Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] The following is a legacy recording from the archives of the C.S. lewis Institute. While the audio quality of these recordings may vary, the content remains vital to the mission of the institute to develop disciples who can articulate, defend and live faith in Christ through personal and public life.
[00:00:23] The first nine chapters lay down the philosophical, theological, psychological, spiritual framework before getting into the proverbs themselves.
[00:00:39] And once you hit the proverbs, there is no logical order to the material. There's some, but it's very rough.
[00:00:48] We're only beginning now in scholarship to discern some patterning to that material.
[00:00:55] And just recently a dissertation came out that demonstrated the unity of Proverbs 25, 26 and 27.
[00:01:07] It's more or less the proverbs are sort of like the medieval woodcuts, where you might have a whole series of individual pictures, but when you put all the pictures together, they do have a message. For example, if you see a woodcut of the world turned upside down, you'll see a church inside of a church bell, and you'll see the farmer carrying the cow.
[00:01:30] And everything is a way of representing a topsy turvy world. Everyone can stand on its own as an individual portrait, but together they communicate a message.
[00:01:43] And we're only beginning to discern that in the proverbs.
[00:01:46] But for the most part, they're not logically arranged as we think of it.
[00:01:52] And therefore, I think that for lecture or homilies, just as one has to translate it from Hebrew into English, it's necessary to translate the literary form of the anthology of material into the literary form of a lecture or a homily, which has unity and logical progression. And that's why I have freedom to just jump around, because I'm consciously translating from one literary form into another literary form.
[00:02:27] As I wrestled with the different subjects we could take up here on Proverbs, I thought that due to the crisis of our age on the home, that might be the best subject we could take up for ourselves.
[00:02:44] I don't think we need much demonstration that the home is in crisis in our age right now.
[00:02:55] Just to put the statistics down, as we all know, just to establish the need. We know that 1900, 1 out of 20 marriages ended in divorce.
[00:03:05] 1920, it was 1 out of 6.
[00:03:09] In 1970 it was 1 out of 2.5.
[00:03:13] And today there are many couples that are afraid to make a commitment to one another.
[00:03:19] And instead of vowing to love each other till death do us part, now the vow has been changed to live together so long as we love each other and Whole new. I've heard that vow, this new vow. Instead of making a real commitment for life, it's a temporary commitment.
[00:03:44] I think we're well aware, as some sociologists said, that we have, referring to the home, we have eaten the grapes and we have destroyed the vines in America. Which was their way of saying, as they see it, there is no future for the home.
[00:04:01] And what struck me was that that was not the pessimism of a preacher, that that was not the skepticism of a skeptic. That was the measured opinion of two sociologists who go to the pains to mark out the future of a society.
[00:04:17] And it augurs no good for us.
[00:04:23] God said, I hate divorce.
[00:04:27] It is a very destruction of the very thing God desires. He hates it. It's distasteful to him.
[00:04:33] I think we're well aware that divorce erodes the foundations of our nation.
[00:04:40] And in the divorce is tremendous personal pain and the dissolution of our personalities and creating very negative psychology and emotions within us.
[00:04:56] So I thought that we would be well advised to look at that. What really disturbs me as much as anything is that divorce plagues the evangelical church today even as it plagues the world. The statistics are that in many of our evangelical schools, the divorce rate is about the same as the divorce rate in the world.
[00:05:17] And that is really disturbing to me.
[00:05:19] Because we are supposed to be the salt and the light. And we should be distinctive. And we should be able to have the grace of God working in us that we might model to the world the grace of God.
[00:05:31] And this is deeply disturbing to me.
[00:05:35] So let us see what the Proverbs have to say on this. And it has a lot to say on the subject.
[00:05:40] I don't agree with the philosopher Heine, who said that matrimony is the high sea for which no compass has yet been invented.
[00:05:51] I think that he is unaware that the very point of the Proverbs is to give us a compass for this high sea. And I think the problem is our ignorance of the compass.
[00:06:02] And it seems to me, as we could see from yesterday and the whole Proverbs themselves, that success in marriage is much more than finding the right person.
[00:06:12] It is a matter of being the right person.
[00:06:16] And that's what we want to look at, is the kind of person that we are to be. If we're to be a wise husband and a wise wife.
[00:06:26] To be totally fair here, I'm going to take three qualities or four qualities of a wise husband and three or four qualities of a wise wife.
[00:06:35] I have to be finished at 9:30, is that right?
[00:06:38] No, I also want to invite I have learned so much from you all this weekend that I do want you to ask questions, questions from which we can all learn and also to be perfectly free to make comments because I'm sure that many of you have much to contribute here and I would be appreciative of learning together. So have that feeling about it. I'll be guiding you through Proverbs, but I would like you all to interact as you feel would be profitable. We would all learn together.
[00:07:14] The first point I'm going to take for the husband first the first truth I see in Proverbs is that the wise husband values his wife as a gift from God.
[00:07:27] He understands that his wife is God's good gift. He's an appreciative male.
[00:07:36] The proverb that would say this is I'll just take one mostly here. Proverbs chapter 18 and verse 22 Proverbs 18:22 he who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the Lord.
