This is part three of a three part series:
Check out part one here: http://www.biblicalfamilies.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=3166
And part two here: http://www.biblicalfamilies.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=3167
Very few people read Proverbs 31 in the light of what it teaches husbands. May I remind you that this passage, like the entire Book of Proverbs, is not addressed to women, but to men. The writer frequently says, “my son,” not “my daughter.” I would like to attempt to be consistent with the book when we come to this passage, by focusing attention where the author intended it to be--on the man.
There is no way that a woman who lived in ancient times would ever have had this kind of freedom and responsibility without support and encouragement from her husband. The character of the godly woman is to be attributed to the woman and to the grace of God in her life. But the freedom she had to function in so many different aspects of life must be attributed to her husband. Let me draw your attention to the kind of man this “ideal husband” had to be in order for his ideal wife to be what she was described to be.
1. THE IDEAL HUSBAND TRULY APPRECIATES HIS WIFE.
An excellent wife, who can find? For her worth is far above jewels (v. 10).
These are not the words of a cynic or a skeptic. The writer is not saying, “A woman of character cannot be found,” but, “A woman of my wife’s character is seldom found.” Proverbs 31:10-31 begins and ends with praise for the rare qualities of the godly woman. We cannot expect to be the right kind of husband until we first come to appreciate the qualities of the wife God has given us.
2. THE IDEAL HUSBAND HAS COMPLETE CONFIDENCE IN HIS WIFE’S FAITHFULNESS AND CONFIDENCE.
The heart of her husband trusts in her, And he will have no lack of gain (v. 11).
A man may have complete confidence in the purity of his wife, and yet be doubtful about her ability to bring him gain. This verse is not referring to the husband’s confidence in the moral purity of his wife, but in her proficiency as a money-maker and business woman. Her husband could leave the matter of purchasing a piece of property in her hands without looking over her shoulder.
3. THE IDEAL HUSBAND EXPRESSES HIS FAITH IN HIS WIFE’S ABILITIES BY GIVING HER THE FREEDOM TO FUNCTION WITHOUT UNNECESSARY HINDRANCES.
It is amazing to me how men can gripe about the myriad of governmental regulations which plague business and industry today, and then burden their wives with so many rules and guidelines that they find it almost impossible to do anything well. The faith of the ideal husband, as described in verse 11, is expressed in the freedom that is granted the wife to go about her business without constant supervision or needless restrictions. Faith is expressed in freedom. Incidentally, that is why the Christian life, the life of faith, is not one that is regulated by countless rules.
4. THE IDEAL HUSBAND NOT ONLY APPRECIATES THE VALUE OF HIS WIFE, BUT GIVES HER THE PRAISE SHE DESERVES.
Her children rise up and bless her; Her husband also, and he praises her, saying: “Many daughters have done nobly, But you excel them all. Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, But a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised. Give her the product of her hands, And let her works praise her in the gates."(vv. 28-31).
Verse 31 instructs the husband to give his wife the praise she deserves. Her works are to praise her in the gates. Now who, I would ask, is at the city gates? It is, of course, her husband (v. 23). The godly husband is at the gates of the city, in large part, because of the godly wife who is behind him. It is there, in the gates of the city, in public, that the godly husband should praise his wife.
Conclusion
I want to begin this conclusion with a word of warning. I always dread the fact that some are going to hear only what they want to hear and thereby justify their sinful actions. I see several ways in which this passage can be abused, which I would like to warn you about in advance. The first is that a frustrated wife may misuse this text to justify her autonomous attitudes and actions. The woman who misuses this text will focus only on the freedom of the wife. She will feel justified in doing whatever she pleases without consulting her husband or caring what he thinks. The ideal wife of Proverbs 31 aggressively engaged in her activities because her husband granted her the freedom to do so, not because she willfully took these matters into her own hands in spite of her husband. This text does not command the wife to take on these responsibilities, nor does it commend the woman who would do so contrary to her husband’s will. This text urges husbands to give their wives more freedom, but it does not teach the wives to take it if it is not given them!
