Dennis Tuuri

# Proverbs 31 Sermon Transcript
## Pastor Dennis Tuuri

Going to read verses 30 and 31, the concluding two verses, the culmination of the entire book of Proverbs as our sermon text. We’ll actually be speaking on all of Proverbs 31. Please stand for the reading of God’s word.

Proverbs 31, verses 30 and 31: Charm is deceitful. Beauty is passing. But a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised. Give her the fruit of her hands and let her own works praise her in the gates.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for your scriptures. We thank you for this great culmination of this wonderful book that moves us to maturity in so many ways. We pray now, Lord God, that you would bless us as we attempt to understand this concluding chapter, Proverbs 31. Bless us by your spirit. May we be transformed.

Father, we think of the wondrous image of Christ given to us in one of the earlier scripture readings from the book of Revelation. And we think about how at the conclusion of that book, the church is so described as well, beautified, glorified. A wondrous image of her is provided for us in chapters 21 and 22 of Revelation. We thank you, Lord God, that this book of Proverbs moves us to the beautified state of the risen Lord Jesus Christ as his bride. We pray now you would bless us in our contemplation of this wondrous truth. In Jesus’ name we ask it.

Amen. Please be seated.

Well, we come to this great concluding chapter of this book. You know, what we’ve tried to do is to provide some degree of context as we in our individual families and individually look at the proverbs to understand the context of the things that we typically kind of take out of context and not remember fully. Today’s section is certainly this is often the case with it as well.

While I do, on the outline, and we’ll get to this, think that Proverbs 31, the last 22 verses, do give us a picture of character qualities of women, I don’t think that’s really what the ultimate purpose of that text is. And I think that if we understand the great arc of this book, we can kind of see its correlation back to wisdom in the early chapters. In a way, what we have just sung about—that happy is the man who obtains wisdom. This is the happiness of King Lemuel. He has obtained wisdom. So ultimately, this is a picture of wisdom, I think. And there’s some other things that we want to look at as well that it alludes to.

This is unfortunately a section of verses that is very frequently used with the end result being guilt on the part of wives and mothers and women in general. You know, I think that one reason for that is we kind of, as again, we kind of take it out of its context instead of seeing this as the culmination of an entire book and we can get it wrong. No one can really meet the characteristics of this woman in its fullest sense.

Now I can say that confidently because when her husband praises her, he says in verse—what, 29, I think—that she excels among all. She is the best of all women. There may be one woman walking the face of the earth that could make that claim truthfully, but the rest can’t. So I think that we’re told there, and then again, what we’re told at the beginning of the whole description in verses 10 to 31: “An excellent, valorous woman who can find one?”

I think it’s right away an indication to us: Now, be careful. We’re going to describe something here, but this is not the standard that every woman is called to attain to in its explicit teaching. I do believe it presents some character qualities. We’ll talk about those, but this is clearly a woman of some substance and means in the description. And most women that I know don’t have the substance and means to have household servants and make investments, buy fields, vineyards, and have the finest clothing in all the world, which is what this woman has.

So I think if we remember what’s going on in this book, then it helps us to understand this concluding section with a little broader implication that maybe reduces a little bit of false guilt on the part of some women, maybe increases the guilt that some of us men feel because I’ll make the case that we’re included in that text. It’s a text that gives us character qualities for all of us. And at the same time, delight in what Jesus has accomplished.

This is the seventh section of this book. The seventh day, of course, in the creation order is the day of Sabbath enthronement. The Lord God on the Sabbath day was to come and enthrone Adam and Eve. And of course, we know that sin got in the way of all that. But that’s what the Sabbath is about. God coming and pursuing his queen, his bride, so to speak. The wedding nuptials that are really celebrated every Lord’s day in worship. That’s what the Sabbath is about: Sabbath day and throne, but king and queen.

And that’s what we see pictured here in this concluding seventh section of this book. The seventh feast of Leviticus 23 is the Feast of Tabernacles. Again, it’s the week-long, eight days long really—new creation kind of rejoicing in the finished harvest being accomplished.

So this book finds its culmination in this concluding seventh section of the book. And on your outlines, I’ve kind of provided again what we, the other six sections we’ve talked about, and how they all can be seen to find their culmination in Proverbs 31.

We remember in Proverbs 1A, the first nine verses, that the fear of the Lord’s the beginning of wisdom, and that’s immediately directed to one’s relationship to one’s parents. And so the beginning of wisdom is to fear God. The way we know if we fear God is our relationship to our parents. And at the conclusion of the entire book, what do we have? We have a king who has listened to his mother and repeats her words and inscripturates them for us. So we clearly have a king who has attained to that reverence of the Lord, fear of the Lord, exemplified by his listening to his mother even while a king.

The second section of Proverbs, in 1B through chapter 9, remember that the idea of that whole section was to call us to want to embrace the right wisdom, the right woman—not, you know, the foolish woman, but the wise woman. At the very center of that structure of chapters 1-9 was this call to not embrace the wrong young woman. And on either side of that was a call to embrace wisdom and then to embrace your actual wife on this earth.

And so here again, what do we have? We have the king who has embraced wisdom. Lady Wisdom dwells now in connection to him. And he’s obtained this wonderful wife that’s pictured, at least by way of secondary application, in those concluding 22 verses as well. So lady wisdom has been embraced by the conclusion of the book. Everything is great and happy.

We remember that in chapters 10-22, as those chapters—the actual Proverbs of Solomon—opened up, you remember they opened up with two paths, two tongues, two kinds of men. And what we saw was a series of three sets of seven verses that culminated in the eschatological judgment on the wicked. You probably don’t remember that, but in chapter 10, you go seven verses in and the whirlwind has an effect upon the ungodly. Another seven verses in, the ungodly are being punished and they’re dying off. The name rots. They’re going to die. Another seven verses in—more eschatology.

And that led us up to verse 22. And verse 22, the ungodly are no longer there. Only the wise man is left established. In verse 22, as a way to introduce all the proverbs of Solomon, he says, “Embrace the right path.” And the eschatology of that path is establishment. The eschatology of embracing the wrong kind of wisdom, the wrong woman, the wrong friends, etc.—the end result of that path is judgments; then eventually you’re destroyed. The earth belongs to the meek. The meek inherit the earth. The ungodly perish off the land.