[00:08:02] Very clear proverb. But this is God's favor. This is God's gift. And I do think it would be profitable for us here to go back to the very institution of the marriage relationship and what is normally labeled the gift of the bride. Story from Genesis chapter one, Genesis chapter two and verse 18. So I invite you to turn back with me on the fundamental creation text of Genesis chapter 2:18 upon which this particular proverb is based, using the exact same terminology in fact, where we have the gift of the bride spirit in Genesis 2:18 25 where we have I'll just read it quickly. You know the story in just a few comments to elaborate upon this point that our wives are God's good gift. And maybe if you don't have a wife, you'll understand that God has a good gift for you along the way. Proverbs 2:18 the Lord God said, it is not good for the man to be alone.
[00:09:08] I will make a helper suitable for him.
[00:09:12] Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them. And whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air, and all the beasts of the field.
[00:09:29] But as for Adam, he found no helper suitable to him. So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep, and while he was sleeping he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man. And he brought her to the man. The man said, this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman, for she was taken out of man. For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife. And they will become one flesh. The man and his wife were both naked and they felt no shame.
[00:10:06] I think one thing we should understand here is that Adam and Eve are representative of every husband and every wife. This is not just historical literature. This is suprahistorical literature. It is representative story. It represents every human's experience.
[00:10:30] I think you could see that very clearly that it's to be representative of our experience when it universalizes this particular, when it says for this reason, because God gave the gift to the man as the bride as a gift, for this reason, a man, generically or universally males, will leave his father and his mother. Interestingly enough, it's the husband that's called upon to sever his emotional ties. The not at all chauvinistic here, it's not calling upon the wife so much. It's interesting enough. The man is the one who takes the initiative here. The man leads his father and his mother and is united to his wife. And they will become one flesh. And the story itself has universalized it from a particular that he severs his emotional ties to be united to his wife. I think that she too will sever her ties. But the initiative is on the man here that he has to sever his emotional ties and from his parentage to be emotionally united with his wife.
[00:11:36] Of course, our Lord so understood it because when they came to him with the matter of divorce, he too universalized it. And he said that God did not create it that way. He did not create for Adam a series of wives. He did not give Adam a number of wives at the same time. He did not intend to have a divorce and sequence of wives. It's a very clear that's not how God created it. And therefore he says that therefore what God has put together, let no man put asunder.
[00:12:07] And he universalizes the particular and makes it representative of every experience so that we might know that in our marriages our wives are God's good gifts to us. And we should so understand it as God's gift good favor upon us.
[00:12:28] In the text itself, it's very clear if you go back to verse 18, that not only is this true of every marriage and Since God has put the marriage together, let no man put it asunder. And that's a true statement of faith, just as it is a statement of faith that God created me in my mother's womb. I can never prove that that's an affirmation of faith that God made me.
[00:12:52] I like the way Martin Luther recites the Apostles Creed. I believe in God, the Father Maker of me. It's a tremendous statement of faith that God made me, whatever my situation might be, that he made it. I even think of Exodus, chapter 4, when Moses complains of his speech impediment, whatever it may be. God said, who made the blind who cannot see, who made the deaf, who cannot hear, who made the mute who cannot speak?
[00:13:19] Is it not I, the Lord?
[00:13:22] And the Lord even makes us with our congenital impediments and our limitations. It's a tremendous statement of faith when you can say, God made me with all of my limitations and weaknesses. And it's also a tremendous statement of faith that in spite of our differences and difficulties that may be existing in a marriage, to say God put us together, that is a real statement of faith that the text is demanding of us that just as we may come out of the womb imperfect, we may also go into marriages with our imperfections. And yet in the midst of our imperfections, therefore, to say God put us together.
[00:13:59] And it's an affirmation of faith.
[00:14:02] The other thing that I do note in the text is where it says, God said it is not good for the man to be alone. Perhaps because of my language background, I can be a little bit of help to you here to realize the force of that kind of statement.
[00:14:18] We have in Hebrew two different ways of saying that something is not good. One way is saying it's ein tov.
[00:14:26] That's not ain't, it's ain tov. And the other way of saying it, it is lotov. And ein tov means it is lacking in goodness.
[00:14:39] Lotov means it is not good, it is bad.
[00:14:45] I was trying to illustrate. Usually when I come across a truth in Scripture, I try to illustrate it and feel it emotionally out of my own experiences. And I was trying to think of the difference. And one thing. Elaine has brought many wonderful gifts into our marriage, one of which is she's a tremendous cook.
[00:15:04] And I get treated like a king at home, quite candidly. And Elaine tries out all new kind of dishes on me. And. And sometimes when it isn't all that good, you know, I'll say it's different, by which I mean it is Ein tov. It is lacking in goodness. And that's our vocabulary for those situations. When we were younger, Elaine made the mistake of trying out new dishes on our guests. And usually it was quite good, you know. But I remember one time we were entertaining the president of the seminary, and it just so happened that while they were ringing the front doorbell, the oven bell was d singing.
[00:15:45] And Elaine said, before I open the door, I want you to try this out.
[00:15:48] And she had made. I don't know, it was a new dish of veal or something. And I don't know what happened, but I didn't expect the goose livers inside of it. I think that was the problem.
[00:15:59] I also think the goose livers were spoiled. I don't know what was wrong. She gave me this, and it was low to.
[00:16:08] It was not good. I was a bit of a what to do with this situation.
[00:16:14] I didn't want to, you know, I didn't want to undermine her confidence for the evening. But on the other hand, I didn't want to poison our guests.
