Praise of a Virtuous Woman

A virtuous woman is nothing like what you see in the world today. You can marry a beautiful woman, but beauty doesn’t make a virtuous woman. If she is lazy, nagging, and lacks discernment, then she is not a virtuous woman and you should be careful with making a woman such as this your spouse. Men are going after women for the wrong reasons. Why go after a woman who doesn’t even know how to do simple things that women are supposed to know how to do?

Just to be fair there are also men who are lazy, harsh, and selfish who don’t know how to do things that men are supposed to know how to do. God loves His daughter and men like this are not ready to marry His daughter. Make sure you are not attracted to a girl for sensuality because that is what it’s all about for most marriages in America. Christians do not want this, look what happened to Solomon.

If you have a Bible close by, I ask you to open it to Proverbs 31:10-31. Today I plan to speak to you from this passage under the heading, “The Praiseworthy Woman.” In the original Hebrew language, this passage is in the form of an acrostic. Boys and girls, you know what that is. Perhaps you’ve written a word down the side of a page before, maybe the word MOTHER, with one letter on each line, and then you try to think of something nice to write about your mother for each letter on the left side of the page. This passage is something like that. There are twenty-two verses and each of them starts with a consecutive letter of the Hebrew alphabet, which has twenty-two letters. The style of literature here is poetry. The writer is not building an argument, like Paul does in his writing. But he is stringing together pearls of praise for the godly woman. He sets himself the task of praising the godly woman. And he finds twenty-two praiseworthy things to say about her.

The Bible tells the stories of many amazing women, including Mary of Nazareth, Eve, and Mary Magdalene, all of whom play prominent roles in the story of Christianity. Biblical passages about their journeys inspire those who follow the Lord, but these verses are not the only words which give strength to mothers, wives, daughters, and sisters. There are broader Bible verses for women that have the ability to empower and uplift followers of Jesus Christ who may need a boost of confidence after a hard week or a reminder that God is on their side.

During the years we had with them, we focused on teaching them about life because they were all about to enter into what many call “the mistake zone,” ages 18-24. We both teach English, so it was easy to incorporate life choices into our daily lessons. We realized early on that while reading and writing are no doubt very important, there is a greater need that God had laid on our hearts. We began to see our students the way God looks at them, and it changed everything. We knew that in the end, God was not going to be concerned with how many kids passed our tests or classes, but He was going to be concerned with how many we pointed to Him.

For us, there is so much more to our jobs than just the academic side. We get to help raise young men and women to be responsible and hopefully, one day, live for God in all they do. We felt a huge responsibility to be a light to our kids and not only teach them the basics of English and literature but to encourage them to live a life that is as fulfilling and purposeful as possible. We knew that God had given both of us a great story to share and teaching our students was the platform where He allowed us to do it. You can imagine that teaching in a public school and incorporating “religion” into what we did every day was challenging, but by God’s grace we taught on.