And what do we see at the conclusion of the book? We don’t see a mention of the wicked and the foolish ones anymore in that great 22 verse picture of this virtuous wife. The ungodly are gone just like chapter 10 said they would be as well in its description. So we see that great culmination. We see that the right path indeed has been chosen by Lemuel. “The blessing of the Lord, it maketh rich and adds no sorrow to it.” And here Lemuel and this beautiful queenly woman are described as being rich, no sorrows added to it.

Then we looked at the words of the wise at the center of the book in the fourth section, and we saw three sets of 10 dealing with diligence and vocation specifically tied to a consideration of the poor. If you remember that structure, then we saw establishing a home by wisdom and then we saw rule in the gates. All of those themes come back in this concluding great symphonic playing of all the notes are being played.

Now in this great concluding section in chapter 31, we see that diligence is one of the great hallmarks, of course, of the virtuous woman. And as we’ll see in a couple of minutes, at the very center of that description of her diligence—the very center of the description of who she is—she has concern for the poor. So central is that.

And the words of the wise, that’s what vocation’s all about. You’re supposed to work so you can help other people. And this woman does that. And the words of the wise, establish a home by wisdom. Here the home is established as lady wisdom herself. And the words of the wise conclude, for the third set of ten verses, “Rule in the gate.” And here is Lemuel ruling in the gates. Here is the woman whose husband can rule in the gates because she is lady wisdom personified.

And remember that the words of the wise had those three sets of 10, and then it had a few more little “these also” words of the wise, we’re told, as that section came to an end in chapter 24. And it concluded with a fairly extended description of the sluggard. And here what do we have? We have the woman who does not eat the bread of idleness. We have the woman who diligently works. She’s the opposite of the sluggard—the exact opposite. So it finds its culmination now in this beautiful portrayal at the conclusion of the book.

Then we looked at Hezekiah’s collection of proverbs, the kingly set, and remember we looked last week. We kind of reviewed again chapters 28 and 29. And what are those all about? Well, it’s about how kings have to be humble before God, not forget his law, and be kind to the poor. And what do we see here in Proverbs 31? Lemuel is reminded not to forget the poor. The queenly woman is described as having concern for the poor. And the end result of that is a result rather of the humility of not forgetting the law.

The king is not to forget the law through the wrong use of alcoholic beverages. He’s to extend mercy to the poor. He’s to be humble, remembering God’s law. He’s to extend grace to the poor. And the wife does the same thing. So all these sections find their culmination in this great last concluding section.

Even chapter 30, which is kind of the flip point of 31. This is all glory. That was all humiliation. It’s kind of moving through this Lenten consideration—the sin of man and his being humbled by God—but it concludes at the resurrection. And next week we move to Palm Sunday. We’ll see the procession of the church and her king described in the scriptures for us. Then we get to the great celebration of the resurrection day itself.

And that’s the way 30 and 31 move. It’s the humble man who will be called to exercise wonderful dominion in the world. And we have the humble man and the humble woman in Proverbs chapter 31 as now exercising wonderful dominion. That great picture of the virtuous wife—wonderful dominion exercised in a wide-ranging description of what’s going on there.

So it’s the great culmination of the entire book in this text, and that’ll help us to understand a little better what this text means—to remember its context, that it’s the capstone to everything that’s being presented.

Now here I want to make some structural observations on the text. Sounds complicated—it’s not. There are two poems here: verses 1 to 9 constitute a particular poem, the words of Lemuel. Verses 10 to 31 are linked to it, but they’re a separate poem.

Now, on some of your outlines, and I didn’t have I won’t explain why, but on some of your outlines on the reverse side of the outline is the Knox translation of this particular text. Just a Xerox copy out of the Knox Bible. If you don’t have one, you can look at one later. There I have more copies.

What it shows you is that chapters 10 to 31 is probably many of you already know is an alphabetic acrostic. In other words, it’s got 22 lines. There were 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet. And each of those 22 lines begins with the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet. So it’s a device that shows the completeness of the alphabet in the praise of this woman in her description. It’s a way to easily memorize a section, to know that the next line has to start with the next letter of the alphabet.

So in the Hebrew, it’s an alphabetic acrostic. Now, the Knox translation is not a particularly good translation. I don’t like the translation. They really butcher the center of this as we’ll see. But what it does try to do—not just here, but in the book of Lamentations, in some of the Psalms, and in other places of scripture—it attempts to preserve that alphabetic acrostic structure of this particular set of verses, these 22 verses. So in bold letters, you’ll see each of those verses from 10 to 31 begin with the next letter of the English alphabet. He leaves a few letters out because we’ve got 26 letters. There’s only 22 letters in the Hebrew. But the point is that it’s clearly its own separate poem.

So we have two poems. Interestingly, in the Greek translation, the Septuagint, that was produced, the Septuagint actually have these poems in a different place in the book of Proverbs. They’re separated by chapters 25 to 29. Okay? So first you have Lemuel’s nine verses, then chapters 25 to 29, and then you have chapter 31. So they separate it by five chapters—two separate compositions. They’re wrong in doing that. They belong linked together. But it is important to recognize here that these are two separate poems, and that each of these poems have a chiastic center.

Now in verses 1-9, you can see that I’ve emphasized this on the actual text from the responsive reading. But in verses 1 to nine, there’s a center to it that has to do with the drinking of beverages. If you look at verse 4 on your responsive reading or in your own Bibles: “Not for kings, O Lemuel, not for kings to drink wine, nor for princes intoxicating drink”—that’s beer. “So wine, beer, lest they forget the law. Pervert the justice. Give beer to him who is perishing, wine to those are bitter of heart. Let him drink and forget his poverty.”

So it goes: wine, beer, beer, wine. Don’t drink wine. Don’t drink beer for the king. Don’t drink a lot of it. In other words, give beer. Give wine to those that are perishing. So there’s a little center of the section—the center of the poem has this connection to it of the use and abuse of the great gift of wine and beer that God has given to man.

