Welcome to the Femina Podcast.

This is Nancy Wilson.

Thanks for joining me today.

The topic today is meekness.

What is it?

What does the Bible teach about it?

And how can we apply it specifically to our own situations?

I'm going to be relying on a wonderful old Puritan book

called The Quest for Meekness and Quietness of Spirit by Matthew Henry. This book was first

published in 1698, and it's remarkable how relevant this teaching continues to be now as ever.

We always need God's Word in every age,

and we need meekness now as much as ever. I'm planning to spend the next few podcasts on this topic

since it bears developing, so let's get started. The text in the King James Version in 1. Peter 3.4 reads like

this,

but let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible,

even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.

In the new King James, the word meek is rendered gentle, a gentle and quiet spirit. The context of the verse is showing the contrast between the external and the internal. Women naturally want to adorn themselves with clothes

and jewelry and makeup and hair arrangements. Peter is not forbidding such things. He says,

don't let it merely be these externals. He's

teaching us where our priority should be, where the action is. Let's adorn the internals first

with a beautiful spirit before we adorn the externals. Externals matter, but they're not of first importance. A beautiful inside is of a

spiritual nature. Externals are fading, and taking pride in them is vanity. They all blow away.

...