"The Work of Her Hands" Proverbs 31:10-31 Sunday Evening Worship Service

So I'm going to read the passage and then we'll begin.

This is the words of King Lemuel, an oracle that his mother taught him.

What are you doing, my son?

I love it when a conversation from a mom to a child starts that way.

What are you doing, my son?

What are you doing, son of my womb?

What are you doing, son of my vows?

Do not give your strength to women.

Your ways to those who destroy kings.

It is not for kings, Olemuel.

It is not for kings to drink wine, or for rulers to take strong drink, lest they drink and forget what's been decreed and pervert the rights of all the afflicted.

Give strong drink to the one who's perishing, and wine to those in bitter distress.

Let them drink and forget their poverty and remember their misery no more.

Open your mouth for the mute, for the rights of all who are destitute.

Open your mouth, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and the needy.

An excellent wife who can find?

She is far more precious than jewels.

The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain.

She does him good and not harm all the days of her life.

She seeks wool and flax and works with willing hands.

She is like the ships of the merchant, and she brings her food from afar.

She rises while it is yet night, and provides food for her household and portions for her maidens.

She considers the field and buys it.

With the fruit of her hands she plans a vineyard.

She dresses herself with strength and makes her arms strong.

She perceives that her merchandise is profitable, her lamp does not go out at night.

She puts her hands to the distaff, and her hands hold the spindle.

She opens her hand to the poor and reaches out her hands to the needy.

She's not afraid of snow for her household, for all her household are clothed in scarlet.

She makes bed coverings for herself, her clothing is fine linen and purple.

Her husband is known in the gates when he sits among the elders of the land.

She makes linen garments and sells them.

She delivers sashes to the merchant.

Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she laughs at the time to come.

She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.

She looks well to the ways of her household, and does not eat the bread of idleness.

Her children rise up and call her blessed.

Her husband also, and he praises her.

Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all.

Charm is deceitful, beauty is vain, but a woman who fears Yahweh is to be praised, give her the fruit of her hands, and let her works praise her in the gate.

And back then it was one of the more frequent questions we received from college students.

How do I know whom I'm supposed to marry?

How do I know?

How do I know who the right one is?

Is there a right one?

Can I make the wrong choice?

What if there is one for me to marry and yet I'm just going for that person?

I choose, lo and behold, the wrong person.

Which has always confounded me a little bit because I think if God has mysteriously chosen one person for you, who would have to bring that person across your path in some providential way, anyway.

So the difference in those choices is non-existent.

So you choose the person you want to and marry that person, and if it's who you want to, then God is at work in it, regardless of whether or not it's the one.

That's how God would bring you to the one.

Anyway, we have lots of somewhat humorous memories from that time period with people who are trying to figure out if they were gonna get married to the right person.

And my favorite, absolute favorite, is a couple that had been dating, and I don't know, I I thought they were good for each other, and ultimately they may have even ended up getting married.

I don't know they didn't.

I'm getting the head shake.

No, they didn't.

But I remember when they broke up and uh I jotted down some of the things because I wanted to remember this conversation the rest of my life.

Um they weren't compatible because one liked Macs and the other PCs.

Which actually is a problem.

Dider uses an apple and I use a PC, and like we can't print from each other's computers.

It's a big mess, but somehow we've made it work.

Uh she likes salad, he likes steak, he likes camping, she likes nice rooms on vacation.

I have more, but uh that's you get the point.

And uh at some level, Dieter and I were laughing, or like, that's called being a guy and a girl.

That's what that is.

What do you think would make you compatible with someone for marriage?

Um better than trying to find that level of compatibility is probably a chapter like Proverbs 31.

Proverbs 31 is the depiction of the wise woman, the godly woman incarnate.

Uh, and so it's often understood Proverbs 31 is a chapter uh by a woman, for a woman.

This is the woman to be or the wife to find, is how some people have even described it.

But as you study it a little bit, you notice something jumps out immediately at you.

It is indeed the the words uh of a woman.

It's from King Lemuel's mother, and most commentators agree King Lemuel is Solomon here, his mother being Bathsheba.

And that's not for sure, but that's what commentators spend pages and pages saying, and I have no reason to argue with them.

Uh so assuming it is Samuel, I mean uh Solomon from his mom Bathsheba, these are indeed the words of a woman, but they're not given directly to women.

Every woman who reads this is, of course, reading them.

It's part of scripture designed for you.

But notice that it's mediated here.

It is from a mother to a son about what kind of woman the son should look for.

And it does indeed start with a rebuke.

The mother starts us off with, What are you doing?

And so I like to think that it is Solomon, because he is deserving of that rebuke.

He married all kinds of ridiculous people who ended up ruining his life and the nation's life and ruining the Old Testament.

So if anyone deserved this kind of rebuke for what are you doing marrying that person, it would indeed be Solomon.

