A Bible study about Proverbs 31:10-31 – who is this wife of noble character? And how can we become more like her even when we struggle with mental and physical debilitations?
Transcript
Did you know that all of you Christian women out there have the potential to become a Proverbs 31 superwoman?
At the end of this podcast, you will know exactly how, and I think it will surprise you.
Let me introduce myself first. I’m Danielle. Some of you may know me from my writing. I wrote some books and many articles, and the most well-known study I published is called “The Hidden message in the Book of Esther.”
I started writing after becoming a born-again Christian in the midst of a severe burnout. Then, I quit my career and stepped out in faith to serve God full-time. And that adventure did not start with a smoothly paved road sprinkled with rose petals on which I danced and sang like a Disney princess. Quite the opposite. There were times I fought giants, stood before mountains, faced forks in the road, and even times that I veered off the path completely. But God used these struggles to make me into a Proverbs 31 superwoman, although not in the way you may expect.
About 4 years ago, I published my first article. It was around that time that my mom gave me this bird of paradise plant. It grew big, as you can see, but it didn’t flourish. We tried everything, but nothing worked.
Then, about a month ago, I began recording for this new podcast adventure. And lo and behold, suddenly a flower started budding. You can actually watch it unfold as the recordings progress.
To me, that is symbolic in a variety of ways. One of them being that I’m now 44, and I’m finally flourishing in Christ.
Anyway, that first article that I wrote those 4 years ago, was called “How to be a Proverbs 31 super woman.”
I don’t think it was a great title, and it wasn’t a well-written article either, and I suppose hardly anyone read it, thank God. But as I read it again to create this podcast episode, I was amazed to see how much I had grown since then. My writing skills, my design style, my articulation, my understanding of Scripture – everything had improved.
It reminded me of the fact that even when we are imperfect in every way, God still asks us to serve Him. And this insight in itself is a sneak preview of what I will share with you today.
Do you remember what Proverbs 31 is about? When people quote this part of Scripture, they often talk about verses ten through thirty-one. These verses discuss a wife of noble character, a woman who is absolutely perfect in every way.
So, each time I read this text, I had this image of a superwoman who could do everything well. A woman who was strong, extremely virtuous, wise, brave, and kind.
She was the wife of a well-known husband and a mother, with not just any job, but somehow she found the time to make her own goods and sell them. So, apparently, she was also creative and good at trading. It was clear that she was a successful businesswoman as she also invested in a plot of land and planted a vineyard.
If that isn’t enough to look up to, she worked through the night to take care of her family and her servants. So, clearly, she had an endless amount of energy. And on top of managing her household and her business well, she was always ready to help the poor and needy.
To me, it seemed super unrealistic, more like somebody’s dream than an achievable reality. Because who is successful in all of these areas, right? And if I had ever met a woman like that, I would probably be jealous because I read it with a feeling of despair, guilt, and anxiety. I felt I was never going to be a 24-hour supermom.
Besides the fact that I had mental and physical limitations that stood in the way of being as productive as I wanted to be, I don’t have children.
So, I thought: “If this is God’s ideal woman, have I failed in His eyes? Would God think less of me?”
Then I realized that the answer was: No, that doesn’t have to be the case.
And I have three reasons for that, of which the third reason is the most important. That reason has everything to do with the true meaning of this text, but let’s start with the first two.
Number one: You can do all the right things for the wrong reasons.
God looks at the state of your heart more than anything. So, when good deeds flow from an unclean heart, to Him, they are nothing more than filthy rags or polluted garments, as stated in Isaiah 64:6.
Those “good” deeds are stained by evil motivations. They could be stained by, say, a need for people’s appreciation, or hypocrisy, or a selfish desire to get something in return.
The woman in Proverbs 31 perceives that her merchandise is profitable. Profitable merchandise can be a good thing, but if you are a woman who sells her stuff at the market to get rich for the sake of being rich, then you are in great danger. In fact, I’ve created an episode on this since many Christians subconsciously fall into this trap.
We are saved by grace, not by works. Someone can preach God’s truth beautifully and be unsaved, and someone can give money to the poor while walking on the road to hell. Someone’s actions can look holy from the outside, while their hearts might be rotten to the core. Jesus calls these people hypocrites (Matthew 6, 15, 23).
That’s why we should always make sure our hearts are pure. By that, I mean that we have repented of our sins, have asked God for forgiveness, then strive to be righteous in God’s eyes, and become more and more like Jesus by loving Him with our whole being. That will bring us to a place where good deeds will overflow from the inside out.
