Proverbs 31
June 17, 2013
Every wife will either build the home or tear it down (14:1). If she walks with the Lord, she will be a builder; if she disobeys God's wisdom, she will be a destroyer. She must be faithful to her husband, for "A wife of noble character is her husband's crown, but a disgraceful wife is like decay in his bones" (12:4, niv). A crown or a cancer: Wow, what a choice! And beauty isn't the only thing he should look for; it's also important that a wife have wisdom and discretion (11:22).
Chapter 31 gives one of the best descriptions of the ideal wife. This poem is an acrostic with the initial words of the twenty-two verses all beginning with successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet. This acrostic form was a device to help people commit the passage to memory. Maybe Jewish parents instructed their sons and daughters to memorize this poem and use it as a guide for their lives and in their homes. Here are some of the characteristics of a godly wife…
She is a woman of character
She's not afraid to work
She is a generous person
She is a support for her husband making it easy for him to do his work.
She is an attentive overseer of the household
She's a woman worthy of praise
Her life is a testimony to others
This tribute to the godly wife and mother tells every Christian woman what she can become if she follows the Lord.
It also describes for every Christian man the kind of wife he should be looking for. But it also reminds the prospective husband that he'd better be walking with the Lord and growing in his spiritual life so that he will be worthy of such a wife if and when God brings her to him.