A Second Letter

Rachael,
  I’ve been thinking more about the question of what it means to truly do good and not harm to our husbands. I expounded a lot last time on what it means to make our hearts trustworthy and therefore be prepared to follow his leadership, but the verse that follows is interesting and complicated as well. Examining the idea of what it means to “do good, and not harm all the days of [our lives]” can be intimidating simply because the command is so vague. Certainly the rest of the chapter, in some ways, alludes to the actual answer of what it means to ‘do good,‘ but is there a direct or specific response that should form in our hearts as a gospel-centered answer to this somewhat moralistic demand?   
I put this same question before my Pastor, Brad, the other day; his answer to what it means to look at this passage from the perspective of seeing and applying the gospel in it was very encouraging. He stated that looking at a passage like this as gospel-centered doesn’t always mean that we must find the exact wording of the gospel in it, nor does it mean that we must drain it of its moralism or alignment with the law. Rather, looking at the out-workings of the law in the passage and understanding that Christ has fulfilled the law for us and now the righteousness of Christ, having been imputed to us, gives us claim to the perfection exemplified in the Proverbs 31 woman. Simply put, positionally we are the Proverbs 31 woman via the righteousness of Christ and where we don’t see ourselves lining up with the actions or the heart of that woman, it is because we are living in opposition to who we truly are in the gospel. That is when the questions of the false gospels we believe and the idols we worship may arise: once the positional righteousness of us as a woman of excellence is proclaimed and the lies of the flesh are exposed. How much more vigor will we possess then in digging out the roots of those false gospels that keep us from being the Proverbs 31 woman Christ has already secured us to be if we first deeply understand the reality that this gospel message is true?! I thank God he spoke through Brad to remind me of the truth of God’s Word in regard to this message of positional righteousness; how freeing it felt to continue studying the ways of the Proverbs 31 woman having grappled with these profound truths yet again. God is so gracious in the way He walks us through his word!
With that in mind, I returned to the verse 12 of Proverbs 31 by means of comparing the passage with others that are explicitly directed toward the heart of a woman. So, my journey for understanding truly began by seeking the ‘fear of the Lord’ (Prov 9:10) as my path toward insight in I Peter 3. There is so much that could be said concerning this passage and the conduct of a God-fearing woman, but that would take another 6 weeks to expound.

What primarily caught my attention in this passage were verses 5 & 6.

“For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord. And you are her children, if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening.”

