Dennis Tuuri

# SERMON TRANSCRIPT – REFORMATION COVENANT CHURCH

**Proverbs 31, beginning at verse 10.**

Who can find a virtuous wife? For her worth is far above rubies. The heart of her husband safely trusts her, so he’ll have no lack of gain. She does him good and not evil all the days of her life. She seeks wool and flax and willingly works with her hands. She is like the merchant ships. She brings her food from afar. She also rises while it is yet night and provides food for her household and a portion for her maidservants.

She considers a field and buys it from her profits. She plants a vineyard. She girds herself with strength and strengthens her arms. She perceives that her merchandise is good and her lamp does not go out by night. She stretches out her hands to the distaff and her hand holds the spindle. She extends her hand to the poor. Yes, she reaches out her hands to the needy. She is not afraid of snow for her household.

For all her household is clothed with scarlet. She makes tapestry 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 and supplies sashes for the merchants. Strength and honor are her clothing. She shall rejoice in time to come. She opens her mouth with wisdom, and on her tongue is the law of kindness.

She watches over 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 daughters have done well, but you excel them all. Charm is deceitful, and beauty is passing, but a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised. Give her of the fruit of her hands, and let her own works praise her in the gates.

Let’s pray.

Father, we read in Psalm 119:9, “How can a young man keep his way pure by guarding it according to thy word?” Oh pure bright source of light, eternal God of truth and right. By your spirit dwell within us. By your spirit let us dwell in you. Pour out on us the quiet purity to hear, the calm purity to understand, the strong purity to act according to your most holy word, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

—

I have one final sermon to give on Revelation chapters 1 through 3. I tried to finish up a couple of weeks ago, but I thought it’d be good to return to it one more time to really stress the lessons found in the last three letters to the last three churches. So I’ll do that in a couple of weeks.

But after coming to a somewhat of a conclusion of those sermons, I decided to put in a couple of sermons here in the midst before we get to the next series—sermons that are things on my mind and heart, I guess.

One—Psalm 131—that I preached on last week has been on my mind and heart for many years. I’ve wanted to preach on it a long time, and I thought it was very important for us to hear and for others to hear as well. I’ll be preaching that sermon in Seattle next week at Christ the Sovereign Covenant Church.

And this sermon today, “The Law of Kindness,” is one that’s just sort of been on my mind for the last few weeks or maybe the last month or so. Coming back from the conference we went to in Idaho in Moscow, we listened to some tapes on the way back from Pastor Wilson on the marriage relationship. I’ve been thinking about that a lot in the providence of God the last few months.

And Lord willing in a couple of weeks, I hope to address that topic more directly by taking several weeks to look at the creation of Adam and Eve and the first marriage in the garden from the first few chapters of the book of Genesis.

I’m in my 40s—not 30s—and in a few years I’ll be in my 50s. And I approach topics relating to husband-wife relationships and the marriage relationship much more cautiously as I get older. It’s very easy to look at marriage from a liberal or conservative perspective sociologically or culturally. But what we want to do as a people of course is to have God’s word form our understanding of what men and women are, how they are alike, how they differ, and what marriage is.

And I think that’s a difficult task. I think it’s always difficult to take a topic that is so culturally bound up with us and look at it from a distinctively biblical perspective. And I’m not saying you should throw out the cultural view. We do have a Christian culture that was originally formed in the context of our land. But particularly when roles are so confused as they are in our culture, the tendency is to either become like the world around us or to react in perhaps not a biblical way to the world around us in other ways.

So I approach it very cautiously. And this sermon, I guess in a way, is the beginning of it because it does talk about the role of the wife in Proverbs 31:10-31. There is somewhat of a continuity here. We’ve been talking in Revelation 1 through 3, primarily focusing on the last two chapters on the seven churches, seeing them as seven brides. The church is the bride of Christ—seven aspects of the bride of Christ.

And I’ll return to that in two weeks. And next week, Pastor Wilson will continue his series going through Ruth, which of course addresses the context of marriage and relationship quite critically in that book. So while it isn’t quite related to the other sermons, there is a flow here to a consideration of the church as a bride and the implications of that.

Now, what I want to do today is tell you what my studies have revealed to me from the word of God over the past few weeks about the law of kindness. I’ve heard it talked about a lot. I’ve never studied it out in depth before, although I have preached on this chapter once before. And I’ve thought to myself, “What is it?” And I’m sure that if you’re a mother or a wife, you’ve thought about that a lot too.

