A Better Way to Read Proverbs 31

She’s elusive, isn’t she? And yet we all know about her. She’s famous for her work and her words….not practically perfect but literally perfect in every way. Hard worker? Check. Awesome cook? Check. Super fit? Check. What else is there….? Giving and generous? Got it. Takes excellent care of her husband and kids? Absolutely. Knows how to sew and work in the garden? For sure. Full of joy. Full of strength. Full of wisdom. Full of praise from her family. Other women have done well…even excellently. But she? She surpasses them all. Who is she? She’s often called “The Proverbs 31 Woman.” She is often found hanging over the heads of women trying to please God, mocking them and their meager attempts at godliness and biblical womanhood. She brings with her an audible groan or visible grimace when brought up in conversation, and her chapter is the one most women dread in their yearly bible reading plan. And yet…should it be this way?

When John and I had been married just under two years, I started a pretty serious study of Proverb 31. I was in graduate school, and although I had excelled as a student I was majorly flunking as a wife. Some would just call it the 5-wing in me, but something had to change. In fact, it had to change drastically. I stopped graduate school and focused on being a wife with the hopes of soon becoming a mother as well. I studied Proverb 31 intensely. How was I to be a godly woman? A godly wife? I knew the secret was found here. In this very chapter. Let’s see…I’m supposed to sew. I’m supposed to garden. I’m supposed to be so good at sewing and so good at gardening that I can even sell my goods and make money. Enter Christmas 2011. I got exactly what I asked for: my first sewing machine. My first collection of thread, needles, and thimbles. I bought special scissors for fabric only. I labeled them, “for fabric only” so there was no chance they’d be damaged by use on mere paper. I was going to be a Proverbs 31 woman! With great fervor I started this endeavor. And within just a few short months it was abundantly clear: I stunk at sewing.

I also found out a lot of other things I pretty much stunk at during this time. Painting? Nope. Gardening? Nope. Crafting and DIY Christmas gifts? Nope. Did I try all of it? Yep. But it was very clear over the course of my months of trying and failing to be a “Proverbs 31 woman” that I just wasn’t gifted for some of these things. Surely God has gifted me, Scripture says in Romans 12, gifts that differ according to God’s varied graces. Gifts provided for the building up of the body, the advancement of God’s kingdom, and for the praise of his glorious grace. And yet.

And yet I wanted to be a godly woman but I couldn’t do all of those things that she did. I’m failing. Right? Wrong. The failure was not in my inability to do a cross-stitch, make homemade jewelry, or grow a perfect squash. The problem was that I was majorly missing the point of the 31st Proverb. 

I didn’t know how to read the Proverbs because I didn’t know anything about wisdom books and their poetic nature or common features. The book of Proverbs begins with several chapters introducing us to wisdom and folly, personified as two different women. Personification, simply put, is giving human characteristics to things that are not human. Phrases like “opportunity is knocking” or “the wind was howling all night” or “that chocolate chip cookie is calling my name” are all examples of personification. Writers use this literary technique to help teach concepts or ideas and especially to help make abstract ideas more concrete. So the book of Proverbs is full of these two characters, wisdom and folly. We learn throughout the book the differences between wisdom and folly, which pleases God and which doesn’t please God, which leads to blessing and honor and which leads to death and destruction. And it’s fitting that the last chapter of the book would be a celebration of wisdom- a culmination of all the characteristics and blessings of a life of wisdom. 

Tim Keller helpfully teaches that Proverbs is not a set of “simple steps to a happy life” for quick consumption. A proverb is a poetic art form that instills wisdom in you as you wrestle with it. Proverbs give up their meaning only cumulatively; no one saying gives you the whole picture. 

Translation- Proverb 31 is not “the simple steps to becoming a godly woman.” I can’t understand Proverb 31 apart from Proverbs 1-30. Even further, I cannot understand Proverb 31 or what it means to be a godly woman in general apart from seeing how it fits into the larger story of the bible as a whole. Therefore, Keller says, like every other part of the Bible, the Proverbs will give up their fullest and richest meaning only when read in the light of the person and work of Jesus. 

Jen Wilkin says that “wisdom literature has a way of showing us in the gaps in our sanctification and prompting us to respond in obedience. It, too, points to our need for redemption and the ongoing work of restoration in the life of a believer.” 

With those thoughts in mind, we look again at Proverb 31. What are the characteristics of godliness as shown in this passage? What are the general principles it teaches? Trustworthiness, doing good and not harm, diligence, providing and caring for others, hard work done with excellence, joy, faith, wisdom and kindness in word and deed. In summary 🡪 the fruit of one who fears the Lord. The take away isn’t sewing or gardening or waking up early (though none of these things are inherently bad) the take away is a life lived fearing the Lord and the good fruit that brings.

And, to quote Tim Keller again, “The New Testament shows us that the kind of relationship with the Lord that Proverbs calls for can be fully realized only through faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ.” 

Jesus, God the Son, God who took on flesh and perfectly embodied the wisdom that we read about in the book of Proverbs. Jesus who never succumbed to the folly of the world but instead perfectly obeyed the perfectly wise Father God. Jesus our older brother who has shown us how to live and has made a way for us to live that way. And so we join with Paul in Colossians 1 and pray, “asking that we would be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” 

This God, he is to be praised! Not the perfect woman who, by the way, doesn’t exist. But the God who saves and sanctifies us and who, by his Holy Spirit, enables us to walk in the way of wisdom, rejecting the way of folly. 

Charm is deceitful and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.