Here you and I sit, studying a specific “holy woman” of the Old Testament: the Proverbs 31 woman. She may not have been a person in that the author of this passage wrote a biographical piece concerning her contributions to the Jewish lineage as Moses did of Sarah, but she is a faithful woman of old to be sure. We see that she is like Sarah also in that her conduct is one that reflects a woman respecting her husband, “calling him lord” as she “adorn[s herself], by submitting to her own husband.” How interesting too, that Sarah, who is given as our example in I Peter, was one whose mistakes are readily displayed in Genesis. At times she followed Abraham into sin (Gen 12:10-18, Gen 20), other times she led him into sin (Gen 16), and still more, there were times when she laughed in the face of God’s covenant promises (Gen 18:9-15). Yet, Sarah is still upheld in scripture as an example of a woman who submitted to and respected her husband, and by so doing, displayed her fear of the Lord. What a blessing to have the entirety of such a woman exposed before us! We are able to see the beauty of walking in obedience to God and his precepts as well as view Sarah’s testimony to the redemptive and intervening work of our Heavenly Father. As we study marriage and what it means to be a godly wife, there will always be a temptation to hold ourselves to high standards and then become vastly frustrated when we fail. This stems out of a wrong belief about God, namely that he is not a gracious God and that he only uses and loves those who “succeed” by human measures. Clearly, God graciously allows us to become examples of godliness, as he used Sarah for such, in spite of our sin. Let this reality then, rather than push us toward whaling defeat, set us forth on a path toward godliness with still greater vigilance.
The next portion of the verse brings us to the deepest and most comforting connection I found between I Peter 3 and Proverbs 31. Peter ends his address to the women by stating, “... do good and do not fear anything that is frightening” (I Peter 3:6). This same phrase “do good” is what has been so heavily debated in my mind as I have studied Proverbs 31. Here, Peter gives the answer to the question, “what does it mean to ‘do good and not harm’?” The answer is most simply that we “do not fear anything that is frightening.” He leaves the specifics a woman might desire from him behind and instead allows the ambiguity of this command to encapsulate all the things we may fear at all different life stages. We are not to fear the future, though it is frightening. We are not to fear being vulnerable before the husband God gave us, though it is frightening. We are not to fear aging, though it is frightening. We are not to fear the power of other women judging or gossiping about us or our husband, though it is frightening. We are not to fear the future of our children, though it is frightening. We are not to fear others rejecting the gospel, though it is frightening. The list could go on forever with things of earth that frighten, but the point is clear; to do good to our husbands means to reject a fear of earthly things over which God has complete control. What a breathtaking reality check-- the thing that will do our husband “good and not harm all the days of [our lives]” is as simple and as complex as not succumbing to futile fears. It is easy to believe that in order to do good to my husband I must become the wife who most clearly exudes the supportive “cheerleader” spirit for him, or that I must be the most knowledgeable woman concerning the Word of God or know how to perfectly communicate with him. Instead, these passages teach us that those wonderful blessings spring forth out of the diligent work on “not fearing what is frightening.”
There is an added blessing in this principle also, that I, in my singleness, may readily   attend to this command by the grace of God. All women at any stage of life ought to pursue “not fearing what is frightening.” If I take advantage of the time I have now to practice not fearing what the future may hold, how much more naturally and quickly will that notion come to me in the years ahead if it is something the Lord has instilled in me in years past. Even this week I have felt myself struggle to grapple with this concept. It is second nature for me to embrace anxiety, and by that, do harm to myself, those who surround me, and most probably my future spouse. This is not the proper out-workings of studying scriptures on holy womanhood! These scriptures should propel me toward repentance and security in Christ alone. Even as I say that this should be the reality, my heart struggles to relent of its previously acquired fear because it feels so natural and all of culture (both within and without the church) endorse such fears. Thus, I am forced to examine the more deeply laid root than culture or the natural fears of the world. To what absurd false gospel does my heart now cling? The moments when I feel the most overwhelming emotion of panic are those times when I reflect on the sins of my past and the embarrassment that they caused me; those times when I sinned greatly before God and others-- often out of my own fear-- and thus estranged my relationship with men in the past. How often this creeps into my mind wavers from time to time in direct relation to how deeply rooted my trust in the Lord is at the moment. But, there are often fleeting moments of panic as I contemplate how my fears brought harm to the men of my past as I sense that these fears most clearly pushed them away from me. Often I am left believing that my sin in the circumstances ended all hope for a relationship that could have developed ‘once upon a time.’ My false belief is that my sin possesses greater sovereignty than God Himself, when in reality God graciously allows my sin to wield for me a path through life that directs me more clearly toward an understanding of His sovereign hand in my life that ultimately leads to the restoration of my weary soul. God has perfectly planned my days to increase my worship of him and to sanctify me in a marriage that will be better than that which I imagined for myself and the men that possess my past.
Secondly, there is a belief within my soul that, though marriage is possible and good for me, the Lord does not hasten to secure it for me and instead leaves me wandering aimlessly in poor, depraved city of Columbus, Ohio. Here my beliefs about singleness are exposed: I do not view it as a gift but as an futile in-between period in my life, and that something better will come along if God would only hurry to make it a reality. There is no hope for me to find contentment in God in my future if I do not first seek contentment in him right now. So, this will be my prayer in weeks to come: that I would seek with great earnestness the beliefs that lay siege on my soul, that rob me of my contentment in Christ and the freedom to “not fear what is frightening” so that I may better work out the practicalities of doing good and not harm all the days of my life, by the unending grace of our heavenly Father for the greater glory of his name!