And it’s real easy to say, “Well, the English says it’s the law of kindness. So what that means is I’m supposed to be kind in my speech to everyone in the household and whatever I say—the governance of my tongue—that law should be kindness. So I should be smiling and kind in everything that I do.” Well, that may or may not be true. So I wanted to look at the scriptures, look at that verse specifically in context and in the greater context of the whole scriptures, and share with you some of that.

So what I’m planning to do is first of all look at it in the immediate context of the so-called Proverbs wife, and then look at it in its broader context. The word kindness there is a very important and significant word in the Old Testament. And finally, look at Proverbs 31 just a little bit in terms of its relationship to the church of Christ.

I’m not at all convinced that Proverbs 31:10-31, its meaning is exhausted in looking at women and their relationship to men and children, their husbands and their families. But I’ll get to that in a couple of minutes.

Now, before I start with this first section, talking directly about the Proverbs woman going over it very quickly to show you the immediate context, I want to give a caveat here about Augustine and the Neoplatonists. What am I talking about?

Well, I have these videotapes I’ve been watching on Augustine, and the latest one I saw was on his relationship to the Neoplatonists. Now, I’ve lost most of you, but listen up. I want to say one thing first before I go on.

Children, I want to tell you something. I want you to listen to what’s being said. I didn’t provide you a worksheet, but I want you to listen. And if you’re over 3 or four years of age, you should be able to sit here quietly listening to what’s being said. In fact, if any of you have to go to the bathroom, maybe you could do that now. Maybe it could take just a couple of minutes. You want to go to the bathroom, do it now, so you won’t have a continual flow back and forth of people going in and out. It can be a little distracting, kids.

So maybe you should get in the habit very early of getting that out of the way so you can come and listen to the word of God. The word of God is important, and you know, I don’t want a lot of playing around. I don’t want any playing around. Try to attend as much as you can. I’ll try to keep you in mind as I preach through these verses. We want to try to keep things fairly quiet and respectful.

We remember that what we believe about worship is we’re coming into the convocated presence of God and we’re hearing from God through a very imperfect vessel, but nonetheless, his word is being trumpeted forth and we want to hear what it says for us. And you know, most of this sermon applies to children just as easily as it applies to adults. It talks about speech—what’s supposed to come out of our tongues.

Now, I’m going to tell you one other thing. When we pray in a little bit, I’m going to pray that God send forth particular judgments upon a particular man who’s troubling a member family of this church. Now, I say these two things at the beginning to tell you that I don’t think that as a member of Christ’s bride, trumpeting out his word, there’s anything wrong if I’ve admonished you children to be quiet and respectful in the presence of God and I’m going to use speech later to call for God to send particular judgments, and if need be, to put an end to what a man is doing.

I mean, judgments upon a man—hopefully that he’ll repent, but if not, that whatever he’s doing to trouble the people of God and a family of God in this church will be put out of the way. I don’t think there’s anything in that which violates this law of kindness. If I did, I wouldn’t say those things, because I believe that really this bride is a picture of the church, and the church is to have the law of kindness in its tongue at all times.

Okay, so that by way of introduction. Now, the Neoplatonist deal. Okay, so on this tape with Augustine, the guy’s talking about these Platonic ideas of what’s eternal and good. And he said, “You know, they had this Pythagorean theorem. You know, you draw a triangle and the square of these two sides of the triangle summed up equals the square of the hypotenuse of the triangle.” Homeschoolers, you know all about that—at least the mothers do, probably. Maybe not the dads. But in any event—

So the idea is you draw a triangle on the board. You tell your kids this, but you know what? It doesn’t work for your triangle because you can’t draw a perfect triangle. There’s little bumps in it. Its lines are kind of squiggly. The angles aren’t quite right. Can you draw a perfect 90° angle? Probably not perfectly.

So the idea that these guys came up with was this: there’s this triangle as a concept out there somewhere, this abstract triangle that is perfect. And whenever we draw triangles, it’s an attempt to kind of hit at that goal, but we can never make it. It’s eternal. It’s connected to the mind of God, so they say.

