Sermon Tone Analysis

A Model of Womanhood

May 10, 1998                          Proverbs 31:10-31

 

Introduction:

 

          The way in which the Word of God is conveyed in Proverbs is different than the manner of the rest of Scripture like the law, prophets and revelation.

In these, divine information breaks into human consciousness from beyond, but Proverbs is knowledge gained from personal and social experience - often painful experience.

One sage has quoted, “In every proverb, the stable door is only locked after the horse has been stolen.”

We may learn too late to help the immediate cause, but it is important that we learn.

This knowledge is considered to have divine authority because it is received with a world view that sees God at work in the whole of creation and human endeavor.

Experience can be an accurate teacher when seen from God’s view, that is from the rest of Scripture as a framework.

Experience seems to get wasted without this view.

But anyone can learn from experience if they see God at work in it and fear him enough to gain knowledge of him in it - this is true wisdom.

There is much confusion today about just what is expected in our roles as both men and women.

We are in the midst of a sexual revolution that has thrown expectations and resultant behaviors into a tailspin in our cultural caldron that pressures each to rethink from base zero who they really are and what they should do about it.

It is like there is some outside ideological pressure trying to undo centuries of time tested truth.

Sexual identities are up for grabs.

But what about the timeless truth of the Bible?

There is nothing we need to know that it doesn’t tell us about.

God has thought all this through for us if we choose to accept it.

And if we choose not to accept it, untruth is ultimately self eliminating.

Nations, cultures and societies following false leads fall apart with regularity.

Here on Mother’s Day, we focus upon the role and importance of the special place women have, not only before God, but within our families and our society.

God gives us a model in Proverbs 31 of the kind of woman who stabilizes society.

I bring to you today not what I (a man) say a woman should be, but what God says.

And even God in his wisdom has chosen to speak this to us in his Word through the lips of a woman - King Lemuel’s mother.

So this is advice (indeed prophecy - the words of God, vs. 31:1) to a son from his mother about what a woman of God should be like.

And if you, as a woman, would be the wife, or the mother, of a king; this is your role model.

Believe me, if any man had a woman who desired this model, and she pursued it, he would be a king - and she would be a queen.

This woman is wisdom personified (a key theme in Proverbs) befitting a king.

This is what every wise woman of God would want for her son, or her daughter, or herself.

There is some thought that King Lemuel is an affectionate name for King Solomon - which would make these the words of Bathsheba - words that he did not necessarily follow, but words that he agreed with as divine wisdom, which is why they are in his book.

Certainly Solomon learned a few things about horseflesh through the open barn door - that is, through the experience of failure.

Jewish tradition has it that Bathsheba gave Solomon this advice at a time when he was engaged in magic with his Egyptian wife and delayed the morning sacrifice.

These are written as an acrostic poem for remembrance, each verse starting with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet - an organized arrangement of virtue - the ABC’s of wisdom.

A current Jewish tradition is that this poem is recited by husbands and children at the Sabbath table each Friday night.

They are wise words ending Proverbs as it was begun - as a father’s instruction and a mother’s teaching (vs.

1:8).

There is a fearful beauty in true womanhood.

This ideal woman fears God.

A woman who does this will have no time or inclination for sin.

She will build a lasting legacy for her God, her husband, her children, her world.

This passage does not speak of what this woman looks like (not with braided hair, 1Tim.

2:9-10), but speaks of what she does that flows from who she is.

Perhaps this ideal woman cannot be found.

There certainly are degrees of approaching this ideal.

But we must have an ideal of what this godly woman is like if we are to approach it.

If she can be found, you will have seen the effective image of godliness, as God intended, in a woman, a wife, and a mother.

What an effect this woman would have on those around her.

She is a priceless model of womanhood.

Every man wants a model for a wife.

But there is a difference between the world’s model and God’s model.

/Newsweek (May 11, 1998) article about supermodel Elle Macpherson./

You can put a price on Elle and her physical poise and beauty, but not on this woman’s character and virtue.

Her standard may not be within reach of all, but the poem does reveal the flowering of wisdom in domestic life.

She is not just some man’s dream woman but a universal type of woman as a symbol and pattern of wisdom to be embraced by all.

This poem shows us that true heroism may lean more toward the moral and domestic than the military.

It may be telling us that true wisdom and heroism begins at home where it may be taught and lived and reproduced.

What are the characteristics of value in a wife and mother?

What constitutes a woman’s irreplaceable value to a godly home?

A.

She has priceless character.

*10 ¶ A wife of noble character who can find?

She is worth far more than rubies.*

Why is it that women like jewelry?

Perhaps they have an innate understanding that that is how they are to be viewed - since jewelry has value.

But we are talking here about what it is in a woman that is of the most value, and that is character.

Character flows from the knowledge of God in the lessons of life, and who can put a price on God?  Character has the most value because it has the most influence.

Just like the man who finds the kingdom of heaven to be most valuable, so too the kingdom of heaven displayed in the life of a godly woman is most valuable.

*Mt 13:44¶  "The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field.

When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.*

B.

She is her husband’s greatest treasure.

*11  Her husband has full confidence in her and lacks nothing of value.*

The tribute begins here and this is her first priority.

She is a wife, a career woman, and the mother of children.

But neither her career not her children are allowed to come before the obligations of her marriage.

She knows that a stable and loving marriage is basic to success and happiness in these other areas.

She knows that marriage fulfills her as a person and that the first essential of motherhood is to create for the children the environment of a loyal and loving home.

So first of all she is faithful and supportive to her husband.

She must establish and maintain credibility with her husband as a helpmate that brings him honor.

Her character is proven and her husband trusts her.

She makes herself indispensable - and she is.

There is no need to look for greener grass elsewhere, he has all he needs in her in this life.

And if her husband is not a believer, he may well become one by her witness.

*1Pet.

3:1 ¶ Wives, in the same way be submissive to your husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives,*

*2  when they see the purity and reverence of your lives.*

*3  Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes.*

*4  Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight.*

*5  For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful.

They were submissive to their own husbands,*

 

C.

She is a consistent helpmate.

*12  She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life.*

She is not contentious.

She sees the end from the beginning and runs the race to win.

She is confident of what she can accomplish.

She knows that she has value to her family and her society in each stage of life.

D.

She is industrious.

*13  She selects wool and flax and works with eager hands.*

She spreads out her assets.