And interestingly, in both of those sections, the word “forget” is also used. Misuse of God’s gifts of wine and beer: too much drinking of wine and beer by the king. He forgets what he’s not supposed to forget—the law. Proper use of alcoholic beverages given to those who are in great distress, affliction, perishing, dying, or depressed. And a proper use of wine and beer helps them to forget what they should be trying to forget—some of their affliction, their misery. It’s not good to dwell in our past. Not good to dwell in all the present troubles we have. You have to work through them. But our lives are about joy as well.

Now, every Lord’s day, you’re supposed to forget your troubles here and you’re supposed to drink that wine, okay? And eat that bread. You know, beer comes from the same stuff bread is made out of. So we’re called to do that and forget, at least for a period of time here, the difficulties and trials and tribulations that we engage in.

Well, the poem chapter 10 through 31 of the virtuous wife or woman—whatever we want to call it—it also has a central section, and this is why the translation is so bad here. But if you look at verses 19 and 20, we see a very clear chiastic center to this poem. “She stretches out her hands to the distaff and her hand holds the spindle. She extends her hand to the poor. Yet she reaches out her hands to the needy.”

So in the King James or New King James, it’s hands, hand, hand, hands. Now in the Hebrew, it’d be more like hand with arm, palm, hand with arm. The word hands here doesn’t mean the plural of palms. It means more of the arm, okay, whereas the word hand—translated hand in the middle section—is really the palm, more intricate work. So general strength of what we do with our hands and the intricate work of our palm as well.

And the point is that there’s a definite structure here of hands, palm, hands, palm, hands. So there’s a definite center to this poem that helps us to kind of focus in on something that is of great importance. That’s what God puts at the center of things—or things that are of great importance. And what are we being told? We’re being told that the diligence of the woman is specifically linked to her benevolence.

Right? And just as the king, what his actions were to do at the center of his poem, he is to have positive action toward the poor. So his wife, or the queen, or lady wisdom, whatever we want to think of her as, she also has this great concern for the poor. He is to rule and in his ruling be beneficent toward the poor. She is to do diligent work within a domestic sphere, but the end result of that is to be benevolent to those outside her household as well.

And so both these poems are kind of linked together that way by having a structure in the middle.

Now, more structure is evidenced in 10 through 31 in some other places as well, which we’ll look at briefly here. I read verses 30 and 31, and I’m going to talk about this in a minute, but understand that it seems that verses 30 and 31 change the poem. They’re a little different than the verses that preceded. It moves in terms of talking about the woman. The tense—the Hebrew tense of the verbs used here—changes in verses 30 and 31. So it’s separate. It’s a concluding what some would call a coda. We’ll talk about that in a couple minutes. A coda is a great last piece of music that sums up the whole thing. These two verses sum up the whole thing, okay. So they seem to be a separate section, which is not unusual to us as we’ll note in a couple of minutes.

If we do that, then what we notice is that not only is the center of this section chiastic, there are bookends as well to this section of scripture. Notice in verse 10: “Who can find a virtuous wife?” The word translated virtuous means strength, a mighty man of valor. Valor. It’s really a militaristic sort of term frequently used. But who can find a virtuous woman?

And then if you look at verse 29: “Many daughters have done well, but you excel them all.” Note that doing well is the same word. Many daughters have done strongly, virtuously, valorously, okay? So there’s the same Hebrew term at the beginning and end. If we take off those two lines as the culmination, the central part of that poem has a center section right at the middle of those 20 verses, verses 19 and 20.

And on either of the opposite ends are these same Hebrew terms described as virtuous in verse 10. Not only that, but verse 11 says: “The heart of her husband safely trusts her. He’ll have no lack of gain. She does him good, not evil, all the days of her life.”

And in relationship to that, verse 28 says: “Her children rise up and call her blessed. Her husband also. And he praises her.”

So we have the strength, the strong, virtuous, dominion woman in 10 and 29. And we’ve got her relationship to her husband described in verses 11 and 28. And then at the very center, then, we have this description of her diligence and her beneficence that comes from that diligence. So we have a definite structure to this, which leaves us with the center sections—which are the largest—describing her work, and I’ve given that to you on your outline there.

So both of these two poems have a central section, a chiastic central section. Both of them deal with that center. The chiastic section deals with the importance of benevolence and the showing forth of benevolence.

Strength and the needy are in both poems. What do I mean by that? Well, in verse 3, “Do not give your strength to women,” the king is warned about. And in verse 10, she is this strong woman. It’s the same word again. Same word for strength translated virtuous in verse 10 and then doing excellent in verse 29. So the king is warned about his strength, and the queen has strength. He’s warned about not giving strength to the wrong kinds of women. But the woman who is his wife is to have strength.

And so they’re paired up in that way. I mentioned the needy. Those common centers of both a concern for the needy. And then also the voice is an important part of both of these poems—describing the king and then the godly woman as well. He is commanded to open his voice twice, and she is the one who does, who speaks forth good things. The law of kindness is on her tongue.

So these two things go together. These two poems, they’re rightly placed together. There’s obvious linkages in the text, and they’re linkages that aren’t just interesting to us, but actually show us the central significance of benevolence at the center of both of these halves. As the book finds its great culmination, this is one of the tremendous themes that comes out to us from these centers: this need for benevolence, strength, that God’s people are a strong people. And then finally, the use of our mouths is critical to both of these poems that conclude the Proverbs. And of course, we know these are the common elements found throughout the Proverbs as well.

Now, if we look at these last two verses of chapter 31 as two concluding verses—a coda, some would describe it as, at the end—we notice that this is just what we saw last week in Proverbs 30. You remember that we had these seven numbered lists in Proverbs 30. And then Proverbs 30 ended in a kind of an odd way with two verses: “If you have been foolish and exalting yourself, if you have devised evil, put your hand on your mouth. As the churning of milk produces butter and churning of the nose produces blood. The churning of wrath produces strife.”

Those were two concluding verses that were not part of this series of seven numbered lists. They summed it up. They said, “If you are so foolish as to not be humble before God, immediately put your hand to your mouth. That’s where your foolishness and your pride is normally expressed. And understand that you’re to positively churn what’s good and not churn evil. You put your hand to what’s good.”

Well, that same point is made here. This has a concluding coda, the kind of that sums up the entire thing as well. And it’s interesting that both of these are kind of linked that way with two concluding verses.