If the first warning has to do with the overly aggressive wife, the second warning concerns the passive husband, who would love for his wife to take care of his obligations for him. This kind of husband burdens his wife with all the tasks he does not want, so that he may go through life with hardly a care. I must admit being troubled by the fact that the husband seems to be sitting in the city gate, taking life easy, while his wife is working her fingers to the bone to keep the family going. I think many men would love for their wives to assume the entire burden of providing for the needs of the family so that they can lead or minister without any concern. I do not believe this is biblical. While the wife did help her husband in many ways, she did not do his job for him. I cannot conceive of the husband living a life of ease, philosophizing at the city gate, while his wife agonized over business decisions and the like. She was a helper to her husband, but she did not do his work for him. Let us not use this passage, men who would be patriarchs, to excuse our own laziness by delegating our work to our wives while we live the easy life.
The third warning is to those who are not married. This passage concerns the ideal wife, not necessarily the ideal woman. While marriage was certainly the norm in the days Proverbs was written, let me remind you of Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 7. There he urged single women to remain single, so that the efforts which are spent meeting the needs of a husband and family might be devoted entirely to the Lord. In my opinion, the single woman is as free to serve the Lord as the woman in Proverbs 31 is to serve her husband and family. In Paul’s mind (1 Cor. 7:34-35) she is even more free. Let single Christians learn of their freedom to serve God from Proverbs 31, without feeling that they are somehow second-class citizens in God’s kingdom because they are not married.
This passage in Proverbs has a message for every believer. For parents, it warns us that we are not providing our children with a realistic goal when we give them dolls which are perfectly shaped and have beautiful faces. We are subtly stressing charm, not character. We are often teaching them that they are to be fulfilled by seeking their own interests and forsaking those that have to do with family commitments or personal sacrifice. Let us continually seek to establish the qualities of the godly woman as the goal toward which our girls should strive. And let us teach our sons that this is the kind of woman who makes married life such a blessing. The world's ideal of womanly perfection is a weak substitute for the Proverbs 31 woman.
Men, let us be open to some radical changes in our thinking about what an ideal husband is like. There are many women who are frustrated in their role as wife and mother, largely because of the failure of their husbands to fulfill THEIR role in the marriage. In many cases women rightly recognize that their husbands restrict them from fully utilizing their gifts and abilities. Often this is due to the husband’s being threatened by his wife’s competence. He is frightened by the thought that his wife can do some things better than he can, so he carefully fences off these areas, even though his wife desires to serve him in this particular task and would do a better job. If Proverbs 31 teaches us anything, it is that the ideal wife has much more freedom than most of us as husbands have been willing to grant. We need to do a great deal of thinking about our role as managers, for a good manager always utilizes the abilities of others to the fullest possible degree.
I hope this text makes you really think, and forces you to recognize that the wife, in her activities, does nearly everything her husband does. Those tasks always considered to be masculine are not necessarily so. The ideal wife earned income and had a great deal of control over how it was utilized. She ventured freely into the business world and found great success. She served as a manager in the home.
The main difference between husbands and wives is not that men do some things, while women do the rest (usually what the men don’t want to do anyway), but that wives do what they do under the authority of their husbands. If the wife is a manager, she manages under the authority of her husband. She has great freedom and authority, but it is always freedom within the confines of the authority of her husband, her head.
Is this not true in the spiritual life? While Christ is our head, we have been given a great deal of freedom and responsibility. Just as God does not direct us in all the particulars, but gives us principles to guide us, so the husband should exercise his headship over his wife. Our wives should feel no more stifled under our leadership than we do under the headship of Christ.
The second reason for the frustration of married women is that they are often doing many things well, but they receive little or no recognition for it. Their contribution to the home is not appreciated, and they feel unfulfilled. Proverbs makes it clear what we are to do about this--we are to publicly give praise to our wives for the things they do well. Let us not grow slack in this vital area. While the wife should not seek praise for herself, let us give it to her with gratitude and sincerity.
