This one is for you. Yeah, you. The guy who rolls his eyes at the suggestion of a workbook for couples. The gal who says, “Nothing” when asked, “What’s wrong?” The husband who uses humor as a shield to deflect against discussion of the things that really matter to him. The wife who withdraws and shuts down because it’s easier to stay silent than it is to speak and not be heard. The woman who wants to talk but sees him pulling away. The man who wants to listen but feels her pressuring him. The man who can’t seem to get it right, and the woman who sees it all done wrong. The man whose ego is so fragile. The woman whose heart is so hard.

This one is for you. The man and the woman who’d die for each other but still somehow feel alone with everything. The couple gazing with adoring eyes in public and walking on eggshells at home. The two who feel so embarrassed trying to talk about what hurts because it’s not that there’s anything wrong, exactly... I mean, life is good and all... you love each other... you really are blessed. These things shouldn’t get to you. You know better. You’re both trying. He doesn’t want to hurt her feelings. She doesn’t want to make him feel bad. They’ve been through so much for each other. They’ve weathered the storms. She feels like she must be such a burden to him. And he can’t bear to see her cry.

Comparatively speaking, their marriage is so much happier and healthier and stronger than most. They see this and recognize this and rejoice in this almost every day. So why does he feel like he can’t do anything right? How come she still cries herself to sleep without letting him know? Why are you reading these words in dead silence, afraid to look at your partner in case you see the resonance in each other’s eyes?

I don't always comment on current events, but when I do... I'm starting my Wesleyan Church History class through Oklahoma Wesleyan University, making my way, as a female ministry student, through another of my education requirements for ordination... taking another step forward into a historically male-dominated arena... observing the current media representation of what it means to be an "empowered woman" these days...

I'm seeing pop-feminism absorbed in pursuit of worldly things... more money, more power, more attention, more self-esteem... And I'm reading story after story about the women of my denominational heritage, women who stepped gracefully into their kingdom value and made history not just for women, but for the world. I'm reading about women who opened their homes to the Underground Railroad... women who taught and nursed and led through a war that tore us in half... women who faced the same threats we face and threats we can't imagine living with in America today... women who walked into slander, courts, prisons, and battle zones to save lives and spirits... women who actualized public discourse on women's rights to do things women were already going to do anyway because they were our God-given strengths.

The textbooks don't paint the full picture, of course. We don't know everything about what was said or who was involved or how they went about it or how many bitter tears were cried. But I've gotta tell ya... of those women who, say, traveled to the first Women's Rights Convention, fostered in a little Wesleyan chapel in New York in 1848... just sayin'... I'm guessing those women did not show up in vagina costumes, threatening to blow up our nation, screaming slurs against our President or calling our First Lady a stupid b****.

“Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.” (Proverbs 31:30)

L​et’s jump back to Proverbs 31 for just a moment. What is it about the wife of noble character? What is it about her that sets her apart from the other wives? Right at the end of the chapter, she’s told, “Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all.” Doing noble things is not the same as being a wife of noble character. What’s the difference? What does it say in the next verse? “Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.”

Previous

A woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. That is the difference maker. That is the difference between doing noble things, and being a person of character. The ideal that God speaks into our lives through the Proverbs 31 woman is a description of a woman who fears the Lord.

This is where some of those inductive Bible study habits we talked about before can continue to come in very usefully, especially in terms of word study, when we run into a word in the Bible that rubs us the wrong way. What does it mean to be a woman who “fears the Lord”? If God is a God of love, why should we “fear” Him? That's the kind of biblical word usage that can get an uppity Americanized gal like myself all up in arms. This woman lives in fear of no one, mister!

See, we tend to read our interpretations right into the text without question, and that’s where we miss the boat on a lot of Scriptural relevance. Why would we consult a concordance for a word like fear? We know darn well what fear means.

But... that’s kind of the problem. We force our understanding onto the text, instead of allowing the text to speak to us in the context of the original language. The word fear in Proverbs 31:30 in today’s Bible is the closest we can get to the original Hebrew word yare’. Most of us don’t speak Hebrew, but with a brief survey of biblical usage, we can quickly see our word fear used in different contexts. The thing is, we actually have to look at the word usage in order to see the contexts forming, and that seems like way too much work for some of us.

Now, we’re going to look at a part of Proverbs 31, and this is going to hit different people at different levels. Some of you already know this passage very, very well, and some of you have never heard it before. Some of you are going to feel very uncomfortable about this because you’re not a woman, you’re not a wife, you’re not a mother, it might make you feel like a complete failure at life, you might wonder what the heck I have to say to you through this…

Previous <<< Leave It On the Side of the Road: Ideals, Identity, and Character Issues (Part Two)
 
So remember our application point. This is where we’re going: A noble character finds identity in Christ. That is a point that applies to all of us, and if you stick with me, I promise we will get there.
 