And actually, the concluding verse—two verses here at the end of chapter 30—could be seen in relationship to the two verses that end Lemuel’s poem, considered as a separate unit. Remember, we saw this structure to Lemuel’s poem in verses 1 to 9. Well, verses 8 and 9 of Proverbs 1:9 are a two verse summation of what the king is supposed to do: “Open your mouth for the speechless in the cause of all who be appointed to die. Open your mouth, judge righteously. Plead the cause of the poor and needy.”

So we got two verses concluding Agur’s sayings, and they say be careful what you say, and we have two verses that conclude Lemuel’s poem, and instead of putting a hand over one’s mouth, the king is commanded twice to open his mouth for the well-being of others. So what we have here is a matched set of concluding two-verse sections that tell us the improper use of the tongue—when it demonstrates our pride and not our humility. But then we’re not to be always covering our mouths. We’re to open our mouth to help other people.

So again, the proverbs are structured in this beautiful symmetrical way that cause us to see the use and abuse of wine—something you open your mouth to do—but also to see the proper use and abuse of our speech. It’s either prideful speech, and Agur’s thing, where the most important thing you’re supposed to do to exercise humility is, you know, put a sock in it. Or on the other hand, the right use of our speech, its proper use instead of its abuse, is to be concerned for others.

Now, if we want to also think of the 22 verses that describe the woman, what we have is nine verses, and then we have the two center ones. Then we have nine verses, and then we have two at the end. Okay, and that makes up the 22 verses. Well, one way to look at this is that those two verses at the center also serve to some extent as a two-line conclusion or coda of those first nine verses. And what we see there is that two-line coda tells us again what the conclusion of Lemuel’s poem said, which was to have concern for the poor.

So we’ve got the end of 30, improper use of tongue. We’ve got the end of Lemuel’s poem, the proper use of the tongue to help the poor. And then we’ve got the end of the first half of the poem about the woman, proper use of her diligence is to extend grace to the poor. So we link from voice to voice and poor to poor as this great conclusion—this musical masterpiece, this literary masterpiece. It’s like a great symphonic piece playing here at the end of these wonderful chords that have played throughout the entire piece find their conclusion.

So that’s why I say in the outline, well, there’s actually you can think of it as four two-line statements as we move from 30, end of Lemuel’s poem, middle of the virtuous woman’s speech, and then the final two concluding verses as well.

So those are some things that tie this together—not just to the entire book, but to what was just preceded in chapter 30—and brings us to some important lessons.

So let’s talk about the major lessons, then, that all of this demonstrates to us that we find in Proverbs 31.

And the first lesson is that there are continued warnings here about wine, women, and the tongue. We don’t want to, you know, we want to understand the layers in which proverbs is written. We want to understand that woman is the specific example used of several different things. It’s used for literal women, but it’s also used to describe wisdom. And so it’s the improper or proper wisdom that we go after—wisdom from above, wisdom from below. The right woman, the wrong woman. The virtuous wife, the harlot on the other hand.

And we don’t want to get rid of the immediate application of these images while we want to focus on woman as wisdom. We don’t want to miss that the king is literally being warned here. Even though he’s married and has found this virtuous wife, he’s still warned against improperly giving his strength to the wrong kinds of women. And we don’t want to miss that.

At the conclusion of wisdom, men, mature men, ruling in their homes, their businesses, their workplace, their recreations, and their civil responsibilities—the men of this congregation—still need to hear in very loud terms that under the best circumstances, where the guy has finally attained to become the king, he’s moved from the prince to the king by honoring his mother. Still, he needs to hear the warning about pursuing the wrong kind of women. Very important.

He still needs to be told and reminded by his mother—this grown man—not to use wine and beer improperly. And in a church that delights in our liberty and delights in the real physical blessings and conjugal love in the marital relationship, and we delight in the ability to drink wine and to have joy in it, we also need to hear that this conclusion of Proverbs warns us about the improper use of physical relationships and of physical delights. We still have to be very careful how we use alcoholic drinks. There’s a proper and an improper use given to us here in this.

So there are concluding warnings about wine, women, and then also about the tongue. You know, Agur ends by warning you to put a hand over your mouth if you’re not humble—learn humility by your speech. Measure your arrogance by how much speech you speak. How quickly you speak to things. How much of an expert do you consider yourself to be? What are you portraying yourself to others around you by use of your speech? Do you speak quick? Do you speak often? Do you speak like you know everything? Well, then it’s a clear indication. What you should be doing is putting your hand over your mouth—warning against that.

On the other hand, the king is warned not to put a hand over his mouth when he can bring justice, when he can affect the civil rule that God has called his men to exercise in the public arena. He is not to put his hand on. He’s supposed to open his mouth.

And I’ve given you encouragements. You’ll hear more encouragements over the next few weeks and months for the Christian community, particularly the men of the Christian community, to open their mouths to speak about God’s justice in relationship to the civil policy of same-sex marriages, as an example. Open your mouth for those that are dumb, or those that are ignorant. The dumb are literally unable to speak. But the person that is under—lacks understanding—is foolishly stumbling off to the slaughter is again to be our concern, and we’re to open our mouths to try to do something about that.

And so we have these concluding warnings about wine, women, and the tongue. They both have potential misuse. But that only serves to reinforce the fact that there’s a proper delight in these things and a proper use of our tongue as well as there is a misuse. Even the woman is described as having this great ability of speech. The law of kindness is on her tongue.

Secondly, we see a great major lesson from Proverbs 31 is the centrality of concern for the poor.

And we see this over and over. You know, I was teaching Sunday school class this morning to my Leviticus group, and we’re in chapter 19, which is kind of the center of the law section of the book. It’s kind of like a commentary and a recasting of the Ten Commandments given the new situation that they’ll be going into in the land. And you know what we saw in that in the opening four laws? The fourth law had to do with peace offerings and how you’re supposed to eat those, when you’re supposed to eat them.

The peace offering—we celebrate communion. We get a meal with God. God and Yahweh. Now in the old covenant, you took some of that home. You could eat it for a couple of days with your family. And so there was eating that and laws regulating that, and immediately placed in connection. Now the way those laws are structured, there’s a concluding verse “I am the Lord your God” after a command. Then a command “I am the Lord your God.” Command “I am the Lord your God.” This had like five verses before it said, “I’m the Lord your God.” Those five verses had to do with the peace offering. And then it had to do with the extension of grace to other people—letting them glean your field and your vineyard.