Having emphasized the freedom which was given to the ideal wife in Proverbs 31, remember that there are still limits. In the first place, it was the husband who exercised public leadership in the gates of the city (v. 23), not the wife. The role of the wife greatly enhanced the leadership of her husband, but she did not lead in the capacity of her husband. Second, the leadership of the wife was not described as her having authority in the area of Israel’s worship. Women, in the Old Testament, were not priests, nor were they given leadership over men in public worship. While we must be quick to stress the freedoms given the godly woman, we must also be honest about those areas reserved for men only, not because women were incapable of leading, but because of divine principles governing the roles of men and women in spiritual leadership.
Even though certain restrictions are prescribed for women, this does not mean that women can make no contribution. For example, it was the husband who ruled in the city gate. But in Proverbs 31:1-9 it is the godly mother who, in the training of her son who will be a leader, shapes the impact he will have. The mother who rocks the cradle does, as someone has said, shape the world. This is the sense of what Paul was teaching in 1 Timothy 2:15. While the woman may not exercise public leadership in the church, she can raise godly children who may become godly leaders of the future.
Someone will no doubt wonder about the implications of this passage for the working wife. We should learn from our text that it is not wrong for a wife to earn money to contribute to the family’s income, nor is it wrong for her to be engaged in business ventures. An important principle underlying this passage is that the efforts of the wife, in every instance, should contribute to the well-being of the family. Any employment the wife might have which is detrimental to the spiritual and moral well-being of the family, in my estimation, would be wrong. This principle applies as much to the husband as it does to the wife.
To say that it is categorically wrong for a wife to work would fly in the face of this text. And to say that the work this wife performed was solely done at home would also be stretching the text. To work only to provide materially for our children, but at the expense of their spiritual growth, would be contrary to biblical principles. The children of this godly woman, as well as her husband, were blessed by her activities. We know that she was noted for her gracious teaching (v. 26). What this woman did, she did as an act of obedience to God and as a sacrificial service to her family. She found her fulfillment in serving God and her family, not in seeking her own interests.
Let us all seek to serve God and others, giving of ourselves in the process, whether as a wife, or a husband, or a single person. And let us do it all to the glory of God and by His grace.
Blessings
Doc
Check out part one here: http://www.biblicalfamilies.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=3166
And part two here: http://www.biblicalfamilies.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=3167
Very few people read Proverbs 31 in the light of what it teaches husbands. May I remind you that this passage, like the entire Book of Proverbs, is not addressed to women, but to men. The writer frequently says, “my son,” not “my daughter.” I would like to attempt to be consistent with the book when we come to this passage, by focusing attention where the author intended it to be--on the man.
There is no way that a woman who lived in ancient times would ever have had this kind of freedom and responsibility without support and encouragement from her husband. The character of the godly woman is to be attributed to the woman and to the grace of God in her life. But the freedom she had to function in so many different aspects of life must be attributed to her husband. Let me draw your attention to the kind of man this “ideal husband” had to be in order for his ideal wife to be what she was described to be.
1. THE IDEAL HUSBAND TRULY APPRECIATES HIS WIFE.
An excellent wife, who can find? For her worth is far above jewels (v. 10).
These are not the words of a cynic or a skeptic. The writer is not saying, “A woman of character cannot be found,” but, “A woman of my wife’s character is seldom found.” Proverbs 31:10-31 begins and ends with praise for the rare qualities of the godly woman. We cannot expect to be the right kind of husband until we first come to appreciate the qualities of the wife God has given us.
2. THE IDEAL HUSBAND HAS COMPLETE CONFIDENCE IN HIS WIFE’S FAITHFULNESS AND CONFIDENCE.
The heart of her husband trusts in her, And he will have no lack of gain (v. 11).
A man may have complete confidence in the purity of his wife, and yet be doubtful about her ability to bring him gain. This verse is not referring to the husband’s confidence in the moral purity of his wife, but in her proficiency as a money-maker and business woman. Her husband could leave the matter of purchasing a piece of property in her hands without looking over her shoulder.
3. THE IDEAL HUSBAND EXPRESSES HIS FAITH IN HIS WIFE’S ABILITIES BY GIVING HER THE FREEDOM TO FUNCTION WITHOUT UNNECESSARY HINDRANCES.
