Episode 1474: In Praise of Women Who Lead

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining me on episode 1, 474 of the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

[00:00:07] I'm Rachel Murphy. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence, and impact the world by using your time, your talent, and your treasures to live out your calling. Having the ability to leave a legacy of emotional, spiritual, and financial wealth with your family is key.

[00:00:24] And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the Inspired Stewardship Podcast with my friend, Scott Maderer.

[00:00:36] Scott Maderer: And we have to have the strength and the wisdom to operate in practices of gratitude, practices of discernment, and practices that often challenge who and what we are. We have to live in the places of nuance. Not the places.

[00:00:59] Welcome and [00:01:00] thank you for joining us on the Inspired Stewardship Podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent, and your treasures for your true calling. In the Inspired Stewardship Podcast, you will learn to invest in yourself and others.

[00:01:18] Invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

[00:01:32] In today's Spiritual Foundation episode, I talk about Proverbs chapter 31, verses 10 through 31. I share how this isn't a list of what to look for in a wife or a checklist for women. And I talk about how this wisdom stays with us all, but especially women who lead. And I also talk about how the credit for that still lies with God.

[00:01:53] Proverbs chapter 31 verses 10 through 31 says, A woman of strength, who can [00:02:00] find? She is far more precious than jewels. The heart of her husband trusts in her and he will have no lack of gain. She does him good and not harm all the days of her life. She seeks wool and flax and works with willing hands.

[00:02:14] She is like the ships of the merchant. She brings her food from far away. She rises while it is still night and provides food for her household and tasks for her female servant. She considers a field and buys it. With the fruit of her hand, she plants a vineyard. She girds herself with strength and makes her arms strong.

[00:02:33] She perceives that her merchandise is profitable. Her lamp does not go out at night. She puts her hands to the distaff and her hands hold the spindle. She opens her hand to the poor and reaches out her hands to the needy. She is not afraid for her household when it snows, for all of her household are clothed in crimson.

[00:02:51] She makes herself coverings. Her clothing is fine linen and purple. Her husband is known in the city gates, taking his seat among the [00:03:00] elders of the land. She makes linen garments and sells them. She supplies the merchant with sashes. Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she laughs at the time to come.

[00:03:10] She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue. She looks well to the ways of her household, and does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children rise up and call her happy, her husband too, and he praises her. Many women have done excellently, but you surpassed them all.

[00:03:28] Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. Give her a share in the fruit of her hands, and let her works praise her in the city gates. This is one of those wisdom passages, one of those proverbs that gets quoted a lot and used a lot, and I would argue it also comes along with a lot of baggage, a lot of messages that get, have been preached with it and connected to it over the years.

[00:03:57] This idea that somehow or another this is a [00:04:00] checklist for women, this is what makes a good woman or a good wife or a good mother, that somehow or another this is what a husband should be looking for in a wife. Lives in this, and there's passages in there that make it sound like maybe that's what really this is about, but this is about a portrait of specifically women who lead and who live in wisdom, but I would argue it's also a portrait of wisdom itself, and it's also a portrait of what all of us need to be doing if we're living in wisdom, not just women, but men as well.

[00:04:38] See from the very beginning wisdom was personified in the Proverbs and here at the end I still think this is a personification of wisdom. There's, this is an ode to the strength of wisdom, to the abiding presence of wisdom, an acknowledgement of the beauty of [00:05:00] living in wisdom. This is not about finding the right wife.

[00:05:05] This isn't a celebration of some sort of mystical 1950s homemaker or some thought some sort of 2020 girl boss. It's not any sort of message of a checklist to what makes women strong. And then instead, this ode, this message, this passage is about the faithfulness of that upstanding woman, Wisdom herself.

[00:05:35] Last week, we were talking about chapter 1 and how Wisdom was prodding us to follow her our whole lives. And think about this set of verses and notice all of the ways that Wisdom is said to be at work. We're simply scoffing or being simple or lazy. She works with willing hands. She rises while it is still night She provides food for us.

[00:05:59] She [00:06:00] opens her hand to the poor She opens her mouth with wisdom and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue There's all sorts of character traits that are laudable, but wisdom is being held up here as a set of characteristics that surpasses them all. Proverbs 31 is also celebrating how God's providence and mystery has been at work all along.

[00:06:26] This idea that we're somehow operating, but wisdom is operating beyond us, above us, through us, and beyond our ability. When you think about it, when you see how God operates at times, and it usually happens after the fact, we don't see how God is operating in the moment, we see it when we look back on it, when we see the wisdom of God's providence, when we see God acting, that's when we recognize that the wisdom has been there all along, we've just [00:07:00] been blind to it.

[00:07:03] These sorts of opportunities to find God's hand gently at work show up over and over again. Remember, we've talked last week about how no matter how much we've tested wisdom, no matter how much we've challenged her and challenged her patience, she never gave up on us and God never gave up on us either.

[00:07:29] These passages are also about a time of recognizing that wisdom is an abiding companion, but we often move away from wisdom to confront The distance we fill between ourselves and wisdom in the world and to recognize that we have to move back towards the spirit, towards wisdom, towards hearing the Holy Spirit acting in our life and a message that is oftentimes counter to what is being put [00:08:00] forward as the message of the spirit.

[00:08:02] And we have to have the strength and the wisdom to operate in practices of gratitude, practices of discernment. and practices that often challenge who and what we are. We have to live in the places of nuance, not the places of polarization. Thanks for listening.

[00:08:33] Thanks so much for listening to the Inspired Stewardship Podcast. As a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you enjoyed this episode, do me a favor, go over to facebook. com slash inspired stewardship and [00:09:00] like our Facebook page and mark it that you'd like to get notifications from us so that we can connect with you on Facebook and make sure that we're serving you to the best of our abilities with time and tips there.

[00:09:16] Until next time, invest your time and money. Your talent and your treasures develop your influence and impact the world.