The Worth of An Excellent Wife

Transcript

GRM 545
11/16/1997
The Worth of An Excellent Wife
Proverbs 31:10-31
Gil Rugh

I want to speak a little further about the matter that we were talking about this morning from Colossians 3:18 on “wives be submissive to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord”. Before we get into the Scripture itself I want to just share with you an example of how some people handle a key passage on this subject. I am often asked, well, what do people who disagree with our interpretation do with these passages. They seem relatively simple and clear. A few years ago in a Christian periodical there appeared some articles on the matter of the role of women in leadership and so on. Three seminary professors in the articles I have addressed the subject, two of them agreeing and this is from a leading evangelical seminary.

The one man makes a comparison to “Fiddler on the Roof” and says many evangelicals support male authority in the church because “we have always done it that way.” They have deferred to tradition rather than take Scripture at face value. He says the reason many people hold the position they do on the role of women is they are holding to tradition. They are not holding the Scripture at its face value. He is referring to people who would hold the position as I reflected this morning. Now we skip over some of the texts for a time, but he gives one more example. He says the fiddler’s work must be raised for gentle admonition. 1 Timothy 2:9-15 where Paul says “I do not permit a woman to teach or have authority over a man”; “she must be silent”. And makes some comments and then he goes to say the problem is that few pause to listen for the reasons given in verses 13 and 14 where Paul tells us why he would rather not permit a woman to teach or exercise authority. It is mainly because Eve had been tricked, deceived, and easily entrapped.

Turn to 1 Timothy chapter 2 that the reason that Paul said a woman should not teach or be in authority is that Eve had been tricked, deceived, and easily trapped and he quotes verse 14. Number one, how could Eve so easily have been duped unless she previously had been untaught? Adam had walked and talked with God in the garden during that sixth day. Thus, he had the educational and spiritual advantage of being formed first. Verse 13 says for it was Adam who was first created. He says the verb is plasso, Greek word plasso, “to form, mold, shape,” (presumably in spiritual education). Now as you read verse 13 taking it at face value, because he said the problem with a lot of people is they don’t take the Scripture at face value, would you have read this to say for it was Adam who was first molded or shaped in spiritual education and then Eve.

He says there is a different word for create in Greek. The word used here is the form or shape, not to create. Paul’s argument then is based on the orders of education, not the orders of creation. The argument is Eve was untaught. Since she was untaught she was easily deceived, and he tries to build a case on the meaning of the word. Keep your finger in Timothy and just come back to Genesis. I want you to note something here. This man is an Old Testament scholar, that’s his background, that’s his area of expertise in seminary and he is no longer at the seminary he was at when he wrote this article incidentally. Genesis chapter 2, the Greek translation of the Old Testament which is normally the Old Testament used by New Testament writers.

Look at verse 7 of Genesis 2, then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground. The Greek translation of The Old Testament, the word formed here is the same basic word that is used in 1 Timothy 2:13 for it was Adam who was formed and then Eve. Now are we talking about formed in spiritual education in Genesis 2:7? I think there is almost a problem here of dishonesty in implying to people who might think, well he knows the languages and it is a different word therefore it can’t mean create when the Greek testament, The New Testament, the Greek Old Testament the New Testament writers would have been using used the same word for Adam’s creation in Genesis 2:7. They used it again in verse 8. It is used in verse 8 and the Lord God planted a garden toward the east in Eden. There he placed the man whom he had formed.

Verse 19, and out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, same word. So to make a case on the basis in 1 Timothy 2:13 that the word formed here is not the normal Greek word for create therefore we are talking not about the creation of Adam but his being formed by God in educating him. Before Eve was created is just nonsense. But here is a man who is a leading evangelical scholar, he has written a book on hermeneutics, proper interpretation of Scripture. Another man who was president of an evangelical seminary supports this view as well.