It is amazing to me how men can gripe about the myriad of governmental regulations which plague business and industry today, and then burden their wives with so many rules and guidelines that they find it almost impossible to do anything well. The faith of the ideal husband, as described in verse 11, is expressed in the freedom that is granted the wife to go about her business without constant supervision or needless restrictions. Faith is expressed in freedom. Incidentally, that is why the Christian life, the life of faith, is not one that is regulated by countless rules.
4. THE IDEAL HUSBAND NOT ONLY APPRECIATES THE VALUE OF HIS WIFE, BUT GIVES HER THE PRAISE SHE DESERVES.
Her children rise up and bless her; Her husband also, and he praises her, saying: “Many daughters have done nobly, But you excel them all. Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, But a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised. Give her the product of her hands, And let her works praise her in the gates."(vv. 28-31).
Verse 31 instructs the husband to give his wife the praise she deserves. Her works are to praise her in the gates. Now who, I would ask, is at the city gates? It is, of course, her husband (v. 23). The godly husband is at the gates of the city, in large part, because of the godly wife who is behind him. It is there, in the gates of the city, in public, that the godly husband should praise his wife.
Conclusion
I want to begin this conclusion with a word of warning. I always dread the fact that some are going to hear only what they want to hear and thereby justify their sinful actions. I see several ways in which this passage can be abused, which I would like to warn you about in advance. The first is that a frustrated wife may misuse this text to justify her autonomous attitudes and actions. The woman who misuses this text will focus only on the freedom of the wife. She will feel justified in doing whatever she pleases without consulting her husband or caring what he thinks. The ideal wife of Proverbs 31 aggressively engaged in her activities because her husband granted her the freedom to do so, not because she willfully took these matters into her own hands in spite of her husband. This text does not command the wife to take on these responsibilities, nor does it commend the woman who would do so contrary to her husband’s will. This text urges husbands to give their wives more freedom, but it does not teach the wives to take it if it is not given them!
If the first warning has to do with the overly aggressive wife, the second warning concerns the passive husband, who would love for his wife to take care of his obligations for him. This kind of husband burdens his wife with all the tasks he does not want, so that he may go through life with hardly a care. I must admit being troubled by the fact that the husband seems to be sitting in the city gate, taking life easy, while his wife is working her fingers to the bone to keep the family going. I think many men would love for their wives to assume the entire burden of providing for the needs of the family so that they can lead or minister without any concern. I do not believe this is biblical. While the wife did help her husband in many ways, she did not do his job for him. I cannot conceive of the husband living a life of ease, philosophizing at the city gate, while his wife agonized over business decisions and the like. She was a helper to her husband, but she did not do his work for him. Let us not use this passage, men who would be patriarchs, to excuse our own laziness by delegating our work to our wives while we live the easy life.
The third warning is to those who are not married. This passage concerns the ideal wife, not necessarily the ideal woman. While marriage was certainly the norm in the days Proverbs was written, let me remind you of Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 7. There he urged single women to remain single, so that the efforts which are spent meeting the needs of a husband and family might be devoted entirely to the Lord. In my opinion, the single woman is as free to serve the Lord as the woman in Proverbs 31 is to serve her husband and family. In Paul’s mind (1 Cor. 7:34-35) she is even more free. Let single Christians learn of their freedom to serve God from Proverbs 31, without feeling that they are somehow second-class citizens in God’s kingdom because they are not married.
This passage in Proverbs has a message for every believer. For parents, it warns us that we are not providing our children with a realistic goal when we give them dolls which are perfectly shaped and have beautiful faces. We are subtly stressing charm, not character. We are often teaching them that they are to be fulfilled by seeking their own interests and forsaking those that have to do with family commitments or personal sacrifice. Let us continually seek to establish the qualities of the godly woman as the goal toward which our girls should strive. And let us teach our sons that this is the kind of woman who makes married life such a blessing. The world's ideal of womanly perfection is a weak substitute for the Proverbs 31 woman.