And so it is fitting that these words are recorded here.

He is rebuked.

What are you doing, son of my vows?

His mother says.

And again, this doesn't necessarily have to be Solomon, but that's what is often assumed.

Here is the rebuke, then do not give your strength to women, or your ways to those who destroy kings.

There's a certain kind of woman who will bring a kingdom down.

She will marry into power and marry into influence, and use that power and use that influence to corrupt and spread harm.

And of course, in the book of 1 Kings, we see that that is exactly what Solomon did.

Now, this we're gonna see in all of Proverbs chapter 31 is that this somewhat specific admonition to a king of Israel, and yet the principles behind it extend beyond there.

Proverbs 31 · chapter mention

Much of this chapter is an argument from the greater to the lesser.

If Solomon, the king, the wisest person who'd ever lived before Christ, if he was in danger of marrying a person for the wrong reasons who would tear his life down, how much more so are mere mortals like us?

How much more so should people pay attention to whom they want to marry?

If a king, a powerful king, could have his kingdom endangered by this choice, it is of particular importance for the average Joe or Joseph Israelites to pay attention to this.

It is not for kings, Olemuel, to drink wine, nor for rulers to take strong drink, lest they drink and forget what has been decreed and pervert the rights of all the afflicted.

So he's not she's not leaving the realm of marriage altogether yet.

She's gonna circle back to it, but she's starting here with pay attention to who you're gonna marry.

Don't marry someone that's gonna corrupt you and corrupt your kingdom.

For example, it's not right for kings to get intoxicated while they're ruling, because the king might lend a verdict and say, I, you know, side with this person over that person, or amass the army to go there, or raise the taxes in that province, and they drink and they forget they did those things.

So they're distracted from how they're leading, they're distracted from how they're ruling.

That's not going to be the kind of king you want to follow.

Ultimately, that kind of king will end up perverting the rights of the afflicted.

Rather, verse 6 says, give strong drink to the one who is perishing, and wine to those in bitter distress.

Now, this is kind of like throwing shade at all those loser kings who need to drink alcohol.

All those loser kings who have to drink to forget their sorrows.

That's what his mom is telling him.

You know, you want to a king who should drink is one who is like losing.

You know, put it in the realm of athletics.

You know, uh a victor, a victorious coach shouldn't be drinking.

He should be focused on the next game, remembering what he did that worked well and getting his mind engaged in the next game.

But it's the the losing coach he should drink to wash away his memory of the loss.

King Lemuel's mother says, I don't want to see you drunk on the throne.

Let the kings rule well, let them get drunk, but not you.

Rather, you open your mouth for the mute and your rights for all those who are destitute.

In other words, when people are afflicted, don't drink to forget their suffering.

Rather, speak out on their behalf.

Advocate for those who can't advocate for themselves.

Judge righteously, verse 9 says.

Defend the rights of the poor and the needy.

So there's a lot of I might circle back to one of these verses on a Sanctity of Life Sunday and talk specifically about it in the context of abortion.

I think that might be appropriate.

So I don't want to spend too much time on them here.

Except before we get into the Proverbs 31 woman, the introduction to it is the king's mother saying, You are going to lead a life of sobriety and a life of speaking up for the afflicted, a life that is going to involve hardship because you're going to be advocating for those who cannot advocate for themselves.

This is going to be costly.

So how do you lead that kind of life?

If, and this is where the rest of the chapter comes in, you are distracted at home.

How do you lead the kind of life that is going to be pouring yourself out for your kingdom if you're not happy at home?

If you at home are dealing with somebody that's going to erode your kingdom from the inside, you're not going to be able to be fully engaged with the rights of the afflicted.

In other words, if you marry the kind of person that will corrupt your kingdom, it will end up hurting the poor.

It'll end up hurting the oppressed the rights of the destitute, it'll end up hurting your citizens.

Again, it's an argument from the greater to the lesser.

If a king needs to pay attention, if a king is to marry an ungodly woman and it will corrupt his kingdom and end up harming the poor, how much more should you pay attention to this in your own life?

Now, what comes after that?

Verses 10 through 31 is the Proverbs 31 woman.

Earlier in Proverbs, we met Lady Wisdom, wisdom personified as a lady.

Now at the end of Proverbs, we see a lady who is wisdom.

This is not wisdom personified, this is wisdom as a real person.

Earlier in Proverbs, remember, Lady Wisdom calls in the street, and she calls looking for those who will follow her, who will give their lives up for her, and those who seek for wisdom will find her and they will be wealthy.

And then the middle part of Proverbs, chapter 10, all the way to chapter 30, is describing principles to lead a wise life.

Proverbs 10 · chapter mention

And now the book closes.

This is Proverbs.