With a heart and mindset like that, you will be eager to do what glorifies God most. And you will see that even in times of weakness, pain, brokenness, discomfort, and tiredness, you will find a way to glorify God and reap the rewards of that fruit.
Number two: God expects us to be fruitful with what He gives us.
Matthew 25 teaches us that God might give one person one talent and another five, each according to his ability. So, God is aware of our abilities and knows what He gave us to work with. And so He also knows that you can very well be fruitful with what He gave you. But if you let fear debilitate you, you risk losing every talent God gave you.
In the first years of my walk with God, debilitating fear was actually the thing I struggled with most. I felt that the mental and physical limitations held me back from flourishing, but what held me back more was the fact that I was a perfectionist who feared that she wouldn’t be enough.
Fear of failure and of not doing a task well enough could sometimes completely paralyze me, or it caused me to go into overdrive, spending way too much time on things.
So, in reality, I had become a slave to fear, which stopped me from obeying God, and that made everything worse.
After praying, listening to the thoughtful words of other Christians, and searching the Scriptures, I finally got it. The only way to glorify God was to do what I could with the little God gave me. Then, after being faithful with little, He would give me more.
An old friend of mine once said that if I were in the kitchen endlessly perfecting a meal for my hungry husband, eventually my husband would starve. I need to feed the hungry now!
So, I created a sign on my desk saying, “Done is better than perfect,” to remind me of these realizations. Then, slowly but surely, I became more and more productive, and God gave me more and more responsibilities.
Sometimes my spiritual meal will need a tad more salt or a little less chili as I’m growing my cooking skills. But I’m grateful that within the boundaries of God’s provision, I can now use my God-given talents to produce nutritional meals that help us both grow.
Women like me are often painfully aware of their limitations, but God is also aware of what one can and cannot do. He is a righteous Judge, the Good Shepherd, so He won’t expect more of us than we can handle through Christ. And don’t forget that it takes only one seed to grow a tree with enough fruit and seed to sow an entire field of trees.
Number three: The Hidden Prophecy in Proverbs 31
This is where we go to the heart of the matter. In 1 Samuel 16:7, it says that people look at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart. This is also true for this Bible text. Outwardly, we read about a woman who is praised for her diligence and excellence, but the heart of the matter is much deeper than that.
The way I study the Bible is by comparing Scripture with Scripture. If you do that, you’ll see that the Word of God explains itself. Often, the Holy Spirit gives me clarity on the deeper meaning of the texts in the Old Testament. He always illuminates how these Scriptures, written hundreds of years before Christ, contain hidden prophecies about Jesus.
When I wrote this article, He showed me that this text is actually a prophecy about the Bride of Christ (so the Body of Christ, the Church with a capital C, and as part of that, each believer). So, with those glasses on, we can decipher the true meaning of some of this woman’s beautiful qualities and apply those qualities to ourselves.
Suddenly, you will see that these amazing virtues can all be fulfilled with the help of the Holy Spirit.
Let me show you. By the way, as we go through the verses, I will read you the text from the World English Bible to prevent any copyright issues, but feel free to read along in your favorite Bible translation.
Let’s start with verses 10-12:
10 Who can find a worthy woman? For her value is far above rubies. 11 The heart of her husband trusts in her. He shall have no lack of gain. 12 She does him good, and not harm, all the days of her life.
Since we are talking about the Bride of Christ, the woman’s husband is, of course, Christ. Knowing this puts these first 3 verses in a different light. Because yes, the Bride of Christ is worthy; her value is far above rubies. Christ trusts her, for He knows her heart, as His Spirit lives within her.
She is fruitful and serves Him, fulfilling His desires. And because she loves Him with all of her being, she will do anything to please Him all her life.
Then, verse 13 says:
13 She seeks wool and flax, and works eagerly with her hands.
Here, we see that she is eager to work for God’s Kingdom. I’ll share a link to an article in which I explain how the symbols of wool and flax refer to elements in the “fabric” of the Body of Christ. I highly recommend that you read that to understand this symbolism more deeply.
But with that in mind, these seem to refer to people who will be justified and sanctified. If this is the case, the fact that she sought them and was working with them means that she is spreading the Word of God; she is working to share the Good News. And isn’t that what we should all do as Christians in the Great Commission?
Verses 14 and 15:
14 She is like the merchant ships. She brings her bread from afar. 15 She rises also while it is yet night, gives food to her household, and portions for her servant girls.
