Beautiful
Feet?
Romans
10:15
In many cultures feet are not considered beautiful. In China, in an earlier time, women with normal-sized
feet were looked upon as undesirable. If
a family wanted to ensure their daughters’ marriageability, they began to bind
her feet at a very early age to keep them from growing. As the feet tried to grow to normal size, the
binding kept them from doing so, breaking the bones in the process. Painful?
Yes—but absolutely necessary (they thought) to make girls desirable to
prospective husbands. By the time the
woman reached adulthood she was unable to stand on her feet because they were
too small and weak to support her weight—but she made a beautiful bride!
I realize this is an extreme example. To the best of my knowledge the practice is
no longer followed, although I suspect that in a country as large as China,
with as many remote locations as that nation would have, vestiges of the old
practice may remain.
Outside of those ads that feature people swimming, we see
very few commercials on TV with barefoot actors. Recently there has been one campaign which
showed women walking around with bare feet, but from my observation this
campaign is an exception.
Certainly in first century Palestine, when Paul wrote
these words, feet would not have been the most glamorous part of the body. People wore sandals as they traveled the
dusty roads of the country and streets of the city. They could not keep their feet clean. One of the marks of a gracious host was to
provide water for washing the feet when guests entered the house. In wealthy homes there would be a servant to
perform this unpleasant task. This is
the custom that lay behind Jesus’ condemnation of Simon, the Pharisee, in Luke
7:36-50.
Knowing this helps us understand the significance of
Paul’s statement to the Romans. He has
written his famous progression (10:14-15), asking how people will be able to
recognize the existence, presence, and love of a God about whom they haven’t
heard. Someone has to bring them the gospel. He concludes by saying, “How beautiful are
the feet of those who preach the good news.”
Paul doesn’t mention the rigorousness of the preachers’
sermon preparation, or the brilliance of their thought processes, or the
eloquence of their speech, the beauty of their voices, the energy of their
gestures, or the grandeur of their presence in the pulpit. He only mentions their feet—a most unattractive
part of their body.
This isn’t original with Paul. He’s abbreviating a passage from Isaiah
(52:7).
How beautiful upon
the mountains
are the feet of
him who brings good news,
who publishes
peace, who brings good news of happiness,
who publishes
salvation,
who says to Zion,
“Your Lord reigns.”
If
feet were a problem in first century Judea, they certainly weren’t any less of
one in Isaiah’s world. The prophet must
have had the same thoughts as Paul. The
gospel is so important, so potent,
that it beautifies even the feet of the one who brings it. If we
open our spiritual eyes wide enough we can see the welcoming ceremony. The gospel is presented and responded
to. The people who have heard are so
grateful that they greet the messenger not only with open arms and open hearts,
but with open homes, and water to bathe the feet of the one who has blessed
them.
The wonderful news is that we can all have beautiful
feet. How can we refuse God’s call to
spread the gospel when such a welcome awaits us?
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