A Virtuous Woman - One Year Devotions for Men
Who can find a virtuous and capable wife? She is worth more than precious rubies. - Proverbs 31:10
Naomi Wolf wrote in a recent book, “There are no good girls; we are all bad girls.” She went on to suggest that, since this is the case, women should admit it, society should accept it, and everybody should get on with their lives. Presumably, traditional thoughts of feminine virtue and decorum, grace, and beauty should be jettisoned, and women should be allowed to behave like—well, like men!
Should that happen, the search for a virtuous woman will become even more of a challenge than it apparently was in the days that the book of Proverbs was written. There we read, “Who can find a virtuous and capable wife?” (Prov. 31:10). Given her stated worth as being “more precious than rubies,” it appears that there were not enough “virtuous and capable” women to go around. But men were nevertheless well-advised to search for such a woman, because a virtuous and capable woman’s “husband can trust her, and she will greatly enrich his life. She will not hinder him but help him all her life” (31:12).
As this “Proverbs 31” woman is described, her virtues and capabilities come clearly to the fore. In fact, she appears to be a superwoman. It is no wonder that such a woman, once discovered, would be a precious treasure! Perhaps no one woman is expected to display all the characteristics of the woman described here. Her trustworthiness, her industry, her foresight, her wisdom, her generosity, her reputation, her faith, her wisdom, her kindness, her childcare, and her love for her husband are the characteristics that a man should look for in a wife and virtues that he should nurture and nourish once she has agreed to share her life with him.
Unfortunately, men often tend to look on the physical attractiveness of a woman as her most significant asset, and they may overlook more important aspects of her person. They should remember that “charm is deceptive, and beauty does not last; but a woman who fears the Lord will be greatly praised” (31:30). In other words, a woman’s outward appearance is not insignificant, but her inward disposition is profoundly more significant. And this disposition stems from a heart for the Lord. In other words, her faith matters more than her face!
Feminists like Naomi Wolf may be convinced that all girls are bad, but they’re wrong. God has his women, and a wise man who has sought one of them, wooed her, won her, and cherished her will never let her go—and he will treat her in such a way that she’ll never want to stray.
For Further Study: Proverbs 31:10-31
Excerpted from The One Year Devotions for Men, Copyright ©2000 by Stuart Briscoe. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers. All rights reserved.
For more from Stuart Briscoe, please visit TellingtheTruth.org.
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