[00:16:23] So not too coyly, I said, you know, is it spoiled or something? And anyway, to her great credit, she went on with the whole meal.
[00:16:31] Our guests never knew the difference anyway. I think we were so involved in conversation. I'm sure his wife did. But the guests and I, we never knew the difference. We got to talking and missed the whole thing. But anyway, that was low tove. That was not good. And that's the strong vocabulary used here. It is not good for the man to be alone.
[00:16:52] That God himself was never a loner. He was never in isolation. He was never recluse. God himself is always socially related.
[00:17:03] He was always a tri. Unity of persons. And even before we reach the creation account, he dwelt in a heavenly court. And we hear God in these early accounts speaking in the plural.
[00:17:15] Let us. And I think it means there as he addresses his heavenly core. Let us make this creature on earth that will have relationship with the heavens themselves as being an earthly creature. And so God says here, it is not good for the man to be alone. And then his gift to the male Adam, representing every husband, is that he'll give him a wife who was absolutely his equal. In verse 18, the Lord God said, it is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him. The negdo there suitable means she is every bit his equal like the man. The fact of the matter is the only words of man prior to his fall is about his wife.
[00:18:12] That's the only Unfallen words we have. And his only unfallen words is his celebration for a wife that is his equal.
[00:18:21] Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh, she is my equal.
[00:18:27] And that's how the husband celebrates his wife and recognizing her full equality. And as you go through the, you know, the Old Testament is supposed to be chauvinistic. When you go through the Old Testament, you discover that the woman is every bit the man's equal.
[00:18:45] For example, woman received revelations from God. I don't know that we fully appreciate that. The word of God comes to woman and proceeds from woman.
[00:18:53] Many texts for this. I think the most arresting one is the story of Hagar in Genesis chapter 16.
[00:19:00] And God revealed himself to Hagar and gave her a revelation about the future course of her, of her son Ishmael.
[00:19:10] And when you start this amazing story, it's the only text in the entire ancient near east that we have where a God calls a woman by name. That's the only text in all of the thousands of texts we have in the ancient Near East. God calls her by name and gives her a revelation. What's really amazing there is is that she is an Egyptian.
[00:19:33] She's not even of Abraham's tribe. And she's a sinful woman.
[00:19:37] And yet God in grace, reveals himself to her. If you go through the Old Testament, women were just equal in prayer. Take, for example, Hannah. She turns around the whole course of the nation through her prayer and she prays for that boy and he saves the nation. And you just go through, all the way through. Women are equal to the man. And the man celebrates the woman as his equal and recognizes what a tremendous gift from God to have one who is my equal.
[00:20:07] As you're aware in the story, the story takes a very strange twist here in verse 19. I would have thought at this point God would give Adam his bride and we'd have the sleep scene and the forming of the woman. But instead of that, the story takes a strange twist. He puts Adam in a zoo instead in verse 19. And he's surrounded by all these animals out there and he's naming everything.
[00:20:31] He's being prepared for leadership, by the way, in the naming of everything before the wife is given, he has to be prepared for leadership. And what's going on here?
[00:20:40] God is preparing Adam for the gift.
[00:20:44] Because at the end of this scene, after this Zeus scene, if you please, and he's out there with all the animals and everything at the end of it.
[00:20:51] Adam, it says, and as for Adam, he found that he had no one Comparable to him, that if God had straightaway given him this gift, he wouldn't have appreciated the gift. It would have been squandering his most precious the end of creation. Really. He would have squandered it on an unappreciative male.
[00:21:12] And that's what God wasn't doing here. He wanted the husband to appreciate the tremendous gift that he was giving to the husband. He wasn't about to squander her on an unappreciative male. And I think we've all had the frustration in raising children of giving them gifts before they're prepared to appreciate.
[00:21:30] And they just abuse the gift because they don't truly value.
[00:21:34] I know when we were raising our kids, we gave them train sets before they could appreciate the train sets. And they just blew them off the track because they didn't appreciate it. It was too precious for them. And I think that happens in marriage, that if we enter into marriage unaware and without appreciation, we can abuse the most precious gift God can give us. And we are unappreciative males in the marriage relationship.
[00:22:00] So the point of it is that he was prepared to appreciate the gift. And what I'm trying to recultivate in our thinking here is that we should be appreciative of the wonderful gift God has given us and by faith, affirm that our marriages are designed by God with all of their imperfections.
[00:22:20] And these are tremendously important truths for us.
[00:22:23] And as a result of that, it seems to me two things occur here in a very practical sort of a way. One is that we should be in constant thanksgiving for the wonderful gift God has given to us. And also, I'm discovering after 33 years of marriage, God, in his grace, is opening my eyes more and more to realize what a wonderful gift he has given me in my wife. And I must say that for years I've been blind to many great strengths that Elaine brings into the marriage. And I think it's God's grace that at least he's opening my eyes. Sometimes I think I just see trees grossly. But I'm seeing things more and more clearly all the time as I get older, older. And I'm learning, therefore, to listen more and more, to realize that this wife he's given me is a very wise woman.
[00:23:10] She keeps getting smarter all the time as we get on in this marriage. But it's a wonderful thing that God has given us one another. And therefore we are filled with thanksgiving and appreciation. I also think the other result of this is it fills us with hope that, that when we're not happy in a marriage relationship, that is not what God's intended.
