The Lipstick on a Pig Problem: Text: Proverbs 11:22
Introduction: Our Culture's Cult of Beauty
We live in an age that is utterly besotted with beauty, and yet has no coherent idea of what beauty actually is. Our culture worships at the altar of physical appearance. It is a multi-billion dollar industry, a secular religion with its own high priests in Hollywood, its own sacred texts in fashion magazines, and its own sacraments of cosmetics and surgery. It preaches a gospel of self-esteem through aesthetics, promising salvation through a better jawline or a flatter stomach. But this gospel is a lie. It is a cruel and demanding god that offers a salvation that is always just one more purchase, one more diet, one more procedure away. And it is a god that ultimately devours its devotees, because its central promise is built on the shifting sands of youth and genetics, which time and gravity will inevitably betray.
The world tells a young woman that her highest value lies in her external form. Her beauty is her power, her currency, her identity. And so, she invests everything in it. But the world, in its typical fashion, is offering a fraudulent bargain. It demands she build her entire house on a foundation that is guaranteed to crumble. This is not just a bad investment; it is a catastrophic one. It is a worldview that produces anxiety, envy, and a desperate, gnawing insecurity.
Into this shallow, frantic, and ultimately hopeless marketplace of appearances, the book of Proverbs strides with a bucket of ice-cold water. The wisdom of God does not flatter our foolishness. It speaks with a blunt, earthy realism that is designed to shock us into our senses. And in our text today, the Holy Spirit gives us one of the most jarring, visceral, and unforgettable images in all of Scripture. It is an image designed to correct our vision, to teach us the grammar of true beauty, and to show us the grotesque mismatch of external charm and internal corruption.
The Text
As a ring of gold in a swine’s snout
So is a beautiful woman who turns away from discretion.
(Proverbs 11:22)
The Grotesque Ornament (Clause 1)
Let us consider the first part of this potent simile:
"As a ring of gold in a swine’s snout..." (Proverbs 11:22a)
The image is intentionally crude and startling. A ring of gold was an object of value, beauty, and refinement. In the ancient world, nose rings were common adornments, signifying wealth and status. Gold is precious, desirable, and beautiful. It is something to be displayed in a place of honor.
But where is this precious object located? It is in a swine's snout. To the ancient Israelite, the pig was the quintessential unclean animal. It was a creature associated with filth, mire, and the garbage heap. A pig, by its very nature, loves to root around in the mud. Its snout is its primary tool for digging through refuse. To take a beautiful, costly piece of jewelry and fasten it to the nose of a pig is not just a waste of gold; it is an act of profound absurdity. It is a category error of the highest order.
The gold ring does not elevate the pig. The pig does not suddenly become noble because it is wearing jewelry. No, the opposite happens. The pig degrades the gold. The filth of the pig's environment and the muck of its snout will immediately defile the ring. The beauty of the gold is made grotesque by its context. The juxtaposition is comical, but it is a dark comedy. It highlights a profound incongruity, a mismatch so severe that it becomes repulsive.
This is the setup. The Spirit of God wants us to have this picture firmly in our minds: a valuable, beautiful thing utterly ruined and made disgusting by the unworthy creature it adorns. The ornament is fine, but the place it has been put is all wrong. This is not an attack on the gold, but on the foolishness of placing it where it does not belong.
The Undiscerning Beauty (Clause 2)
Now, Solomon delivers the punchline, applying the image directly to a particular kind of person.
"So is a beautiful woman who turns away from discretion." (Proverbs 11:22b)
Here, the "ring of gold" is likened to a woman's physical beauty. The Bible is not prudish or Gnostic. It does not deny the reality or the goodness of physical beauty. Beauty is a gift from God. Sarah was beautiful, Rebekah was beautiful, Rachel was beautiful. God is the author of beauty, and when it is in its proper place, it is a glorious thing, a reflection of His own creative genius. The problem in this proverb is not the beauty. The problem is the same as with the ring of gold: its context.
The "swine's snout" is the woman who "turns away from discretion." The Hebrew word for discretion here is ta'am. It means taste, judgment, sense, or discernment. It's the ability to perceive what is appropriate, wise, and fitting. It is moral and intellectual sense. To turn away from discretion is to abandon sound judgment, to reject godly wisdom, to live foolishly, rashly, and without regard for the moral order of God's world.
A woman without discretion is loud when she should be quiet (Prov. 9:13). She is quarrelsome and contentious (Prov. 21:9). She is seductive and foolish, leading men to their ruin (Prov. 7). She lacks self-control. Her character is unclean. Her choices are muddy. She may have a face that could launch a thousand ships, but her character is a pigsty.
And so the proverb's meaning becomes devastatingly clear. A woman's physical beauty, when it is attached to a foolish, godless, and undiscerning character, is not an asset. It is a grotesque ornament. Her beauty does not make her folly attractive; her folly makes her beauty repulsive. It is lipstick on a pig. The external loveliness is utterly negated and cheapened by the internal uncleanness. In fact, the beauty makes the lack of character even more conspicuous and tragic. A plain woman who is a fool is just a fool. A beautiful woman who is a fool is a walking, talking contradiction, a living demonstration of wasted glory.
The Application for All of Us
This proverb is a sharp warning, and it cuts in several directions. First, it is a direct word to women. The world will tell you to spend all your energy on the "ring of gold." It will tell you to polish it, display it, and leverage it for all it's worth. God says that if you do this while neglecting the cultivation of a wise and discerning heart, you are decorating a pig. Your true, lasting, and unfading beauty is not external, but internal. As Peter tells us, it is the "hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious" (1 Peter 3:4). The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and wisdom is the foundation of all true and lasting beauty. Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised (Prov. 31:30).
Second, this is a crucial word for young men. Young men are notoriously susceptible to being mesmerized by the "ring of gold." They see the beautiful exterior and are blinded to the character it adorns. This proverb is a divine command to look deeper. It tells you that marrying a beautiful fool is like bringing a pig into your living room because you admire its jewelry. You are not just marrying a face or a body; you are yoking yourself to a character. And if that character lacks discretion, that beauty will soon become a source of misery, shame, and ruin. Look for the substance. Look for wisdom. Look for the fear of the Lord. Look for discretion. A godly woman's character is the true gold.
But the principle extends to all of us. We are all tempted to value the external over the internal. We are impressed by wealth, power, charisma, and appearance. We build our churches like corporations, valuing slick presentation over sound doctrine. We choose our leaders based on their polish rather than their piety. We are all tempted to put a gold ring in a pig's snout. We adorn our corrupt, fallen nature with the trinkets of moral self-improvement, religious activity, or public reputation, all while our hearts remain far from God.
The ultimate fulfillment of this principle is found in the gospel. We, in our sin, are the swine. Our hearts are unclean, bent toward the mud of our own rebellion. Any righteousness we might try to hang on ourselves is nothing more than a gold ring on a filthy snout. It is an absurdity. Isaiah says our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment (Isaiah 64:6).
But God, in His mercy, does not just give us a new ornament. He gives us a new nature. Through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, He does not just decorate the pig; He slaughters the pig and raises up a new creation. He washes us clean. He gives us a new heart. He clothes us not in the gold ring of our own efforts, but in the perfect, beautiful righteousness of His Son, Jesus Christ. True, lasting beauty is not about adorning the old man, but about becoming a new man in Christ. It is about being transformed from the inside out, so that the external life becomes a genuine reflection of the internal grace that God has worked in our hearts. That is a beauty that will never be grotesque, never be out of place, and will never fade.