The biblical case against women preachers and teachers generally rest upon the well known passage in 1 Timothy 2 and 1 Corinthians 14. We believe that neither of these passages rules out the ordination of women as preachers, teachers, and leaders in the church. The Timothy passage is a plea for teachers and leaders who are instructed. Women are told not to teach because as the apostle spells it out explicitly like Eve they were uninstructed. Now in reading 1 Timothy 2 can you tell me that Paul spells it out explicitly that the problem is the women were uninformed? Because Eve was uninformed she was easily led astray and women who are untaught in the things of the Spirit can easily lead the church into error. The restriction does not apply to educated women.

Let me read one of their colleagues at the seminary’s response. Some suggests this statement in 1 Timothy 2 is limited to uneducated women based upon the belief that Eve’s instruction was somehow inferior to Adam’s as if she were so backward and uneducated she cannot see through Satan’s deception. That supposition however is an inaccurate interpretation of the Genesis account. In Genesis 3:3 Eve repeated the same teaching that God gave Adam in the previous chapter. I mean when Satan approached her what did Eve tells Satan? The very exact thing that God had told Adam; she is not uneducated on the subject. She is not ignorant of what God had said. There is no reason to think she was less intelligent or less informed than Adam nor did that knowledge have any bearing on the decisions that were made. Adam was persuaded to accept the forbidden fruit the same as Eve was.

Adam was so educated and yet he partook of the fruit too. To interpret 1 Timothy 2 to mean the very opposite of what it clearly says is to deviate from the authority of New Testament teaching. It’s to deviate from proper hermeneutics. If teaching that is as simple as clear as this can be reinterpreted according to the moods and fashions of our day, then Paul’s other inspired teachings may also be reinterpreted. So I just read that to you because I don’t want you to think I make up the foolishness I say people do in handling the Scripture. That the issue was Eve was an uneducated woman, so she was easily tricked and that was the problem at Ephesus. Women were uneducated but today our women are educated so this doesn’t apply. That’s not interpreting Scripture. That’s just reading in the Scripture what you wanted to say and if you say it confidently and boldly enough several people believe you because these are scholars.

All right enough of that. Come back to the book of Proverbs. We were talking about the role of women and the wife in particular. In some other material we have and some of it has been put into print, we take some other passages of the Scripture to show you that consistently in Israel God marked a clear distinction between the male and the female. In fact in Leviticus 12 you can just jot it down, at birth God noted a distinction. A mother was unclean for 40 days after giving birth to a male child. She was unclean for 80 after the birth of a girl. Whatever else is entailed in that it clearly makes a distinction that would have to be observed by the mother and the father in the uncleanness issue here between the birth of a boy and the birth of a girl. There are other passages and so on.

Now Proverbs has a number of things to say about a woman and just as an example chapter 2 of Proverbs. It says quite a bit about the foreign woman or the strange woman who is an adulteress woman. Verse 16, “the wisdom that comes from God will serve”, verse 16, “to deliver you from the strange woman, from the adulteress who flatters with her words that leaves the companion of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God for her house sinks down to death, her tracks lead to the dead. None who go to her return again nor do they reach the paths of life.” And he goes on particularly in the opening chapters of Proverbs to warn about the devastation of an adulteress woman, the damage that she can do. As you move on in Proverbs, look at Chapter 19, there is the problem of the contentious woman.

Proverbs 19:13, “a foolish son is destruction to his father and the contentions of a wife are a constant dripping.” Point there clear, a contentious wife it’s just like the dripping. It gets on your nerve. Chapter 21 verse 9, “it is better to live in a corner of a roof than in a house shared with a contentious woman.” Verse 19, “it is better to live in a desert land than with a contentious and vexing woman.” No comment, just reading. Chapter 25 verse 24, “it is better in a corner of the roof than in a house shared with a contentious woman.” Chapter 27 verse 15, “a constant dripping on a day of steady rain and a contentious woman are alike, he who would restrain her restrains the wind then grasps oil with his right hand.”

Now these are negative observations on a woman to show the negative impact that is made when she doesn’t function properly. But even with the negative comment it shows something of the central and key role that a woman plays. That when she is not functioning as she should the result can be devastating. From the adulteress woman to the woman who is a nag, the impact is very devastating. So when she functions improperly, a woman functions improperly, great harm results. The other side of that which is going to be developed as we come to chapter 31 is a woman who functions properly is a great blessing and accomplishes much good.

