A Daughter of Sarah

Worldview Academy has a good ad in WORLD (31 Jan 04, pg 33). Pictured is a female college advisor described as beautiful and sincerely desiring your daughter to be free of the shackles of useless religion. When it comes to college and our daughter, Kristin and I are considering it, but we don't want to send our girl away from home. Perhaps education in a subject like nursing would help her be a better home-keeper? We're really hoping that by the time our daughter is ready for college there will be better options.

But getting back to the ad, what is the definition of a beautiful woman? In Scripture we read that Sarah was a beautiful woman. Does this refer to her appearance? It's clear that men were attracted to her. But consider what God prized about Sarah. Her gentle and quiet spirit is cited as very valuable in His sight and became the pattern for all godly women. And this is emphatically called beauty (1 Pet 3).

As a young man I wasn't trained to think of beauty this way. It's still hard to think this way.

George Whitefield, while commending Jonathan Edwards' wife, Sarah, said he longed to marry a daughter of Abraham like her. In addition to being a daughter of Abraham, our girls should also be a daughter of Sarah. They are to make themselves beautiful the way the holy women of the past have.