These depictions of food are often references to spiritual food, also known as the Bread of Life. If she brings her bread from afar, this could refer to spiritual insights from heaven, or perhaps the idea that she travels far and wide to deliver God’s Word to the people.
It’s interesting that she also rises while it is still night, in other words, in darkness. We currently also live in dark times.
To navigate in the darkness, she would have needed a burning lamp. In the same way, we need a burning lamp, too. And God’s Word is a lamp to our feet, right?
So she brought the Word, the Light, and it illuminated the path for her.
She gives this bread to all the people belonging to her, including her servants. Consider this for a moment… Isn’t it strange to serve your servants?
Well, not when we read this with our spiritual glasses on. For Jesus came not to be served, but to serve. And He taught His disciples to follow His example.
Then verses 16-18 read:
16 She considers a field, and buys it. With the fruit of her hands, she plants a vineyard. 17 She arms her waist with strength, and makes her arms strong. 18 She perceives that her merchandise is profitable. Her lamp doesn’t go out by night.
We can learn from Jesus’s parables that the field and vineyard refer to the Kingdom of God on earth in which we work and produce fruit. The text tells us that she bought the field. This buying indicates an exchange; the field belonged to someone else first…
Now, the devil is the prince of this world, right? So, until Jesus bought us back by His sacrifice on the cross, we belonged to the devil. And now that it belongs to Christ and His Bride, the vines in it belong to Jesus, the true Vine.
These vines should produce fruit, but this text makes clear that nothing happens without the fruit of the Bride’s hands, so the hands of other Christians, who sow seeds in the hearts of people and make disciples of all nations.
To do this hard work, the Bride needs strength. And this text indicates that this strength isn’t something she’s born with. It is something external that she arms herself with. Just like God’s strength, right?
We don’t work in God’s Kingdom with our own strength; that is a recipe for burnout. No, we arm ourselves with God’s power. And as a result of our work, we grow stronger and stronger.
Besides the fact that we grow stronger, we earn a profit from what we pour in. Remember that Jesus said, “Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over”? God will reward us for our hard work.
We’ve already talked a bit about her lamp and how it represents God’s Light. The text says that her lamp does not go out by night, which suggests that she also uses it during the day, when there is daylight.
Isn’t that interesting? By the time it’s night, the fire is still burning. Of course, we need the Light of Christ day and night, but I believe it also says something about her motivation. For since she is guided by the Word, the Light of Christ, she doesn’t run out of fire, energy, motivation, or passion for Christ. If she would be guided by the flesh, she would burn out.
You can read my book about burnout if you want to learn more about how to prevent burnout and how to get the fire burning again.
Verses 19-22:
19 She lays her hands to the distaff, and her hands hold the spindle. 20 She opens her arms to the poor; yes, she extends her hands to the needy. 21 She is not afraid of the snow for her household, for all her household are clothed with scarlet. 22 She makes for herself carpets of tapestry. Her clothing is fine linen and purple.
Verse nineteen harks back to what I said about fabrics earlier. A distaff is a tool to hold the unspun fibers.
Typically, a woman would hold the distaff under one arm and then spin or twist the flax or wool with the spindle in her other hand. So, this process turns raw fibers into neatly spun high-quality thread. I believe this “straightening out” is one of the many references in the Bible to the sanctification process. When we come to Christ, we kind of begin as “raw material,” but by the Holy Spirit, other Christians can help to straighten our unruly fibers out.
And, of course, she is receptive to the poor and needy. She doesn’t turn away from them, as the Pharisees did in Jesus’s time. No, she receives them with arms wide open and hands stretched out, just like Jesus did.
Snow can be a bit harder to define. In the Bible, leprous disease was sometimes compared with snow, but more often, it is used as a symbol of purity; white as snow. But one doesn’t exclude the other, for we all know that purification can be a painful process; we must first see how sick we are before we know we need Jesus to be healed.
Either way, the Bride doesn’t have to fear sickness of the heart, since all who belong to her are covered with the scarlet blood of Christ.
In those days, carpets were used to sit on. We can read that in Judges 5 and Proverbs 7. Tapestry was usually a woven image or pattern. So this verse tells me that she made herself a kind of pattern or image to sit on. And what does that mean? Well, from Leviticus, we can gather that whatever people sat on in those days had to be clean, holy. That makes me think that this symbolizes “keeping to holy patterns that followed the image of Christ”. In the same way that the house of a wise person sits on the rock – the Word of God.