The book of wisdom closes with wisdom not personified back earlier, but now an actual woman who is wise who's going to embody all of the Proverbs we've seen in the book.

So don't overlook that point.

This is not just an addendum.

It's not like Appendix A, how to find a wife.

This is the legit conclusion of this book.

You want to see all of the wisdom.

The book begins with a father lecturing his son in the first two chapters of Proverbs, father to son.

It ends with the mother to son.

Find a wife who lead who leads a life that is described by the book of Proverbs.

Now, I don't think this is an actual woman she has in mind.

It's a something that's important to people.

I've met a lot of women who don't like the Proverbs 31 woman.

They get angry at her.

If they saw her in the street, they would, you know, splash her fine linen clothes with muddy water.

You know, how dare she do all this work kind of attitude?

So I don't think she's in the Bible for you to get mad at her.

Um more than you read the elder qualifications in 1 Timothy 3.

You don't want to get mad at those elder qualifications, you know, self-controlled! How dare Paul say that?

That would be a lack of self-control.

You want to read Proverbs 31 with a heart that says, I want my life for the ladies.

I want my life to emulate this.

This is the pattern set out for me.

This is wisdom.

When wisdom is a woman who is a wife, this is what it should look like.

So ladies should read this and say, This is this is encouraging me, motivating me to be like this.

Single men in particular, which is who this is written to, should read this and say, This is the kind of woman I want to find to marry.

More important than all those silly things, you know, and sign up for a dating app and ask you like 86 questions.

You know, what kind of food do you like?

You know, blah, blah, blah.

And it would be great if it just said, Do you want a Proverbs 31 woman?

Yes or no?

Are you a Proverbs 31 woman?

Yes or no?

Ting.

I know it's not that simple, but so the passage begins.

By the way, this is an incredibly intricate passage.

It's poetry, it's an acrostic.

It moves through the Hebrew alphabet.

Each verse starts with a subsequent letter of the alphabet, like Psalm 119 does.

Psalm 119 is an acrostic by stanza, though.

This is an acrostic by verse.

So verse 10 is aleph, verse 10, uh 11 is bait, uh, and so forth all the way through verse 12, Gimel, uh, Dalit, verse 13, through the Hebrew alphabet, A, B, C, D, E, F, G.

So every verse begins with the appropriate letter to the Hebrew alphabet.

You're moving A to Z.

Biblical writers use acrostics in a few places, like in Lamentations or uh here, Psalm 119, remember.

And they use them usually for the purpose, like in Psalm 119, of memorization.

You use an acrostic to help you memorize something.

Other times, like in Lamentations, you might use an acrostic to channel your emotion.

Because there's so much emotion there that would be overflowing.

Using an acrostic forces you to focus in on what you're actually trying to say and work deliberately through your emotion.

So sometimes acrostics help memory, sometimes acrostics funnel emotion.

When you have so much material to work with, it gives it a focus.

I think Proverbs 31 is one of those places where it's doing both.

It's given as an acrostic to help women memorize this, to help Solomon memorize this.

I remember when I was a single guy, I had a checklist of things I would be looking for in a wife.

What a ridiculous joke my checklist was, by the way.

Terrible.

Do not recommend that approach.

But if you are gonna have a checklist, Proverbs 31 would be a better approach to that.

And it's designed for memory for exactly that kind of reason.

It also just focuses.

When there's so much right about what a godly wife would look like, making it in across the format funnels it down, gives it a defined scope, and lets you work through it.

That's the first reason it's intricate.

The second reason it's intricate, we'll get to when we start in verse 13.

But for now, verses 10, 11, 12, those are the uh introduction to this, Oliph Bet Gimel.

An excellent wife?

Who can find her?

So we're off to an encouraging start.

Good luck out there, son.

Hard to find.

Very hard to find an excellent wife.

Very hard to find the kind of woman that will be described in the rest of this chapter.

So before we keep going into B C D E F G, before we get to B even, you need to know that from B to Z, it's going to be tricky.

Women like this do not grow on trees.

It is hard to find an excellent wife.

She's more precious than jewels.

She would get snapped up, so to speak.

Now, lest you think that uh Solomon in Proverbs is discriminatory here and saying, oh, there's just so there's so few godly women.

You know, as if he's implying there's godly men everywhere.

Earlier Proverbs says the same thing about men, by the way.

Proverbs 20, verse 6 says, a faithful man hard to find.

Proverbs 20:6

You can find all kinds of people that will proclaim their own faithfulness.

There's all kinds of guys that'll talk about how godly they are and how mature they are and how chivalrous they are and what good leaders there are.

Blah, blah, blah.

All talk.

Proverbs 20 says, but an actual, faithful, godly dude, hard to find, Solomon said earlier.

So now that is matched with the same language at the end of Proverbs, hard to find a godly woman because of her worth.