Letters to a friend

Last year around this time I began emailing back and forth with my dear friend, Rachael about Proverbs 31. After reflecting on those conversations, I would really love to share the fruit of them with others. So, the posts that follow the next few weeks are the emails sent back and forth between the two of us with as many typos removed as I am able to find :) 


Dear Rachael, 
        I have been so amazed by the truths encapsulated in Proverbs 31 recently! I pray that these truths sit hard on our hearts and push us toward becoming more transformed by the message of the gospel they set forth; may true womanly godliness be the natural consequence of our meditations on this text. As the Lord purposes that we live these virtues out, may we do so with exceeding joy, for in Him-- his gospel and his character-- there is fullness of joy.

To begin, I have been narrowly meditating on the first three verses:
“An excellent wife who can find?
She is far more precious than jewels.
The heart of her husband trusts in her,
and he will have no lack of gain.
She does him good and not harm,
all the days of her life.” (ESV)


“Who can find a virtuous woman! for her price is above rubies.
The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her,
so that he shall have no need of spoil.
She will do him good, and not evil, all the days of her life.” (KJV)

Upon sitting down to memorize this near a month ago now, I prayed with all urgency that the Spirit would permit me the wisdom to truly see this passage in light of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Too often is this passage painted as one scripted to intimidate women into moral-ism and slavery toward the home and husband. Or, to contrast this view, there is proposed a vision of this passage merely as another personification of lady wisdom. This is often used to excuse women from feeling the weightiness of pursing godly character that should encourage their husband, children, servants (or those whom they train up in ministry), and the church’s pursuit of God. It is thought to be a passage that is simply “too much” for the average Christian woman to handle. Therein lies the gospel message! It is too much. I cannot attain such noble character of my own accord, or even of my own choosing. How breathtaking is it then that the passage begins by proclaiming such a message:  
“An excellent wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels.”    
First, the passage notes that  man cannot find a woman such as this. It does not say why man cannot find her on his own, simply that he cannot; it is not within his power nor his right to find such a women. So, it is not her godliness nor her moral character that keep her from being found, but rather that God must first do the “finding” for “she is from the Lord” (19:14).
What then does it say about the woman who God finds? “She is far more precious than jewels.” If a jewel is that to which the woman is compared, what do we know of jewels? (1) Jewels, also, are not easy to spot. As Matt Chandler so comically said in his “Sanctification and Marriage” sermon, no one goes walking through a field, stumbles across something and then simply says, ‘Look! A ruby!’ No-- jewels are hidden beneath the earth and clay. They are dug for amongst the mire and the muck of the thickened surface of the earth. One must work diligently, even if the location of the jewel is known, to unearth such a treasure. And so, the Spirit of God digs through the dust and dirt of our lives and of our flesh to pursue the jewel he has already created to reflect the beauty of His grace. (2) Once the jewel is acquired, it does not immediately realize its full precious value. Certainly its ultimate worth is great, but in the moment it is extracted from its former dwelling place, the earth, its beauty is not seen, nor is it prepared to be cared for by hands other than those which know exactly how to make it worthy of its perfect purpose. The jewel must be washed clean, cut and refined, and sometimes scorched by the flames that bring it to dazzling newness of life. Then, and only then, can the jewel’s precious value be observed by the one to whom she is given. (3) The jewel is at this point sold or entrusted to the care of one who will admire her, awaken her beauty, and simultaneously ensure her continued care and refinement. It is in this phase of life that the jewel is both tested and greatly praised. Yet again we meet the gospel message from whence the remainder of this passage proceeds: we are the jewel pursued and polished by our Lord. He then gives us to a ministry, a people, and (most probably) a husband who could not find us or accept us on their own so that we may be better tested and enjoyed in this world.
It is from the overflow of the gospel that both the woman of virtue and her husband understand that “the heart of her husband trusts in her.” I love the way the King James puts it, “doth safely trust in her.” It is as if the scripture translation denotes that she is a safe-house and as such, he is wise to confide in her. Though he is deemed the initiator in other parts of scripture we see here that the man initiates the action of placing his trust in her, but she must first prepare the safe place in which his trust may be put. She does not initiate the movement, she is prepared for it and responds appropriately when the action occurs. However, has no preparation been done to make ready the heart in which the husband ought to place his trust, no initiating action may be had, and both the man and the woman are left unsatisfied with the union they share.