Proverbs 19 verse 14 says that a good wife is from the Lord. “House and wealth are an inheritance from fathers but a prudent wife is from the Lord.” One of the greatest blessings God gives to a man is a good wife, a godly wife. Verse 22 of chapter 18 says “he who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord.” A good wife, a godly wife is a special blessing from God. Come over to chapter 31 of Proverbs. We will pick up with verse 10, you know the first nine verses are the words of King Lemuel, the oracle which his mother taught him. King Lemuel may well be Solomon. This is what his mother taught him and you move into this chapter by noting the key roles that a mother played in molding and shaping the son. She has had a key part in his instruction. This is what she taught him, what learned from her and her influence. The importance continues on in his life now that he is the king with the impact of the mother’s role in his life ongoing.

So we move into this realm on the role of a godly wife in that kind of context and something we need to be reminded of is in the news these days and the debate because of certain childcare problems, court cases, of who are taking care of the children and we always say there is not enough quality daycare and we need to have more restriction. What we are trying to do is the same thing we talked about this morning, what men are trying to come up with alternatives to God’s plan. God’s plan is a mother but that interferes with man’s plan that rejects the roles that God has established because we have to free the woman from the bondage of the home, from the bondage of being tied down to the kids, so she can go out and do something important. Work by the sweat of her brow till she returns to dust which God says is what the man is to be doing as a result of the fall. But now there is nobody to take care of the kids and we just can’t understand why we can’t get better care for the kids.

I mean these are the most important things in our lives. At the same time, they are not quite important as our job though because it is more important to go to a job than it is to take care of the kids. Now we realize some people are in a situation where they seem to have no choice, but the role established in Scripture is clear as I would understand it. So, we start out with Proverbs 31 by reminding the importance of the role. Here is a man who has become king and what does he want to talk about, here is what I learned from my mother, the impact on my life. Verse 10, “an excellent wife who can find her worth is far above jewels. The heart of her husband trusts in her; he will have no lack of gain.” Blessing of a godly woman, let me read you what a couple of men from the last century wrote on these verses so you get a sense of their perspective go back a hundred years or so.

One writer says she is a wife, the modern conception of a woman as an independent person standing alone, engaged in her own business or profession and complete in her isolated life is not to be looked for in the book of Proverbs. Hardly that sounds like something that was written a hundred years ago, does it? We are reminded we are not dealing with new issues and new problems. The world’s conception and perspective on a woman in her role has always in one way or another opposed the Scripture. The focal point that we will find in Proverbs 31, verses 10 to 31 is that the focal point of a godly wife’s life is her husband and her family. Everything she does revolves around them. All her activity is interpreted in light of how does it impact her husband, how does it impact her children, how does it impact her home? That’s the measure of this godly woman.

Alexander Maclaren, some of you bought some of Alexander Maclaren’s writings recently when we had them on sale, who wrote at the end of the last century. The whole passage Proverbs 31, 10 to 31 is the hallowing of domestic life, a directory for wives and mothers. A beautiful ideal of how noble a thing a busy mother’s life may be, an exhibition to young man of what they should seek, and a young woman of what they should aim at. Okay, we’ll just read those because some people want to go to Proverbs 31 today and say here is an example of a woman who is a working woman, who has a profession and so it is justified from Scripture. I always scratch my head because those were the very people who were saying the problem of the Old Testament is that it was a patriarchal society but somehow Proverbs 31 the model of the admirable woman in the patriarchal society is a professional woman who has her own life and her own business. Something ought to be flashing in your mind as that interpretation is seriously flawed.

“The heart of her husband trusts in her and he will have no lack of gain.” First thing to observe is the role she plays in relationship to her husband for she is his confidence if you will. She is the support of his life, “the heart of her husband trusts in her.” We’ve got the whole idea that men need men and we’ve got to build some male bonding relationships. For what? Okay those who open our Bible and there the heart of her husband trusts in her; I have the person to lean on. I have that human provision for stability and strength in my life. It’s my wife.