[00:23:34] He intended marriage to be a good gift. And we don't always find it a good gift. In fact, the proverbs are not Pollyannish. The proverbs do speak about how not a good wife can be a rot to the bones. For example, two Proverbs here, Proverbs 12:4, he makes the point. Proverbs 12:4.
[00:24:05] A wife of noble character is a husband's crown. But I'm interested in the B verse set at this point. But a disgraceful wife is like decay in his bones.
[00:24:17] And again, the proverb that corrects that is Proverbs chapter 19 and verse 14, where we read my page is going here.
[00:24:30] Houses and wealth are inherited from parents, but a prudent wife is from the Lord.
[00:24:39] And therefore it seems to me that we should be in prayer for our wives because God wants our wives to be prudent. And therefore we should be in constant prayer for our wives as they need to be in prayer for us, that they might be the kind of people that God intended them to be. Yes, Jim, isn't chapter one got the same word prudent used?
[00:25:05] Means crafty or something like that?
[00:25:08] No, the word prudent. There's several words in the NIV translated prudent. The one of crafty in 1 4.
[00:25:18] Is it 13 or 1 4? 1 4, yeah. That is.
[00:25:23] We really didn't know how else to translate it, frankly, because crafty doesn't come out too well in English at that point.
[00:25:31] But it means that he's subtle, he's aware of the dangers in which he's living.
[00:25:38] But normally the word prudent means one who is insightful into the divine will and has the strength to perform the divine will, and therefore is rewarded with the success of living according to the created order. That's the normal word that we translate, sekol in Hebrew. That's the word we normally translate, prudent. Insight.
[00:25:59] Insight into the divine will.
[00:26:02] The strength to perform the divine will, and therefore is crowned with the success of doing the divine will. This is the normal meaning of the word to be prudent.
[00:26:15] The second point I would share with the husbands is not only that the husband values his wife as God's good gift to him, but he praises his wife.
[00:26:28] Proverbs chapter 31, verses 28 and 29. Proverbs, chapter 31, verses 28 and 29. We actually see the husband and the children in this particular case, praising the mother and the wife, her children, verse 28. We're speaking of the virtuous woman. Her children arise and call her blessed.
[00:26:55] Her husband also, and he praises her, and this is what he.
[00:27:01] Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all.
[00:27:06] Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. Give her the reward she has earned and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.
[00:27:21] And so it's very important that we affirm our wives, that we praise our wives, because, as we're well aware, children don't praise usually until they're grown up. But children don't give the mother much reward in expressing praise because the parent is looked as the disciplinarian. And children normally don't say, thanks, mom, for what you're doing for me. They resent it for the most part, as you're well aware.
[00:27:51] And society today will not affirm the virtuous woman who finds a fulfillment in her home. So who affirms the mother in the home. And if the husband doesn't, it really is not the affirmation and the emotional support that she needs. And so I think it's desperately needed that we praise our wives and we express what we're thinking here. I sometimes think that men have the idea, look, I told you I love you when I married you. If I ever change my mind, I'll let you know.
[00:28:27] Sort of a thing, you know, and we need to constantly reaffirm it. Yeah, Dave.
[00:28:33] I sat silent a lot of times and listened to our six kids while five reading because Christine does a podcast.
[00:28:42] Praise their mother, even thank them for the consistent discipline and training notes I could put in a box.
[00:28:51] Tremendous.
[00:28:53] Tremendous.
[00:28:57] That's great.
[00:28:58] That's great.
[00:29:03] No, you can't.
[00:29:05] No, absolutely.
[00:29:07] That's an unusual. Thank you, Dave, for sharing that.
[00:29:13] Another one that fits in Here is Proverbs 27:5. If you wish to turn there. Proverbs 27:5, where it says, better is open rebuke than hidden love.
[00:29:32] And it's not commending open rebuke.
[00:29:35] Open rebuke is bad.
[00:29:38] This is a matter of comparison, but not to express your love is worse than that. If you want to see these better, I'll just give you two to show you that open rebuke is not good. It's not commending open rebuke. Take a look at Proverbs 17:1 and Proverbs 19:1. You can see the nature of these better proverbs. It's comparing two bads. Only one is worse. Than the other proverbs 17:1 better a dry crust with peace and quiet. It's not commending the dry crust.
[00:30:12] But given the choice between physical impoverishment and spiritual impoverishment, physical impoverishment is better, but it's not commending impoverishment.
[00:30:24] So better a dry crust with peace and quiet than a house full of feasting with strife. That's intolerable, but the other is bad, or you'll see it again in Proverbs 19. One better a poor man whose walk is blameless than a fool whose lips are perverse.
[00:30:43] Once again, it's not commending poverty, but that's better than total unethical activity.
[00:30:50] And so also, when we come to a proverb like this 1 In Proverbs 27:5, better is open rebuke than hidden love. Open rebuke is bad, but better to have a relationship than no relationship and not talk to one another. Is the point that it's making here then, hidden love? I mean, that's as stupid as winking at a girl in the dark.
[00:31:19] That's just plain stupid.
[00:31:24] It does her no good, and it does you no good. I mean, that's just plain old dumb.
[00:31:29] So it's impetuous. Speak up and say something, and say nothing. It's so the point is, better is open rebuke than hidden love, that is, to express yourself and express your love.
[00:31:42] And I think there's no better example of that than the Song of Solomon.