Now, I don’t want to get you to think too much about that, but what I want to get you to see here is that the caveat here is this: when we look at Proverbs 31:10-31, whether we’re trying to apply it to our wives, them to themselves, mothers, if you’re thinking about yourself here, or members of Christ’s bride—the church—if you’re thinking about yourself and how well you do at this, remember that the word of God is like that bright, shining perfectness portrayed—at least this section of it. It’s like that ultimate triangle that we can never really achieve in our fallen state.

Okay? Now, I say that not to let you off the hook, but I say that so that you’ll stay on task, trying to draw that triangle in your life. Because if you look at this, you can get so discouraged by Proverbs 31 that you think, “I can’t do that. It’s hopeless,” and you get depressed and Satan starts talking in your ear. “Yeah, you can’t do that. Forget it,” and you give up.

But see, the word of God is this perfection that it paints for us. And apart from the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ and his atonement for our sins, it is a howling indictment against us. See, it doesn’t work. It drives us under, and I don’t want my preaching to have that effect upon you. I want to preach what I think that perfection is of the godly wife here.

But I want you to understand the blood of Christ covers the imperfections, and God wants you to keep making your triangle better and better as you draw it in your life. He wants you to do better and better with your tongue. He wants you to mature. He wants you to move forward, to press toward the mark, understanding that in this life you’ll never ultimately find that mark.

But you know what? When you draw a crummy triangle and then you draw a good triangle, you’re happy. “Look at that neat triangle I’m able to draw now that I’m 12 or 15 as opposed to when I was three. Look how much better I can paint the human face, for instance, than when I was a kid doing stick drawings. Or how much better I have a command of the English language than I did earlier.” You’re not perfect, but there’s a great joy in moving toward that.

So I want to encourage and exhort you to move toward this model of perfection given for us in Proverbs 31, in terms of overall our lives and then specifically in terms of our tongue. And I want you to always keep in mind the blood of Christ.

Our opponent, Satan the slanderer—that’s what he is—will not have his way with you. It’s interesting: the bride of Christ—the perfect woman—out of her mouth is the law of kindness. Out of his mouth is the law of slander. His job is to accuse you. He’s a slanderer. That’s what “Satan” means. Or “devil” means it’s a slanderer.

Okay, it’s interesting that the requirement of deaconesses—one of the primary requirements of deaconesses—is that they aren’t “devil women.” That’s what it says in the Bible. They’re not diabolos. They’re not slanderers. See, deaconesses are to have the law of kindness in their mouth.

And that’s true of all of you women, and it’s true of all of us. So the picture is this: the harlot bride—the false bride—the bride who is in opposition to Christ—she’s got slander on her lips. And the perfect bride, the bride of Christ, she has the law of kindness on her lips.

Now see, you already feel a little bad, some of you, because you know that sometimes you talk about people and you shouldn’t. I want you to feel bad, but I don’t want you to feel crushed irretrievably. So I want you to understand the blood of Christ covers that.

Okay, so much for the caveat. Let’s look now at the first point of the outline: a brief overview of the Proverbs woman from Proverbs 31.

First of all, the immediate context of this word, “the law of kindness,” is the Proverbs woman, and we have pictured for us here—as Arnot in his commentary said—a full-length portrait of a heroine, a full-length portrait of a heroine.

Now, what does it tell us? Well, first of all, it says that she is inestimably valuable. She’s highly valuable to us. And men, we could spend a lot of time on this. I intend to spend more time on this in a couple of weeks when we begin talking about the marriage state. We do not value our wives enough. I don’t think we do, you know, we never meet that perfection, and we should be moving toward that perfection of valuing them exceedingly highly.

They’re very important in the providence of God in our lives. I’ll talk more about that in a couple weeks. But she is inestimably valuable. “Who can find a virtuous wife? Her worth is far above rubies.” We all wish we had rubies. Her worth is far above rubies. I mean, there’s no comparison—that’s what the proverb is saying here. “The heart of her husband safely trusts her. He’ll have no lack of gain.” There’s a real important picture there for us.

I could dwell on all these things a lot, but I cannot do it. I want to move on quickly.

Now, when it says, “Who can find a virtuous wife?” literally, what that says is, “Who can find a woman of strength?” So don’t get the wrong idea of virtue—that it’s some kind of pansy deal. It’s not like that. “Who can find a woman of strength?” A strong woman. I’ve said this before, but this word here—very important to remember—is a dominion word. It’s spoken of the mighty warriors of God. That’s what Christian women are supposed to be like. Not weak—strong. Strong in a particular way, of course.

