Worthy of Praise

Sermon Transcript

Well this morning we finally conclude our series through the book of Proverbs. We looked at chapters 1-9 last fall, and then for the last 14 weeks we looked at what various Proverbs from Proverbs 10-31 teach us about topics such as pride and humility, decision making, parenting, conflict, and friendship. Today we’re still in Proverbs, but we’re done treating it topically; praise the Lord. Today we come to the final passage that concludes the book of Proverbs. It’s a poem called an acrostic, in which each successive verse begins with one of the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet, in order. In that sense, it stands by itself. But, as it comes at the end of the whole book of Proverbs, it also serves as a kind of summary of what came before it. What does wisdom look like? It looks like the woman described in this poem.

 

This isn’t the first time wisdom has been depicted as a woman, but it is a bit different from the times that happens earlier in the book. Throughout the first nine chapters, wisdom was personified as a woman, as was folly. So wisdom herself was said to be speaking, for example. We don’t find that in this passage. Instead of wisdom personified, we could say this passage shows us wisdom incarnated, lived out in the life of a real, though ideal, woman. The first passage we looked at in Proverbs last September laid out the fear of the LORD as the beginning of wisdom (Prov 1:7). And now what do we find at the end of the book as we summarize wisdom? We find in verse 30 that a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised. What’s a wise woman? A woman who fears the LORD. And what should we do with such a woman? Praise her. Why? This passage gives us three reasons: She blesses her husband, she expands the blessing, and therefore, she is called blessed.

 

She blesses her husband

 

Our passage begins with a rhetorical question: An excellent wife who can find? Excellent is a good translation; it could also be translated valiant, courageous, strong. If you were with us a couple years ago when we preached through Ruth or you’re familiar with that book, it’s the same word translated “worthy” there and applied to both Ruth and Boaz. I think the simplest translation is “great”: Boaz was a great man in God’s sight, Ruth a great woman, and here in this passage we have a poem that sings the praises of a great woman, and in verse 10 at least, a great wife. The rhetorical question implies that she is, in fact, hard to find. Jewels are precious in part because they are rare, and this woman is far more precious than jewels. The nature of excellence is that it is exceptional.

 

Dating is the way a man typically finds a wife today, and there is nothing wrong with that. But dating can be difficult too. This verse explains part of the reason: An excellent wife who can find? And that’s not meant to imply that an excellent husband is any easier to find. Proverbs 20:6 says, “Many a man proclaims his own steadfast love, but a faithful man who can find?” But the solution to that if you want to be married is not simply to marry anyone with a pulse. This poem was originally written by a mother to her son, and part of why she did so was likely so that he would marry an excellent wife! I was encouraged recently talking to one single sister in the church who wants to be married, and so has tried dating apps. She only goes on dates with a guy if he says he’s a Christian, and she pretty quickly assess two things upon doing so: Is he a member of a local church, and does he want to live with a girl before he marries her? If he’s not a member of a local church or wants to live with a girl before he marries her, she just ends the dating there. And she told me she realizes that means she may just stay single for her entire life, but she’d prefer that to marrying a man who will not be an excellent husband.

 

Single brothers, I’d encourage you to also learn from this sister’s wisdom, and more importantly, from this proverb. Prolonged singleness can be very frustrating if you desire to be married, but think about what people looking for precious jewels do: They work hard to find them, even if it takes them a while. One simple step is to join a church and really spend time with the people in it; I thank God for the many single sisters in this church who fear the LORD. But ultimately, an excellent husband or wife are a gift from the LORD. He must find one for you. Proverbs 19:14 says, “House and wealth are inherited from fathers, but a prudent wife is from the Lord.” So if you desire marriage, pray for God to provide an excellent wife or husband.