[00:31:47] I know that a lot of men get to that point. I haven't still gotten up to that point yet. But anyway, that's ahead of me.
[00:31:54] All right, so my second point is that the wise husband understands and values his wife as God's gift, which fills them with thankfulness. And also, as we are definitely aware of each other's limitations, it also fills us with prayer that God will meet our own emotional and temperamental needs in one another.
[00:32:19] My third point is that a wise husband loves his wife, Proverbs 30, 21, 23, that he loves his wife. And this is something that we're well aware of from the New Testament, and I think the most fundamental this is in one of the three and four sayings of Agur.
[00:32:38] He says, under three things the earth trembles under four it cannot bear up a servant who becomes king, a fool who was full of food, and I'm reading Niv now, and an unloved woman who is married, and a maidservant who displaces her mistress. The earth cannot stand an unloved Woman who is married, that's an intolerable situation. And the earth shakes at it. And I think that's a big part of the problem in the earth today, that women find themselves in the marriage relationship having made that commitment. And there is no love from the husband.
[00:33:24] And this gets us into the whole idea of the love. And I made a tremendous mistake early on. I remember one of the first sermons I preached after seminary was in First Corinthians, chapter 13 on love. And that was back in the 50s, when it wasn't the big word yet. And I made a fundamental error in my definition because I tend to be. My whole education is. I am cerebral person. And I think of everything very, very much intellectually.
[00:33:55] I get through life intellectually.
[00:33:57] So I defined love as seeking the best for the other person.
[00:34:03] But it was devoid of emotions.
[00:34:06] And I could do that. I could always be disciplined to seek the best for the other person. I still think this is a very good thing. This is how I defined agape. It was a mental, intellectual discipline of seeking the best for the other person. But I didn't have a affections as part of my definition because I couldn't control affections. I could control. I could discipline my will to love, to seek her best interest. But that isn't what a woman really wants.
[00:34:32] And what I couldn't control is the affections.
[00:34:35] And I'm learning this is where I have to work on, is the emotional level of affections because this is where my own weakness is. And I can only say here that I found out in our marriage that there was a point in our marriage where love had totally slipped out of our marriage due to this neglect in my life. And we were at a very difficult point, especially our first year in Regent.
[00:35:01] And we were at the point I felt, because we had made. We believe very strongly in Psalm 15 that the godly person keeps his vows to his own hurt.
[00:35:14] And we were hurting in our marriage, but keeping our vows. So you keep your vows to your own hurt. And we thought we would live out our lives in the fear of the Lord, but not in the love of Christ. That's what I was dreading. And so it wasn't. I knew this was not what God intended. And I knew that I could not recreate emotions of love within myself. And we looked very bankrupt in our marriage at that point. And it looked very bleak for Elaine and me at that point.
[00:35:41] And the only one that could save us is the one whose name means Savior. And at that point, I cried in desperate desperation to God to save me and save my emotions and save our marriage and save Elaine. And God in His great grace has put us together and we're growing in our relationship again.
[00:36:03] I feel very much like Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall, and all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty Dumpty together again. And that's how I felt about life sometimes. That had a great fall and all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put this Humpty Dumpty together again. And that's how I felt about our marriage too, that all the king's horses and all the king's men could not put us together again. But I can honestly say God in his grace has put us together again. And now in sanctification, we are growing in our love for one another so that we can look to God to meet us in our need for love in the home.
[00:36:42] I think that's why this kind of love is a gift of God, and he's the only source for it. And it's an area which I need to learn a lot more.
[00:36:55] Fourth he is ravished with her embrace. This deals more with the erotica, but the text has a lot to say about erotica as well. And I'll just take one text here, the last text. Three homilies of the early chapters deal with against lust and extramarital sex, and really, on a minimal level, see marriage as an anodyne to lust. But one passage that deals with this, I think very lovely, is Proverbs 5. 15. And following without going into this whole homily of the fifth chapter, but I'll just make a few comments of Proverbs 5. 15. And really, it seems to me this is application to both the husband and the wife, that they are intoxicated with one another. Proverbs 5. 15.
[00:37:52] When he says, drink water from your own cistern, running water from your own well, he's really talking about finding your sexual desires satisfied within the marriage relationship. This whole idea of drinking water is the normal metaphor in scripture for being refreshed sexually.
[00:38:13] When it says stolen water is sweet, it's talking about stolen sexual relationships, that there's an excitement about that outside of the marriage relationship. And it's sweet and it's very, very appealing. That's what it means by that you'll have the same thing. I won't take time in Song of Solomon, where it talks about his bride being locked up spring Is my sister my bride? She's a closed garden, is the way he puts it in that very lovely scene at the end of chapter four and the beginning of chapter five. So when he says, drink water from your own cistern, running water from your own well, he means to find your full satisfaction and refreshment sexually within the marriage relationship.
[00:38:56] And then he continues that in the opposite direction should your springs overflow in the streets, your streams of water in the public squares.
[00:39:05] Then he talks about the whole privacy of the marriage relationship. Let them be yours alone, never to be shared with strangers.
[00:39:13] And then he has a prayer for his son that he might have a wife that is sexually satisfying to him.
[00:39:22] And this is something that I think that we. I've never heard couples talk about praying that their children will have such a wife. But that's what he's praying for here.
[00:39:32] And so he says, may your fountain be blessed.