How easily this pattern creeps into our hearts-- the notion that I must hold back until he initiates, the deprecating response toward the man that he has failed because I sat waiting for him to initiate but he never moved. Could it be that my heart was stone-cold and unprepared to house his trust? Was his lack of  movement toward me attributed to the untrustworthiness of the home my heart ought to be for the man to whom I am called? What challenge this will be in marriage! It is clear that our calling as wives is to live out the gospel by faithfully allowing our hearts to be open to the initiation of our husband toward us, just as our hearts must remain open to the sacrifice and leadership of Christ, the Head of the Church. It is in this imitation of our relationship with Christ that “he feels his comfort to be regarded, his burden relieved, and his mind exempted from many teasing vexations” (Charles Bridges).

What then does it look like to prepare our hearts to become the home of the man we love? Charles Bridges points out in him commentary that this woman is one who, “instead of abusing confidence, she only seeks to make herself daily more worthy of it, not fretful and uncertain, caring ‘how she may please her husband’ (I Cor 7:34)” (Bridges). She seeks first her own rootedness in the gospel each day. Then, she seeks to ‘please’ her husband-- which is done by respecting him and choosing to cast her burdens on the Lord and not on him, thus leaving behind fretfulness and nagging notions.
It is then that this woman may “do him good and not evil, all the days of her life.” There is much temptation to do the man evil, or, as Bridges says, do the man a mixture of evil and good. There is also much evidence of these things all throughout scripture. Bridges sights a number of them, all from women of virtue: Sarah gives Hagar to Abraham to fulfill the promises of God in opposition to the way God had set forth, Eve offers Adam the forbidden fruit, Solomon’s many wives “[drew] away his heart,’ Job’s wife called him to ‘curse God and die,’ Rebekah deceived Isaac to bless her favorite son, Rachel brought idolatry to their family, and the list could continue. The point is, noble women of the scriptures have been tempted and failed to do good to their husband also, but God still chose to do mighty works through them; there is much grace in the presence of God. The ultimate realization of the gospel and its power in our lives or our husbands lives does not rest in our hands. We are privileged enough to live out an image of the gospel because God has greatly blessed us, and by His power we may continue to depict that image by doing our husband good--namely opening our heart to him as a home in which he may build up confidence, and space wherein he may lead and initiate. When we see that it is by God’s power that we do these things we may also do them “without grumbling or complaining.” As Bridges takes note, “Even if her minute attentions to this object are not always noticed, yet never will she harbor the suspicion of indifference or unkindness, nor will she return fancied neglect with sullenness, or by affected or morbid sensibility force on a feverish interchange of expression, which has little substantial foundation.” Negating these tendencies is the true testimony of God’s intervening work in this woman. The foolish woman is one who “with her own hands tears [the house] down” (14:1). If we can carry on this illustration, her home- and her husband’s home- is the confines of her welcoming heart. If she turns her heart against him and leaves it not open and welcoming as a safe-house in which he may initiate his leadership, she, by her own hands, tears down the house. In contrast, as she opens her heart with the willingness to bequeath him kindness and assumes he will initiate a trustful relationship with her, so then she is welcomed toward the beauty of submission and conclusively the demonstration of the gospel message in her life.
How might a single woman take and apply these truths? I would presume my first object must be to deepen my understanding of that first verse and all that it means to be “more precious than jewels.” It is of great importance that before I walk into marriage, the deepening of understanding my worth is in Christ is a recognized and regularly pursued. The depths of this truth can never be breached, but beginning the journey grants marriage a solid foundation on which to stand. Second, it is of great importance that it is recognized that it is God who found me and rescued me from the miry clay of this earth, and it is God who has the liberty of entrusting me to another while in this world. He may, he may not. Should he choose not to give me away, why should I fret? I then remain in the hands of my master and am enjoy, admired, and praised by him. Whose admiration could be more pure and more full than the Creator God? And if he should grant me a husband, it is profoundly significant that I remember that I was given to him by God. It was an intentional act by the almighty sovereign God of the universe that put me in the place of a woman who is commanded to open her heart to safely house the heart of that man. This perspective will, hopefully, relieve me of the opportunity to question the plans and abilities of this man to whom I am given. So, I must begin to practice and pray that I will speak well of and do well to the man who is in my future.