 

The work and prayers are worth it, because though an excellent wife is hard to find, she is more precious than jewels. A couple weeks ago we saw the inverse of this: “It is better to live in a corner of the housetop than in a house shared with a quarrelsome wife” (Prov 21:9); that’s one reason you don’t just marry anyone with a pulse. But on the flipside, better is an excellent wife than even precious jewels, far better, the text says. The poor man with a healthy marriage is going to be happier than the wealthy man with a miserable marriage ten times out of ten. Why? The first reasons given in verses 11 and 12 are because of the relationship between a husband and an excellent wife. In verse 11 we read that the heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain. What an incredible blessing: The heart of her husband trusts in her. In today’s language, we might call the excellent wife a “ride-or-die” wife. She’s loyal, and so her husband’s heart can trust in her. I was interacting with Renata, a member here, this past week about this passage, and she gave me permission to share this additional insight from her with you all: “While I think loyalty is an aspect that endears a husband’s heart to trust his wife; it’s not just because she’s loyal, but it is because he can be vulnerable, he’s the most ‘himself version of himself’. The colloquialism that comes to mind in this situation is a ‘safe/soft place to land’.” That’s a wife a husband can trust.

 

I have an excellent wife, and I can only ascribe that to God’s grace, but it’s true. I think everything in this passage is descriptive of her, but if I could isolate only one part of it as the part I appreciate about her the most, it’s this: My heart really does trust in her. Life in the world can be hard; relationships especially can be hard. What a blessing it is, then, to come home to a wife you really do trust. I trust that my wife loves me, that she has been and will be entirely faithful to me, that she is for me, that she will assume the best about me, even when she has to (and does) correct me or disagree with me, and that she will act this way toward me as long as we both shall live, just as she promised to do before God and many witnesses on the day we got married.

 

And that is basically how the excellent wife is described in verse 12: She does him good, and not harm, all the days of her life. The list of the excellent wife’s characteristics is about to get longer and can overwhelm women, but don’t miss the simplicity here in verses 11 and 12: She’s trustworthy. She does her husband good, and not harm, all the days of her life. On the days her husband acts with excellence, she does him good, rather than taking it for granted. On the days her husband acts beneath the excellence God requires of him, she still does him good, rather than returning evil for evil. On the days she’s not even with him, she does him good by continuing to pray for him and speak well of him.

 

Wives, how are you doing in the simple act of doing your husband good all the days of your life? It can be hard. You go to do him good, but then you start to wonder, “Is he really doing me the same amount of good? Am I just being taken advantage of? Am I giving more than I’m getting here?” And certainly if you are married to a passive husband, one good you could do him would be to gently confront him about that, for his good, but the excellent wife’s driving concern is not to search out her husband’s faults or make sure the score is even in her marriage. Her driving concern is to do her husband good and not harm all the days of her life. So keep at it, sisters. The good you do to your husband on a day-to-day basis may seem small and unimpressive in the eyes of the world, but your Lord sees it and is pleased with it. What’s one simple action you could take this week to increase your husband’s joy that might even surprise him? Consider talking about that with a few other sisters this week.

 

Now I know there are a number of single sisters in the room today too, and you may be wondering, “So what am I supposed to do with this?” One simple idea is to encourage your sisters in Christ who are married toward doing good to their husbands. But furthermore, cultivate the kind of faithfulness and goodness this passage praises in the excellent wife. If you do get married one day, that will better prepare you for it, but more importantly, faithfulness and goodness are basic virtues of any woman who fears the LORD. Whether or not God calls you to marriage, your life now is not a waiting room for marriage—you exist now for the glory of God, and your faithfulness and goodness bring him glory now. Cultivate them because it pleases him, which is the same fundamental reason a wife should also cultivate faithfulness and goodness.

 

As a single woman, you can cultivate faithfulness, the quality that makes someone’s heart trust you, by being faithful to the commitments you do have. Consider Ruth, that character in the Bible who is called an excellent woman. For about 90% of the book of Ruth, she’s single, and it’s while she is that she is called an excellent woman (Ruth 3:11). Her first husband had died, but after he did, here’s what she said to her mother-in-law, whose husband had also died: “Where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the LORD do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you” (Ruth 1:16-17). Those words often get read at weddings, but they weren’t originally spoken from a wife to a husband or a husband to a wife! Last week we looked at friendship; work on becoming the kind of friend who sticks closer than a brother, or in this case perhaps we could say, a sister. Honor the commitment you’ve made to your friends, your church, your extended family, your job. And consider who the people are in front of you to whom you can do good all the days of your life, even on the days they aren’t doing good to you. Maybe it’s your boss, a co-worker, a fellow church member, your parents, a neighbor, or even an enemy. They’re images of God as much as any husband, and loving those neighbors will never be second best to loving a husband. Doing good to a husband is obviously the good work on which verse 12 focuses, and it is really good, but it is far from the only good work.

