International Women’s Day was March the 8th. It came to mind as I was studying the book of Proverbs in the Old Testament. King Solomon and the other wisdom writers had a lot to say about women.
Of course there are limits to it: Proverbs, in its origin, was a collection written by men for other men. But since all scripture is inspired by God, we can learn from it along with the other parts of the Bible – partly because the wisdom and the warnings about women can apply equally to men as well. To that end, there are three types of women described in Proverbs…
All these passages came to mind when I was studying Proverbs 19:13-14 recently – which says, “A stupid child is ruin to a father, and a wife’s quarreling is a continual dripping of rain. House and wealth are inherited from parents, but a prudent wife is from the Lord.” Solomon is teaching about family chaos, and here he juxtaposes the quarrelsome wife with one who is “prudent”. The latter is emphasized as a gift from God – something more valuable than a nice home or a big inheritance. And all this points us to the value of gratitude. We can and we should thank God for the helpful people that He puts around us. Solomon is the most commonly-ascribed author of Proverbs. He was the Israelite king from 973 to 933 B.C. His name is given at the head of several of the various collections that make up the book (e.g. 1:1, 10:1, 25:1). It’s widely known that Solomon had a huge number of wives and concubines. (See I Kings 11:1-8.) So when I read these passages about angry wives it makes me want to ask some questions: “So you have an angry wife. I wonder why that is? You have several hundred of them. Why do you think they’re getting mad? What are you doing to contribute to this problem?” Old Testament-era polygamy was a setup for trouble, but my larger point here is that we shouldn’t just treat women’s anger as if it was just somebody else’s problem – especially when there are underlying conditions. Granted, we can’t fix other people’s problems for them. But we can always follow Jesus’ example – and there were lots of ways that He pushed aside popular scorn and discriminatory practices in order to make way for good ministry (e.g. John 12:1-8, Luke 10:38-42, John 4:1-30). Women responded well to this; they supported His ministry financially (Luke 8:1-3), and a few of them were with Him all the way up to His death, and even and beyond (Luke 23:55-24:11). We can thank God for that. God bless you. Andrew McHenry, Pastor First Congregational Church of Oroville
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Andrew McHenryI am a husband, a Congregational pastor, and a native Kansan currently living in Thermalito, California. In the past I have also been a prison chaplain and a youth pastor. Interests include reading, railroads, prog rock, KU, and the KC Royals. Archives
March 2024
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