So this tells us that. Secondly, she is faithful. “She doeth him good, not evil, all the days of her life.” She hangs in there even though he’s not perfect and may do a lot of bad things. She’s faithful in the long haul.

Third, this godly woman is industrious. “She seeks wool and flax. Willingly works with her hands”—not because she’s forced to. She willingly works with her hands. Children, that’s what your parents want for you: to be willing in your work. Children, you’re very valuable to your parents. Children, you’re supposed to be strong. You’re maturing into strong men and women—mighty warriors for God. And you’re supposed to be faithful to Christ all the days of your life and faithful to your parents’ instruction. And you’re supposed to be industrious. You’re supposed to be able to work and work hard willingly under the oversight of your parents.

Well, this woman is industrious. She seeks wool and flax. Willingly works with her hands. She’s like the merchant ships. She brings her food from afar. She also rises while it’s yet night and provides food for her household and a portion for her maidservants. She is industrious. She is a hard worker.

Fourth, she is active. “She considers a field, buys it for her profit. She plants a vineyard. She girds herself with strength. Strength is her arms. Perceives that her merchandise is good. Her lamp doesn’t go out by night. She stretches out her hands to the distaff and her hand holds the spindle.” Kind of the same idea. She’s industrious, but she’s active. She’s not just doing what’s there. She’s looking at things around her as well.

Actively seeking out advancement and maturation for herself and her family. Okay? Really grabbing a hold of things and moving forward.

Arnot in his commentary on Proverbs talks about verse 19 and says that—I think he was Australian and then when he was a boy, which I think was like early 1900s—when a wife would be taken to the husband’s home as part of the marriage ceremony, they’d have this cart loaded with her goods, and at the top of the cart was always a kind of symbol: a spinning wheel, distaff and spindle. A spinning wheel would be set up there as a picture that this man had obtained an industrious, hardworking, active wife.

And he said that when he was a boy, he joined in the harass. You know, the cart would go by and people would line the streets to see the new bride and groom, and they’d see that spindle up there. “Aha! You know, great. Praise God for that godly woman.” She’s industrious. She’s active. And she has a sense of economics.

Fifth, she’s benevolent. “She extends her hand to the poor. Yes, she reaches out her hands to the needy.”

Children, once more: hardworking, maturing in your strength and ability, understanding how to buy things and sell them as you grow up more and more. And also in the context of that—though not being a miser, if you’ve watched that science fiction show, always trying to get the best deal—willing to extend the hand to the needy. She’s benevolent. She engages herself in benevolent activities.

Six, she is prepared. Verse 21: “She is not afraid of snow for her household, for all her household is clothed with scarlet.” She’s thinking ahead. She’s got foresight, okay? Not just thinking about where the next meal’s coming from. She’s planning ahead and planning for the very seasons themselves. She’s got a year in view here and preparing for her household clothing for the wintertime even.

So whatever happens—whether it snows today, whether it rains, whether it’s sunny, whether it’s hot—whatever it is, she’s prepared. She’s thought about it, you know, and we’re supposed to be somewhat prepared for what’s going to happen in the context of our culture, economically, socially, et cetera. Thinking ahead, making plans. That’s the way she is. She is prepared then.

Next, she is a wife who is regal. Verse 22: “She makes tapestry for herself. Her clothing is fine linen and purple.” She doesn’t see that the godly way to be in the context of a Christian culture is to be dowdy. You know, she doesn’t see that. She tries to beautify herself. And this means her husband recognizes that as well. Now, it doesn’t mean you’re wrong somehow if you don’t dress in purple and scarlet.

I’m trying to make, but I’m trying to say is that the picture here is that she sees herself as a royal, regal woman. Now, in the context, this is King Lemuel speaking. Now, we don’t know who he was. Some people think it was another word for Solomon. “Lemuel” just means “for God”—that’s what it means. Speaking for God, which is important for consideration of what this is about as we get to the last part of the outline.

But the point here is this: this is a king seeking out a wife. One other thing I forgot to tell you: this proverb in the Hebrew—these verses 10 through 31—are alphabetic. So they each begin with the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet. It was to be memorized—that’s the point of that. Okay? Or you could say she is a great wife from A to Z.