Holy, Trustworthy

Written during the Christmas holidays:


Nothing thwarts the soul quite like the unassuming, unexpected anguish which propels us into that blinding spiritual dry spell just before the Christmas holiday. Circumstances. They drag us to this unprotected cell of being far too easily, don’t they? As a church body we have been beckoned into a time of trial. I, myself, can hear continually the annoying tapping, dripping, clawing, scratching of the wicked soul inside of me searching for its escape. There are moments that I feel almost nauseous, pushing away at unrighteousness and praying for the strength to even come to desire what is good. Not that this battle does not rage all year; it does. Simply put, I feel the weight of it far more right now.
Last year, as I was muddling through a completely different kind of pain, the Lord blessed me with a prayer that communicated more than I was able to put to words-- that being Mary’s prayer as she greets Elizabeth in Luke, chapter one. Before simply jumping into the prayer life of Mary (and reverently regarding her as a sinless worshiper of God as it may appear by just looking at this sinless payer transposed by the Holy Spirit into Scripture), look at Mary and Elizabeth’s circumstances.
Elizabeth was a lowly, barren woman in first century Rome. Not only did she lose all opportunity for status among her peers due to being unable to acquire for her husband an heir to his work, she lacked modern medicine to help her through the healing process of this breaking news. We are told Elizabeth is barren. Often, we forget how Elizabeth was told she would never bare children. She did not open the Bible to a particular verse one day and discover that her womb had been closed by God. She knew she was barren because she had tried to have children and had done so unsuccessfully. Perhaps she had been pregnant before. Maybe even a number of times. The pain of losing a child without medicine, guidance, or someone else there to bear with her as she clung to the last evidences of life may have been something through which she had to learn to trust the Lord. And, whether she lost a child in pregnancy or not, we know for certain that there was no one around to whom she could look to identify the source of her medically complex issues.
The lack of medicine may be perceived as a blessing or a curse. No doctor was available to tell her that something, some sin she had committed in the past, provoked her body to the point at which it was no longer fit to carry a child to full term. No one could conceivably leave her wondering if she had tried the wrong diet, gotten too much exercise or too little, torn her body in some previous physically laborious task. No one was there to make her think she had married the wrong man, the one whose DNA did not match hers or the one who didn’t have the money to see the specialist she needed to find whatever small and exhaustively expensive route to pregnancy she could. But, she, Elizabeth, was there with the full knowledge that she could not bare a child. She was there to blame herself, to despise the design of her body that kept her, until she was advanced in years, from playing the role she was “meant” to play in society and in her marriage. Imagine what her day was like, without the cultural consensus that she could be out in the village throughout the day, working a  job, and without children at home to raise.
Women have always naturally fractioned around life phases into more secluded friendships. Who would Elizabeth’s friends have been? We are left to infer that there was no one who quite had her circumstances in this particular village of Judah; therefore, there was not a single woman of her years and stature who also had such little direction on how to spend her time or ways to join in the discussion on the morning run to the well.
And yet, we are told that she was “righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord” (Luke 1:6). We also have the opportunity to see this as she interacts with Mary at the end of the chapter. She is blameless not because she is sinless but because something as marvelous as the Holy Spirit graciously coming upon her to speak to the young mother, Mary, in her time of need happened to her even before the death of Christ and indwelling work of the Spirit in all those who believe. She speaks to her by saying, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” (Luke 1:42-43). She is so controlled by the grace and truth of the Holy Spirit that she is empowered to speak such words! How marvelous that the woman who waited for the miracle of childbirth until her old age looks on her young cousin who has become pregnant without ever trying and blesses her without a trace of jealousy.
Elizabeth even proclaims that this other woman’s pregnancy is far greater and more a miracle than her own. There is no pride in her own child, but in the Lord she knows is coming. She does not care more for her own pregnancy, instead she cares far more that Mary has blessed her by choosing Elizabeth’s home as her own for the coming months. She is not exhausted by the idea that she must care for this young woman, helping Mary through her morning sickness and ignoring her own, birthing her first child and then immediately setting to work to be sure that Mary’s pregnancy is as smooth as possible, because it is she who carries the Lord.
What grace upon grace has possessed this woman? Surely it must be the years of waiting and understanding that the Lord has the best plan, that children are not our God, that what we want, have, or do with our time is not, in the end, that which defines us before the Lord. She is free from this idol so that she may serve Mary and ultimately her Lord and savior.  
Then enters Mary. We always seem to find ourselves at this time of year speculating on how Mary must have felt, a very young, virgin, unmarried woman cast out of her hometown because she was pregnant and unable to explain that it was the Lord’s doing by his Holy Spirit. But, today, grant me the liberty of instead considering what her relationship with Elizabeth may have been like: Imagine for a moment that you are a young high school girl who, though this was not Mary’s exact circumstances, accidentally finds yourself pregnant. Your parents do not want your bad reputation in their house so you’re left with the only option of showing up at your older brother and sister-in-law’s house. This is uncomfortable, not because they’re unwelcoming of you, but because they’ve spent the last ten years trying everything thing they can to conceive a child. You know that they have finally arranged for an adoption that looks like it will go through, but you must now accept the help and care of your barren sister-in-law. How quickly could every little thing you talk about become uncomfortable? Complaining about your circumstances is rapidly pushed off the docket.