Oh, what’s going on there? Well, our food, this is a picture of every meal we have. Every meal we have is God’s grace to us. Everything we have is God’s gracious gift to us. And it starts right there at how we eat. And as a result of that, you have the peace offerings which I’ve let you keep. He says, “I’ve given you these peace offerings. You should eat them with joy.” And now you’re also then supposed to make sure you pass it on. Right? Pass it on. What I’ve given you, you pass it on. It only lives, as one poet said, if you give it away, okay?

So that’s what the kids learned in Leviticus class today. God gives us food graciously. We’re supposed to let people glean food stuff—wine and drink—or I’m sorry, wine and bread. The field, the wheat, wheat harvest, and the vineyard. Field, vineyard. See, ultimately, this is what we give to the poor. We’re all gleaners at God’s table, and ultimately, we can let them glean our resources in our homes literally, but what we really want to do is bring them into our community and have them be gleaners with us at the table of the Lord.

You see, well, this is absolutely central. You see, it’s a book about how to rule. But at the center of this book, the climax of this book on how to rule, is the call for both the king and the administration of justice and the queen, or the godly woman, or lady wisdom, in the administration of her domestic responsibilities, both to do those things with an eye to the poor.

You see, again, when we looked at the 30 sayings of the wise, verses 10 were all about Sabbath day. They’re all about laboring correctly. And what we were to labor correctly to do is to administer grace to the poor. That’s the purpose for our work—is to extend grace to others. You see, and to the degree that we extend grace, that’s the degree to which we demonstrate to ourselves, to one another, and to God, whether we really believe we’re here as a result of the sovereign grace of Yahweh the King.

See, if we’re here by the sovereign grace of Yahweh the King, then we’re going to be beneficent. We’re going to be benevolent to other people. It is absolutely critical. That’s how you rule.

I wrote earlier in an email that this chapter is enough to almost make a social welfare democrat out of me. The king’s central to what he’s to do is to have concern for the poor. Now, how he goes about doing that, you know, has to be according to the law of God. That’s what he’s not supposed to forget, right? By drinking too much wine and beer, he’s not supposed to forget the law. But I have always said this—that well, since I preached through Micah, that Micah says we’re supposed to love do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.

And in the political climate, there’s a lot of people that want to do justice—called conservatives and Republicans. There’s a lot of people that want to that love mercy, want to help other people. Usually they’re called liberals and Democrats. And there’s most people in both the parties these days at least neither of them walk humbly before God. And as a result, whether they’re doing justice or loving mercy, they’re not doing it right.

We tend as a community, the Christian conservative community, Presbyterian Reformed community, we tend to come down all on the side of justice. But we should see that there is a complete centrality of the demonstration of benevolence to other people. That’s to characterize the king and the queen. And if the queen is lady wisdom, and I think she is, the center of wisdom is diligence to be able to give to other people. I think that’s very significant. Very significant.

So that’s the second thing.

Third, characteristics of the godly woman. You know, I don’t think this is really the first point of what’s being made. I think that, as I said earlier, you know, a virtuous wife, who can find somebody like this? Good luck, men, if your wife measures up in all of these things, probably doesn’t. You know, women feel guilty when they hear this over and over again. They shouldn’t. You know, it’s ultimately about lady wisdom. You know, we’re not supposed to say our wife is the best woman in the whole world. She is for us, right? Our wives are the best women for us, but she is not to be compared as the best person, the best woman that attains and does the diligent sort of things. She doesn’t excel above every other woman, right? You can’t. That would be a lie.

So what’s being described here, and I think that if you just look at what’s going on and its relationship back to the rest of the proverbs, what we have here again is wisdom personified. And however, having said that, it’s like the warnings against the wrong women, warnings against harlotry—we don’t want to miss the first application. And the first application is that wisdom is a woman. And so women are to see themselves in their characteristics.

We sort of see this as some kind of, you know, standard that we’re to try to attain to as women, and I think it’s broader. I think most of this stuff applies to men as well, but at least certainly it applies to women. So there are—it is a—there are these characteristics of the godly woman. A-to-Z, the acrostic thing going on. I mentioned for seekers as well.

So if you’re a young woman, you just past puberty, this is a great image, of course, to keep in mind, recognizing that you’ll fall short. If you’re a married woman, this is a great set of verses to look at and say, “How am I doing?” But again, recognizing, you’re going to fall short. We look at the wonderful characteristics of the Lord Jesus Christ and the characteristics we’re supposed to emulate, but we have to recognize we’re not him. He’s the only one that lives sinlessly. And we can’t attain to that kind of stuff.

There are people, forget sin. The characteristic, the particular place that God has given you in your particular home, women, probably doesn’t allow you to do the things this woman does. Doesn’t mean there’s sin involved. The point is not that you’re supposed to be her. There are some general characteristics you should measure yourself by and try to attain to. But, you know, be careful. Don’t be hard on yourselves, okay?

And husbands, don’t use this to beat up your wives if she doesn’t meet up in all these areas. She’s not supposed to in all these areas. And this is also for seekers—men who are seeking wives. I would like to, you know, maybe when young men turn about 20 and start looking for a wife, I’d like to come in, give them all a hard Dutch rub or something, get them kind of ready to listen, you know, explain a few things to them, beat their head on my desk for a couple of minutes, and then point them to this section to say, “This is what you should be looking for.”

Now, again, not perfectionistically. Not, you know, nobody’s going to measure up in all these ways. This is a mature woman, after all, and you’re seeking a woman who is young and who will mature later as a result of marriage. But, you know, the concluding verse: charm, you know, is deceitful. Beauty is passing. You know, the point is that’s typically what young men go for in my experience. They look for beauty, and they look for how graceful and charming she might be, and witty, and that kind of stuff. And this says it’s exactly the wrong thing to be looking for. It says, “Forget that.” That stuff’s going to pass, and it’s deceitful.