But Lemuel—the idea is that children are to be instructed, men are to be instructed from their youth by their mothers. That’s who instructed Lemuel of what a godly wife should look like, what kind of woman should he marry. And she should have these A-to-Z characteristics.

Now remember the Platonism, you know, as we think of the children that we’re raising—it may not be all these things. It will not be. It will be imperfect. Remember forgiveness of Jesus Christ—not as an excuse not to press forward. Continue to press toward the mark, parents, as you raise sons and daughters with these things in mind. And husbands and wives, press toward the mark, okay?

So she’s regal. She’s royal. She’s a king’s wife. Children, every one of you are King’s daughters and King’s sons. The Lord Jesus Christ is the King of Kings. You’ve been brought into union and communion with that King through baptism. And you persist in that through your observance of worship and continuing on the path of Christian instruction. And you should see yourselves as princes and princesses.

And before you start arguing with another child here or having a fight with them—whatever—remember you’re fighting with one of the King’s children here. You should treat each other with that kind of honor. And we should treat each other, adults and children, with that kind of honor. We’re royalty in the context of the preaching of God’s word. That’s what the scriptures tell us. King Jesus has procured to himself a people who are his bride, and we are all queenly in that sense.

Next, she’s a helpmate. “Her husband is known in the gates when he sits among the elders of the land.” He’s noticeably absent from this picture, isn’t he? You get the impression this is a single wife without a husband. He’s off at the gates. Well, it isn’t necessarily the case. The emphasis is on her. But again, I think that’s something we’ll bring up later. But the point here is that she is doing all these things as a helpmate for her husband so that he can do his rule in the context of the gates where the elders ruled effectively.

Okay, so she’s fulfilling her very initial calling from God as a woman who is a wife. Now, not all women are wives. But women who are wives, that’s your calling. You want God’s will for you if you’re a wife. Your calling is to be a helpmate to your husband. And Proverbs 31 says the best way to accomplish that. But remember, it’s in the context of being a helpmate. Okay? So that’s what she is.

Next, she’s profitable. “She makes linen garments and sells them. Supplies sashes for the merchants. Strength and honor her clothing. She shall rejoice in time to come.” She’s profitable in her enterprises. She’s steeped in the word.

And this is the verse here that we going to focus on a little bit. “She opens her mouth with wisdom, and on her tongue is the law of kindness.” Let’s camp out here for just a couple of minutes before we move on, because this is the central verse.

In the context of all these other things, it addresses her speech. Now, there was a rabbinical commentator named Ben Sira, and in his description of wives, he goes on for quite a long time about it. But he says this: “A silent wife is a gift from the Lord.” And there was a time early on in my Christian life when I thought that was the case—a silent wife is a gift from the Lord. Women should be quiet and submissive and not speak.

But this proverb tells us just the reverse. A godly wife is a talking wife. In fact, the imagery here is that she opens her mouth with wisdom. The connotation in the Hebrew is that wisdom resides in her, and it just kind of pushes itself out from her mouth, and on her tongue—either on or under her tongue, ready at any time—has this law of kindness on it. So she engages in a lot of speech. Okay. But it’s speech regulated and governed by wisdom and the law of kindness.

Now, okay, so this characteristic of the godly wife, or by way of application the godly Christian, is one of the most difficult ones to achieve, isn’t it? We know that from James—the tongue is hard to tame. So this characteristic is quite important in the context of some of these other things. Some of these other things are relatively easy to do, given the right upbringing. But to have your tongue be such that it is said that your mouth just exudes wisdom and your tongue is always ready to dispense the law of kindness—that’s an amazing thing.

Let me read from Arnot’s commentary here. He says, “Here is the sorest strain to which her character has been subjected: an analysis of her tongue. But if a woman’s words are habitually sensible and prudent, her husband’s heart learns to trust her, and he experiences no misgiving when she begins to speak. Another lovely feature of feminine excellence is added. The law of kindness is on her lips.

“This is one grand constituent of woman’s worth. They call her sometimes in thoughtless flattery an angel. But here indeed an angel in sober truth she is—a messenger. Remember that ‘angel’ means ‘messenger.’ A messenger sent by God to assuage the sorrows of humankind. The weary traveler who has come through the desert with his life and nothing more. The warrior faint and bleeding from the battle. The distressed of every age and country long instinctively for this heaven-provided help.

