Should Women Wear Makeup?

I just think there's errors on both sides that, you know, there's the feminist kind of error that basically says, like, you chop all your hair off and you make yourself, you dress up in earth tones or whatever that don't match your skin color and just make yourself as hideous as possible to look at.

And then your basic posture towards your husband is enjoy me if you can.

Tim, the question for today's episode is, should women wear makeup? Yeah, yeah, sure. You just, like, so they should as like an imperative, that's what you mean?

Yeah, I mean, it doesn't hurt.

No, no, no, but they should they, should they, ought they to wear makeup?

Oh, man. So this is kind of like incomprehensible Christian culture kind of discussion or something along those lines. So, I mean, it's funny, it's funny. Like, I mean, just growing up in the world, all the, you know, all the girls I knew growing up, they would always wear makeup.

And then essentially when I went to Bible college and I went to seminary, this is the first time I kind of encountered women who were just like categorically opposed to makeup. And so, and it was kind of a weird thing, like, it was a weird kind of contrast to see on the one hand, you have girls like, you know, pagan girls who put so much focus on like external beauty, you know, makeup, all that kind of stuff.

And then, you know, in the extreme opposite, like you go to like Bible college, you go to seminary, and there was a good number of girls who basically just, they seem to think that it was like categorically immoral to wear makeup.

And, you know, so then this is one of those things I've had to think about, you know, over the years and think about, you know, what is the Bible actually saying as far as those things are concerned. And a lot of what's happening when you think about this kind of thing is, you know, ladies are kind of like there's a subset of Christian women who are just kind of categorically opposed to makeup.

And so, you know, there's a lot of things that are happening here, and it's hard to kind of speak to this issue without making a bunch of caveats. And so I'm going to try to make a lot of caveats. But a lot of ladies in more like solid Bible-believing Christian culture, they're more reacting to, you know, verses like 1 Peter 3, 3.

So 1 Peter 3, 3 says, Don't let your adorning be external. Now, that should just pause for a second. That should give you some kind of indication about what's about to happen. Does that make sense? So it says, Don't let your adorning be external.

If you're reading that in the most woodenly, literal way, then apparently Peter is discouraging all clothing, you know. Right. So but that's obviously not the point. The obviously not the point is to say that all external adornment is bad.

Right. So don't let your adorning be external, the braiding of hair, the putting on gold jewelry or the clothing you wear. But let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle, quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious.

For this is how the holy woman who hoped in God used to adorn themself by submitting to their own husbands as Hera obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord. And you are her children if you do good and do not fear anything that's frightening.

And so what's happening is like in this passage, you don't have some sort of condemnation or prohibition against women like trying, you know, or women trying to fix themselves up a little bit. And so like in Christian circles, you have ladies who basically read this as some sort of absolute prohibition against any kind of like effort on their part.

Right. And so, you know, I saw a Christian like, you know, there'd be girls at the Christian Bible College and all that and seminary and all that where I mean, it's like they didn't even comb their hair, you know, like they just bird's nest kind of thing going on is because they really just like they're like no makeup, no nothing, no combing their hair, no.

And I mean, you can kind of like there's like a natural, like an all natural version of this to to where I like a lot of like ladies who get caught up in the natural path kind of stuff. I mean, they just kind of it's like you better let your armpit hair grow out and lay your hair, hair on your legs growing out because natural is better.

Right. And so like any attempt to like try to. Help help things out, it's automatically a suspicion here, but that none of that is really like that, none of that is what Peter is talking about. OK, so I guess, you know, Peter is basically just take taking for granted that women are going to like women are made for beauty, like ladies, the glory of a man, ladies are made to be beautiful and like ladies are made to naturally try to be like to like they're obviously going to wear clothes that are going to either help that or detract from that.

Right. So so what Peter is not communicating is just make yourself as like repulsive to look at as you possibly can.

Right. Make yourself look like Bigfoot.

Yeah, I mean, that's not like, you know, that's that's not really what's going on at all. What he's basically saying is he's like, you know, first Peter is basically just commenting on just the standard reality of, you know, the things that you're going to find in Proverbs, like charm is deceitful.