The real mark of who a woman is aren’t some of these godly characteristics here. Here’s the kind of woman you should go after. And it’s not a woman that a lot of young men would want to approach quite frankly, because the opening characteristic is her strength. She’s some, you know, warrior sort of woman, and, you know, men tend to get intimidated by some of this stuff, and so it’s not what they would normally go after.

So if you’re seeking a wife, this list of characteristics is good for you too.

Derek Kinder says that these are not within the reach of all. There are unusual gifts and material resources that this woman possesses. Another, you know, try to avoid improper guilt on this. But what are these characteristics?

Well, she has strength and courage. We’ve talked about that a little bit already. The term used—a virtuous wife, excellent, strong. She’s a courageous woman. She’s not afraid. You know, the future. She’s not afraid of snow. She’s made her preparation. She’s not afraid of cold and the environmental concerns. She has courage to look forward into the future. She’s a strong, godly woman.

She is a woman who is an enabling lover of her husband. She has an enabling love. Boy, probably shouldn’t have used that word. The point is that her love for her husband enables him to do what he’s supposed to do, and in terms of the king or ruler, to sit in the gates. So she is—she has love for him. People have noticed that in this description there’s not a lot of discussion of the personal relationship between husband and wife. That’s true. Her life isn’t given over to, you know, adorizing, you adorning him all day long. She’s given to a lot of tasks, and that’s a good thing. Most men are away from the home lots of time, lots of hours. And if the godly woman is just somebody who’s always doing on their husband, you know, she will not be happy.

This woman does love her husband. She does him good, not evil. The text says all the days of her life. Now that’s Proverbs wisdom language: good and not evil. She’s wise and not foolish, right? And we said that wisdom and folly in Proverbs is always very practical. It’s righteousness and wickedness. It’s whether you do good or whether you do evil according to God’s law. So she does him good. She loves him. That’s what love is. First Corinthians says it’s doing good for the person that you love. And she does that.

So she does have love here for him. And it’s a love, as I said, that enables him to do his job away from the house. She’s trustworthy. Her husband trusts in her. So he doesn’t got to worry about what’s going on at home. See, he’s not distracted from his vocation by the affairs of his household. Now, he’s not, you know, you could read a distance in here. And this is, you got to remember, this is not talking about an actual couple necessarily. It’s talking about wisdom. We don’t want to go overboard the other way and have men distracted from the affairs of their home. They’re to oversee generally what’s going on there. But there’s a distance in our lives. It’s proper. We’re to exercise vocation. That’s what men are called to do. And the woman assists in that. And she enables him to go exercise vocation. Why? Because she’s a woman who can be trusted.

Bottom line, she’s trustworthy. So important to develop this as a character quality. Are you trustworthy for your mate? And man, I think this applies to us as well. Are we trustworthy? Can people trust us to do what we’ve said we will do? Will we—do we follow through with diligence the way that this woman does? Do we have an enabling love of authority in church, state, and workplace? Does your employer—can he trust you so that he doesn’t have to micromanage what you do at your workplace? Can he attend to his business by knowing you’re trustworthy at your business? Can the, you know, deacons and elders trust you when you’re given an assignment at church? you’ve volunteered and taken on. Are you trustworthy to follow through on it?

You see, if you are, then you enable good godly rule by those men doing other things, whether it’s in the workplace, the home, the church, or even matters of civil state.

So she has this love that enables. She does good to her husband. We should do good for our superiors. We should make ourselves trustworthy to them so that they can fulfill their job apart from us in a better way.

Proverbs 12:4 says, “An excellent wife is the crown of her husband, but she who causes shame is like rottenness in his bones.” So, you know, do you add glory to your husband? If you do, then you crown him. You enable him. But if you don’t, then your rottenness to his bones. You cause shame, either through, you know, your speech, through your actions—then it’s just the reverse.

She has diligence obviously. But you have to say this. You have to point this out that she diligently works in everything that she does. And I’ve listed some verses there. She’s very diligent. Of course, she makes clothing. She does this. She seeks food and provides it for the home, etc. But she’s also a woman in addition to not eating the bread of idleness, she’s also a woman of pleasure and joy.

You know, it says in verse 15—in verse 15, it says that she rises while it’s yet night. That’s the wrong verse. Verse 13, sorry. “She seeks wool and flax and willingly works with her hands.” That word willingly works means she takes delight in the work of her hands. She has pleasure while she’s going about being diligent with the work of her hands. So she’s a woman who not just knows to the grindstone austere and kind of drab, but she’s a woman who delights to do the work that God has given to her.

You see, this is a picture of who we are in Christ, right? We’re to take great delight and pleasure in what we do. We come to the table rejoicing in what God has provided for us. So she engages in the pleasure aspects of her work. She delights in that, and she finds joy. In verse 25, and she looks to the future. “She shall rejoice in time to come. Strength and honor are her clothing.” So she’s not afraid of the future. In fact, she knows that joy awaits her as time marches forward.

She’s a woman who has pleasure, pleasure and joy. She’s a woman who has wisdom in household management. Verses 15, 21, and 27. So she manages this household, and in managing it she does well. She considers a field and buys it. From her profits she plants a vineyard. Verse 15, she also rises while it’s yet life. Provides food for her household, a portion for her maidservants. That word for food is interesting. It means prey. I’ll talk about that in a few minutes, at the communion table, but she provides food for her household, and she a portion for her maidservants. That might be a portion of their work. Either way, the idea is that she rises up early to set the tasks, to appoint food used for the work of the household. So she’s being a diligent household manager.

Verse 21, we get the same implication. “She’s not afraid of snow for her household. All of her household is clothed with scarlet.” So she’s overseeing the name for her household. And then in verse 27, she watches over the ways of her household, doesn’t eat the bread of idleness.

So again, there on a three-fold repetition, she has this control and management in terms of the household. You know, again, we want to be careful not making too direct applications, not going too far. It appears that the husband is just absent from this. And if we understand that this is lady wisdom, and maybe even a picture of the church of Jesus Christ, it makes a little more sense. So we don’t want to go too far with this, but on the other hand, if the analogy is going to hold, then it has to have some truth in its first application, in its first image or visualization, right?

So it wants us to consider a married woman having this kind of control and oversight of her home. This woman’s a queen. She’s not the king’s, you know, dishwasher, you know, she’s not the king’s cleaning lady. She’s a queen. She runs the household. If the king is a five-star general, she is certainly at least a four-star general.