[00:39:36] May you rejoice in the wife of your youth. So you can see there that the fountain is the wife. May you rejoice in the wife of your youth. May she be a loving doe and a graceful deer.
[00:39:50] So he prays that the son's wife will be like a doe and a graceful deer. You may be interested here. This is the only time I can recall on the NIV when I did not vote for a literal translation.
[00:40:04] I don't usually go too much for what we call linguistics dynamic equivalence, but in this case, I went for a dynamic equivalence. The original text does not say graceful deer.
[00:40:13] The original text says, may she be a wild goat.
[00:40:21] I mean, I don't think that's.
[00:40:24] I don't think that's a bad idea. But I just didn't quite see it coming off in the translation. They should be a loving doe and a wild goat, you know.
[00:40:34] But that's what it says, literally.
[00:40:38] I really didn't understand this text, but I did understand it when I was climbing a tell. A tell is an ancient mound, and I was climbing a tell called Tell Hesse. I'm not saying Tallahassee, Florida. I'm saying this tell, this ancient city, which was 60ft high, and Elaine and I were climbing. It was badly eroded. It was very, very steep. And we were coming up outside of this eroded tower. We were high up on these little, little trails up there. And there I was right with the wild goats. And this text came to me because I'd never been that close to a wild goat before. And I understood it. I mean, the hair. You just wanted to touch it. The eyes were sparkly, the limbs were Graceful.
[00:41:21] And it really is talking about beauty here. And I think there's a lot to be said for that. But anyway, a loving doe and a wild goat. And then it's very erotic. And this is very erotic. May her breasts satisfy you always. May you ever be captivated by her love. The word there is to be drunk. Literally. Elsewhere it's translated to be intoxicated with her embrace. So why be captivated, my son, by an adulteress? Why embrace the bosom of another man's wife?
[00:41:48] So that the fourth thing is he is ravaged with her embrace. But it seems to me a wise wife understands that too, in the relationship that has application to both.
[00:42:00] Alright, so that's the first part. That a wise husband understands that his wife is a gift from the Lord, that he praises her, that he loves her, and that he's ravished with her embrace for the woman's part. First of all, I have three things I want to share here. Is that she desires to be of value to her husband and to bring him honor.
[00:42:26] Proverbs 12:4 Proverbs chapter 12 and verse 4. She desires to be of value to her husband and to bring him honor. Here I'm interested in the A verse set.
[00:42:41] A wife of noble character is her husband's crown.
[00:42:48] And a woman of noble character also wants to be the crown upon her husband's head to bring him honor.
[00:42:59] And that runs all the way through Scripture.
[00:43:03] You could never reverse that.
[00:43:06] That the husband will be the crown on her head.
[00:43:10] The whole idea of Scripture. And this takes us back to the Genesis account as well, that the woman was created to help the man.
[00:43:19] The man was not created to help the woman.
[00:43:24] That is not the order of creation. And a wise woman understands that she was created to help her husband and to be a crown upon his head.
[00:43:36] I may go back to that story again where you have first, Adam was formed. This is part of Paul's argument. Adam was formed first and then the woman was created. And she was a gift to her husband.
[00:43:47] And they're a gift to one another. But the primary thought is that the wife is the gift to the husband and she's there to help her husband.
[00:43:56] Now I know that Paul Jewett in his book thinks this depreciates the woman, that she is now inferior. She's just there to help her husband. And I think that is a misunderstanding of the text.
[00:44:08] The word help. That particular word occurs Ezra. Actually, it's the name ezra. It occurs 19 times, 16 times it's used of God who helps Israel. It is not at all denigrating. It speaks of her great ability. And it really infers as well that the husband needs the wife in order to cope. In all the other instances, it's that Israel could.
[00:44:39] My rock of help is the Lord.
[00:44:42] So it speaks of her great strength that he needs her in order to cope.
[00:44:53] And I may say here what happens at this point is that I think it can happen in churches. I think it happens in the home. The woman sometimes can actually be more capable than the man.
[00:45:07] But you cannot use the practical argument. Therefore, we'll make the woman the head of the home. We'll make the woman the head of the church, and the man will help. You cannot use the practical argument because that's not what the Creator designed.
[00:45:20] Maybe I can illustrate it from my home. The children used to come to me and say, dad, would you help me with my homework?
[00:45:27] I could do their homework a lot better than they could do it. I could track an A every time and do it in a fraction of the time.
[00:45:35] I could do it better. But what I could never do is to usurp their responsibility.
[00:45:40] And it took a sensitivity on my part to know the difference between helping and taking over.
[00:45:47] And that's where taste comes in here. I don't know how to put that down logically, but it's something of a judgment of a taste that is made. It's the difference between helping and taking over.
[00:45:58] And I'm afraid that today we're using the pragmatic arguments that the woman can do it better, therefore she ought to take over. But we're not crowned unless we strive lawfully, says Paul. And we have to play by the rules of the gate. And the husband is held accountable for that home. And after the fall, God didn't say to Eve, where are you, Eve? He said, adam, where are you? Adam was held responsible for that situation. And in the day of judgment before God, he's going to ask the husbands, where are you?
[00:46:26] And we're held accountable for the home.
[00:46:30] So she desires to help her husband.
[00:46:33] I don't have time here. You might look at numbers, chapter 30. That a woman could, in that case read numbers 30 about the laws of vows there.