“The heart of her husband trusts in her, he will have no lack of gain.” In this context her realm is the home, as is going to be developed. She is the house manager, and she is taking care of the home so well that he is in good shape and enables him to excel. He will ultimately end up sitting in the gate, verse 23, among the elders of the land. His successes and accomplishments are a result of the industry of his wife in the home. He can lean upon her and that center of life and foundation for life is cared for and provided for in her caring for the home. We have to go to the New Testament before we move through the best of this passage.

Titus chapter 2, some of these are well worn passages to us but it is not enough to be hearers of the word, the issue is are we doers of the word as James 1 says. Titus chapter 2, let me just say we are getting into areas here where some people find themselves a disagreement with me. There is no problem and don’t feel you have to go to another church because you agree with Gil. You don’t, but if you disagree with the word I hope you will be very uncomfortable in this church. I understand that disagreeing with me is not the same as disagreeing with the word. So I just want you to know I recognize that. Proverbs chapter 2, verse 2, the older women, verse 3, are to be “reverent in their behavior not malicious gossips, not enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good.” Again we talk about the role of women and are they to teach and we often come to Titus and say we see women are to be teachers but again context determines meaning.

We haven’t even finished the sentence. Teaching what is good that they may encourage the young women to do these things. Here is the realm of their instructions. It has to do with the home. This is their realm. “To love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands.” We were talking about in our study this morning and note the issue here “that the word of God may not be dishonored.” This is God’s plan and will for the women. When you do not function this way the word of God is dishonored and thus God is dishonored. We say in 1 Peter what is precious in the sight of God where we want to be pleasing to the world and fit in with the world we cannot be pleasing to God, friendship with the world is hostility toward God. So older women ought to be teaching the young women what is good and that has to do with encouraging them, to love their husband, to love their children; this is the focal point of their lives: their husbands, their children, their home, sensible, pure workers at home. That’s the focal point.

This idea well you know what are you going to do with your time. What do you want me to do? Stay home and watch the soap opera. So the alternative was go out and get a job that pays you money or stay home and watch the soap opera. That’s not the choice. The choice has to be a godly woman who takes care of her home properly and the things related to the home and her realm and being subject to her own husband. Back up to 1 Timothy chapter 5, Paul here is talking about widows and older widows 60 and older can be enrolled if they have no other means of support, no other family member to care for them then they come under the provision of the church. Younger widows are not eligible, those under 60, and what they are to do is to be busy.

Verse 14, therefore I want younger widows to get married, bear children, keep house, give the enemy no occasion for reproach for some have already turned aside to follow Satan. Terrible thing that happens is in the context because he continues on for a woman who is a believer, and they have dependent widows in the family. In this context some women have turned aside in following the Lord and have been influenced by Satan. What they need to do is get married, bear children, keep house, give the enemy no occasion for reproach. That’s the woman’s realm and it is good for us as men to know that because if a woman is going to get married, she will have to marry a man. Some guys are wondering around in la-la land as though they didn’t understand God’s plan for men and women was marriage. So, I sympathize with the difficulty that often puts women in.

So where a woman who has been married and her husband died while she is still young, what’s the plan? The plan is she remarries. Hopefully her first husband had a big insurance policy so the second marriage will be easier, I don't know. Bear children, keep house, o boy, yes keep house. Give the enemy no occasion for reproach. Now come back to Proverbs. The same Spirit wrote the Old Testament and the New Testament. Different human authors but those of us who believe in the inspiration of Scripture there is really not a conflict. Now for those who don’t accept the divine inspiration of the word of God and do not believe all Scripture is God’s breathed, they see conflicts everywhere.

So we come to Proverbs. It ought not to surprise us that a thousand years before Paul wrote in the Pastoral Epistles we had the same thing recorded in the Book of Proverbs. Verse 12, we will just read down through some of these verses and comment on one or two. Verse 12, “she does him good her husband and not evil all the days of her life.” She has learned to love him. So he is a priority of her life. “She looks for wool and flax and works with her hands in delight; she is like merchant ships which bring her food from afar. She rises while it is still night and gives food to her household and portions to her maidens. She considers her field and buys it from her earnings she plants a vineyard.”

