Mission: Impossible?⤒🔗

Maybe you've had the experience: it's Mother's Day, or maybe it's your birthday, and your husband's leading family devotions after the meal. "Hmm ... What passage to turn to on a day like this, a day all about Mom? Yep, I guess it's Proverbs 31 again!" And there it comes in verses 10-31, that long passage all about this super-hero of a woman from ancient Israel. Buying real estate, sewing clothes, providing alms to the poor, giving the car an oil change — what is there she cannot do?!

This lady intimidates people because of the sheer number of her daily tasks, and the intensity with which she pursues them. Clearly this is no ordinary woman. Who can ever compare with her? And so what started as a well-meant Bible reading has fallen kind of flat. It's turned into a self-esteem deflater, maybe a guilt-trip inducer! A few books suggest the general attitude toward this chapter. There's one, My So-Called Life as a Proverbs 31 Wife. Or a little more hopeful, but still kind of dark, When Perfect Isn't Enough: How I Conquered My Fear of Proverbs 31. And then again, there's: The Proverbs 31 Lady and Other Impossible Dreams.

So is that it: a mission impossible, best not to be at­tempted? Or can you escape by just saying it's all hope­lessly out-of-date and doesn't reflect modern-day reality? Surely we can do more! Because it's part of that God-in­spired Scripture that the Spirit has given for us to study and to apply, "That the man (and woman) of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work." So off the top, we know not to dismiss Proverbs 31, but cele­brate it! Not avoid it, but embrace it!

Some Signposts Along the Way←⤒🔗

Because it's a long passage, we might want to start our journey without delay. But we'll be helped along by giving attention to a few signposts.

1. It's Not a List of Rules←↰⤒🔗

A danger in reading or trying to explain Proverbs 31 is that it just comes across as a lot of domestic rules and commandments. That by verse 31 or the end of this article you'd conclude: "So I guess I've got to do this more. And I have to get a whole lot better at that, and work on the other thing, too." And at one level, this is what all of us want! It's when people listen most atten­tively to sermons, when the preacher's finally getting on to the application, telling us how to live. Because we sort of like rules. We want the "take-home" to be a formula: three easy steps to share the gospel, and five ways to beat anxiety. But if that's all you hear, then you're getting (or the preacher's preaching!) the wrong message.

So what about rules? We need direction, of course. But to put it plainly, being a Christian isn't about us and what we do. It's about the wondrous works of God and his only Son, our Saviour! That's the theme of Scripture from its beginning to its end. So we know that's also true for Prov­erbs 31. This isn't just a woman who excels at three-step plans to everything. She has a secret, and it's found in her relationship with God.

I don't want to give my main point away too soon, but look at verse 30,

Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.

There's the key: a life oriented not to self (and what we do), but oriented to God and his glory. Like Proverbs 1:7 already tells us, the beginning of wisdom comes through the fear of the LORD. That is, if you want a definite course for life and want to go forward with understanding — in whatever you do — then you first have to walk closely with God. That makes it the one worthy aspiration: to be a "woman of wisdom." Call it the W.O.W. factor! The very best life comes from fearing God, being in fellowship with the Father through his Son and Spirit, and living for his honour in every aspect of our lives. So not rules, but relationship.

2. It's an Old Passage←↰⤒🔗

Selecting flax and wool; holding the distaff and spin­dle; your husband sitting at the town gate — parts of this portrait may be considered old-fashioned, if not downright foreign. For it's about an ancient eastern rural commun­ity. A woman in a twenty-first century North American urban culture can be involved with a very dissimilar set of duties: taking courses at college, chauffeuring around town in the minivan, volunteering at the school, helping the kids with their phonics, doing payroll for the busi­ness, and more. Yes, a Christian woman might be busy in a multitude of different ways than what's described in Proverbs 31.

But here's what remains: this is a godly woman, adorn­ing her life with good works. Even if you're not married, or you don't have children, or your kids are long out of the house, or even if your husband has volunteered to cook dinner every night ... even then, the most important ques­tion is this: whether we put our whole being into working for the LORD. If you fear God, you'll be active wherever God has put you! So it's an old passage, but it lives.

3. So Where are the Men?←↰⤒🔗

I think everyone knows those verses in Proverbs about difficult women, like 21:9,

Better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife.

And so sometimes people ask, "Where are the men? Why does this unwelcome spotlight in Proverbs 31 get thrust upon the ladies, while the men are let off easy?"

So far I haven't found a verse about climbing on the roof to avoid a cranky husband. But just think of every­thing Proverbs says about the foolish man: a man who is impulsive, proud, lazy and greedy and easily angered, and so on. Such verses hold up a mirror to any man. How do we measure up to God's standard, in our integrity, our labours, and our reverence for the LORD? No, we ought to realize that this chapter is just one part of a long book that addresses all of God's people: men, women, and children; rulers and servants; the wealthy and the poor.

And the interesting thing is how this passage gets introduced in verse 1, "The sayings of King Lemuel — an oracle his mother taught him." The first nine verses can be called "The Wise King." And then the rest might be called "The Excellent Wife." Lemuel's mom wanted to teach her son these important lessons, and then he shared them with us. It's been said that Proverbs 31 has a double audience then: men, and women, about "what wives women should make, and what wives the men should take." Yet even if that's not your exact life situation, many others can listen in too, and hear words of wisdom.

