Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - The Beauty God Looks For | Historical Books | 1 Samuel 16:1-13

Episode Date: April 24, 2025

Are you body-obsessed? Have you been trained to believe that your body is ugly? How does God measure a person's worth? In today's episode, Patrick shares how 1 Samuel 16:1-13 reminds us that people look at outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. If you're listening on Spotify, comment below one takeaway from today's episode! Read the Bible with us in 2025! This year, we’re exploring the Historical Books—Joshua, Judges, 1 & 2 Samuel, and 1 & 2 Kings. Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: 1 Samuel 16:1-13

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Patrick Miller. A recent study found that 46% of 9-to-11-year-old girls report that they're often on diets, often on diets, 9-to-11-year-olds. 60% of elementary school-aged girls say that they're concerned about being, quote, too fat. 53% of 13-year-olds say that they are, quote, unhappy with their body. by the age of 17, 78% of women will be unhappy with their bodies. And by the way, adult women, they do fare better, but not much better.

And I share this because I have a question, like, are you okay with this? Do you want this to be true for your sisters, for your daughters, for your wives, for your grandkids? Let me share a few more facts. Almost 50% of teens report seriously considering elective cosmetic surgery. I mean, let's just stop. Talking about teenagers who are looking at their bodies saying, I need surgery to make this body something that I can love, something that is what I want it to be, something I'm okay with. And that number hardly changes amongst women all the way through their 60s.

Last year, Americans spent $16 billion on elective cosmetic surgery. Around 90% of those surgeries were on women. So this isn't just men and women. I mean, this is clearly something that's affecting and focused towards women. And other than the country of Brazil, America is the most cosmetically operated upon country in the world. Now, I know that plenty of people listening to this have had cosmetic surgery and injections, and I don't say any of this to shame me. In fact, it's the opposite of what I want.

I don't want you to feel shame. I want you to feel encouragement. I want you to know that you're loved and that God sees you as beautiful. But I do want to ask us all, whether or not we've had plastic surgery, whether or not we're a man or a woman, I want to ask us this question. Every culture is not like our culture. Italians, Germans, and Brits do not have plastic surgeries or the same body image issues at the same rates. They're not nearly as body obsessed as Americans are. And if I can go one step

further, I just want to ask, what does it say about us as a culture that it's women and women specifically who have been trained to dislike their bodies so much, who feel like they need to go under the knife to be beautiful? Again, if you've had plastic surgery, I'm not telling you to feel shame. I'm telling you that I feel your pain. Our culture has created a form of shame in you that I lament and I grieve. And it's told you that you needed to change your body surgically to be beautiful. It tells us that we have to starve ourselves and have eating disorders to be beautiful. It tells us that we have to be obsessed with our bodies and weigh in all the time and look in the mirror and be disappointed. By the way, I'd say the exact same thing to our

teenagers and our elementary school girls, many of whom are right now battling with loving their bodies. I mean, what does that say about our culture that our children are disappointed with how they look. They feel like they're not beautiful, that your child might feel that way. Psalm 139 says, I praise you, God, because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. God is the maker, and who am I? I am the one who has been fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful, including me, I know that full well. Do you know that's true of you? Your body is exactly how God designed it. Everybody is different. Of course, and our culture lies to us and says that certain bodies are better and more beautiful than other bodies.

But God speaks a different truth. Your body, your body is fearfully and wonderfully made. God designed every detail of you, every part, and he is not ashamed of how you look. He's declared you, no matter your age, no matter your weight, to be beautiful and wonderful. You may not believe that. You may look into the mirror and think if I could only lose some weight or change my shape, or have this surgery or color these hairs, then I would be fearfully and wonderfully made. But that is a lie.

You are how God designed you to be. Every freckle, every wrinkle, every color, all of you. Our culture is just sick and distorted. It's pumped us full of the lie that a woman's worth can be measured with the eyes. I think men face a similar reality, although less extreme. We can feel the same body obsession and body pains. I don't mean to say this is only women. not. And so my question to every father, every mother, husband, wife, brother, sister is this,

have you allowed that lie that your worth can be measured with the human eye? You allowed that lie, not just to take root in yourself, but to take root in the beautiful ones God surrounded you with. Does your wife think she needs plastic surgery to be beautiful? Maybe you've never said that. Maybe you've even said the opposite, but maybe you've thought it. Maybe you haven't really challenged the cultural lie that says that she needs to go under the knife or have an injection to be fearfully and wonderfully made. I mean, why didn't she just say, no, we can't do this. We're not going to do this. I'm not okay with it. Or think about the other beautiful ones around you, your daughters. Or think about the other beautiful ones around you. Does your daughter think she needs

a diet to be beautiful? Does your daughter feel dissatisfied with her body? Again, I'd warn you that how your wife feels about her beauty and her body, it's likely how your daughter's going to feel. because your daughter will see how you treat your wife, what you imply about your wife's beauty. And perhaps what you've implied by saying or not saying things or allowing or not allowing things is that she's beautiful because of all of her cosmetic work. She's beautiful because she's body obsessed.

