OK for a Christian to Have Cosmetic Surgery?

By John Piper, Christian Post Guest Columnist Tuesday, November 29, 2011

The following is an edited transcript of the audio.

Is it OK for a Christian to have cosmetic surgery to counteract some aspects of aging?

I'm laughing because I just watched my own video about not retiring, and in it I talk about 70-year-olds trying to get a tan on their leathery, hairless, splotchy skin in Arizona, and how the shorts look so ridiculous, and how these old people with their sagging skin and their hair falling out are desperately on the golf course trying to look 40 years younger. It's ridiculous.

So you can see what my attitude is. Age is a gift in the Bible. Getting old and, I suppose, losing your hair or having some gray hair is a gift. It's a sign of having been kept by God and having been brought toward ripening for heaven.

And to resist it seems to me a kind of unbelief that heaven is really good, and living a long time with God is good, and having the experience and the age to care in deeper ways for the young and share life-wisdom with them is good. Why would we want to be young-looking when we're old?

We live in a culture that is clearly youth dominated. The music is dominated by youth, and the styles are dominated by youth. And so all bodies are youthful bodies, and hardly any glory is given to age. We just need to be more biblical. It is good to grow old with God.

So I am not inclined to think I would ever counsel anybody to spend a lot of God's precious money on their looks instead of missions. OK?