My pastor's sermon this morning was about the Proverbs 31 woman...what do you ladies out there think, believe, feel about the Proverbs 31 woman and the sermons you have heard about her?
6 years ago
Sunday, May 18, 2008
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I have no problem with Proverbs 31, of course. But I think this text is isolated far too often as the catch all description of godly womanhood. Lots of good writing and insight have come from this short chapter, but I'm afraid it has been misused to induce a fair amount of guilt--mostly in small groups of women who torture themselves with measuring up to the details of the passage.
I find it a bit interesting that Proverbs 31 goes into all this detail that we feel are great principles for every woman to aspire to and it's follow by Ecclesiastes that begins with, "Vanity of vanities," says the Preacher, "Vanity of vanities! All is vanity."
Maybe there is a similar "principle" at play here as there is in Hebrews 11 and 12, where the writer lists a bunch of huge figures of faith and concludes with Hebrews 12:2, "fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith..."
It's also true that this chapter was "authored" in part by a mother describing the wife she wanted for her daughter-in-law. It's almost a game of MASH for her son in regards to marriage. Why shouldn't she wish a mansion on her son? I don't blame her a bit.
Oops. I should have written, "the woman she wanted as her daughter-in-law."
crystal,
that's so interesting that this passage was authored by a mother! wow, i'll have to go back and read it again with that in mind!
ylife,
can you expand a little bit on the principle you are referring to?
I'm just trying to say that in Hebrews 12, instead of saying that we should "fix our eyes on these incredible faith figures and do what they did," the writer sums up everything by saying, "fix our eyes on Jesus."
I think there is a reason God had Ecclesiastes follow Proverbs. Proverbs is one of those books that many people just take and find the principles to apply to their lives and will try hard to measure up to what they think it means to be godly. The pinnacle of this being chapter 31 that many women have found binding on their lives as they restlessly attempted to live up to all of the things listed so that they will become a "godly woman."
Ecclesiastes comes in just in time to say that no matter what we do, if it's not in faith (i.e. with our eyes fixed solely on Jesus), then it's all in vain or "meaningless" as the NIV translates it.
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