First, we’re going to read Proverbs 31:10-31. It’s a long one, but it is very worth your time. The passage is titled “The Wife of Noble Character,” and it goes like this:
 
10 A wife of noble character who can find?
    She is worth far more than rubies.
11 Her husband has full confidence in her
    and lacks nothing of value.
12 She brings him good, not harm,
    all the days of her life.
13 She selects wool and flax
    and works with eager hands.
14 She is like the merchant ships,
    bringing her food from afar.
15 She gets up while it is still night;
    she provides food for her family
    and portions for her female servants.
16 She considers a field and buys it;
    out of her earnings she plants a vineyard.
17 She sets about her work vigorously;
    her arms are strong for her tasks.
18 She sees that her trading is profitable,
    and her lamp does not go out at night.
19 In her hand she holds the distaff
    and grasps the spindle with her fingers.
20 She opens her arms to the poor
    and extends her hands to the needy.
21 When it snows, she has no fear for her household;
    for all of them are clothed in scarlet.
22 She makes coverings for her bed;
    she is clothed in fine linen and purple.
23 Her husband is respected at the city gate,
    where he takes his seat among the elders of the land.
24 She makes linen garments and sells them,
    and supplies the merchants with sashes.
25 She is clothed with strength and dignity;
    she can laugh at the days to come.
26 She speaks with wisdom,
    and faithful instruction is on her tongue.
27 She watches over the affairs of her household
    and does not eat the bread of idleness.
28 Her children arise and call her blessed;
    her husband also, and he praises her:
29 “Many women do noble things,
    but you surpass them all.”
30 Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting;
    but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.
31 Honor her for all that her hands have done,
    and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.
 
Take a few minutes to go back and read that again, another time or two. This is what noble character looks like, biblically speaking. God spoke this ideal into my life at a time when I had no idea what it looked like to be a person of character. Just like the Spirit spoke to me through the prayer of Saint Francis, the Spirit spoke to me through the story of Ruth and through Proverbs 31. This ideal filled in all the holes in my idea of my identity. This passage showed me what God had for me instead.

"She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life." (Proverbs 31:12)

See if you can spot what’s wrong in this exchange: one Sunday morning, in the foyer at church, I ran into an acquaintance from back in high school. She raved about my outfit and then asked, “Where did you get it?” I said, “I don’t know, my husband picked it out for me.” She stared at me like I’d just grown another head and said, “You actually let a man make fashion choices for you?”
 
Did you catch that? I managed to laugh it off at the time, although I’m sure I gave her a strange look—since, after all, she’d just gotten done complimenting my husband’s “fashion choices.” But another week, another woman came along with another comment I didn’t brush away so easily. This lovely lady and I already knew we didn’t see eye to eye on some things, but hey, we were civil enough most of the time.
 
This one day, though, maybe it was because she and I and a group of others had spent the whole morning at a church volunteer training, and we were already wearing on each other. Maybe it was because she’d been taking cutesy little pot shots at me the whole time, questioning my connections and my cooking skills and my upbringing. Maybe I was already a little on edge by the time I was chatting with another individual in the group about a home improvement project my husband and I were working on, only to be loudly interrupted by this woman. Completely unbidden, with her very best wide-eyed look of shocked condescension, she cried out, “And you actually trust your husband to do that?”

Now the question remains, what does it mean to “love with actions and in truth”? Again, we can look to the immediate context around 1 John 3:18 to help answer this question for us. Right in the previous verse, in 1 John 3:17, John presents a clear benchmark for his original audience that stands for us as believers today: “If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person?”

Previous <<< It's All in the Family: Love is an Action, Not a Feeling (Part Two)

Remember, John points to the sacrifice of Christ, on behalf of God’s children, as the measure by which love for “brothers and sisters” should be shown. As fellow believers—as God’s children—we Christians today are called to the same sacrificial love for our brothers and sisters in Christ. The contrast between those who “know” Christ and those who “claim” to know Christ directs us to share in this sort of sacrificial love among our brothers and sisters, specifically, loving our family of believers in the same way as we would act on behalf of members of our own household in an ideal state.

That is what John tells us is the differentiating factor between us Christians and the rest of the world. We give of ourselves to “a brother or sister in need” just as Christ gave of Himself for us, caring for one another as fellow believers in Christ just as we would care for our own blood relatives if we loved them the way God wants us to love. Throughout this entire epistle, John’s use of those familial references in terms of loving one another drives home the kind of love he pictures within the church. Verse 3:17 puts that love into tangible perspective, tying the emotional connection among believers with an active outcome of love for Christ: if we love God, then we love each other, and if we love each other, we take care of each other. As members of God’s family, as brothers and sisters in Christ, we sacrifice for one another.

What does that mean? John tells us plain as day in 3:17: if there are those among us who are in need, and we are not taking care of them, then we are not doing what is right, and we are not living in the love of Christ. And if we are not loving each other, if we are not caring for our brothers and sisters, then how can we call ourselves children of God?

Not so long ago, when I was just taking my first couple of stumbling steps toward faith, I was driving down the road one day when I received a phone call from a friend. In a matter of moments, I learned my friend's ex was coming over, the ex was hysterical and vindictive, and my friend said, "I need a spotter."

My first question was honest enough: "And you want me there?!"

I couldn't see my presence adding anything other than fuel to the fire. But I didn't have time to weigh the repercussions. It was a God moment. Before I knew I was going to do it, I was turning my car around to head for my friend's house. I was driving directly into an explosion, and it was going to be ugly, and I had no idea why my friend had called me—of all people on earth, why me?—but my friend asked me to be there, and so I went.

It was ugly. There was an explosion. I didn't say a word. I stood there. It was awful. And I knew if I hadn't been standing there, it would have been so much worse.

After the dust cleared, after the police statements were made, I sat with my friend for hours, looking at the prospect of trying to put a life back together. And my friend said, "If you hadn't been standing there, it would have been so much worse."

I didn't do anything. I didn't say anything. Physical presence was the only thing I had to add to my friend's life at the moment. Showing up and letting myself be seen in that moment was one of the most dreadful, most meaningful moves I've ever made. I felt terribly inadequate, horribly exposed, completely out of place, awkward and intrusive beyond compare, and 100% thankful I was there for my friend. Being there was enough.