No, this was not the basis of the relationship between Mary and Elizabeth. By God’s amazing grace, he had orchestrated that Elizabeth become pregnant just before Mary arrived. And, Mary’s pregnancy was not unwanted or accidental, she was to bare the Christ-child. However, the background of these two women, their previous thoughts and wishes surrounding pregnancy must have dictated their day-to-day relationship quite a lot. But, as we see the women interact in scripture, we find them praising God for the plan he has provided; their circumstances are a privilege through which they may better praise the Lord!

Here is Mary’s prayer alongside the ways in which it has helped to dictate and redefine my thinking about the Lord this season:

“My soul magnifies the Lord,

and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.

She already recognizes that he is her savior. Not being a woman of high-rank, she knows the scriptures that promise  a savior, though she most likely is unable to read them and meditate on them on her own.

“for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.

She states the extent of her own depth of sin. Mary knows and acknowledges that she was not chosen to carry this child or raise him because of her acceptable way of life; she was chosen because God “looked on her humble estate” and had mercy on her.

“For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed;

for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name.

She recognizes that she is being blessed, not cursed. Alongside that, she pulls into the forefront of her praise that God is mighty, that he is in control of her circumstances and all the ways of the world and could have performed this miracle any other way he so desired. Yet, with his might, the Lord has done “great things” for her. She is speaking of things that the Lord has already “done”. She is not looking at the future and hopefully wishing for things to work out even though everything looks pretty drab and dreary at the moment. She knows that what he has done, what he has accomplished with the pregnancy and even before in her poor, little village of Nazareth,  are "great things”. He has impregnated her before her “time” and by this, allowed her to carry the savior into the World.

“And his mercy is for those who fear him

from generation to generation.

He has shown strength with his arm;

he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts

he has brought down the mighty from their thrones

and exalted those of humble estate;

he has filled the hungry with good things,

and the rich he has sent away empty.

He has helped his servant Israel,

in remembrance of his mercy,

as he spoke to our fathers,

to Abraham and to his offspring forever.”

Mary is quick to recognize that this gift of a savior is only brought through her to her people because it is “in remembrance of [God’s own] mercy”. He has promised it and is completing all that he has said, so as to make his own name great. As he does so, he brings joy and life to those who fear him, he fills them will good things (note that it does not say that he fills the hungry with food as we might assume would follow that line of thought. He fills them with all that heaven provides). God looks on the humble estate of his beloved children and grants them mercy forevermore.

Therein lies the movement provided by such a prayer; we are left in a humble estate-- if we can’t feel it in our hearts, the Lord lets our circumstances reveal it each and every day. And yet, though we are wicked and imperfect in our response to such things, as both these women no doubt were, God looks on us as blameless and humble by the righteousness of His son and allows our circumstances to speak to his work for “the remembrance of his mercy”. May we be helped this season by the examining of the depth to which these women faced the pains of this earth and its sin together. Furthermore, they were the dearest of friends, companions, and worshippers despite their differences and opportunities for jealousy and strife.