 

For the excellent wife as well, though the stream of her blessing flows out to her husband first, it expands beyond him. The next reason a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised is because she expands the blessing.

 

She expands the blessing

 

So verse 13 says she seeks wool and flax, and works with willing hands. A woman who fears the LORD is a hard worker. She works with willing hands; nobody has to hound her to get to work. She seeks wool and flax; she’s going out to get it. Wool and flax were materials used to make clothing and perhaps even as the poem later suggests, bed coverings. We read in verse 15 that she also provides food for her household. Research suggests that ancient Israelite marriage contracts included as duties of wives making clothes for the members of the household (her husband and children), and preparing the food to feed them. Far from despising such a role, this woman who fears the LORD takes the initiative and works hard at it. We read in verse 15 that she rises while it is yet night, and in verse 18 that her lamp does not go out at night. She’s early to rise and late to bed because she works hard.

 

And what does she do with the fruits of her hard work? Verse 15 tells us she provides food for her household, and portions for her maidens. She does her husband good all the days of her life, but here we see the blessing expanding to her household, which would include her children, and even to her maidens, which would be the female servants she’s responsible for overseeing. The assumed context as King Lemuel’s mother writes to him is a king’s wife, and so she would have female servants; most wives in Philadelphia today do not. But when you picture a woman who has female servants, what images come to mind? I’m imagining a woman with her hair and makeup perfectly applied, laying back in one of those chez lounge chairs, just staring up at the high ceiling in one of those rooms of Buckingham Palace like in The Crown while the servants entertain the kids and prepare the meals. Does that sound like the woman who fears the LORD in this poem? Certainly not. Far from leaving all the work to her maidens, she’s going out and working hard herself to provide for her maidens!

 

The image this poem gives is more so of the woman who gets her flesh out of bed in the morning before it wants to, draws near to God in prayer and Bible meditation, and gets to work feeding and clothing her family. And I do mean that as an image, not a law, as though only the wife should be doing those things or as though if you aren’t crushing those things on a daily basis, you’re a failure. The Bible doesn’t give us laws about who should do what tasks in the home, but there is a pattern of a wife providing the clothing and feeding the household that we also see in this poem, and those are good works that a woman should be praised for doing.

 

It can be hard for some today to not view such work as “less than” or demeaning to women. But why would we think that feeding and clothing other human beings is somehow worth less than going to an office every day or “logging on”? Humans are images of God himself, and it is hard to imagine a more basic way of doing good to such images of God than to feed and clothe them. Wives, if in a given day you have worked hard to keep your household fed and clothed, you have accomplished something significant in God’s sight. Psalm 146:7 says God gives food to the hungry. In Matthew 6 Jesus says God clothes his children (Matt 6:30). It is God’s glory to do these things; why would we view them as shameful for us to do?

 

A woman who fears the LORD expands the blessing to her household, but then she also expands it beyond her household! Note the ongoing outward orientation. She seeks wool and flax, and then in verse 16: She considers a field and buys it. Verse 18: She perceives that her merchandise is profitable. Verse 20: She opens her hand to the poor and reaches out her hands to the needy. Verse 24: She makes linen garments and sells them. She is clearly working for her home, but she also works outside the home. She’s managing a business, even. Jonny Gibson was one of my Old Testament professors in seminary and is now serving as the interim pastor at Tenth Presbyterian Church here in the city. In private correspondence about this passage (which he gave me permission to quote) he summarized the dynamic this way: “The priority for a wife is the home; she can work outside the home, as this woman does, but it’s for the purpose of serving the home.” As this wife expands the blessing to her household, she’s making clothing and seeking food for her family. As she does, she considers a field and buys it. As she does, she realizes, “I could make more of these clothes than we need and sell them to contribute to the household income.” What she doesn’t do is busy herself outside the home while her husband and children are left to take care of their own food and clothing.

