She Shall Be Saved Through Childbearing

10 Who can find a virtuous wife? For her worth is far above rubies. 11 The heart of her husband safely trusts her; So he will have no lack of gain. 12 She does him good and not evil All the days of her life. 13 She seeks wool and flax, And willingly works with her hands. 14 She is like the merchant ships, She brings her food from afar. 15 She also rises while it is yet night, And provides food for her household, And a portion for her maidservants. 16 She considers a field and buys it; From her profits she plants a vineyard. 17 She girds herself with strength, And strengthens her arms. 18 She perceives that her merchandise is good, And her lamp does not go out by night. 19 She stretches out her hands to the distaff, And her hand holds the spindle. 20 She extends her hand to the poor, Yes, she reaches out her hands to the needy. 21 She is not afraid of snow for her household, For all her household is clothed with scarlet. 22 She makes tapestry for herself; Her clothing is fine linen and purple. 23 Her husband is known in the gates, When he sits among the elders of the land. 24 She makes linen garments and sells them, And supplies sashes for the merchants. 25 Strength and honor are her clothing; She shall rejoice in time to come. 26 She opens her mouth with wisdom, And on her tongue is the law of kindness. 27 She watches over the ways of her household, And does not eat the bread of idleness. 28 Her children rise up and call her blessed; Her husband also, and he praises her: 29 “Many daughters have done well, But you excel them all.” 30 Charm is deceitful and beauty is passing, But a woman who fears the LORD, she shall be praised. 31 Give her of the fruit of her hands, And let her own works praise her in the gates. (Pro 31:10-31)

Imagine we have six people seated around a table. Each of them has a different profession. One is professor at a public university, specialising in feminist studies. Another is the creative director of one of the world’s largest advertising agencies. A third is a lawyer who specialises in defending the people in defamation and discrimination lawsuits. A fourth is the editor of a prominent women’s magazine. A fifth is the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, and a sixth is a prominent atheist. The six people are asked to sketch out their vision of what a woman in 2016 should aspire to be. Their assignment is to assemble a montage of the woman every woman should be. What do you think the professor, the advertising executive, the lawyer, the magazine editor, the CEO and the atheist will come up with?

We don’t know for sure, but judging by what we often see and hear in the media, their ideal woman would be something like this: She lives her own life and builds it on her own steam. She builds her career, climbs the corporate ladder, and demands both equality with men and special treatment for being a woman. She exercises her sexual freedom as early as she wants using contraceptives, lives with someone to test if it is going to work. If a pregnancy should come at an inconvenient time, she has rights over her own body and can ‘terminate’ the pregnancy. If she wants to, she can get married, making sure she protects her financial interests going into the marriage. She may have an affair or two if her husband is taking her for granted. She may very likely divorce after a few years, because she does not feel fulfilled, or because her husband was getting in her way. She would regard the titles homemaker or housewife with scorn.

She may have children, but she will quickly make sure she outsources the large majority of the care to a variety of minders, therapists, teachers, coaches, and other professionals. She’ll make sure her child is either entertaining himself with a screen in front of him, or taken care of by someone else. In the meantime, she makes sure she is tanned, trimmed, and decked out to be as close to the icons of our age – the cover-girls. Her life is all about her: self-fulfillment, self-enhancement, self-promotion. And she would be nearly the opposite of the woman in Proverbs 31.

I believe Satan has a special hatred for women. Not only because the Saviour of the world came through woman, born of a virgin, but because godly womanhood is so devastating to Satan’s plan. Biblical womanhood embodies all the opposites of Satan’s world system, it is a living example of Christlike service, Christlike sacrifice, Christlike love. Biblical womanhood is the Gospel lived out. It is truly one of the most beautiful things on Earth, and Satan hates it. Not only does biblical womanhood invite people to the Saviour, but those kind of women, when they become mothers, pass that on to their children. They are devastating weapons in God’s hands, because for twenty years, they are the primary shaping influence for these young human beings that come into the world. Godly mothers do not always raise faithful believers, but they make rebellion against God all the harder, and all the more high-handed.

For these reasons, Satan hates womanhood, and does his best to distort it in his world system – in the movies, the adverts, the billboard, the songs, the magazines, newspapers, the classrooms, the boardrooms, the courtrooms, and even the halls of parliament.

But God’s beautiful standard remains. And one of those godly women once taught her own son, named Lemuel, here in Proverbs 31. She gave him a lot of good advice. She told him to avoid sexual immorality, giving away his purity in verses 1-3, knowing how this would ruin his life. She then told him to avoid alcohol in verses 4-7, knowing how it would pervert his judgment, judgement which he needed to defend the helpless, the poor, the needy in verses 8 and 9.

