Wisdom for Women

 

    Lemuel is credited for Proverbs 31.  It is a chapter designated for women.  Lemuel's mother advises him to be devoted to God.  She taught him how to be a leader and how to treat women, but he also held the responsibility to look for a certain type of woman.  This chapter is about the type of wife any man should seek to have a happy and successful marriage.

    It is the responsibility of the father to teach their sons how to be a God fearing man.  They teach their daughters what to expect in a man that they date and hopefully will marry one day.  The mother teaches her sons what to expect in a marriage from the wife.  She teaches her daughters how to be that woman that a man can take pride in their character more than their surface beauty.  Our values shape the person we become and the spouse that we will be.

    The values you find in Proverbs 31 are in acrostic format.  That means that each letter has a meaning.  In Hebrew it makes a lot more sense than when translated into English, but the value of the words are still there.  It comes down to the attributes of the culture of the time, but still apply today.

    The structure is chiastic.  That is parallelism.  The top connects with the bottom with the same thought.  For an example verse 10 connects with verse 31, 11 with 30, and so on.  This proves how much thought went into these versus.  Each one holds powerful wisdom for women and men.  

    The crux is that the husband is known with honor because of his wife.  A woman should expect a man to take care of her, but in return she needs to bring him respect and prestige by her appearance, behavior, and stature.  

    All the attributes of a wife reflect on the husband.  If the husband does not treat his wife with respect, honor, and love, then it can be harder for the wife to be the woman that she needs to be.  Marriage is a conventical partnership where the man and woman need to be working together for the same goal and not working against each other for their own self-interest.

Psalm 46, Proverbs 31, Luke 1:42-45, Titus 2:3-5, & James 3:17-18