Choice Words: “Towb” and “Kalos” (Beauty)
Choice Words: “Towb” and “Kalos” (Beauty).
CAUTION: SKIM AT YOUR OWN RISK. In this era of amazing advances in technology, there are sometimes unexpected consequences that turn out to be harmful to our Christian faith. One of these harmful improvements is the flood of believers who read scripture online, on the smart phone, on the computer screen. I’m convinced there should be a warning label on every one of the online Bibles… CAUTION: SKIM AT YOUR OWN RISK. So many of us now read the Word like we would read our emails or social media or the daily news. We skim the material hurriedly, superficially, carelessly. We skim the Scripture. Skim-reading the Bible doesn’t really bury the seed very deeply, of course. And in our skimming, we would be more likely to just skip over an important word or phrase without thinking, a word that could be vital to the whole passage. The fact is, the Bible is full of single words or short phrases that are too important to simply gloss over as if it wasn’t there. There are times in the Word when single words are intended to feed us, nourish our faith, stimulate us to think at a deeper level about the biblical text.
There are single words in Scripture that are like stop signs asking us to stop and consider carefully, to pause before moving forward in the reading. This series on my blog will try to unpack some of these power-packed words or phrases in Scripture… Words like: Behold; Rejoice; Truly; Woe; Blessed; Beware; Come; If. And I will attempt to also explore the meanings of some short phrases that are single words in the original biblical language, such as “Himeni” (Here I am); “Shema” (Listen and Do’); “Splagchnizonai” (deeply moved with compassion); “pistence” (believe), and “kal-v’chomer” (How much more). If it is poetically possible to “see a world in a grain of sand, and a heaven in a wildflower, and hold infinity in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an hour,” as William Blake once imagined, then certainly we readers of Scripture can find a world of meaning in a single word, we can grasp something profound in a simple phrase.
BEAUTY: The quality of outstanding excellence in appearance, in usefulness, in moral character, in creative expression; brings delight to the senses; well-designed and constructed; a harmony that reflects creation; extremely attractive; that which inspires awe, wonder, admiration, praise; profoundly pleasing; an act of pure goodness; the presence of loveliness and grace; something exquisite in form, function, and proportion; that which contains glory and splendor.
Towb. The Hebrew word “towb” is translated many times as good, beautiful, excellent, life-giving, or perfectly useful. Thus, God’s refrain in the creation story of Genesis 1-2 could be translated as “And God saw that it was beautiful, excellent, exactly the way I wanted it!” God’s creative handiwork has been accepted by believers ever since as an absolute standard for beauty. Also, when Yahweh told Moses that His “goodness” would pass before him there on Mt. Sinai (Ex. 33:19), a legitimate alternative reading would be that Yahweh Lord caused all of His “beauty” to pass before Moses. Lord Yahweh then proceeded to reveal His essential character of mercy, compassion, patience, forgiveness, and faithfulness (Ex. 34:6-7). Ever since, God’s moral character centered on His love has been another absolute standard of true beauty. God’s beauty is truly His goodness. Because God is worshipped as beautiful, we are taught to “Taste and see the beauty of the Lord” (Ps. 34:8). It’s clear to anyone with eyes of faith that Creator God is the source of the world’s beauty, as He is with truth and goodness. Carrying this further, the Son of God, Jesus Christ, was God in the flesh and was likewise filled with beauty and went about doing beautiful things on earth.
And the people were astonished beyond measure, saying, ‘Everything He does is beautiful, and is done with excellence!” (Mark 7:37).
“Kalos” is the Greek term used in Mark 7:37 above. “Kalos” means beautiful, perfect, excellent, very good, well done, admirable, wonderful, morally virtuous and honorable. Kalos was used over 100 times in the New Testament in a variety of contexts. It was often translated as “good” in passages such as good fruit, good ground, a good tree, and good works. But when applied to a person, it often referred to the moral character and the overall beauty of someone’s inner nature and outer work. In Jesus’ case, kalos was referring to His whole personhood that was beautiful inside and out; His attractive purity; the beautiful excellence He demonstrated in His everyday life; the beautiful sweetness in His interactions with those in need; the beauty of His inner goodness and virtue; the excellent usefulness and practical wisdom of His demonstrations of power. According to the people surrounding Him and watching His every move, everything Jesus did was beautiful, excellently done, and profoundly useful.
The Perfect Shepherd. Kalos is the Greek term used in the much-beloved self-description of Jesus when He declared that He was the “good” Shepherd. The term ‘good’ here is perhaps a bit vague until we unpack kalos… Jesus is claiming to be the perfect shepherd who cares for His sheep. He is an excellent and able shepherd in all His ways. He is a beautiful shepherd inside and out, in His character and in His ability to attract needy sheep to Himself for care. He is a noble and uncompromising shepherd who fulfills all His responsibilities with excellence and grace. He is what everyone would want and is everything people might desire in a capable caretaker of souls. Jesus is a ‘good’ shepherd in so many ways, and looking at kalos helps us to understand how beautiful and wonderful a shepherd He really is.
The Beauty of Christ’s Good Works. “Jesus of Nazareth was anointed by God with the Holy Spirit and with great power. He did wonderful things for others in His acts of kindness and divinely healed all who were under the tyranny of the Devil; He traveled through the country helping people, doing good, and healing everyone who was harassed by the Devil.” (Acts 10:38). Everything Jesus did in His ministry was beautiful, excellent, and profoundly useful to everyone He touched. His ministry to overlooked children, unappreciated women, and His unerring ability to touch the untouchables all revealed a ministry of beauty and grace. The beautiful life of Christ also included His exorcisms, healing and storytelling.
Dwelling on His Beauty. It’s not enough to simply appreciate or admire the beauty of Christ. Instead, we need to fix our eyes on Jesus and His beauty, to gaze upon Him and worship His beauty, to allow His beauty to be formative in our lives. David exclaims in Psalm 24:7 that he has ‘one thing’ he wants more than anything else, there is one thing that would help form and direct his life… “to gaze with complete focus upon the sweet and delightful beauty of the Lord.” There’s a good chance that centering our life on the beauty of Christ, of worshiping His beauty, of allowing His beauty to change our lives into one like His, is indeed our ‘one thing most needful.’ Dostoyevsky penned in the Brothers Karamazov: “I believe there is nothing lovelier, deeper, more sympathetic and more perfect than the Saviour; I say to myself with jealous love that not only is there no one else like Him, but that there could be no one. I would say even more. If anyone could prove to me that Christ is outside the truth, and if the truth really did exclude Christ, I should prefer to stay with Christ and not with truth. There is in the world only one figure of absolute beauty: Christ. That infinitely lovely figure is as a matter of course an infinite marvel.”