In Exodus, we can read that fine linen and purple are used for both the priests and the Temple of God. In the New Testament, it becomes clear that the Body of Christ is the Temple of God and that we are priests. So, it makes a lot of sense that the Bride would be clothed in priestly colors and garments. In fact, according to Revelation 19:8, the Bride of Christ will be clothed with fine linen. And it also says that fine linen symbolizes the righteous deeds of the saints.
Verse 23 reads:
23 Her husband is respected in the gates, when he sits among the elders of the land.
By now, it is clear that this Husband is Jesus. The reference to gates, I believe, comes from the fact that Jesus decides who enters the promised land.
Then who are the elders? Well, I believe that refers to the twenty-four elders mentioned in the Book of Revelation. Those elders sit on their thrones before God’s throne and worship God. In Revelation 5:6 it states, “I saw in the middle of the throne and of the four living creatures, and in the middle of the elders, a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God, sent out into all the earth.”
And then, a few verses later, the elders bow down and worship the Lamb.
Those verses literally state that Jesus was among the elders and was greatly respected.
See how we are gathering evidence of the true meaning of Proverbs 31 straight from the Bible? I encourage you to do the same with other Bible texts, as it will really increase your joy and faith as the puzzle unravels.
Okay, so verse 24:
24 She makes linen garments and sells them, and delivers sashes to the merchant.
Linen and sashes are part of the priestly garment, as we can read in Exodus and Leviticus. So, these clothes were only to be worn by those belonging in God’s service. And, apparently, people from far and wide come to buy these garments from her.
This verse reminds me of Matthew 13:45-46, where Jesus says: 45 “Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a man who is a merchant seeking fine pearls, 46 who having found one pearl of great price, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.”
This doesn’t mean that he actually pays money to be part of the Kingdom of God. No, he pays for it with something much more precious: everything.
When we see the incomparable value of the Good News, we will give up everything to acquire it. We surrender our lives to follow Jesus. For when we become born-again Christians, our old self is crucified with Jesus, and we arise with Him as a new creation.
Verses 25-27 of our text:
25 Strength and dignity are her clothing. She laughs at the time to come. 26 She opens her mouth with wisdom. Kind instruction is on her tongue. 27 She looks well to the ways of her household, and doesn’t eat the bread of idleness.
Her strength and worth come from God, and this is clearly visible from the outside, as she is wearing those attributes as her clothes.
You can see her joy. Even when times are tough, she rejoices in the fact that the future will be brighter than today.
She speaks with Godly wisdom, and she teaches with kindness. She is always watchful to see if those who belong to her are still walking in God’s ways. She doesn’t give in to laziness.
Let’s read the final four verses before we conclude with how this applies to us:
28 Her children rise up and call her blessed. Her husband also praises her: 29 “Many women do noble things, but you excel them all.” 30 Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain; but a woman who fears Yahweh, she shall be praised. 31 Give her of the fruit of her hands! Let her works praise her in the gates!
So, her offspring calls her blessed, and Jesus praises her. In a way, He says, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
We should all strive to be like this perfect Bride, because our Father in Heaven is perfect, as we can read in Matthew 5:48. Yet so much of our energy goes into striving for perfection that other people see. We work hard to look good and to speak well, which, in reality, is motivated by a fear of people. We do these things mostly because of other people’s opinions.
And hey, even when we are not pretty, eloquent, or have charisma, God still chose us as His Bride. He does think that we are beautiful and speak beautifully; we can read all about that in Song of Songs.
So, let go of other people’s opinions and instead fear God, respect Him more than anything. Then we will be praised.
In our text, Jesus says, “give her the fruit of her hands!” Which means that we will reap what we sow. Then, finally, we will see our Great Reward when we are allowed to go through the gates and enter into the promised land. (Isaiah 62:9-10, 63:21)
See how even the end of this text signifies the end of our Christian lives here on earth and the beginning of our eternal lives in the presence of Christ? Isn’t that beautiful?
As you can see, all that the woman, the Bride, has done is achievable through the help of the Holy Spirit. I haven’t named one thing that cannot be done through Christ.
We can all love Jesus with all that we have, we can all share the Gospel in a way that God enables us to do, we can all have our paths illuminated by the Word of God, we can all kindly teach people who are less mature than us, we can all do some form of labor in the Kingdom of God instead of giving in to laziness, we can all produce spiritual fruit, we can all arm ourselves with God’s strength, we can all be covered by the blood of Christ, we can all surrender our lives to God completely, we can all watch out for one another, we can all serve each other as priests, we can all fear God instead of people, and we can all rejoice in a future with Christ.
This means that with the right state of heart, all of us can be a Proverbs 31 Superwoman!