Well, some time you see she is out buying and selling. She is a real estate women kind of idea. Well, this is in the realm of providing for her home and her family, the gardening and so securing the gardening field. I mean it ought to be clear when we get to verse 23 she is not sitting in the gate with the elders. Her husband is. She is making provision for her family. They make provision for the family. There they didn’t go to the supermarket so she had to plant food, plant the vineyard. She would trade some of which she raised or made with other woman who made things or grew things and that’s how they are provided. Just like our wives today go to the supermarket and look for the sales and read the brochure and go to get a good price here and go there for that which is on sale. So let’s not make it more complicated than it really is.

Verse 17, “she girds herself with strength and makes her arms strong, so good tough one here. She senses that her gain is good. Her lamp does not go out at night. She stretches out her hand to the distaff; her hand grasps the spindle.” So you know she is getting the oil for the lamp; she is making the clothes, she is working. She extends her hands to the poor. She stretches out her hands to the needy. Interesting here this has fallen into the realm of a woman’s role. So you know sometimes we say we don’t have to make our clothes today, does that mean we have to go back to making them so we can fill in the time? No, there are other things. There are certain provisions and inventions in our day to free up certain amount of time there are other things to be done. Ministries to be developed and taken care of that more time can be devoted to that because it doesn’t take as much time to do something else. It doesn’t mean a woman abandons the role and realm God has given her as though God hadn’t planned for modern inventions so he created and appointed a woman to function in the home but he didn’t know she would outgrow the home when washing machines and so on were developed.

Come on that’s just not so. Here this woman reaches out beyond her home to help the poor, the needy. So opportunities for ministry in reaching out to those in need which fit with a womanly role and realm as a helper and so on. Verse 21, she is not afraid of the snow for her household, for all her household is clothed with scarlet.” She makes covering for herself; her clothing is fine linen and purple. So she provides properly and well. You know this doesn’t get by. You know I take it if you went to this woman’s house you wouldn’t find out she just got by that at least there was enough of the past through the things that you could get to the kitchen. Here is a woman who provides better than average. She takes care of herself so when her husband did come at night she didn’t look the haggard role.

I mean she has got, her clothing is fine linen and purple, she has it together. She has provided for her family and for herself in this realm properly. Her husband is known in the gates when he sits among the elders of the land. There is an important connection here. We are talking about the “excellent wife who can find her worth is far above jewels”, verse 10. Here you have inserted that her husband is well known in the gates, the gates where the business is transacted. The elders there, those who are in charge, those are making decision, in his position here is seen as a result of this faithful, industrious wife. Keep that in mind because she has poured her life into her husband and her children in her home and the result is her husband excels.

Now we got put down, it ought to be the wife that’s out in the gate, the wife that has the reputation. Well, she has a reputation in one sense because she was expected. We’ll see in a moment and appreciated because those who know her husband know he occupied his position because he has been blessed with a special wife, a wife who is a blessing from the Lord. “She makes linen garment, sells them, supplies belt to the tradesman.” I mean it is all part of it; you didn’t go the clothing store to get your clothes. They were handmade and so some of which you made you sold, you bartered, that was part of the household duties that were going on.

Again, we do it a little different way today but it’s still the woman’s realm. Basically, for the most part she does the shopping. She is looking for the sales to get the clothes for the kids and doing this kind of things so her realm hasn’t changed even though certain provisions have been made so she doesn’t have to make the clothes and so on. It still becomes a realm for where she is responsible. A good and a godly wife would want to see that she got the right clothes for the family and she would want to do it at the right price and all of that. So this is the way she functions. “Strength and dignity are her clothing. She smiles at the future. She opens her mouth in wisdom and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue. She looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness.”