“Deep in the sufferer’s nature, in the hour of his need, brings the desire to feel a woman’s hand binding his wound or wiping his brow, to hear soft words dropping from a woman’s lips. The women who during the late war—I believe that was World War I is what he’s referring to—the women who during the late war smoothed the sick soldier’s brow in the hospital have as high a place this day in the esteem and affection of the nation as the heroes who led the assaulting column thronging the beach.

“Woman was needed in Eden; how much more in this thorny world outside. Physically the vessel is weak, but that very weakness—in that very weakness, her great strength lies. If knowledge is power in man’s department, gentleness is power in woman’s. Nor is it a fitful, uncertain thing. It is a law. When the heart within is right, the kindness is constitutional and flows with the softness and constancy of a stream.

“Among the things seen and temporal, it is the best balm for human sorrows.”

So Arnot’s application of this verse and in context. And I think that’s an appropriate application. I think it’s appropriate to see women in general, and also specifically in the context of households, as having that kind of effect upon humankind—a very excellent effect.

But I want to investigate this a little more and begin that investigation now in terms of what this word means.

Now, this phrase specifically, “law of kindness”—okay, this is translated in the New American Standard Bible as “the teaching of kindness.” The NIV has “faithful instruction is on her tongue.” What does it mean?

Well, the phrase here, “law of kindness,” consists of two Hebrew words. Torah—Torah is the basic Old Testament word for law. It means the walk of a man in obedience to God’s law. So it refers to the Torah—God’s law specifically, the Pentateuch or the Decalogue. The Ten Commandments are the whole first five books of the law, the Torah. Okay?

So it’s Torah, and then this word—we want to investigate some today. What is the kindness in this “law of kindness” that we’re talking about? This word Hesed is a very common word in the Old Testament. It’s translated—by one commentator, as this phrase now—as “the teaching of steadfast covenant love.” Teaching, Torah, steadfast covenant love. Why would he use those three words to translate this word?

Well, understand this: in the King James version, this word is translated “loving kindness,” which is an interesting word. We just sort of say it, but think about it. It’s not just kindness, and it’s not just love. It’s loving kindness. It’s translated that by that term 30 times. It’s translated as “kindness” 38 times. It’s translated as “mercy” 145 times. In the RSV, it’s chiefly translated as “steadfast love” 182 times, and 21 times as “kindness.”

In the Septuagint—which is the Greek translation of the Old Testament rather—it’s kind of a bridge to how it would be interpreted in the New Testament. The word is usually translated by a word that is translated in the New Testament as “mercy”—the word is “eleos.” There used to be things in churches called “eleemosynary institutions” of the church that meant benevolent agencies setting up hospitals, welfare programs for people, taking care of the poor and the sick, whatever it was.

Those are eleemosynary activities based on this word, mercy. So it has that connotation: that a person needs help, and someone is able to give that help, and it’s kind of like helping someone with what you have to help them with mercy. Okay?

But it also has these connotations of love and covenantal faithfulness and loyalty. Okay?

Now let me read you Matthew Henry’s commentary on this phrase. He says, “In her tongue is the law of kindness—all she says is under the government of that law, the law of love and kindness is written in the heart, but it shows itself in the tongue. If we are kindly affectioned one to another, it will appear by affectionate expression. It’s called a law of kindness because it gives law to others—to all she converses with. Her wisdom and kindness together put a commanding power into all she says. They command respect, effect. They command compliance. ‘How forcible are right words.’

“And then he says this: ‘In her tongue is the law of grace or mercy. So some read, understanding it of the word and law of God, which she delights to talk of among her children and servants. She is full of pious religious discourse and manages it prudently, which shows how full her heart is of another world, even when her hands are most busy about this world.’”

Now, that last comment by Matthew Henry is on target, I believe. This word “mercy” in the Old Testament—some commentators have said that essentially it’s the Old Testament equivalent to God is love in the New Testament. And so it shows us a bridge between the central characteristic of God in the Old Testament, his mercy—which we’ll see in a minute—and God being described as love in the New Testament.

So it informs both. They inform one another. Okay?

And my point is this: I think—and you’ll see by the end of our fuller examination of the word—that what this means is, to the Christian mother, to the Christian wife, and by way of application to all of us, is that God’s law is a merciful law given to us in grace and kindness from God. And that law is what’s to govern our speech. And when that law governs our speech, then our tongues are full of the law of grace and mercy.