Now, this picture of a woman here is absolutely astonishing again in light of similar literature in this part of the world and in this particular time. Well, probably for most time, men have been chauvinistic. Men have looked at women as incapable because they’re smaller, weaker, yada yada. But this picture and image is of a very strong dominion woman who has control—nearly absolute control, it appears—she runs the home. And there’s nothing wrong with that here. It’s a legitimate image that’s placed before us. Even if it’s pointing to something greater truth, fine. But it’s an image that nonetheless in its first application has to be okay.

And so in our homes at this church, I think this is what, you know, we should try to do is to try to see the wives who care for the household in that kind of an exalted estate, you know, to have that kind of authority. One of the worst things that men can do is micromanage the household and remove the woman’s proper glory of attending to stuff. Now, you know, on the other hand, we want to be careful, and you know, it could be overburdening women if they don’t feel equipped to do this. That’s the other thing husbands can certainly do some of that stuff. But I’m talking about a situation where usually we’re our ox is in the other ditch right now. We are usually not, as a, you know, as a culture—now maybe in our country it’s changed, of course, but primarily in history—men do not generally empower wives in the kind of way that the wife is empowered to manage a household here in this text.

Not only does she manage her household, not only does she have wisdom in household management, she has wisdom in expanding commerce in economics. You know, she’s dealing with merchants, she’s buying a field, she’s preparing stuff not just for her own household, but to sell. She has engagement in the world of commerce that goes far beyond the simple management of her household.

Now, again, shouldn’t make you feel guilty, you know, if you’re a wife that doesn’t have those kind of resources or abilities. That’s not the point. But the point is that it has to be proper for some women to engage in economic commerce of this sort. And it should not be seen as atypical for women to have wisdom in commercial enterprises.

She does that. She has wisdom in extending commerce. You know, she doesn’t—she gets all these blessings and then she doesn’t eat the bread of idleness. She doesn’t make money to the end of living the life of luxury. She makes money, certainly, to take pleasure and joy in what she gets, but to then extend more and more her commerce in different regions. So there’s an extension of commerce. Now that’s very much a key to, I think, what’s really going on here.

This vision—that wisdom conquers the world. The extension of commerce has gone on by the church for 2,000 years. And as a result of that extension, the world has changed. But in its first application, this is a character quality. Woman, a godly wife. She can have wisdom in expanding commerce.

Generosity. We talked about speech. We talked about that. She has the ability to speak well. Well, she fears the Lord. Look at verse 30. It’s too long. They say too long of a verse. Must be something wrong here. Some commentators say, “This is deceitful. Beauty is passing, but a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised.” That’s longer than the rest of the verses in terms of the Hebrew number of emphases here. It’s too long. And some people have suggested that it’s an error, that it’s a redaction of something.

This is the only place where the Lord is brought up in the whole thing—the whole chapter—right at the conclusion. But of course, that’s why it’s too long. It is the first of these two-verse culmination, this coda, this conclusion of the matter. And the conclusion of the matter finds its focus in verse 30. The verse that’s too long, as a result of being too long, it brings our attention to it, but that’s not in a negative way. It’s to remind us this is the heart of the matter. She fears the Lord.

What was the beginning of wisdom? This very thing—the fear of the Lord. And so we have it capped off here. Everything else she does, at its foundation, see, the foundational element is the fear of the Lord.

Remember last week? Remember the riddle? “Who has ascended and descended? Who has, you know, she who shepherds the winds and the powers of angels in the world? Who clothed themselves in water and who establishes the foundation of the world here. Here this woman does. She sees and interrelates a heavenly pattern in the earth. She has plans that result from an interrelation of two different sorts of things, the way that God does. She ascends and descends. She gathers the elements together to do the work that she’s going to do. And the end result is she’s clothed with scarlet and linens, fine linen and purple. She’s beautified, you see. And she has established the foundation, the beginning of all of that is given to us here.

Just as it is in that four-line riddle from chapter 30, the conclusion, the foundation of the whole thing, for the godly woman is the fear of the Lord. And a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised. And so the concluding thing she is—she’s praised by those around her, her children, her husband, and others. Her own works praise her in the gates.

Interesting expression, is it not? The very fact of what she does results in her praise in the gates of power and influence.

So she’s praiseworthy because she’s established this great foundation. These are all godly characteristics of women, virtuous women. But they’re broader than that. They represent the interplay of moral virtues and practical excellencies—moral virtues and practical excellencies.

What we’ve seen here is this wisdom and strength is how she girds herself. We’ve seen her ability to be benevolent. We’ve seen her wisdom in her speech. She has this ability to have the law of kindness on her tongue. And what this is all related to are the practical things that she ends up doing. So this book of wisdom has been, as I’ve said all along, not about some kind of gnostic grasp of wisdom that transcends the world. It’s the wisdom of how the world works being created by the Lord whom we’re to fear as we do that work.

So this section brings together this wonderful connection between moral virtues and practical excellencies. Wyra in his commentary on this section says there’s a practical ability that’s derived from her religious commitment. The fear of the Lord, her religious commitment produces—not some kind of passing time idly by here until the Lord God raptures us out, but—her commitment, her religious commitment produces then this practical outworking of dominion in the context of her life.

And then finally, opinion through worship and wisdom—or worship rather, invocation. What’s interesting here is there are some very interesting words going on and associations of words in Proverbs 31.

Many of the lines, if we took them and took the time, we could go back to earlier places in the book where wisdom is being described. Clearly, this woman seems to be lady wisdom. She is that picture of lady wisdom. She was one that cried out inviting people to her food in the first nine chapters, and now she the woman who provides that food for her household in the end chapter as well.

Now we’ve seen some particular places here, other places in scripture, where these same words are used that describes her. The words scarlet, fine linen, and purple in conjunction, and then these merchants are involved as well. Where are these descriptions found in the scriptures? And if we were to look at a concordance, what we’d find is that the woman, the false bride in the book of Revelation, she’s described with the same things. She’s described as one who sells fine linen, scarlet, purple, and she sells them to the merchants of the world. The merchants bemoan the fall of Jerusalem because they no longer have the ability to have her minister those gifts to the merchants.

