guess well, but we just don’t know. We can’t say for sure what race she was perhaps, but we could make a good guess based on where the story takes place. We don’t know her hair color or her eye color. We don’t know her height. We don’t know what she weighed if she could have stepped on a scale then. We don’t know how curvy she was or if she had an hourglass figure. We don’t know if her hair flowed down her body or if she was short. We don’t know her bra size. We do not know how her hips moved or how big her butt was or what her legs looked like.

Those are some of the biggest ways we judge women today and I am sure there are others and yet the text says nothing about them. She even made her first appearance in the nude and yet, there is no judgment given on her features. She has no shame. There should be none in a Paradise situation.

What do we know?

Adam loved his wife. One interpretation of why Adam ate of the fruit even is that he knew Eve had royally screwed up and he didn’t want her to face it alone. He chose to take it with her.

If so, that is some devotion on his part.

And to all ladies reading this, you are also meant to represent God on Earth just as much as Eve was. My wife knows I have said several times that I think the way women reflect God best on Earth is by beauty. If I am correct with that, it’s not a shock woman was the last being created since woman is the most beautiful in all of creation. Even perfectly straight women will say that as handsome as a man can be to them, the beauty of a woman stands out still.

You also could look at that list above that I gave. You could be excellent in all those areas or you could think you’re deficient in all of those areas, but whoever you are, as a woman, you are beautiful. If anyone does not see that, it is because they are blind.

There’s a line from The Good Doctor which I will paraphrase, but it is one whose sentiments I have thought before with my own wife. “I do not love your body because it is excellent. I love your body because it is yours.” If you say you love a woman and her body undergoes a change and your love changes, then you did not love her. You loved her body only. You should care about the body because it is hers and love it and treasure it, but your love should not be dependent on it.

So no, the Bible doesn’t tell us what Eve looks like. Looking back now after thinking about this more the past few weeks or so, it’s a good thing it doesn’t. Women would be comparing themselves to Eve and sadly, too many guys would compare the women in their lives to Eve. There is no need for that. All women should be celebrating what they have and should properly in public, live without shame for being a woman and delight in it, and behind closed doors with their husbands, totally live without shame relishing in the love they have.

Women. Remember you are beautiful. And men, remember too that she is and treat her that way.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Some Thoughts On PornHub and Sex Trafficking

How should we view women today? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

A news story is out about the FBI looking into groups like PornHub for sex trafficking. For those of us who know something about the porn industry, that sex trafficking is involved is not news to us. It’s not to say that all women in the industry are victims of sex trafficking, but I have no doubt that some are.

So let’s talk a bit about porn and why it should be shut down.

Now in the past, if you wanted to look at pornography, you had to go somewhere secret and be discrete. You had to go to the magazine stand or to the video store and there was a chance you could be caught. Unfortunately, with the good of the internet came the evil of porn and then rule 34. That states that if it exists, there is porn of it on the internet. No matter how innocent you think something is, there is porn of it out there somewhere.

As I drive around Atlanta, I listen to talk radio. Everyday practically, I will hear a commercial about erectile dysfunction. It’s constant. Why is this? I always tell my wife the same thing. I suspect it happens so much because so many men have watched porn for so long that they can’t easily be aroused by a real woman. They only go with a fake one.

This is not to say that all causes of erectile dysfunction are due to pornography. Saying women in porn videos are fake is not to say they are not real people. It is to say that what is presented is a false idea of what women and sex are meant to be.

As a man in charge of a group for guys on Facebook who are Christian and married, engaged, dating, or hoping to date and marry, when I meet a man about to marry, I ask him if he would like to talk about what to expect. This is something every guy (And every girl) needs if they haven’t had sex before their wedding night. One thing I always tell them is to think back to what you have seen on TV and movies. Think back to all the sex you have experienced on there. Now throw it out because none of it is realistic at all.

In the movies and I am sure in porn, everything works flawlessly. There are no mistakes. There are no accidents. No one has to put down a towel. No one gives a touch that is not liked. The woman and the man have perfect ecstasy together and they both orgasm at exactly the same point and everything is wonderful.

Sorry. Real sex will involve trial and error for some time and you will always be learning.

So men get a false idea of what sex is.

Not only that, it leads to a consumer mentality of women. Women are objects just to be wanted for their bodies. The purpose of a woman is to parade before a man in all her naked self and let him glorify himself in her. On porn, the woman on the other end is irrelevant. You don’t have to know her name or care about her or do anything for her whatsoever. She is your servant entirely.

Now I am not at all knocking the idea that a woman is beautiful. I saved myself for marriage and when I see my wife’s body in all her glory I am utterly amazed and mesmerized. After nearly ten years of marriage, Allie is still the woman out there that totally turns my head. She is my great gift and I will jump at any chance I can to see her body.

That’s the way God made it too.

You see, the beauty then inspires me. If I want to have the joy of Allie’s body, I need to treat her right. I need to love her. I need to honor her. Now even if I don’t feel those things at the start hypothetically, which I think happens in arranged marriages, by doing those actions over and over, I come to love and honor her because it becomes habitual and habits change your thinking. For me, loving Allie is really second nature now.

I don’t go and say “I can’t see Allie’s body now for reason XYZ” and jump on to porn instead. That treats her body like a consumable good. I can say that when I see her body, I do see her physical form and I am amazed, but the beauty I see goes beyond the physical. It is not just her body in a transcendent way. It is as if I am seeing her. I am seeing not just her form, but I am seeing vulnerability and trust. I am seeing her. How she is to be with me and me with her is how we are to be before God.

Pornography will teach you that the purpose of the woman is to serve you. If you are married though, your purpose is to serve your spouse. Women are to seek to please their husbands, as so many husbands like to say, but husbands are to seek to please their wives. It doesn’t just mean doing something on Valentine’s Day or anniversary or birthdays or special events like that. It means doing something every day that you can. Believe it or not guys, it wouldn’t kill you to get out the vacuum cleaner every now and then.

Pornography cheapens the people in your life and will make it harder for you to love. In sexuality, it’s important to know what pleases you or else your spouse won’t know how to bring you the happiness they should want to bring you, but your main goal should be to please your spouse. Many a guy will say that despite the idea that sex is all they want, they are not really pleased with sex if they do not think they have pleased their wives. That is their real goal.

Now I realize that women also struggle with porn. This is not to diminish that, but as a man, it is easier to write to the men. The women can find their own parallels, but if you struggle with porn, please get help. Get an accountability partner. Get some software on your computer and other devices that can hold you accountable. Join a group like Celebrate Recovery and get some help. This will not be an easy battle, but it is worth it.

Remember on those videos also, that girl on there is someone’s daughter as well. She deserves to be treated respectfully and with dignity. Women, for you, please never lower yourself ever to win the heart of a guy. If you have to lower yourself, he is not worth it. You are worth more than that.

In Christ,
Nick Peters