Beauty is fading. But a woman who fears the Lord will be praised, you know, like a gold ring and a pig snout is a beautiful woman without discretion. So, you know, this is just like if you want like if you want to know what's really like attractive, if you want to know what's really attractive, really like real attraction, like you have superficial attraction, you have outward beauty.

And like what Peter is saying is those things are not completely and totally unimportant. And, you know, just take it for granted. And then just, you know, don't try as much as you possibly can, because that would be ungodly or whatever else.

Like what what he's basically saying is like you work on your character and that's the thing that's going to really matter. And that's the thing that's going to like last. Like long term, you know, so you can be the most beautiful woman in the world.

Um, but then like if if you don't have character, right, if you don't have character, like it's not going to matter. Like, um, your husband is just going to look at you and assuming you're married, like your husband's going to look at you and just like be utterly and totally repelled by your bad attitude.

And so, you know, all those things are true. But then the Bible doesn't also deny the reality of things like beauty, prefer preparations and all of that, you know. So, you know, you think about like Esther.

Esther is being presented to King Ahasuerus. And, you know, after 12 months, you know, Esther 2, 12, it says after being 12 months under the regulations for women, since this was the regulation period of their beautifying six months with oil and myrrh and six months with spices and ointments for women.

So, like, you know, basically you have in in the Bible, you have passages like this, which are just speaking to just the reality that women are created, created for beauty. So women are the glory of a man in that way.

They're made for beauty. I mean, you can look up like the word beauty over and over and over again in the Bible, and it's going to be located in women. And, you know, feminism, one of the things that feminism is, is it's like an absolute utter assault on femininity and absolute utter assault on beauty and women.

And so, I mean, that's why all the feminists are ugly is because because they they they have essentially like rejected this idea that they exist in order to be visually pleasing to men. Right. And so, like, the whole idea of feminism is like an absolute utter rejection of that.

And, you know, and Christian women like like we're not feminist, right? Like men and women are different. Like we're women are made to be beautiful. Men are designed visually to enjoy looking at like a woman, like their wife, like their wife's beauty to enjoy looking at that.

Like, you know, you can think about all the kind of things that are happening in the song of songs and just like the attitudes that are there, the, you know, perfume, the all that kind of stuff, like not like all that's on the table.

All that's part of a like as a woman, you should want to, you know, try your best to be beautiful for your husband in the same way that like, you know, a guy can dress like a slob and just be totally utterly repelling to his wife.

But then, you know, you you look at ladies, you know, comment online about men like in one of the things you'll notice is like a sharp dressed man is like very attractive to women in the same way, like a woman who tries like who tries to fix herself up like, you know, there's like, you know, gaudy prostitute kind of makeup.

And there's just like, you know, natural beauty mixed with just a little bit of effort and it goes a long way. Right. So so my my point isn't to say that, like, and this is what people hear. Like, if you if you were to say, should women wear makeup?

It's like, yeah, sure. I mean, I think most women are benefited by putting a little bit of effort into that. But I mean, there's obviously like a difference between like like prostitute makeup and just like subtle, you know, cover some of the blemishes kind of stuff makeup.

And so I don't so I don't think there's like, you know, like absolute the Bible says that they should. It's just like you can look through putting examples in the Bible of women actually doing that kind of thing.

You know, women adorning themselves like nose rings, you know, get nice looking clothing and everything else. And so there's nothing in the Bible that says don't try the focus on the Bible is like, you know, to let women know that alongside of whatever physical beauty treatments, preparations you might do, you know, make sure you realize that, hey, yeah, you know, your primary adornment is your character.

And so these things, they don't utterly not matter. OK, does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. So they don't utterly not matter, but they're not ultimate and there are more important things than that. So I just think there's errors on both sides that, you know, there's the feminist kind of error that basically says, like, you chop all your hair off and you make yourself you dress up in earth tones or whatever that don't match your skin color and just make yourself as hideous as possible to look at.

And then your basic posture towards your husband is enjoy me if you can. And I think a godly woman is going to say, hey, I want to try to make myself as pretty as I can for you without like making a spectacle of myself.

Right. But then I'm going to make myself, you know, lovely on the outside, and I want to make myself lovely on the inside. And the thing that really matters most is the loveliness on the inside. But, you know, we're not we're not Gnostics.

Of course, it's like fine to try a little bit. OK, fair enough.

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