Okay, so when it says “Torah hesed,” I think it’s saying that God’s Torah is hesed. It comes out of his hesed—his mercy to us. And when we speak it to one another, it is kindness in the context of our speech. So I don’t think it has to do with an adjective somehow unrelated to the law of God. I think Henry was right in his second comment there, that what it’s talking about is the law of God, and that law is kindness, hesed, mercy, covenant love, and steadfastness in the context of our speech.

Okay, so that’s kind of the short version of what I’ve got to say today. When you leave here and you evaluate yourselves according to Proverbs 31, I want you to evaluate yourselves saying, “How well does my speech comport to the law of God and the requirements of God’s law and the mercy and loving kindness of God’s law?”

Now, we’re not trained to think that way. We’re trained to think that Torah and hesed are on opposite sides of the spectrum—law and grace. But once more, the word of God weaves these things together to tell us that God’s law is indeed kindness and mercy and grace to us, covenantal love flowing from God to us. And when we let it govern our speech one to the other, we flow kindness to one another as well.

Okay, okay. Let’s just finish up with the Proverbs. We’ll go back to this in more detail next week.

Next, she is comprehensive. “She watches over the ways of her household, does not eat the bread of idleness.”

Comment here by Arnot on this. He says that she looks well—calls this “moral discipline” on her part. “She looks well to the ways of her household. This is the keystone which binds all the other domestic virtues into one. A watchful superintendence of children and servants with a view to encourage good and restrain evil in her conduct is a cardinal point in the character of a mother and mistress. There are two classes of women who do not look well to the ways of their households: those who don’t look to them at all, who just forget about their household for the most part, and those who look to them with a stern, unsympathizing, indiscriminating stringency.

“For the bones of its strength, let the moral superintendence exact obedience from the subordinate and maintain untarnished the dignity of the chief. Okay, so he’s saying you should have strong bones that maintain a moral superintendence of your household. You’re overseeing, you’re comprehensive, and an analyzing how it’s doing, and you bring that strength, exacting obedience from subordinates and maintaining untarnished the dignity of the chief—the husband and the household.

“But the godly woman, he says, covers these bones deep with the warm living flesh of human love. So that while all their forces are exerted, none of their hardness shall be felt.”

Do you see the picture? You know, visualize, for instance, a child going wrong, and you’ve got to grab the child by the ear and correct him and do something else with him. Well, the way God has made you is you got these bones in here, right? And if you didn’t have bones, you couldn’t do that. So you grab with your bones. That’s the hardness that compels obedience and dignity to the father and mother. But God also has clothed those bones with soft human flesh—human kindness represented through the flesh and touch.

And so when we grab and direct our household, whether it’s men or women, fathers or mothers, he’s saying that what we want to do is superintend them surely with the sternness of bones, but covered with the kindness of human flesh, as it were. So the law of kindness is that same thing. We would expect to see it there in terms of that application.

Again, remember the triangle. You know, you fall short. I know you do. You probably, some of you, are thinking about things you did to your kids today, yesterday, last week, last month. Feel guilty if you haven’t done it correctly. But recognize you’re forgiven through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Next, she is blessed. Verses 28 through 30: “Her children rise up and call her blessed. Her husband also, and he praises her. Many daughters have done well, but you excel them all. Charm is deceitful, beauty is passing.” So she’s blessed.

And then finally, she fears the Lord. “But a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised. Give her the fruit of her hands. Let her own works praise her in the gates.”

The basis for all this is that she fears God. She worships God. You could say that too. Fear is the reverence of God. She worships God. She comes before God, fears God in the context of the assembly. And that produces the pattern for her life of fearing the Lord in all things, which is the beginning of the wisdom that she applies to her household.

Okay, so that’s the immediate context. Let’s look now at the broader context of this word hesed in the context of the Bible.

First of all, this word hesed is a prime characteristic of God. And I’ll just read these passages.

Exodus 34: “Jehovah passed by before him and proclaimed, ‘Jehovah, Jehovah, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abundant in loving kindness and truth, keeping loving kindness for thousands of generations, forgiving iniquity and transgression.’” There’s our word hesed—loving kindness. This characteristic is central to his attributes. God is love. God is hesed.