And then she launched into a 22 verse description of the kind of woman King Lemuel should look for. And what she did was make a poem out of it, which every Hebrew boy could memorise. You see, there are 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet, and every verse from verse 10 to verse 31, in the Hebrew, begins with the next character in the Hebrew alphabet – aleph, beth, gimel, he. Picture the A to Z of the women of honour, each line beginning with A, then B, then C. This is a formula for memorisation, so that every Hebrew son could memorise what to look for, and every Hebrew girl could memorise what to be.

And it remains this way today. If you are a single man, this is a guide as to what to look for. If you are single lady, this is the pattern to model yourself after. If you are a married woman, this provides you with the goal to aspire to. If you are a married man, this is what you pray for in your wife and seek to nurture and grow.

Now we all understand that this is a poem, and so it paints an ideal portrait. No one lives up to this every day, anymore than every man lives up to the portrait of the righteous man in Psalm 15. But we need ideals. We should not dismiss them because they are high, we should start climbing. We should not give up because we have failed, but keep going forward in Christ.

Now because most of us do not speak Hebrew, we can’t approach this poem using its acrostic. But what we can do is group several of the thoughts here into three roles that the godly woman is often given – wife, homemaker, and mother.

I. The Virtuous Wife

10 Who can find a virtuous wife? For her worth is far above rubies. 11 The heart of her husband safely trusts her; So he will have no lack of gain. 12 She does him good and not evil All the days of her life.

When the godly woman is a wife, she is so precious to her husband, like the rarest and costliest gems. Why is that? She is precious to him because she is trustworthy. The husband can go about his tasks, go away from home, and he does not fear that the household will fall into decay or ruin when he is away. And in fact, in Hebrew times, when marriages were arranged, sometimes a husband found himself with an untrustworthy wife, so much so that some husbands locked up everything valuable when he left home.

But the godly woman is so trustworthy that he does not wrestle with suspicion, with worry, with fear. That’s because she is a steward. A steward is someone who manages the household for another. You remember when Joseph was sold as a slave to Potiphar, he was so responsible that Scripture says “Thus he left all that he had in Joseph’s hand, and he did not know what he had except for the bread which he ate. (Gen 39:6)” Later on, the same thing happened with Pharaoh. What a delight when a manager has a diligent, responsible, efficient worker who does well. What a joy to God’s heart when He has under-shepherds that faithfully manage His church. What a joy to a husband to have a wife who faithfully manages the home.

This actually shows that she is in charge of domestic matters. In 1 Timothy 5:14, Paul says, 14 Therefore I desire that the younger widows marry, bear children, manage the house, give no opportunity to the adversary to speak reproachfully. (1Ti 5:14) The word for manage the house is a Greek word oikesdespotes. Oikes means house, and you will recognise the English derivative despot from the Greek despotes. She is in charge of using and accounting for resources in the home, and because she is wise, frugal, careful, thoughtful, the husband does not fear loss.

And here’s why: look at verse 12: She does him good and not evil All the days of her life. She loves her husband. She loves his success, his health, his happiness. Her whole being is turned towards another – being a blessing, helping, strengthening. She cares for him. There is a way in which not only is the husband protector of the wife, but the wife is the protector of the husband. Hers is a happy, contented, love of helping and managing the home. When does she do this? All the days of her life. This is what we vow at the altar: to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, cherish, and to obey, till death us do part.

Look at the effect she has on her husband in verse 23:

23 Her husband is known in the gates, When he sits among the elders of the land.

Because she is so faithful, her husband rises in success and respect. The gates here refers to an open space in ancient cities, where the elders or the mature men of the city would meet to discuss and decide matters affecting the city. The husband of the godly wife is known in the gates. He is respected, admired, and his opinion counts. That’s because behind the scenes is a great woman, freeing him up to excel in what he does, praying for him, encouraging him spiritually, balancing him out, giving him wisdom, sometimes respectfully rebuking his sin. When you have a man excelling in that kind of respect, mark it down, there is a spiritual giant secretly serving in the shadows. And when he sits with those other elders, he is envied for the kind of wife he has, envied for the choice he made, and for the sweetness he enjoys.

Not only is she a virtuous wife, verses 13 to 24 describe her as

II. The Vigorous Homemaker

In God’s economy, the woman is gloriously at home at home. She loves to make her home a home. And the bulk of this passage describes her creativity, ingenuity, and diligence in being the oikosdespotes – the ruler of the house.