Men, let us be open to some radical changes in our thinking about what an ideal husband is like. There are many women who are frustrated in their role as wife and mother, largely because of the failure of their husbands to fulfill THEIR role in the marriage. In many cases women rightly recognize that their husbands restrict them from fully utilizing their gifts and abilities. Often this is due to the husband’s being threatened by his wife’s competence. He is frightened by the thought that his wife can do some things better than he can, so he carefully fences off these areas, even though his wife desires to serve him in this particular task and would do a better job. If Proverbs 31 teaches us anything, it is that the ideal wife has much more freedom than most of us as husbands have been willing to grant. We need to do a great deal of thinking about our role as managers, for a good manager always utilizes the abilities of others to the fullest possible degree.
I hope this text makes you really think, and forces you to recognize that the wife, in her activities, does nearly everything her husband does. Those tasks always considered to be masculine are not necessarily so. The ideal wife earned income and had a great deal of control over how it was utilized. She ventured freely into the business world and found great success. She served as a manager in the home.
The main difference between husbands and wives is not that men do some things, while women do the rest (usually what the men don’t want to do anyway), but that wives do what they do under the authority of their husbands. If the wife is a manager, she manages under the authority of her husband. She has great freedom and authority, but it is always freedom within the confines of the authority of her husband, her head.
Is this not true in the spiritual life? While Christ is our head, we have been given a great deal of freedom and responsibility. Just as God does not direct us in all the particulars, but gives us principles to guide us, so the husband should exercise his headship over his wife. Our wives should feel no more stifled under our leadership than we do under the headship of Christ.
The second reason for the frustration of married women is that they are often doing many things well, but they receive little or no recognition for it. Their contribution to the home is not appreciated, and they feel unfulfilled. Proverbs makes it clear what we are to do about this--we are to publicly give praise to our wives for the things they do well. Let us not grow slack in this vital area. While the wife should not seek praise for herself, let us give it to her with gratitude and sincerity.
Having emphasized the freedom which was given to the ideal wife in Proverbs 31, remember that there are still limits. In the first place, it was the husband who exercised public leadership in the gates of the city (v. 23), not the wife. The role of the wife greatly enhanced the leadership of her husband, but she did not lead in the capacity of her husband. Second, the leadership of the wife was not described as her having authority in the area of Israel’s worship. Women, in the Old Testament, were not priests, nor were they given leadership over men in public worship. While we must be quick to stress the freedoms given the godly woman, we must also be honest about those areas reserved for men only, not because women were incapable of leading, but because of divine principles governing the roles of men and women in spiritual leadership.
Even though certain restrictions are prescribed for women, this does not mean that women can make no contribution. For example, it was the husband who ruled in the city gate. But in Proverbs 31:1-9 it is the godly mother who, in the training of her son who will be a leader, shapes the impact he will have. The mother who rocks the cradle does, as someone has said, shape the world. This is the sense of what Paul was teaching in 1 Timothy 2:15. While the woman may not exercise public leadership in the church, she can raise godly children who may become godly leaders of the future.
Someone will no doubt wonder about the implications of this passage for the working wife. We should learn from our text that it is not wrong for a wife to earn money to contribute to the family’s income, nor is it wrong for her to be engaged in business ventures. An important principle underlying this passage is that the efforts of the wife, in every instance, should contribute to the well-being of the family. Any employment the wife might have which is detrimental to the spiritual and moral well-being of the family, in my estimation, would be wrong. This principle applies as much to the husband as it does to the wife.
To say that it is categorically wrong for a wife to work would fly in the face of this text. And to say that the work this wife performed was solely done at home would also be stretching the text. To work only to provide materially for our children, but at the expense of their spiritual growth, would be contrary to biblical principles. The children of this godly woman, as well as her husband, were blessed by her activities. We know that she was noted for her gracious teaching (v. 26). What this woman did, she did as an act of obedience to God and as a sacrificial service to her family. She found her fulfillment in serving God and her family, not in seeking her own interests.
Let us all seek to serve God and others, giving of ourselves in the process, whether as a wife, or a husband, or a single person. And let us do it all to the glory of God and by His grace.
Blessings
Doc