Beauty | Inside Out

Hello, everyone! I hope this post finds my friends and family, and their friends who peeked over here, healthy and well. I am so thankful to God for my teachers, classmates, and fellow believers all around. Sure, there are a lot of financial worries and a lot of sin nature I have to bring to the cross, but I can't imagine being in any other place than NTBI.

Well, for your checking back here without the slightest guarantee of a post with substance, why don't I try to help edify you? A couple of weeks ago, I had to do an expository study on I Peter 3:3-4. This study included reading the passage several times (I also read the near-context with it a few times), reading I Peter once through, defining all the big terms, and making an expanded version of the passage. Later I'll write more on what I learned God expects from women living under His grace, and the other wonderful truths He showed me from I Peter. For now, here's the expanded version.

E X P A N D E D I P E T E R 3 : 3 – 4 :
“Your way of arranging and making yourself orderly must not be merely on the outside, meticulously intertwining the hair as an ornament; wearing jewelry for confidence and a status symbol and intrinsic value, of gold which I have compared earlier in this letter to your very soul being refined; or merely by reaching into your drawer every morning and putting on nice-looking dresses or functional clothes.


“But, sisters in Christ scattered from persecution, let your way of arranging yourself be focused on the part that people can’t see even if they stare at you, the hidden person of the heart, the wellspring of your spiritual life that was wicked but was influenced by the Divine. Make that heart something that you would normally see as pretty strong, but in this case better – it simply can’t be broken or tarnished. What kind of disposition should your heart have, the unseen part of you? And why would you want to change it when your outside is a lot easier to manage? I’ll tell you the ‘what’ and ‘why.’ You should have a heart that doesn’t count its emotions as the final authority on how to react to situations. It should have passion, but restrain it in front of people, especially unbelievers. The reason for going to the trouble of changing it, of holding back and holding on when you don’t feel like it, is that that kind of heart is the heart Christ our Maker had before God the Father. That’s the best status symbol you can ask for, and even the bleakest pauper can have it.”