[00:46:42] That the woman was free to make vows to the Lord.
[00:46:46] But God always stood behind the husband of the home. If the husband disallowed the vow, God said, I disallow it.
[00:46:54] The woman could never say, God comes first. And then my husband, I'm making a vow to God. I'm going to do this because I have a direct relationship with God. And Therefore, she could step over the headship or the leadership of the husband in the home. That she could not do. God said, I stand behind the husband. And if he says, I will not stand behind the vow, God says, I will not stand behind. I do not hold the vow.
[00:47:20] It would destroy the home. That's in numbers, chapter 30. I know nothing in the New Testament that as Christ is the head of the church, so the husband is the head of the wife. You cannot reverse that and say the church is going to dictate to Christ what he ought to do.
[00:47:35] And that's the analogy. You cannot reverse it.
[00:47:40] Secondly, the wise wife finds her fulfillment in the family.
[00:47:44] I use that instead of the home. I think there are places perhaps where a woman would work outside the home. But always she understands that her fulfillment is in her family.
[00:47:56] And it's always, marriage is redemptive. I really didn't realize how selfish I was until I married. And when I married, I suddenly had to be always thinking about another person and I couldn't be quite so selfish. And when you have children, you have to get up in the middle of the night and you have to change diapers and do a lot of things you don't like to do.
[00:48:15] And it's very redemptive in the whole situation.
[00:48:18] And it takes us out of our self fulfillment.
[00:48:22] And I think the big part of the problem is we don't want to be redeemed and take us out of our selfishness and to give ourselves to others. That marriage causes it to be. But she finds the fulfillment in the family.
[00:48:35] I'll just take one Proverb here, Proverbs 31, 10:31, where you see a very, very fulfilled woman using all of her gifts and her talents, but therefore the husband and the children. And ultimately it's because she fears the Lord, because that's how God takes delight. It wouldn't hurt to read that poem, Proverbs 31:10, where you have this 22 line poem at the end. This of course, is an alphabetical poem.
[00:49:04] A wife of noble character who can find she is worth far more than rubies.
[00:49:12] When he's finished, it's forgot to learn. True, her husband has full confidence in her. By the way, that's the word to trust. The word to trust. Almost always it tells you not to trust another man. Don't trust horses, don't trust chariots, don't trust men. There's only one other case where a man trusts another man. That was In Judges chapter 18, when they were invading the Benjamites and They did a decoy and one army trusted the other. That's the only exception, aside from this one. This is the only time where you use the trust to trust another individual.
[00:49:49] And this puts a very, very high responsibility on the woman that her husband trusts her.
[00:49:56] And that's what you need in the marriage relationship. Elsewhere, it's only used of God. Her husband trusts her and lacks nothing of value. She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life. She selects woolen plaques and works with eager hands. She is like the merchant ships bringing her food from afar. She's administra. She gets up while it is still dark. She provides food for her family and portions for her serving girls.
[00:50:21] A lot of wives would like to have that.
[00:50:24] She's a merchant person. She considers a field and buys it. I mean, she has her own bank account.
[00:50:30] This is no wallflower.
[00:50:34] She considers a field and buys it out of her own earnings. She plants a vineyard. I mean, here is a woman who is totally economically responsible.
[00:50:44] And I think all too often I had trouble with this pastor because this was a much too liberated woman for me.
[00:50:50] My picture of a godly woman was my mother. And my mother didn't really fit this. I never knew my mother to have her own bank account.
[00:50:58] But here's a woman that really is economically independent. But her husband has total confidence in her because she knows her character.
[00:51:09] She sets about her work vigorously. Her arms are strong for attache. She sees that her trading is profitable and a lamp does not go out at night. In her hand she holds the distaff and grasps the spindle with her fingers. She's a philanthropist in her own right. She opens her arms to the poor and extends her hands to the needy. I mean, she finds fulfillment in philanthropy as well.
[00:51:35] Verse 21. When it snows, she has no fear for her household for all of them are covered in scarlet. She makes coverings for her bed. She is clothed in fine linen and purple. I love. Verse 23. Her husband is respected at the city gate where he takes his seat among the elders of the land. In other words, he has a little bit of leisure. He's not the one that's doing all the moonlighting.
[00:51:55] The woman is also enriching the home. And he can sit down.
[00:52:00] I think that's a great line, but a little bit extreme.
[00:52:03] Verse 24. She makes linen garments and sells them and supplies the merchants with sashes. She can speak at.
[00:52:11] She can laugh at days to come notice. Verse 26. She's the teacher. She speaks with wisdom and faithful instruction. Is on her tongue.
[00:52:19] And he's not doing all the teaching, she's teaching as well. I mean, this is a woman who is a philanthropist, she's an administrator, she's an educator.
[00:52:28] And fact of the matter is, one of the interesting things is where it says, like Proverbs 1:18, My son, do not forsake your mother. Your father's commandment, do not forsake your mother's teaching. That is exactly the same as the Egyptian literature, with one exception. In the Egyptian literature, it never mentions the mother, only in Hebrews, the Scriptures. Yeah.
[00:52:51] The New Testament example seemingly, of this is a pulling her soul and how she's really working side by side with her husband, instructing. Taking aside of Paul's instructing from the word, there are tent makers together.