4. Letting it Sink In←↰⤒🔗

You'd all agree Proverbs is wonderful: chock-full of wisdom. There's one "problem," however: there's just too much in here! It's thirty-one chapters filled to the brim with holy insight, which can make it hard to read in a meaningful way. You sit down to read a piece and you love everything you hear — but two minutes later you can't remember any of it. So someone once suggested that after you read one of these verses, pause. Let it linger a few seconds before going on to the next verse. Let it sink in — so you can ponder the wisdom of it, and hopefully re­member it. That's good, because Proverbs isn't just a col­lection of vanilla sayings like you find in fortune cookies or self-help books. It's about that wisdom which needs to be absorbed into every minute of our day.

5. Learn Your ABCs!←↰⤒🔗

Our passage is an elegant poem, twenty-two verses long. It's no coincidence that it's twenty-two verses, for that's how many letters are in the Hebrew alphabet. Lem­uel's mother wrote this passage as an acrostic, which means each verse begins with a consecutive letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The first verse starts with an aleph, the first Hebrew letter; the next verse with a bet, the second Hebrew letter, and so on. You might be familiar with this structure from Psalm 119 or the book of Lamentations.

Why an acrostic, though? It might've been an aid to memory. Back then, God's people didn't have personal cop­ies of the Scriptures, so putting things into acrostics was a way for this wisdom to be learned and to be remembered. We do the same thing today. Think of how we learn the order of operations in math: with the acrostic BEDMAS (standing for brackets, exponents, division/multiplication, addition/subtraction). Or like how we remember the line­up of the planets: "My Very Excellent Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas" (standing for Mercury, Venus, Earth, and so on). So in the Proverbs 31 acrostic, "A" stands for this quality, "B" for that characteristic, "C" for that activity, etc. We might call our passage "the ABCs" of being a godly woman. Because these are the fundamentals, the things that every woman of God should know. To learn, and to remember: the ABCs of a W.O.W!

The Portrait of a Woman of Wisdom←⤒🔗

You might not have been to Paris, but you've probably all seen the Mona Lisa, Leonardo's portrait of a lady. You can put your nose right up close and notice lots of details about her person: the crossed arms, the elegant clothing, the beguiling eyes, and so on. But you can also step back and get an overall impression. That's what the first verse of our passage gives, the overall view:

A wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than ru­bies.Proverbs 31:10

We can highlight that word "noble." This Hebrew term gets used about 200 times in the Bible, and in almost every instance to describe an army of warriors; it refers to things like their courage and strength. Which makes very striking the four times that this same word gets ap­plied to a woman! Once in Ruth 3:11, when Boaz speaks of that "noble" young woman from Moab, working in his fields. It's also used in Proverbs 12 (v. 4), and then twice in this chapter (see also v. 29). This makes us think what such a woman has in common with an Israelite warrior. From the rest of the poem, I would suggest these qualities: a woman of wisdom is fully in command of her spirit, she's completely devoted to her calling, and she's ready to put her hand to the task.

That makes her highly valued: "more than rubies!" Elsewhere in Proverbs we read how God's wisdom is like a treasure: something to be desired (3:13-15), to be searched for (2:4), even to be worn proudly (3:3). Now a woman of wisdom gets described in the same terms — as a treasure — yet far better than anything material. Like it says in 19:14, "Houses and wealth are inherited from parents, but a prudent wife is from the LORD." For those in her life, this woman is a treasure, a true gift from God.

The Hard-to-Get Woman←⤒🔗

All the same, notice the text begins with that danger­ous question: "A wife of noble character who can find?" You might say that this kind of woman is "hard to get!" Not because a virtuous wife is so rare, but because a truly noble wife isn't always desired, nor always aspired to. Al­ready in Lemuel's time, the standards of womanhood were too often reduced to matters of physical appearance, instead of the character of one's spirit. Hear what the LORD says in Isaiah 3:16 — and keep in mind, these are the ladies of the church:

The women of Zion are haughty, walk­ing along with outstretched necks, flirting with their eyes, tripping along with mincing steps, with ornaments jin­gling on their ankles.

Compare that to the portrait of a desirable woman in our time. We don't have to look far for the role models. There's often a reminder waiting for you at the check-out stand in the grocery store, glossy magazines featuring the "finest" of the female gender. The ideal woman is attract­ive. She is fashionable. She is fulfilled, but not necessar­ily by the mundane things of marriage or motherhood or service. No, she's fulfilled by her stellar education and ex­citing career, and her world travels and her latest posses­sions, and her "love life" (whatever that is). Such a woman knows how to get what she wants! For such a woman, self-image is everything. And this is how the Bible always characterizes worldly wisdom (true of women and men): it's the living for self.

All of which makes it hard, living in this society, to embrace God's design for womanhood as we find in Prov­erbs 31. For this particular portrait is not high culture ­it's counter-culture. Today, the biblical image of a godly woman is soundly mocked. There are many voices derid­ing biblical womanhood, discarding it as repressive and old-fashioned and beneath any self-respecting twenty-first century woman. And maybe we don't buy the magazines or watch the TV shows, but isn't that desire still there for us to be "conformed to the pattern of this world?" Part of us still wants to win our society's approval, or at the very least to escape its ridicule. Call it the fear of man, instead of the fear of God.

So there's a good reason the Spirit says in verse 30, "Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting..." We have to resist the worldly ideas of beauty and worth, because these things can never honour God in themselves. Not that the LORD despises the loveliness of a woman — he made her how she is, after all. But he says that appearance and charm and success and wealth and position will only fade, while holiness will endure. To live wisely then, is to ar­range everything in our lives not around ourselves but around God and his precepts. Whether single or married or widowed, that's the high calling for a woman of wisdom. She's not just another pretty face, she's a disciple of Christ. It reminds us how the Spirit pictures a Christian woman in 1 Timothy 2:9-10,

Women should dress modestly, with decency and propriety, adorning themselves, not with elaborate hairstyles or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God.