She is a busy woman. She is diligent. She was up early before dawn we read early, verse 15. She rises while it is still night, got to get an early start, not dragging out of bed when the day is half over because you know I don’t have a job so there is no reason to get out of bed. You know you just get the kids off to school and lay back down and drag around. You get the idea that’s the alternative today. You know you’ve got to have a job to get you out and get in the world and use your mind. Well, you get the idea that this woman knows what she is doing. Well, I take it if some young women had followed her around, they are to find out how to get the housework done, how to keep the place straight, how things are provided, to get the meal on the table at the right, get the clothes washed and put away at the right time, make sure you had what was necessary and things that needed to be done. It goes with godliness. It’s one of the evidences that a woman is functioning properly. You ought to be able to look go into her home and look it over. It oughtn’t to look like tornado alley.

Not if it is a godly woman she cares about her home. She plans, she is diligent, doesn’t get run over like well I just can’t keep up with all these. Strength and dignity, verse 25, are her clothing, and she doesn’t lose it because she has planned and thought it out. I mean there is no emergencies come up but she has considered the future. She smiles at the future. She was thinking about what needed to be done. Her life is ordered because she has to take care of this home. Her husband is trusting in her. You don’t get the idea he comes home and helps get the food together. He comes home and helps get the clothing done. He comes home and helps with the garden. He hasn’t even been mentioned except he is sitting at the gate jabbering, passing on the reputation he has because she is working so hard.

Now I am not saying a husband can’t be at home but I am saying you don’t get the idea he is a great household hubby from this passage. She doesn’t really need him to do the housework. She is up early, got it planned and getting it done and still out helping the needy and the poor. And that’s not an excuse not to have her house well in order because I was out helping the poor today. What it takes here is a woman who has it together so to speak. “She looks well to the ways of household, does not eat the bread of idleness.” If you are functioning as a godly woman working at home, you wouldn’t have idle time. If you got idle time it means there are things that could be in the context of the responsibilities God has placed on a woman that haven’t yet been looked at.

Some women seemed to be able to get more done than others, wonderful. But it never gets to the point; I have done that everything that God would intend me to do. So I don’t have anything but idle time, I might as well go get a job and make money. There is nothing else to do. Wrong. Her children rise up and bless her. Her husband also and he praises her saying “many daughters have done nobly but you excel them all.” That reminds husband, we didn’t talk about husband love your wives, but she gets plenty of strokes from her husband. Her kids and her husband realize her value, her importance in their lives.

Today that is not enough. But in this context she recognizes she is fulfilling God’s will and God’s plan. But this woman’s son is the king as the chapter started out. With the wife, going more broadly, he has accomplished things he could have never done. Does that mean every wife who functions properly will have a husband who is rich and powerful? No, not everyone who functions will have a husband who is able to accomplish a lot more than he would have without her and any husband who accomplishes anything is giving testimony to the faithfulness of a wife.

Now what happens in the world? She has to have her own identity. Now we see this today, she wants to have her own name; she wants to have her own accomplishments so she can stand independent. It’s not God’s intention. How did he start out the creation? Remember he took a rib from the side of the man not intending that you got an independent man here and an independent woman here. His goal is what? Mutual interdependence. ‘Her children rise up and bless her. Her husband also and he praises her.” There is a recognition and there ought to be a respect that our children appreciate the role of the mother place, the father and the husband ought to be living in that. Too many men think their wife ought to go out and at least get a part-time job just to help out. I mean at least you’ve got to help out. I mean sure that elevates her role in our home and before her children.

The household duties and the responsibilities of the home that’s not enough to keep your mother busy, let her go out and do something. And I am exaggerating for the point but what are we saying in this? I want to say to my kids the role and realm your mother has is too important for her to be diverted with other mundane things like making money. I can work three jobs a week. Well, what she has to do is too important for her to abandon that and to go do something that I could do. If I can’t make enough at one job I will work two jobs, fine. Why don’t Mom go get a job? Because what she has to do is too important and too demanding. I wouldn’t want her to step out of that realm to do the other. I exalt her role in our home.