But when she has found, this is the introduction to her description, verse 11 and 12, her husband will trust her.

She does him good and not harm all the days of her life.

So notice that the introduction to the Proverbs 31 woman begins with the husband.

This is why I wanted to teach this passage tonight after the morning message.

Solomon is not teaching something different than Ephesians 5 or Titus 2 or 1 Timothy 5.

He's teaching the same principle.

He's introducing marriage here by starting how the wife relates to her husband.

How do you know what the godly woman is like?

Well, when you find her, she will compliment you.

You will trust her.

You will prosper, verse 11 says, because of her.

She will do him good and not harm all the days of her life.

This isn't just like a fleeting thing.

You know, everybody makes vows in their the wedding, you know, uh sickness and in health.

I'm in.

Wait, you mean that cold lasts two weeks?

No, this is a long-term all-life commitment.

She will do him good and not harm all of her life, and he'll prosper because of her.

I love the phrase, the heart of her husband trusts in her.

Do you know?

In the ancient Near East, when men went away for business, which they often had to do, uh, traders and government officials and stuff would often go away with business, they would lock all their possessions up before he left.

They'd hire a slave or somebody to guard their possessions locked up somewhere, but not this guy.

This guy doesn't need to lock anything up.

He trusts his wife with all of it.

With all of it.

In fact, he's gonna come back and he's gonna have gain.

What he left in the house, he's gonna come back from his business trip and there'll be more of it.

It grew.

Most dudes out there are having to lock everything up so it's not dissipated.

You know, lower the credit limit on the credit cards to Americanize it.

But not this guy.

He goes away and he actually has more waiting for him than when he left.

So, what does that look like?

That is verse 13 through 19, and this is the second reason this is such an intricate and beautiful poem.

The rest of this chapter is it follows two, they're called chiasms.

It follows two, uh, there's two different chiasms in this.

A chiasm is where two different verses parallel each other, the next two verses parallel each other, and they move kind of in.

It's called the chiasm because it makes an X.

Uh, and they're kind of, and I'll show you a visual of this in a second, with the main point being in the middle of it.

So this is hard for Americans to understand because in our poetry and in our novels and in our stories, the main point is either the beginning or the end.

But in the Hebrew world, the main point is right there in the beginning.

I mean, we're sorry, right there in the middle, and the beginning and the end funnel you towards the middle, and that's where the main point is.

So the rest of Proverbs 31 is still going with the acrostic, but in the middle of the acrostic are not one but two chiasms.

Uh two for the price of one, you could say it like that.

It was a sale.

Proverbs 31 joke right there.

Let me show you the first of these.

I don't know how well you can see that, but I tried to uh bring it out for you where you see verse 13 and verse 19 parallel each other, verse 14 and verse 18 parallel each other, verse 15 and verse 17 go together, and then The main point being verse 16.

So I'll read the main point because we're Americans.

I'll read the main point first, and then we'll work backwards.

The main point: she considers a field and buys it, and with the fruit of her hands, she plants a vineyard.

So this first chiasm is funneling you to that point.

This woman is doing work out there.

She's doing work.

She is uh taking what resources she has and she is expanding them.

She is looking at a field, she's considering it, she's not being hasty, and then she snatches it up when it's at the right price.

She buys it, she plants a vineyard in there.

No, this is not, keep in mind here, this is not saying that every godly woman needs to be a gardener or that needs to be a real estate mogul.

This is a picture here of the wife of a king, you know.

So put put that in perspective here.

This woman's gonna have slaves and servants in this passage.

She's gonna be doing all kinds of stuff that an average non-queen would have a difficult time doing.

But remember, it's the principle of this.

The principle here is that she is at work for her family, she's expanding the resources of her family.

And she's doing that through hard work.

You would think a queen like this.

She's got servants.

You think she would sleep in.

You think she would send her servants this way and that way and let them do their things.

Oh no, not this woman.

This woman is doing work.

And so before we work through this passage, it is one more little caveat before we begin really picking up speed and going through Proverbs 31 here.

You have to understand, this is Proverbs, there is a difference between wisdom and law.

Law is where the Bible commands you to do something, there's no wiggle room, no exceptions to ignore it would be sin.

Wisdom is how you apply principles of the Bible.

So if you don't get that distinction, Proverbs, for example, would be a very confusing book.

If you read Proverbs like law, you'll be confused because some Proverbs contradict each other.

You know, it's it's very hard to navigate.

If you approach Proverbs like you would uh straight up commands, it's an impossible book to navigate.

So you recognize that Proverbs is not commands as much as it is wisdom, and the wise person knows how to apply them.

This is the way most of the Bible is, by the way.

Most of the Bible is not commands, most of the Bible is wisdom principles the wise person can apply to life.