Look at the descriptions here:

• 13 She seeks wool and flax, And willingly works with her hands.

She looks for wool and flax – the raw material. Why? The Hebrew wife was going to spin it into thread. And from that thread, she would make clothes. Wool for clothes in winter, and flax would be spun into linen for wearing in summer. This is hard work. But we read she does it willingly. Love for her husband and children drives her to do this.

• 14 She is like the merchant ships, She brings her food from afar.

The Hebrew wife had no car, so it meant she walked a good distance to find the best food at the best price. She wants quality food and she also wants bargains, and she puts quality over convenience. She was going to fetch it, and prepare it. Look at verse 15.

• 15 She also rises while it is yet night, And provides food for her household, And a portion for her maidservants.

In the Middle East, a lamp would be kept burning all night, and the wife would get up at midnight, trim the wick, add more oil, and do it again before dawn. And because the workday began at 6am, she was up early, probably grinding corn. This lady is probably wealthy, she seems to have several maidservants, so this is some kind of estate. But notice, though she is a wealthy, well-to-do noblewoman, she is up early, making sure there is something for the servants. While others are still waking, she is up.

Look at how enterprising and creative she is.

• 16 She considers a field and buys it; From her profits she plants a vineyard.

She makes an investment, and cleverly she makes a profit for her home. And with that profit, she enhances and blesses her home even more – with a vineyard. We say, where did she get the money to buy that field? Look at verse 24:

• 24 She makes linen garments and sells them, And supplies sashes for the merchants.

So industrious is she, that she can find time to make and produce something to earn extra money. Proverbs 31 is not an argument for or against women working. What it does teach is that women can creatively earn money, and with that money that build and bless their home. The pursuit of a career for its own sake would be foreign to this text. But creatively earning money for the sake of the home is part of the beauty of this woman.

Satan says that the homemaker is weak, but look at what God says in verse 17:

• 17 She girds herself with strength, And strengthens her arms.

She is strong. Her daily activity means she is physically robust, and also determined in will to do what she needs to do. The Victorian idea of the lady of leisure, like Dora Spenlow in David Copperfield, who wants to spend all day playing with her dog Jip is totally foreign to God’s ideal of the woman. The woman of character is a homemaker with strength. She could do the work –

• 19 She stretches out her hands to the distaff, And her hand holds the spindle.

Look at verse 25:

• 25 Strength and honor are her clothing; She shall rejoice in time to come.

How does she feel about her housework? How does she feel about her achievements in the home? Does she feel cheated? Does she feel robbed? Does she pine for another life?

• 18 She perceives that her merchandise is good, And her lamp does not go out by night.

She feels great joy and fulfillment in what she does for her home, She knows her merchandise, her gain, her benefit for her home is good. I love what John MacArthur says, “To depreciate the role of a homemaker is pretty foolish. The breadth of the role of homemaker is amazing. To be able to be an economist, a steward of funds and resources, to be able to analyze all the products available, to be strong enough and well-planned enough to make the right moves at the right time to acquire the right things, to be fully a wife to your husband and a tender and loving mother to all of your children, to apportion all the responsibilities to everybody who was a part of the labor force, that takes some woman.”

Look at how she takes care of both her family’s and her own appearance.

• 21 She is not afraid of snow for her household, For all her household is clothed with scarlet.

She has made sure everyone in the house is clothed warmly for the winter. And indeed, she cares about the appearance. Scarlet was a rare colour, the hardest dye to obtain, so it was a sign of some wealth, some exclusivity. And even though she is so frugal, and so careful, she also cares about beauty, and appearance.

And I love the fact that she also takes care of herself. I mean you would think that if she is getting up so early, and making meals, and making clothes, and travelling, she must look pretty frightening. Hair a mess, the face grimy and haggard, her clothes dowdy, frumpy and ugly. But no, she knows that her husband loves her beauty, and she takes care of that too.

• 22 She makes tapestry for herself; Her clothing is fine linen and purple.

Tapestry here may refer to how she decorates the rooms or the bed. Fine linen and purple speaks of quality clothes. She is not ostentatious or flamboyant, but she is beautiful, dignified, gracious.

Sometimes you meet someone who seems to approximate this, until you realise that her love for her family is actually a kind of idolatry. Because if anything comes in the way of her and her cubs, watch that gracious smile turn into the ice-queen scowl. It looks like love, but believe me, it is love that orbits tightly around her brood, because in the end, her love is actually a love of herself reflected in her children. But this kind of woman is not that way. Look at verse 20:

• 20 She extends her hand to the poor, Yes, she reaches out her hands to the needy.