 

Again, the Bible doesn’t lay down laws for us about whether a woman should work outside the home or how many hours she should spend on it. A single woman will generally work a decent amount outside her home, for example, and this passage affirms the goodness of works done outside the home. The question of a woman’s work outside the home usually arises more forcefully in our context when a woman has children. How, then, can a husband and wife make such a decision wisely? You do it by staring at a passage like this one and working it not only into your mind, so that you believe it, but into your affections, so that you love it. If a wife really loves this passage, and in her heart of hearts wants to be this kind of excellent wife, and if a husband really loves this passages, and is willing to make sacrifices to help his wife be this kind of excellent wife, in your context (most husbands don’t have the wealth and resources of a king, and most wives aren’t married to kings, for example), then I think you pray, seek wise counsel, and probably figure out whether she should work or how much she should work outside the home just fine.

 

I’ve seen different families apply this wisely in different ways. My wife works outside our home a good bit for our kids’ preschool as a volunteer; it’s a way I see her expanding the blessing of wanting to care for our kids to helping the preschool care for other kids as well. Allie Chaves similarly leads the parent association at her kids’ school, while also working a part-time paid job and serving our church as the treasurer; that’s another woman who fears the LORD, works hard, and expands her blessing to others. Steph Nguyen works full-time outside the home while working hard at home to love her husband and three children, while also helping lead a Citygroup and waking up early on Sundays to rehearse and sing with the musicians. Shannon Capps, a deacon at our church, is a great example of this as a single woman, giving countless hours to not only her deacon responsibilities but things like the sexual holiness study for women she began last Sunday evening in addition to her full-time work as a professor of engineering. I think of Sharon Okune, who as a single sister works full-time and makes our announcement slides every week while also helping lead a Citygroup. I think of Lisa Adaramodu who is working on a PhD while studying for the LSAT and also gets up early on Sundays still to rehearse and sing with the musicians.

 

I could easily just run through our members’ directory and give more diverse examples, but these are just some examples of what a woman who fears the LORD’s life looks like, and I just want you sisters to know that I see this in you. No doubt it can be stressful, no doubt there are times you feel like you’re falling short in the few things you are doing, and the thought of doing anything else is just overwhelming, as much as you wish you could, but don’t let that cause you to miss the significance of what God is already doing through you by his grace. And notice the blessing it brings to the woman who fears the LORD, as she expands the blessing to others. Verse 21 says she is not afraid of snow for her household, for all her household are clothed in scarlet. Verse 25 says strength and dignity are her clothing, and she laughs at the time to come. As you work hard in dependence on God, you’re free to laugh and enjoy the life God has assigned you.

 

There is another blessing that expands to your husband, too. Look at verse 23: Her husband is known in the gates when he sits among the elders of the land. In the ancient world and especially in Israel, the elders of a city would sit by the gate of the city to exercise leadership and administer justice over the land. Her husband is able to do that because his heart trusts in his wife that she’s taking care of the home. She empowers him to expand the blessing outside the home. The image here is that he is even respected among the elders because of his wife’s conduct, likely because she speaks well of him, and with her their home is thriving.

 

Mark and I can go to elders’ meetings twice a month on Thursday nights and even take on extra pastoral responsibilities because our wives are joyfully willing to labor at home to enable it. As we pray for more elders in this church, I’d ask wives to consider how you can encourage your husband toward that kind of leadership. Does your husband feel encouraged by you in his work outside the home, or does he feel like no matter how much he uses his spare time to help at home, it’s never enough? That’s a question you might consider asking him.

 

One more way we see a woman who fears the LORD expanding her blessing to others is in verse 26: She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue. Reading this passage at the end of the book of Proverbs makes fairly clear that for a wife to attain this kind of excellence, she has to have accumulated much wisdom herself. The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, after all, and this is a woman who fears the LORD. But then what does she do with that accumulated wisdom? She doesn’t keep it to herself. As she opens her hand to the poor, so she opens her mouth with wisdom. She expands the blessing by blessing others with the wisdom she has accumulated.