Let me give you one example that's not from Proverbs, so that you understand what I'm talking about, and then you can apply it to Proverbs.

Ephesians 5.18, do not get drunk with wine.

That's a command.

That is the law.

It's the law of Christ.

Do not get drunk with wine.

If you get drunk, you're sinning.

Okay?

That's the way the Bible approaches law and commands.

That's different than wisdom.

So, law, there's never a time in your life where it's appropriate to get drunk.

Getting drunk is sin.

That's Ephesians 5, 18.

On the other hand, wisdom, okay?

Uh bad company corrupts good morals, Paul says.

Proverbs 20, verse 1 wine is a mocker, strong drink a brawler.

Proverbs 20:1

Whoever's led astray by it is not wise.

That's a wisdom principle.

See how it's not an imperative, it's just a statement of fact.

Wine causes you to do dumb things.

So the Bible doesn't say to drink maximum.

That would be easy.

The Bible doesn't say to drink maximum.

It doesn't give wisdom as if it were law.

The Bible gives law, don't get drunk.

And then wisdom.

Wine causes you to do dumb things, and if you hang around drunkards, it'll corrupt your own behavior.

So it doesn't say you can be friends with a drunkard but not a good friend.

You can only spend time with them one afternoon a month and not after 6 p.m.

You know, that would be law, and you don't want to go beyond what's written, but the Bible gives you principles about that.

And the wise person knows how to apply principles.

Do you see the distinction?

You have to get that with Proverbs.

Proverbs does not lay this Proverbs 31 and a woman out as law.

So don't read this and be like, if I want to be a godly woman, I gotta consider a field and buy it and plant a vineyard there.

That's what she's doing.

Ah.

No vineyards for sale.

No, it's the wisdom.

She's the woman who's leading a wise life.

This is what a wise life looks like.

It'll look differently in your own life.

It'll look differently with your own resources.

It'll look differently with your own circumstances.

That's wisdom.

So this begins, verse 16, the critical part.

She's expanding her resources.

How is she doing that?

That's verses 13, which pairs with verse 19.

I tried to highlight for you the word hands is what ties those two verses together, verses 13 and 19.

She seeks wool and flax.

She's out there working for wool and flax.

Wool from sheep, of course, flax, extremely difficult to labor with.

Flax is like tall grass that grows and you pull it out by the roots and you do work to flax.

Like you, you know, we think of flax as what you get like hippie drinks.

You add it to your smoothie.

That's not flax for them.

Flax, they pull the plants up and they soak it in water and they put it on their roof and they dry it on their roof, and then they, you know, beat it with hammers and they separate the husk from it, and they run it, literally run it through this nail thing that separates it into these long threads that they then dry, and it's like hair, and then you weave that hair together, and that's how you make linen.

Okay, that is a lot of work.

You think, can I go to Target and just buy a shirt?

She is doing work.

Doing work with her hands.

Verse 19, she puts her hand to the distaff and she holds her hands on the spindle.

In other words, she's doing this herself.

In verse 13, she's getting the wool and the flax.

Verse 19, she's making clothes from it.

Verse 14, she's like the ship of the merchant.

She brings her food from afar.

The word merchant there is paired in verse 18 with the merchandise.

She perceives that her merchandise is profitable.

Her lamp doesn't go out at night.

So see the parallel there.

The ships of a merchant, you think that's not a flattering thing to say.

Well, ships of the merchants in the in the ancient Near East, food comes from where it's grown, and you don't get a lot of variety.

So you want something more elaborate for your family, you got to go to a different marketplace.

We kind of have the same principle here.

Okay, so you might buy, let's say, milk or eggs at Costco, and you might buy fruit at Harris Teeter, and you might buy, you know, produce at Giant or something like that, you know, or steak at Giant or whatever it is.

You know, so the different different ladies might have their different stores they go to for different things.

That's the that's the Americanized version of this.

You know, she has she is like merchant ship.

She sees where ships are coming from, or she knows what's good on that ship, and what's good on that ship, and what's good on that ship, and she's buying them and she's bringing them home for her family.

Uh, you know, it's uh another American analogy might be like, you know, you get coupons for this store and coupons for that store and coupons for that store, and you drive all the way to Woodbridge to save 30 cents on grapes and drop 20 bucks in gas.

But you know what's worth it?

Save 30 cents on grapes.

That's great.

That's what the Proverbs 31 woman is like.

She's doing work out there, navigating, knows where the deals are at the different stores, and uh has got it sorted out from afar, even.

Oh, see that that's the verse for wives right there, the drive to Woodbridge to save the 30 cents.

She gets her food from afar.

There it is.

Verses 15 and verses 17.

She rises while it's yet night, rises and dresses, dresses or paired with each other.

That's what she does.

She rises, she dresses herself.

And just again, this is so intricately put together.

