Recently, Lauren Boebert, “conservative” Republican House Representative from Colorado, has been in the news for all the wrong reasons. Recently divorced from her husband, she was thrown out of a theater with her date for being obnoxious and publicly groping and being groped by her date. She’s a Bible-thumping, far-right-wing conservative. She has risen to some level of power and prestige on the national scene, but her seventeen-year marriage is left in the wake of her rise to power. Other conservative political women such as Christy Noem, governor of South Dakota, and Marjorie Taylor Green, Representative from Georgia, both have wrecked marriages while they try to manage the national “household.” If we were living in the time of Solomon, these women would be said to be “sitting in the gates of the city with the elders of the land.” The gates were the place where elders made judgments and enforced laws. They are movers and shakers, powerful women, and conservative feminists (is that possible?).
Proverbs 31 says there is a different way to be known and praised in the gates. It moves through personal character and care for the home. It’s the long game, but it is the wise game.
As I wrote in my previous article, the strong wife is a woman of integrity, industry, and generosity. All of these character qualities are displayed in her domestic duties. While she works with people outside the home, she always works for the home.
This theme continues as Solomon describes Lady Wisdom as a woman of courage (Prov 31:21, 25). She is not afraid of the common threats of nature and the unpredictable future for her household because she has prepared for their care. She vests herself with might, a fierce strength ready to fight and win. Her strength is not shown as a political figure or a loud-mouthed Karen. Rather, she clothes herself with dignity. Her might is disciplined and, therefore, honorable or even majestic. She stands with a calm poise against threats to her home, carrying herself well before the world.
Lady Wisdom is not the frumpy housewife. She adorns herself well (Prov 31:22). She is modest having an appropriate sense of shame. Though everyone knows she is a woman, she is not sexually provocative. Though she is well-off, she is not ostentatious. Though she stands out, it is not because she is weird. (For more on modesty, see my “Letter to Young Women: Modesty.”) She wants to look good before the world because it reflects on her husband, whom she wants respected in the gates (Prov 31:23).
She opens her mouth with wisdom, first of all teaching her children (see Prov 1:8; 6:20). Being saturated with Scripture because she fears the Lord (Prov 31:30), she understands the way the world is supposed to work according to God’s design, and she has the knowledge and verbal skills to help create the peace for which God’s wisdom always aims. She doesn’t merely throw Scriptures around like bumper stickers. She knows how to wield the sword of the Spirit.
Because she is the woman she is for her husband and children, focusing on building the household with her husband, her husband and children bless her or call her “blessed.” To be “blessed” speaks of happiness, but it is not always a happy emotional state. Being blessed means that you are in a happy position before God (see Psalm 1; Mt 5:3-12). You have found favor with God, and he is pleased with you. While the idea of husband and children praising their wife and mother respectively is built into this, they praise her because she has walked the path of wisdom and is pleasing to God.
There is no higher praise than a woman being praised by her husband and children. The people who know you best, have lived with you, heard you speak daily, and have watched your character through good and bad times are praising you because you are the real deal. You can put on a good show for outsiders. You can post all the right stuff on social media. You can run your business while neglecting your home and be lauded as a smart woman. You can rise in the political scene and be seen as a force to be reckoned with. You can even be a respected Bible teacher of other women, holding conferences everywhere. People outside your home may think you are fantastic. You are superwoman. But if you don’t have the praise of your husband and children that comes through faithfulness as a wife and mother, it is all temporary and ultimately worthless.
“Grace is deceitful, and beauty is vapor,” Solomon says. The grace of charm can be superficial flattery or seduction. Youthful beauty that may get you in with powerful men or help move you along on the social ladder will fade with the relentless progression of age. Charm and beauty are good things, but they are decorations for the house. They can’t be the foundation. The foundation must be solid character and works that flow from it in the calling God has given you. The funny thing is, when you take this path, you will be known in the gates where your husband sits with the elders of the land (Prov 31:31). Your works, not as a politician, pop star, or influencer but as a wife and mother will get you there.
This is the long game. There will be many quiet, thankless, strenuous hours in which no one will know what you are doing. Your husband is being praised while you are working behind the scenes. If you stay the course, your time is coming. Your works will praise you in the gates where your husband sits.
Ladies, this is the way—the way of wisdom.