 

And, as the flow of blessing in the passage goes from husband to household to beyond, so the flow of wisdom goes that way from an excellent wife. She opens her mouth to her husband, to give him wisdom. In Matthew 27:19, Pontius Pilate’s wife told him to have nothing to do with Jesus rather than crucifying him; that was wise counsel, and he was a fool for not listening to it. Wives, you have wisdom your husband needs; open your mouth and share it with him. Husbands, do your wives feel free to do that? Are you asking for it? Do they feel their wisdom is valued and listened to? Those are some questions you might consider asking her. You can’t just do what she says; that’s an abdication of leadership. Adam was judged for obeying the voice of his wife (Gen 3:16), and Job was right not to obey the voice of his (Job 2:9-10). But you should listen to her with humility, be slow to defend yourself, and let her wisdom correct you. I thank God for the frequent ways he has rescued me from folly through my wife’s wisdom.

 

From your husband, then, open your mouth and pass that wisdom on to your children. You’ve only got about 18 years with them if all goes according to plan; don’t waste it. In the car ride, waiting at the bus stop, walking to school, around the dinner table, teach them God’s word and ways. Teach your daughters what it means to be a great woman; teach your sons what it means to be a great man. And teach younger women outside your home! In Titus 2:3-5, God tells older women “to teach what is good, 4 and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, 5 to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands.” Kaley Lankford shared at our last prayer service how it dawned on her that having been at this church for 9 years now, she is one of the older women! So she started meeting regularly with some younger women to talk specifically about how they could love their husbands.

 

A woman who fears the LORD expands the blessing she gives to others from her husband, to her household, and beyond her household. She works hard to provide for her household, she works outside the home to bring further blessing to her household, she opens her hand to the poor, she launches her husband into leadership outside the home, and she opens her mouth to share her wisdom with others. Sometimes people fear that if the Bible’s teaching on gender is really internalized, it will create wispy snowflakes of women. Is that the picture you’re getting here? Far from it. This woman is clothed with strength and dignity, and she’s using her strength to expand blessing to others. What a glorious way to use the life God has given you. And therefore, because she gives herself to bless others, she is called blessed.

 

Therefore, she is called blessed

 

So verse 28: Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her. “Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all.” Now of course, on an objective level, it’s not possible for that to be true of every wife, even of every excellent wife. If every woman surpasses all other women, there would be no women to surpass. A couple things to notice here, then: Though an excellent wife is hard to find, verse 28 does say many women have done excellently. Compared to the entire human population, an excellent wife is hard to find, but there will still be many women who do excellently. Yet to the children and husband of one such wife, how could they not feel that she surpasses them all? They’ve eaten the food she’s bought at the grocery store and then prepared day in and day out, they’ve eaten it off the dishes she’s cleaned and put away, they’ve worn the clothes she’s bought and sorted and washed and dried and folded and put away day in and day out, they’ve been taught by her wisdom, and so on.

 

You’re all children today of some mother—has she ever heard you say something like this to or about her? If she is a woman who fears the LORD, she ought to. A woman who fears the LORD is to be praised. It is right; it ought to happen. Verse 31 turns it into a command: Give her the fruit of her hands. If you’ve been blessed by her, you should rise up and call her blessed. If your mother is a woman who fears the LORD, who reflected the character of this poem in her life, you ought to praise her for it. Praise her to her face, and praise her to others. Even if she didn’t fear the LORD and fell short of this passage in many painful ways, can you find even just one way this passage is reflected in her life and honor her for it? Husbands and kids in the room today, I know many of you have a wife or mother who fear the LORD, because I know your wives and mothers. She ought to be praised by you. Husbands, it is especially your job to lead in this. How will your kids learn to praise their mom if they don’t hear you do it? You can start today. Maybe after dinner get out your Bible, and read this passage aloud to your family. Make sure everyone understands the basics of it, then tell your kids we’re going to take turns saying at least one thing from this passage that we see in mommy, and you’re going to go first. Make that a normal part of your marriage, not just for the sake of your kids. That’s another good question to ask your wife every so often: Do you feel praised by me? Do you feel more precious than jewels to me?