She rises while it's yet night.

Not because she's got insomnia or something, but because she is eager to get on with the day.

Uh it's still dark outside.

She's got to get up early to provide food for her household, portions for her maidens.

She's making food for her slaves.

That's this woman.

The ladies that are waiting on her, she is preparing food for them.

Verse 17.

She is dressing herself.

And what does she dress herself with?

I love this verse.

Strength.

She makes her arms strong.

She gets up early in the morning and goes to the gym.

This woman does.

She dresses herself with strength and makes her arms strong.

And I'm, of course, don't take me literally with that.

She's not really, she's not really going to LA fitness.

But she is really getting up early and going to work.

And because of that, she is strong.

All this appears in verse 16.

She considers the field and buys it.

Do you see how that's the culmination of this?

She saves money here and saves money there and buys food here and buys food there.

And her merchandise in verse 18 is profitable.

I don't know what her merchandise she has there.

She's got an Etsy account set up and she's making things and she's bringing in cash from Etsy and Facebook Marketplace, all that, and she's taking all this cash and she's using it to advance her family.

So we were uh, Dieter and I are with um some friends from outside of the church, and uh I don't remember how the conversation got there, but the women in this conversation uh all said that they have running money at their house.

They called it running money, stored away in their their uh, you know, hidden in their house, money so they could, if they needed to run and get out of town, leave their family, they got the cash to do it.

We go home and I look in the DJ, you got running money?

Because one of the guys is like, every wife has it.

I'm like, do you have running money?

No.

Okay.

Okay.

Not this woman.

She's not saving her money to use for herself.

Do you see that?

This isn't the mommy money here that she's saving use for herself.

She's saving money to use for the family.

And again, Americans always ask, see, she's working outside the home.

Is she?

I mean, this the whole context of verses 13 through 19 is what she's doing in the home here.

She's got her family marshalled here to advance the household.

To advance the household.

So this, I don't think this is all conflicting with what we talked about this morning with the woman's primary calling in the home.

This is the example of what her primary calling in the home looks like.

She is busy and she is doing stuff.

She is working for the family, expanding.

One commentator says she's she's making capital improvements with her food choices.

You know, she saves money with the food so much so it ends up being able to make capital improvements on the house.

Buying a field.

This is an impressive woman.

So that's the first chasm there that shows you how hard she's working.

The first chasm here that's on the screen, verses 13 through 19, she is working for her home.

This first stanza describes her home, what her home is like because of her godly effort.

The second little stanza is going to describe her life.

The first one you got on the screen is her home.

The second one describes her life.

Verses 20 through 26.

The key verse is verse 23.

Her husband is known in the gates when he sits among the elders of the land.

Again, Proverbs 31, woman begins with a description of her husband.

The second chiasm here, the second stanza or third stanza describes her husband.

The main point is her husband's, she's known by him.

So all of her wisdom, all of her success, it finds its public manifestation not in her, but in her husband.

I don't want you to overlook that.

And this again is not diminishing women.

Who's who's saying this?

This is the queen's the king's mother is the one saying this.

So this is not saying women don't have influence here.

It's the king's mother who is talking to the king that becomes scripture.

And it is the Proverbs 31 woman that her wisdom is on display in the world through her husband.

Through her husband.

The stuff she did in the first stanza, it's behind the scenes.

She's getting up early.

She's making her own clothes.

Nobody sees that.

But now the public display of her life, her life is on display and it funnels you towards the understanding that her husband is known in the gates.

When he sits among the elders of the land, people see him and they go, That guy, that guy is wise.

That guy is mature.

That's the guy you want to go to for counsel.

That guy right there.

You want to go to that guy for counsel.

And why is he like that?

Can you tell how much of it is because of him and how much of it is because of his wife?

I mean, at the very least, he was wise enough to marry somebody like that.

But she is talking to him and she's influencing him, and he's running things by her.

This is very much cooperative.

You can't look at verse, you know, 23 here and say it's all about the man.

No, it's all about Proverbs 31 woman.

The point is in her wisdom, her husband, you see, you see her through her husband.

Her wisdom is on display through him.

He's esteemed because of her influence.

Martin Lloyd Jones has an incredible little illustration of him preaching at some uh uh he described it as like a village church up in the Welsh part uh of Great Britain.

And as he was uh preaching in Wales there, the he was staying at this um pastor's house and he said, He talked to the pastor, and you know, all the everybody at church talked about how educated he was and how wise he was and how intelligent he was, but then he spends the night at his house with he and his wife, and he just in personal conversation about topics that he wasn't prepared for, the guy didn't seem to really know what was happening.

He seemed to be out of his league.

And Dr.

Martin Lloyd-Jones said, I didn't understand how he could be known as someone who's so wise.

But then his wife came in the room and starts talking, and he Lloyd Jones realizes the wife is where the wisdom is here.