She's beautiful because of the diets. She's beautiful because of fill in the blank. And your daughter will learn the lesson. That's what makes me beautiful. This is what I need to be appealing. This is what I have to be. to have to be worthy. I have a very serious question. Do you tell your daughter every night that she's beautiful, that you delight in her, that she makes you happy as she is, that she is fearfully

and wonderfully made? And this isn't just a calling for husbands and fathers. It's a calling for mothers and wives. What do your beauty habits communicate to your daughters? What are your words about your physical appearance? What do they tell your daughter? What do they tell your daughter about what matters most. I challenge any parents listening to this to bring your kids into the room and to start this episode over. Why? So that you can help remind them of the truth. They should be happy with their bodies because their bodies are beautifully and wonderfully made. And also so that we as parents can apologize for the ways we've entrenched our culture's lives into their lives. And I can almost promise that everyone listening to this, myself included, have done that in one way or another. This is the

air that we breathe. We have to confess the subtle ways. We've pressed our children into thinking that they need to be more perfect in their bodies, more body obsessed to be happy. As I've tried to do this with my own daughter, that passage, Psalm 139, you were fearfully and wonderfully made. It is very important. But there's an even more important passage. It's 1st Samuel 16. That's today's passage for today's episode. And in this passage, God calls Samuel the prophet to go to Bethlehem to anoint a new king that will eventually replace Saul. Now, Samuel ends up going to Bethlehem and he meets a guy named Jesse, and God says that one of Jesse's sons is going to be the future king. So one by one, Jesse carts out his seven sons from the oldest to the youngest. And when Samuel sees the oldest son,

he does exactly what most of us would do. He sizes him up. He looks at his outward appearance and makes a judgment call based on his looks. 1 Samuel 166. When they arrived, Samuel saw Eliab, that's Jesse's oldest son, and thought, surely the Lord's anointed stands here before the Lord. But Samuel was wrong, because looks deceive.

After Jesse shows Samuel all of his sons, Samuel says God has rejected them all and asks if there are any more sons. Jesse's like, well, yeah, I mean, I guess there's one son left, but he's the smallest, he's the most insignificant. And he's not even here. He's out with the sheep. Jesse didn't even invite him home to come back for the dinner with the prophet.

It turns out that that youngest son, a boy named David, is the one that God chose. He was the Lord's anointed, and he wouldn't have known it by looking at him, because he was a man after God's own heart looks can deceive. In the midst of this parade of sons, God actually correct Samuel, and Samuel's focus on outward appearances. Because as much as I say this is part of our culture, it's part of every culture in different ways. We get body obsessed.

We look at outward appearances. We think that we can measure a person's worth by means of our eyes, but it's not true. It's not true of God. This is what God says to Samuel, after Samuel sees Jesse's oldest son, Eliab, who he thinks like, gosh, this guy's the guy. I mean, look at him. This is what God says. Do not consider his appearance or his height. Don't look at how he looks.

For I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things. people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. Let me repeat that. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. It's true. Our bodies are fearfully and wonderfully made, but here is an even deeper truth. Our outward appearance may be what people notice, but it's not the thing that God cares most about. What he cares most about is your heart and the state of your heart, the desires of your heart, the beauty or the corruption of your heart. God could care less whether you've had all of the plastic surgery, whether you

have the perfect workout routine and every muscle is toned, and you have the perfect body and the perfect face and the perfect teeth and the perfect smile and the perfect eyes and the perfect hair and whatever else you think is perfect. You can have all of that and God says, I don't look at that. That's not the thing that I actually care the most about. What I care about is your heart. And if you are perfectly perfect on the outside, but you are lost and distraught and broken on the inside, well, I'll tell you what, the heart's the part that I care about. And if you are brokenhearted, I want to be there to heal that. You can't heal that with plastic surgery.

You can't heal that with more cosmetic routines. You can't heal that with different clothes. God doesn't look at the outward appearance. He looks at the heart. And what I always tell my daughter is, what we look like on the outside, you are fearfully and wonderfully made. but at the end of the day, the thing that lasts, that lasts through age, that last through wrinkles, that lasts to the end of days, that's your heart. And that's the thing that God cares most about. So don't seek to have a beautiful outward appearance. Seek to have a beautiful soul.

Seek to have a beautiful heart. Seek to become like God on the inside. And, you know, the strange thing is, when you meet people who are people, after God's heart who have the wisdom, the confidence, and the righteousness of God, they have a beauty that you can see. I'm not saying it's external, but there's something about them that is both repellent to the wicked and those who want nothing to do with holiness and goodness, and yet is deeply attractive to anyone who loves goodness. I'm not saying physically attractive. I'm saying spiritually attractive. There is a real beauty to the heart that chases after God's heart. So instead of obsessing over our weight, this truth that God cares about the heart, well, it actually frees us to be in a way healthier place with our bodies.

We're free to say, look, my body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. It is a place that God's spirit is indwelling. And so I want to honor my body by exercising. I mean, God didn't make our bodies. We should exercise. Let's take care of our bodies. I want to honor this temple that God indwells by eating well and by being healthy. God calls us to resist gluttony.

Glennie is a sin, so is drunkenness. Yes, we should be healthy. We should be out there exercising. We said, yes, God made this body and I should take care of it. But I am not obsessed with how this body looks. I'm not worried with what people say about my outward appearance. I don't spend hours on blogs and Instagram and podcasts thinking about my beautification. Instead, I spend that time caring and thinking about the thing that God does see and that really does matter,

which is my heart. My friends, everybody listening to this, you are beautiful. You are fearfully and wonderfully made as you are. Without surgery, without an eating disorder, without a perfect outfit, without whatever you think you need to make yourself beautiful. And more importantly, your outward appearance is not the most important thing. We all change. We all age.

So be it. focus on the part of yourself that improves with the ears, your heart. That's what God sees. That's what God cares about. Make that what you see. Make that what you care about.