 

A woman who fears the LORD is to be praised, but there’s a problem: We are prone to praise other things. Look again at verse 30: Charm is deceitful, and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised. Why’s King Lemuel’s mom have to say this to him? Because she knows as well as you and I do that we are prone to praise not the woman who fears the LORD, but the woman who has charm and beauty. There’s nothing wrong with being physically attractive; it doesn’t say charm and beauty are evil. But it does say they are deceptive and vain. They are deceptive because they can deceive us into thinking someone will be an excellent wife, when in fact it would be better to live in the corner of a housetop than be married to them. And they are vain because they are fleeting. I don’t care how physically attractive you are at age 24, male or female; eventually, death wins. Prioritizing physical attraction when considering a spouse is foolish. Singles typically roll their eyes when they hear that, but anyone who’s been married for more than a week can tell you just how little physical attraction actually matters in marriage.

 

But hey, we’re foolish, and so we do tend to praise physical appearance. Certainly that’s what our world does—our celebrities are the most attractive people in our world, not the godliest. And what’s that do to women? It sets before them charm and beauty as the ideal to which to aspire, rather than the fear of the LORD, and it leaves them feeling ashamed and worthless whenever they feel like they fall short of these standards of beauty, which every woman inevitably will at some point. No matter how attractive you are, there’s always someone more attractive. Charm is indeed deceitful, and beauty indeed vain. So how can we get off praising it? Our praise has to be captivated by something more excellent, someone more excellent.

 

Our praise gets stuck on visible charm and beauty, but there was an invisible being who when he became visible, could have taken on any appearance he chose, and here’s how the Bible describes the appearance he chose: “He had no form or majesty that we should look at him,

and no beauty that we should desire him” (Isaiah 53:2). This was Jesus Christ, God the Son, who came to earth to seek and find his bride, only when he found us, we were not excellent. We had done him harm, and not good, all the days of our lives, and ultimately, we nailed him to a cross. He became ugly to take upon himself the ugliness of our sin, which he paid for in full on the cross as he suffered under the judgment of God for them. And when he rose from the dead, he rose to the position of greatest excellence, to sit at the right hand of God, so that now whoever turns from their sins and believes in him is united with him in a covenant that the Bible uses marriage to illustrate. All that is his becomes yours through faith, even as your sin became his on the cross, so that the moment you believe, you are declared excellent in him, along with all who also believe in him.

 

And then he goes to work in you, by his Spirit, to make you excellent. The woman in this passage clothes herself with strength and dignity, but listen to this description of the church, Jesus’ bride, in Revelation 19:6-8 – “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. 7 Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready; 8 it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure”— for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.” What is the beauty of Jesus’ bride? Is it physical? It says fine linen, bright and pure, right? Yes, but what is the fine linen? It is the righteous deeds of the saints, which it was granted her to clothe herself with. Jesus takes the foolish, adulterous wife and makes her truly excellent. He cleanses her by his blood, he covers her with his righteousness, he grants her to clothe herself with righteous deeds, and he will rejoice over her with singing (Zeph 3:17).

 

I’ve addressed single women a few times already, but perhaps you still wonder if your life will ever really be full without a husband and children. Perhaps you are a married woman who remains childless and wonders if your life will ever be full without children. Perhaps you are married with children, but you’re weighed down with “mommy guilt” or your life still doesn’t feel full! Whatever the case may be, if you are in Christ, you belong to the bride of Christ, and he is a gracious, excellent husband, who sees you, sees your desires, and cares about them. It is natural to desire a husband and children, but Jesus is better than even the best husband and children, and he has given himself to you to strengthen you for life in a world that will always leave us with unfulfilled desires. Be faithful to him. Do him good all the days of your life. Work hard for him. Offer yourself to him as an instrument in his hands, to serve his church, as he prepares her for that final wedding day, and in that day you will be praised. Momentary marriages on earth are shadows of that marriage, but that marriage is the substance, that marriage is the big deal, and that is the only marriage that will fill you forever.