[00:53:03] And someone mentioned six times in the New Testament, they mentioned three of them with her first, three of them with the husband first. Really see a team there. Yeah, perfect.
[00:53:18] All right.
[00:53:20] Thirdly, and this is a tough one, first of all, I'm saying that the wise wife desires to be.
[00:53:26] He values her. And her part is she desires to be of value to him and to bring him honor.
[00:53:33] Secondly, she finds fulfillment in the family, not self fulfillment.
[00:53:38] I like a story in Eugene Peterson's book Along Obedience in the same Direction. That's a tremendous devotional book on the Ascent, Psalms 120, 134. And he talks about he. He had to sharpen the blade of his lawnmower. And so he went out and he got his wrench to take off the bolt. So he could take the blade off and sharpen it, and the bolt wouldn't budge. So whereupon he went around his property and he found a long pipe and put it on the handle of his wrench so he gets some leverage, and the bolt still wouldn't budge. So then he got a big rock and it began banging on the pipe. And he says that by now he had become emotionally involved with his lawnmower.
[00:54:23] And a neighbor was standing across the way watching this whole thing going on. And the neighbor came over and said to him, I used to have a lawn mower like that.
[00:54:32] And he said, try turning the bolt in the opposite direction.
[00:54:36] And with that, it came right off. And I thought to myself, isn't that a picture of life? It has a reverse screw.
[00:54:42] Because we think the way to happiness is self fulfillment. And the Bible says the way to happiness is to die. It's the paradox that when you die to self, then you live. When you take a cross, then there's resurrection. And when you Stop trying to be self fulfilled, then you are fulfilled. It's this whole reverse group of life that you will find your true fulfillment. And that's lifestyle.
[00:55:06] Well then my third point is she is ill tempered and not quarrelsome.
[00:55:11] She's not high strung and she's not argumentative. Proverbs, Proverbs 21:9, where you have these famous proverbs, better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife.
[00:55:29] So you're better off then that's even too close.
[00:55:33] He gets you further away from a quarrelsome woman in verse 19.
[00:55:40] Better to live in a desert than with the quarrelsome and ill tempered wife.
[00:55:47] Again, Proverbs 27, 15, 16. I think they might be quite similar to that where he makes the same point. But no, here he has a quarrelsome wife is like a constant dripping on a rainy day.
[00:56:03] Restraining her is like restraining the wind or grasping oil with the hand. You can't do anything with her.
[00:56:11] And so the idea, of course, is that if your wife is like that, then you really have real need of prayer. And we all need to pray.
[00:56:20] But I think the reason for this, it's interesting. Proverbs 13:10 tells us the reason that we are quarrelsome. It's pride.
[00:56:28] Proverbs chapter 13 and verse 10.
[00:56:31] Pride only breeds quarrels, but wisdom is found in those who take advice.
[00:56:38] And I think that the reason we argue at home, we have struggles at home, is that we're trying to maintain our identity. We feel threatened. And so as I think of it, I almost think of myself. It's like a peanut machine and you put a penny, I used to put a penny in. You get so many peanuts. But what you don't want to happen in your peanut machine is you don't want somebody coming in and just taking all the peanuts until you have nothing left and your ego is totally destroyed. And I think what we do in our homes and our relationships, we try to maintain our identity. We don't know our full acceptance in God. We're fully conn that we are fully accepted. And so we fight to maintain our identity in the relationship. And we feel threatened, and that's why we strike back and we have arguments in the home.
[00:57:26] How do we begin then? I'd like to suggest three things here. First of all then, is the spirit of humility, of accepting the word of God. Proverbs 15:31, 33.
[00:57:38] He who listens to life giving rebuke will be at home among the wise.
[00:57:45] Again, he who ignores discipline. These words despises himself.
[00:57:51] But whoever heeds correction gains understanding.
[00:57:56] The fear of the Lord teaches a man wisdom. You can see the objective content of it here. And humility comes before honor. It's accepting God's word.
[00:58:07] Secondly, it's a spirit of confession to God and to one another when we have wronged each other. Proverbs 28:13.
[00:58:19] He who conceals his sins does not prosper. But whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy. Proverbs 28:13. So the first thing is, I think, is repentance of accepting God's word.
[00:58:35] Secondly, it is that we confess to one another our faults and we obtain mercy to God and to one another. And finally, I would suggest a spirit of faith and dependence. That's where we started. It's prayer. Proverbs chapter 16 and verse 3. There's quite a few proverbs really on prayer, but Proverbs verse 16 and verse 3.
[00:58:59] Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed.
[00:59:07] And I think that's at the heart of it. That we commit our wives and our husbands to the Lord, and we commit our homes to the Lord. And he will fulfill then the desires of our hearts that have been formed according to his word.
[00:59:27] That word commit? Yes, it's the word gala. It means to just roll it over on Him. And it's his responsibility that we cannot coerce it. I think the big problem we make is we try through our power and strength to make the other person in our image, or whatever it may be.
[00:59:52] And I think the problem is that we need to turn it over to the Lord. And I discovered then that he shakes both of us in the process.
[01:00:04] The proceeding was a presentation of the C.S. lewis Institute. In the legacy of C.S. lewis, the institute endeavors to develop disciples who can articulate, defend, and live faith in Christ through personal and public life. For more information, please visit our website at www.cslewisinstitute.org. thank.
[01:00:32] You.