Many daughters have done nobly but you excel them all. You know that’s the attitude in the home. That’s the children and the husband you know we have got the jewel of the jewels. You don’t get the idea here this is a woman who lacks recognition. Now it may not come from the secular world and the secular workplace but she gets plenty of that in the home. She is well aware of how important she is to her children and to her husband and the high honor they hold her in and what she is doing is not belittled in anyway. It is held in great importance.

“Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain but a woman who fears the Lord she shall be praised.” Now you see the issue here. We are talking about a godly woman. She fears the Lord. She is functioning as she does because she really likes to do housework. No, she really functions this way because she fears the Lord and wants to honor him. She wants to do what is precious in His sight. She does not want the word of God to be dishonored. So you have seen in the New Testament passages. She fears the Lord. “Charm is deceitful, beauty is vain,” those things pass when we get old. The physical deteriorates but the beauty of godliness only grows. So she sacrificed too much? No. Give the products of her hands and let her works praise her in the gates. Interesting, her works praise her in the gates where her husband is because you see all recognize the importance of her role in that sense. She has that respect and that honor even among those who see her husband as he is.

It is a beautiful picture. I take it, it is the same picture for today and that’s why we went to the New Testament. Let me read you a verse. Proverbs 12:4, an excellent wife is the crown of her husband, but she who shames him as rotteness in his bones. The crown of her husband, what a position. How blessed it is the man who has such a godly wife and how we as men have a responsibility as we will see in our next study to elevate this wife and her role and her realm to its proper position. But the realm of the home is belittled today. Anybody can do that, you hire somebody, give it over to someone who is hardly out of school. All they got to do is take care of the kids and keep the house going. I mean this person has an important profession, tragic.

But what I am surprised is that the world’s thinking, what is really tragic is that’s become the thinking of the church. So quality daycare replaces a mother as though a maid replaces the wife. Come on, we need to get our focus back. It seems the Scripture is clear on these matters, the woman’s realm, the woman’s role. Now, I know some of you are going to say, are you saying that woman shouldn’t work outside the home? Why would I tell you that? Why would I get myself in trouble at the end of a beautiful Sunday? The Bible doesn’t say to the woman thou shalt not work outside the home. So I can’t tell you the Bible say thou shalt not work outside the home. But read the verses with me, what does it say? A woman has to be a worker at home. A woman is to love her husband and love her children and be submissive to her husband, not out working for someone else doing what he wants and being submissive to him trying to get done what they want done at that business before the day is over so she can rush home and do something for her husband and her family.

The exalted woman of Proverbs 31 is the woman whose realm is her home and related matters to the home. So you want my opinion, my opinion is in light of the Scripture the woman’s realm is the home. Well, we can’t make it on my husband’s income. Well, tell him to get a second job. He is supposed to work by the sweat of his brow until he goes back to dust anyway. Am I being hard or unkind? No. Am I saying the woman ought to take it easy? No, she got to work all the harder doing everything she can and there maybe things she can do from the home or within the realm that is consistent with her realm and her role and her responsibility. If you disagree with me on that, fine. I can only share with you what I understand what the word says on the matter.

You simply take into consideration, evaluate it and if you find the word says something different then you are responsible before the Lord with that. I think we would agree we need to be sure we are being biblical and that this realm is being exalted. There is nothing more important than the role of a mother and a wife, the caring of the home. May God give us his perspective on that subject.

Let’s pray together. Lord, thank you for the clarity and simplicity of your word. We desire to have a listening ear, listening hearts to be those who not only hear the word but do the word and put it into practice. Lord, sometimes it’s difficult in our situations to know how we can make the adjustments necessary. I pray for the homes represented here. Lord, I pray for the pressures that are there. Decisions that have been made that have been unwise, that have created financial burdens, the desire for more material things and perhaps were affordable. Lord, other factors illness, physical difficulties that make it difficult for the man to make the necessary provision. Lord, only you can sort this all out but as your children as we wait upon you, we trust you will give the wisdom for each of your children that is necessary. Lord, in it all I pray that we might be an encouragement to one another and a support to one another, and that we above all might desire to honor you with our lives in every way that we function. We pray in Jesus’ name, amen.