Now, in the context of Revelation, it’s the worship of the church going up from Jerusalem, the house of prayer for the nations. That’s what the merchants are bemoaning.

Commerce is worship in the scriptures. This woman being described in Proverbs 31—while it has characteristics for godly women to attain to—ultimately it seems like it’s drawing attention to the woman, the false woman and the true woman of the book of Revelation. So what’s happening? Well, when her commerce is looked down from that way, her commerce is seen as worship. Her commerce is the fear of the Lord driving interaction with people, the merchants. Literally, that’s the Canaanites of the world. She’s bringing them under her influence and dominion first by way of analogy, in Revelation or other places of scripture, through the merchant activity of worship, where we come before God and he gives us gifts. We give him reverence and praise and acknowledge his sovereignty, and he gives us fine linen, purple, and scarlet.

The other place where those terms are used is the construction of the tabernacle in Exodus. Scarlet, fine linen, purple, fine linen, and purple in a distinctive way linked in our text here in Proverbs 31. In that same distinctive way listed in the list of materials in the book of Exodus, this woman is the tabernacle. She’s the temple. She’s the wisdom of God, and she’s the church as well. She’s the worshipping community worshipping and becoming a house of prayer to the nation.

Dominion is exercised by this woman. She’s a dominion woman. She’s the virtuous woman. But that dominion ultimately proceeds from the tabernacle, the temple, the church of God, now dispersed throughout all the world, in the commerce that she conducts with those in the context of where God has placed her, bringing them into the reception of gifts in Lord’s day worship. She is that.

Secondly, if the analogy of merchants is applicable, then the first application of merchantry also is applicable. This woman, the culmination of the exercise of wonderful dominion in the world through wisdom, does it not through military conquest, but does it through commerce.

There’s interesting studies done in Proverbs 31, and the interesting military terms used throughout it. I mentioned that she doesn’t get just food for her household, she gets prey for her household. She goes and conquers. She’s a virtuous. She’s like the mighty men of valor. This is a mighty woman of valor. She’s a warrior queen for God.

When it says that she extends her hand to the distaff, it’s an unusual term that’s used, and it’s the same term that’s used in the book of Judges for the extension of a military campaign in destroying the enemies of God. This woman is described as a warrior queen in Proverbs 31. Other military allusions abound as well. And this warrior queen is waging war—ultimately—not with the sword of the civil magistrate. She’s waging war with the commerce of worship and beyond that, the vocational commerce and excellencies that she engages in as well.

You remember Zechariah 1:18 to 20, preached on this last year. You know, Zechariah sees four horns. The four being the representation of the fullness of men that push and pull and operate in a negative way. Power, religion, power, wisdom, wisdom from below. And then he sees four carpenters. And the four carpenters are going to be the ones who drive back the four horns. The strong powerful men who try to conquer the world through political action, through military might, through the extension of their own boastful entity—they’re conquered not by bigger swords. They’re conquered by craftsmen, vocational men who do their job in the vocational field.

And here at the conclusion of Proverbs, we’re said dominion will be exercised over all the world as an extension of her commerce. And where dominion will be exercised through worship and vocation, just as Zechariah told us. That’s been the history of the United States for 200 years. United States has been the bride of Christ by and large for most of the last 200 years. And she extended dominion over the world not through military might—that was used at times when needful. But she extended her dominion and continues to extend her dominion today through commerce—and used to be in accompanying, and it is today to a large extent, with the worship of the church. That’s the way the Canaanites, the merchants of Proverbs 31, are brought into the commercial transaction of believing, submitting, and receiving gifts from the Lord Jesus Christ.

Dominion is exercised through vocation. Proverbs 31 is not meant just to be a list for you women. I think primarily, even we could say it’s meant to be marching orders for the army of God as they march forward into the field of conquest that is your place of work tomorrow. Men, your vocation—the extension of dominion through vocation finds its culmination here in Proverbs 31. And a wonderful picture, an example of it. This is the bride of Christ. This is the bride who comes today to receive the gifts from him. We’re the wise woman. We’re the ones that Christ has established and called as his bride. We’re the ones who are to exercise dominion over the Canaanites. Then we’re to do it ultimately through what? Through our speech, through our commerce, through our worship, and through the benevolence of demonstrating to others the grace that God has shown to us.

This is the wisdom of the book of Proverbs.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for this wonderful book. Thank you for this wonderful concluding chapter. And we do pray, Lord God, that you would grant us gifts to distribute to this world. Help us, Father, to be filled with the sense of our undeserved blessed state that you have placed us in. Thank you, Lord God, that you have washed us of our uncleanness and defilements, and you’ve made us a bride without spot or wrinkle. And we thank you, Lord God, for telling us that we are that dominion bride that will crush the head of the serpent—not through force or power primarily, as needful as that may be at times, but thank you, Lord God, for calling us to exercise dominion through vocation and worship and through benevolence.

Thank you, Father, for the great and wonderful wisdom you’ve given to us in this book. May our lives, Father, be filled with this wisdom. May we apply it in our homes. May we look forward to the ability tomorrow to jump into the marketplace and the home and even civil matters that we speak into with the wisdom from this book resonating in our hearts and souls and being upon our tongues and hands. In Jesus’ name we ask it.

Amen.

Oh, worship the King, all glorious above. Oh, gracefully sing his power and his love. Our shield and defender, the Ancient of Days, the hill in splendor and girded with praise. Oh, of his might. Oh, sing of his grace. Whose robe is the light, whose canopy space? His chambers of breath the deep thunder clouds form, and darkness his path on the wings of the storm. The earth with its store of wonders unfold. Almighty be thy power, as far as established it fast by a changeless decree and round it has passed like a mantle the sea.

Thy bountiful care, what tongue can relate? It breathes in the air. It shines in the light. It streams from the hills; it descends through the plains, and sweetly distills in the dew and the rain. Frail children of dust and feeble as frail, in thee do we trust nor find thee to fail. Thy mercies, how tender, how firm to the end, are we weakly defender, redeemer, and friend. Oh, bless love. While angels delight to hymn above, the humbler creation, though feeble their ways, with true adoration shall thy praise.

Our prayer this morning is based on Psalm 11.