She is the brilliant one here.

But then you you all have a hundred illustrations like that, but where this one gets interesting is then he says, She starts entering into the conversation through him.

She starts bringing suggestions up to him or reminding him of things that he had read, or maybe that she had read that he had told him about.

It was very unclear to him.

And so he starts saying things that he was led by her, and he comes across as remarkably wise and educated.

But it was contingent upon her being next to him.

And Lloyd Jones says that's what's described in Proverbs 31, verse 23.

Proverbs 31:23

That kind of wisdom.

Well, let's go through the chiasm together again, verses 20 and verse 26 parallel each other.

Uh, she's opening her hand to the poor.

In verse 26, she opens her mouth to wisdom.

It's interesting, the the mark of the king, remember, in verse 9, is that he would open his mouth and judge righteously, that he would speak on behalf of the poor.

And remember, this whole thing was introduced with how can a king lead that kind of sacrificial life and pour his life out for his people unless he has a supportive wife at home.

Well, now you see the Proverbs 31 woman, and she's doing the same thing.

It's not like speaking up on behalf of the oppressed is only for the husband to do.

She's also doing it.

She's opening, verse 20, her hand to the poor.

She's giving out to those who are in need.

So all of her stewardship in the first chiasm does not mean that she's not generous in the second chiasm.

She has the two balanced.

She's stewarding and expanding her wealth in the first chiasm so that she can be generous to the poor in verse 20.

Verse 26, she's opening her mouth like her husband, and she opens it with wisdom, and kindness comes out of her tongue.

Her husband is speaking up for the rights of the destitute, and meanwhile, she is pouring forth kindness with her speech.

I'm sure you all know men that speak too too gruffly or especially about issues that are important or significant in society.

They can speak unkindly and uncharitably.

And then this woman comes along and she speaks with kindness about the same.

She cares about the same issues, but she speaks kindly about it, and that's noticed.

Verse 21, she's not afraid of.

I love the pairing of verse 21, verse 25, by the way.

They're funny.

She's not afraid of snow for her household.

Snow doesn't make her afraid.

Snow in Israel would be a big deal.

Okay?

You would be scared of snow in Israel.

It doesn't snow that often.

When it does, you better have warm clothes.

Warm clothes are expensive.

So this freaks people out.

But not her.

She's snow.

Bring it, winter.

Let's see what you got.

Dump on us.

I got sleds in the basement.

Do it, winter.

She's not afraid of snow.

All of her household is clothed in scarlet.

You know?

Most people respond to snow by double layers kind of thing.

Not her family.

She makes clothes that are so good, they still only need one layer in the snow.

So that's kind of cool.

It's almost like trash talking about clothes here.

Bring it snow because my kids are dressed.

Verse 25 What's her dress like?

Strength and dignity is what she wears.

It's snowing outside.

You need your winter jacket?

Nope.

I got my strength.

That's this woman.

Look out.

Also, she laughs at the future.

Earlier, she's laughing at snow.

Now she's laughing at the future.

Bring it future.

Now obviously, this woman has experienced loss in her life.

Every wise person has.

She's experienced grief.

But see, she still looks at the future and smiles.

Because she knows God is sovereign.

This is all about the fear of the Lord.

We'll close with the fear of the Lord in a few minutes here.

She understands this is all under the sovereign lordship of Yahweh.

So she looks at the future.

You know, there's gonna be problems in the future.

It might snow.

Okay.

Bring it.

She's ready for anything because she trusts the Lord.

She trusts the Lord.

She knows tomorrow's problems will have tomorrow's solutions.

And it's gonna be fun to see what they are.

And you think, aren't you worried about what will happen tomorrow?

She's like, shh, it'll be interesting what happens tomorrow.

It'll be interesting.

I tell you, living with this kind of woman is not gonna be boring.

It might be a lot of things, but it will not be boring.

It's an adventure.

What tomorrow brings is an adventure, and she's excited to see it.

She laughs.

She laughs at it.

She thinks about the problems of tomorrow and she just can't help but laughing to herself.

That's how prepared she is.

Verse 22, she makes bed coverings for herself.

Her clothing is fine linen and purple.

That's paired with verse 24.

She makes linen garments and sells them.

She delivers sashes to the merchants.

So she makes incredible clothes for herself.

In all of her strength, she's still elegant.

Wearing fine linen, purple, and considered an elegant, more expensive kind of clothing.

She wears that as the queen, of course.

And but that's not the clothing she's most proud of.

She makes it and she sells it, by the way, too.

Verse 24, she's selling that kind of linen.

She's making profits on it.

That profit funnels back up to verse 16.

Vineyards and such.

But strength and dignity, verse 25, are her real clothing.

So those are the two chiasms here.