Nehemiah chapter 9 says, “Now therefore, our God—Nehemiah’s praying to God—our God, the great, the mighty, the terrible God, who keepeth covenant and loving kindness, who keeps covenant and loving kindness. See, it’s central to who he is, in his relationship to us, is loving kindness—attribute of God. He says, ‘Let not all that travail seem little before thee. Think of what’s wrong with us. Look down, Lord God, and we pray to God. We say, “Look on us with loving kindness, which is what we know you are.”‘

Daniel 9: “I prayed unto the Lord my God and made my confession and said, ‘Oh Lord, the great and dreadful God, keeping covenant and mercy to them that love him and to them that keep his commandments.’ It’s of the essence of God, the great and powerful God, to keep covenant and mercy to those that love him and keep his commandments.”

Joel chapter 2:13: “Rend your heart and not your garments. Turn unto the Lord your God. He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness.” It is of God’s character to engage himself in great kindness to us. So it’s a characteristic of God. It’s related to God’s love.

And I’ve given you some verses there. In Isaiah 63:7: “I will mention the loving kindnesses of the Lord”—that’s that word hesed—”and the praises of the Lord according to all the Lord hath bestowed on us and the great goodness that he has toward the house of Israel.”

And then later in verse 9 in that same text: “In all their affliction, he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them. In his love and in his pity, he redeemed them.” God’s loving kindness, Isaiah said, flows and is related to God’s love. It’s what motivates the loving kindness of God. It is the Old Testament correlary to “God is love.” That love is loving kindness to his people.

Jeremiah 31:3 says this: “The Lord has appeared of old unto me, saying, ‘Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love. Therefore, with loving kindness, with hesed have I drawn thee.’” See, his loving kindness—by which he draws us to himself—is premised upon his eternal love for us. You can’t have eternal love for a people without flowing loving kindness, mercy to them.

And you flow mercy and loving kindness based upon his electing love. He does that based upon his electing love of his people.

Third, this word hesed has a relationship to covenant. Now this should be obvious, but I’ll tell you what, it’s only been in the 20th century that theologians have seen the relationship of hesed to covenant. It’s been through the covenant studies in the 1920s of a particular fellow and a number of others who have said this word is related to God’s covenant obligations.

Now, they probably went a little far and tried to split it off from love. The point of showing you these correlations is to help you to see that kindness, the kindness of God, and the kindness that’s supposed to be on our lips is related to the attributes of God particularly toward the elect in Jesus Christ.

You remember the Ten Commandments: He, you know, causes the sins of the fathers to be visited upon the third and fourth generation of them that hate me, but shows loving kindness, hesed, unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments.

You see, he’s not shown them hesed because they’re not the objects of eternal love, and they’re not the objects of the covenant made in the context of the Trinity by which he has brought a people to himself. So the idea is that God has set his love upon a people from eternity. It’s an everlasting love, Jeremiah says. In that love, he has entered into covenant with the elect in the context of Jesus Christ, covenantally through Christ.

And because of that covenant, because God loved you in eternity and because God chose you covenantally in union with Christ, his loving kindness flows to you in the context of the covenant and the love that he has for you. Okay? It is related to covenant. Covenant is central to the idea of hesed. And that’s why some commentators say “the law of steadfast covenantal love and kindness” is in her mouth when they interpret Proverbs 31:26.

You see, it’s a lot richer than just being kind to your children or being kind to your husband—the way we think of it. Much richer, much broader. In fact, as much as we talk today about these verses—you look up every one of them—you’re not going to really get the full grasp of this because it is so central to the person of God. It’s a very rich concept which we cannot, in the short period of time allowed today, fully grasp.

But I want you to see some of the jewels on this crown of God’s to his people, because that’s going to inform us how we then have the law of kindness when we speak to other people, isn’t it? We’re to be image-bearers of God.

Okay, so covenant.

And then fourth, hesed is also seen in relationship to justice. In Jeremiah chapter 9, God says, “I am the Lord which exercises loving kindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth.”

You know, this is the verse that says, “Don’t, you know, glory in your wealth or in your wisdom or in your strength. If you’re going to glory, glory in this: that they understand, you understand and know me.” And who is God? Well, he says, “I am the Lord who exercises hesed.” The first thing he says about himself in Jeremiah 9 is “I’m the Lord who exercises hesed.” But it’s in relationship also to judgment and righteousness—God’s justice in the earth.

In these things, God says, “I delight in loving kindness,” but also in judgment and justice. And there are other verses. I give you a number of them there. There are more than that.