She has love for her neighbour as well. Her love is ordinate affection because it spills over to the needy, to others in church, to the singles, to the elderly, to those in need. Hers is not a tightly-bound me-and-my-family kind of homemaking. It is a homemaker whose love spills over into hospitality, kindness to others.

She is a vigorous homemaker. She is a virtuous wife. But thirdly,

III. The Vigilant Mother

26 She opens her mouth with wisdom, And on her tongue is the law of kindness. 27 She watches over the ways of her household, And does not eat the bread of idleness. 28 Her children rise up and call her blessed; Her husband also, and he praises her: 29 “Many daughters have done well, But you excel them all.”

Hers is the first voice her children hears, and the voice they will hear most often when in the home. She is the primary teacher of her children, and when she opens her mouth, what comes out? Two things: wisdom, and kindness.

Fathers tend to be about principles and ideals and big picture plans, philosophy and goals. But mothers speak about practical living: kindness, compassion, honesty, considerateness. Mothers speak about wisdom – being sensible, thoughtful, moderate, to pay attention and be aware, to think of consequences. Her mouth is not filled with tearing her husband or her children down, but with wisdom and kindness.

She is vigilant – she watches over the ways of her household. She is thinking of her family and she is like a vigilant shepherd, making sure everyone is fed, clothed, protected, happy. She is looking to her children’s physical, emotional, social, and spiritual health. She protects against threats, and looks for what will nourish. She does not eat the bread of idleness – repeats all we have seen about her vigilance as a homemaker. She is not lazy. She pours out her life for her children.

Now look at what her children say about her:

28 Her children rise up and call her blessed;

As her children mature, as they grow up, especially as they come to saving faith in Christ, they realise what a huge blessing they had at home. They realise that every day of their lives, they witnessed a selfless servant, like Christ, pouring out her life for them. They realise that for many years they returned evil for her good, and like Christ she kept returning good for their evil. They realise she was willing to be in pain, to be disliked, to suffer so that they would have life and life abundantly. They realise that the mother they took for granted and treated so shabbily so often was one of the noblest people they will ever meet. And so they rise up and they call her blessed.

And the husband too, who took her for granted in so many ways, as he also sees what a home she has made, when he sees how his children are thriving and developing, he realises that he has had rubies and gold around him for years.

Her husband also, and he praises her: “Many daughters have done well, But you excel them all.”

And here is how Lemuel’s mother sums it up :

30 Charm is deceitful and beauty is passing, But a woman who fears the LORD, she shall be praised. 31 Give her of the fruit of her hands, And let her own works praise her in the gates.

Wisdom is justified of her children, and the fruit of her life vindicates that she has chosen the right way. Let the woman of the world live for what is passing, but let the woman of the Word live for what is permanent. The born-again, reverent, God-loving woman, she will receive the admiration and the praise that the woman of the world is seeking to get through other means. She knows that she will truly gain her life, truly save her life, when she loses it for Christ’s sake as a mother.

That’s what I believe Paul means in that difficult verse – 1 Timothy 2:15 – where after speaking about a woman not usurping authority in church, and understanding the order of creation, and the order of the Fall, he writes:

15 Nevertheless she will be saved in childbearing if they continue in faith, love, and holiness, with self-control. (1Ti 2:15)

Paul doesn’t mean that motherhood saves a woman from sin and death and hell. The idea is that when God gives a woman marriage and children, and gives herself to it in faith and love and holiness and self-control, it is a calling that best allows a woman to show how God’s saving grace is working in her life. My life is one of contemplating God’s grace in my study. My wife’s life is one of experiencing God’s grace on the run.

The God-fearing woman knows the principle, you must die to live, you must be empty to be full, you must decrease to increase, you must submit to lead, you must surrender to be victorious, you must pour out your life to be truly fulfilled, you must give up your life to gain it. Nothing on Earth represents that Gospel principle better than godly motherhood, being a godly wife, being a godly woman.

The real truth is this. Our boardroom of six people would paint their picture of their ideal woman, and call her liberated, free, and happy. They would call the Proverbs 31 woman in bondage, restricted, and miserable. But the opposite is true, as God’s Word says with authority, and as our experience can verify. The women of the world is more often than not on prescription medication to deal with her depression, guilt and anxiety, she is a slave to her image, and she feels resentful that everyone wants her to be something different.

The Proverbs 31 woman is by no means happy all the day. She suffers. She weeps. She sweats. She groans under the toil. But her life is what Proverbs 4:18 says:

But the path of the just is like the shining sun, That shines ever brighter unto the perfect day.

In these dark days, may her tribe increase.