Proverbs 31 would be a lot shorter if it was just one verse long.

It could be one verse long, which is verse 27.

Kind of sums it all up.

Verse 27 says, She looks well to the ways of her households and does not eat the bread of idleness.

That's all of Proverbs 31 woman in one verse right there.

She looks after her house and she's not lazy.

She doesn't eat the bread of idleness.

And of course, this woman could.

If she's queen, she could eat the bread of idleness.

She wouldn't be happy with that.

So she looks after her household.

That's the first chiasm.

Second chiasm, she works hard.

It's all about her household, all about her family.

This is her wisdom personified.

So what kind of life comes from that?

Well, verses 28 down through 31 are the conclusions.

The results.

That's how I would say it.

Verses 28 to 31.

The results of all this, the results of this.

Her children.

The results of this, by the way, to summarize these verses, praise.

Everybody loves this person.

Her kids love her, her husband loves her, her works love her.

Everybody is the praising her.

And the the praise, the word for praise here is hallui cha.

Not halluiya, which is praise God, but hallui cha.

Praise her.

Everything about her is praiseworthy.

Verse 28, beginning with her children.

Her children get up in the morning, they call her blessed.

Well, they bet her.

She's been up for an hour already.

Her husband gets up after the kids, apparently.

And he praises her too.

Everybody's getting up and singing her praises.

This woman's amazing.

The husband comes downstairs and says, Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all.

You surpass them all.

Again, this is it's not an actual marriage here.

This is an archetype.

This is a pattern.

You understand principles.

The husbands are supposed to work hard too.

That's the middle of Proverbs.

Husbands work hard.

So husbands don't deduce from this that you can sleep in, your wife gets up, makes breakfast for the kids, feeds them, you roll downstairs, she's got your coffee ready, and you quote this verse.

Many women have done excellently.

But you excel them all.

So if you live your life like that, you're violating the rest of the book of Proverbs.

This is kind of a figure of speech.

When he talks about, when he talks to his wife, he says, I think you're an excellent wife.

Verse 30.

And this is where the quotations end.

I love how the SV puts the close of quotations in verse 29, because verse 30 is the king's mom giving him a final caution.

Charm is deceitful, beauty is vain.

But a woman who fears Yahweh is to be praised.

You should be attracted to the person you're gonna marry.

That's true.

But if you elevate attraction over godliness, you're going to get bitten by a snake.

Because beauty does not last forever.

And for guys that are like shopping in the wrong aisle of the store, if you know what I mean by that, guys that are looking for a woman out of their league appearance-wise, shopping in the wrong aisle of the grocery store.

You know what?

You might find a woman that is beautiful enough that will finally say yes to you.

And how long do you think that beauty will last?

You know?

And you're gonna change too.

Your rugged good looks in your own eyes will disappear as well.

And then you're gonna be left with someone that you married for beauty that is only in the pictures, and her godliness is what you're left with.

Did you marry well?

And beauty is vain because it changes, and charm is deceitful, it lies to you.

You think this is what I need in a wife.

It is a lie.

Rather marry someone who fears Yahweh.

Rather marry the Proverbs 31 woman.

Did you notice nothing in this passage describes her beautiful looks?

Nothing.

She girds her arms in strength.

That's the closest you get right there.

Nothing is about her physical appearance.

But you know what?

Everyone's praising her, including does she praise herself?

Sort of.

This is how the chapter ends.

What a cool ending of the chapter.

Give her the fruit of her hands.

Let her works praise her in the gates.

She doesn't have to say a word.

She walks into the room and everybody goes, That woman is wise.

She doesn't have to blow a trumpet and say, Look at me, wisdom has just walked in.

All of her life praises her.

That is the Proverbs 31 woman.

God, we're thankful for the description of this woman.

As I prayed earlier, I pray again, Lord, we know that you are wisdom in human flesh.

You're the wisdom of God, Solomon says in Proverbs 10.

God's wisdom that was with him at creation is the eternal Son of God.

And so as we look at the Proverbs 31 woman and we see wisdom, the person of wisdom behind that is you, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

And so we exalt you.

We don't exalt other humans, we don't exalt other people, we don't exalt our own work ethic even.

We want to praise our wives, but we don't exalt them.

We exalt you.

And as much as our wives have wisdom, it's because it's from you.

As much as the husbands have wisdom, it's on loan from you.

You are wisdom, and so we desire to make our lives conform to your image.

Lord, help us be more like you.

We ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

And now for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson.

Thank you for joining us today.

If you're in the Washington, D.C.

area, I would love to see you at Emmanuel Bible Church.

Our service times and church information are on our website at ibc.church.

For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.

location, go to tms.edu.

I hope this resource has been a blessing to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily.

Serve others around you and share the gospel of Jesus Christ with boldness.

May the Lord bless you.