For some say, “His letters are weighty and forceful, but in person he is unimpressive and his speaking amounts to nothing.” – 2 Corinthians 10:10

Today’s Scripture Reading (February 16, 2018): 2 Corinthians 10

Author and feminist Naomi Wolf writes that “Beauty' is a currency system like the gold standard. Like any economy, it is determined by politics, and in the modern age in the West, it is the last, best belief system that keeps male dominance intact.” I think she is right, and she is wrong. I agree that beauty and appearance is a currency system. If we watch the various media all around us, we know that is true. Our televisions are filled with the beautiful people. The ugly are often relegated to supporting roles or stock characters. To be ugly means you are evil, and if you are overweight, then you must be lazy. My struggle with what Wolf says is that, in the absence of money, the lack of beauty is a limiting factor for everyone, and it doesn’t matter whether you are male or female. The real issue is the presence or absence of money. If you are male and rich, you are good, no matter your appearance, although there may be some rich men in our culture who are working hard to disprove that caricature. If you are female, beautiful and rich, then you must have slept your way into money, and if you are female, rich but lacking beauty, then you are greedy, conniving and some words that I won’t use in this blog. But that is not the place where most of us live, so beauty becomes a currency system for all of us. Being accused of having a face made for radio is something that both men and women have to endure.

And it seems that it always has been that way. We know very little about the apostle Paul outside of his writing. None of his contemporaries painted his picture or built a bust of him. Why would they? In his era, he lacked both power and money, and it was only the powerful and the rich that would have received such treatment. But that does not mean that we don’t have any idea of how the apostle might have looked, or how he might have acted. And it is passages like this that gives us the clues. We know that Paul was a powerful writer. We hold his words in our Bibles. He painted great word pictures, and he had a way of explaining things that made sense to his audience. The problem with Paul, which was becoming a real issue in Corinth, was that he lacked beauty. Some have openly wondered if maybe he was short and balding, with a prominent nose. He lacked the classical Greek physique that most powerful men seemed to try to emulate. It is possible that he didn’t see very well, maybe because of the long nights writing letters by candlelight, so he did not recognize people quickly and from a distance.  And on top of all of that, there is the suspicion among historians that Paul might have been a stutterer. Therefore, the Corinthians accused him of speaking without power or that “his speaking amounts to nothing.” And all of this was a problem because the people were willing to judge him on his lack of beauty even though the words he wrote in his letters were powerful. In the absence of beauty, how could anything that the apostle wrote be true or trusted? While Paul possessed a great intellect, he lacked the currency that, even then, counted more than any other; he was not beautiful.

We still act more on beauty than any other single factor that is presented to us. I know of pastors who have been turned down by churches solely on the way that they look. The problem is far beyond just a feminist issue in Paul’s day and ours, and it is something that we need to address. It is possible that the wisdom that we need to hear is passing us by because we do not like the way that the messenger looks.   

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: 2 Corinthians 11