GOD’S WISDOM FOR YOU
PROVERBS 31:25
25 Strength and dignity are her clothing,
and she can laugh at the time to come.
Sixteenth letter in the Hebrew alphabet: ‘ayin.
First word of this verse: ‘oz “strength.”
Solomon has described the kind of clothes she sells in the marketplace and the sashes she presents to the merchants, but her own true clothing, the things that adorn her no matter what she wears, are strength and dignity.
The word ‘oz means strength of any kind. In any woman, strength is more often a reference to resolve and resourcefulness than muscular power. In a Godly woman who trusts in the cross of Christ for her forgiveness and in whom the Holy Spirit dwells, her strength comes from her faith in Christ. Her faith gives her power over changes in life “which easily shatter and bring to ruin a household resting on less solid foundations” (Keil-Delitzsch p. 337). She can say with Psalm 62, “My soul finds rest in God alone; my salvation comes from him… my hope comes from him” (62:1, 5).
“Dignity” can mean majesty in certain contexts (Deut. 33:17; Job 37:22). It is hador, a word almost exclusively poetic in the Bible, often paired with cabod “glory” (Psalm 8:5). When hador is given to someone else, it is best translated “honor” as in Daniel 4:33. Here, it is the grand splendor which the Godly wife has in all circumstances, which we would describe as dignity rather than self-imposed glory or honor.
Her faith allows her to laugh at days to come, no matter how dark, no matter how frightening, no matter how uncertain. Her trust comes from a threefold knowledge:
First, God generally helps all his children. He looks after us and works for our good (Romans 8:28). He is our Creator, and he still preserves us day by day (Psalm 139:14; 31:23; 119:50), “defending me against all danger, guarding and protecting me from all evil” (Luther, Small Catechism).
Second, God cares for us when disease or disaster descends. The miracles of Jesus illustrate this, when our Savior healed “the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute” (Matthew 15:30), the demon-possessed, and many others (Mark 1:32). And of course, Jesus raised the dead. Even his enemies saw these things and never contradicted anyone who mentioned them. It was public knowledge (Matthew 13:54; 14:2). God is still capable of working through miracles, but more often he chooses to work through natural means and human medicine. He does this to test our faith and the integrity of our hearts (1 Chronicles 29:17; Jeremiah 11:20). When he allows us to be tested right up to the point of death, he is still with us, just as he has promised: “I will be with you always” (Matthew 28:20).
Third, God will bring those who trust in him physically home to heaven in the resurrection on the Last Day. There we will be reunited, body and soul, and the bodies of believers will be glorified and made whole again in every way. When we are brought to heaven, we will recognize and converse with people we have never met (Matthew 17:3) and we will be united with our families and loved ones, even from many generations past (Luke 16:23). The resurrection is certain on the basis of eyewitness testimony. More than five hundred people saw Jesus after he had risen from the dead (1 Corinthians 15:6), and the Apostle Paul invited any doubters in Corinth to investigate this, telling them that at that time, twenty-five years later, most were still living. “Though,” he wrote, “some have fallen asleep” (died, 1 Cor. 15:6). There is no record of anyone, believer or unbeliever, who investigated the resurrection of Jesus Christ at the time who found anything but the fact that he had indeed risen from the grave, from eyewitness accounts. And since Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, we trust in his promise to raise us as well. “In Christ, all will be made alive” (1 Cor. 15:22).
All of these things are behind the faith of the true, heroic, and Godly wife. My wife likes to find ways of sharing her faith, especially with children. Although she has always attended two and as many as four weekly Bible studies, the place where she really shines is in teaching Sunday School. She uses whatever illustrations she has learned from other classes or from hearing sermons to bring home points to her students. Her class (third and fourth graders) sometimes never gets to the assigned art project or craft, but they always learn the Bible story very well. I think she is happiest when she sees their faith and their knowledge of God’s Word growing, week by week, throughout the year. Two of our sons are now Sunday School teachers just like their mom. They have seen her Saturday afternoon example of reading the next day’s Bible story with all of her notes spread out across the kitchen table, and they have had no question about how to prepare a lesson. They have grown up seeing how it’s done, week by week, year by year. All of our children share our faith. All of us know our Savior. Will hard days come? Will grief find our home? Perhaps. But the ideal and heroic wife “can laugh at the time to come.” She knows her Savior, and so does her whole family.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Archives by Wisconsin Lutheran Chapel: www.wlchapel.org/connect-grow/ministries/adults/daily-devotions/gwfy-archive/2019
Listen to Bible classes online. Invisible Church is the twice-weekly podcast of the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church Bible class. Go to https://splnewulm.org/invisible-church-podcast/ and wait for the page to load. Classes on Genesis, 1 Corinthians, Galatians, Colossians and more are available now. Also available on iHeart Radio, Apple iTunes and Google Podcasts.
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota