What am I Worth and who Determines it?

Responding to the way our culture exalts its ideal images of the attractive and sexy, one female commentator responded:

• Every woman is beautiful!

Actually, I agree. It’s not so much because every woman is physically beautiful, but rather because each woman is endowed by her Creator with an inalienable inner female beauty that no amount of aging can diminish.

I therefore wondered how this commentator could justify her secular assertion. Did she have physical beauty in mind? If so, I don’t see how she could make such a case. Physical beauty fades! Did she have inner beauty/character in mind? If so, it is patently obvious that some women have a more winsome character than others.

However, the Bible teaches that what we are transcends human appraisal and our comparative assessments. However this worth is an invisible worth that perhaps only God sees. It is only on here that we are freed from the ruthless assessments of society and the clawing opinions of others.

Without this freedom, we remain enslaved, co-dependent, and undermined by the way others treat us and confer value upon us.

Denial and its Power

Our beliefs affect our actions. But our actions and our lifestyles also affect our beliefs. A prostitute named Brooke of the Moonlite Bunny Ranch is a good example of this.

Brooke admitted that about half of her clientele are married, but she explained that she was providing a vital service for them:

• They love their wives. They just want variety - something new…assisted personal pleasure…a boast in confidence. 

When the interviewer asked her if she felt guilty about this, she responded:

• No, simply because there is a definitive line between the emotional and the physical relationship between us.

In other words, there was no marital betrayal because Brooke’s relationship with the married men was purely physical. She admitted that she listens to them and strokes their egos but that this is entirely “superficial.”

I guess the superficiality of the contact makes it okay! Perhaps it is superficial for Brooke, but if the husband is deriving an ego-boast, it is hardly superficial for him! It would therefore seem that Brooke’s distinction between “the emotional and the physical” is not a real one. But even if there is a real distinction, then the husband can do anything he wants to do physically without this betraying his relationship with his wife, as long as there isn’t any emotional involvement. This, of course, is “good news” for the sociopath who has no emotional attachments.

In the end, Brooke conveniently places all of the moral responsibility on the husbands:

• The responsibility lies on them, not me.

I was amazed how she was able to say this with complete charm and confidence, without a hint of anxiety. How sin can be made to look to so incredibly beautiful! How deceptive and powerful it can be! However, Jesus promised that He would deliver us from its blinding power:

• To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." (John 8:31-32)