This is my philosophy of life in regards to possessions, and I’m so glad Agur put it into words for me (for my previous newsletters on Agur and Proverbs, see here):
“Give me neither poverty nor riches,
but give me only my daily bread.
Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you
and say, ‘Who is the Lord?’
Or I may become poor and steal,
and so dishonor the name of my God.”
I know very well the fear that "enough" will not be enough in the future. It can paralyze me in my day-to-day, thinking that I will make a decision I will regret when I reach seventy or eighty years old. "Having enough" quickly becomes a security I turn to, instead of God. Which makes Agur's advice here rather pointed.
Before I know it, I can bear resemblance to the leech in this chapter of Proverbs. (“The leech has two daughters. ‘Give! Give!’ they cry.”) Because what level of riches actually makes a person secure in this life? There is no level of wealth that can. Having enough for each day, as Agur says, is really enough.
But, as Agur also shows, poverty has its own terrors. The kind of desperation you can feel when things are really bad can lead you to make decisions you never would make under normal circumstances. The "simple life" of the poor is sometimes held up as an alternative to the excesses of riches, but this often ignores what the experience of actual grinding poverty is like, and why so many people around the world fight so hard to climb out of it. It's valid to recognize, as Agur does, that some life circumstances make us weaker and less resilient in our commitment to follow God.
And, I have to admit, I hate the thought of suffering. I would be tempted to make poor choices to escape suffering.
In life, we always want to get "there," the place where we can relax and not worry about what will happen. Often we imagine this to be when we're rich, but as so many successful people have found out, riches have not made them feel like they're"there" yet. Sometimes, as a reaction to this, the "simple life" of the poor can be held up as an appealing alternative. But Agur points out that neither extreme here is where we want to be. Neither extreme is the "there" that we're looking for, that place of security where we can truly rest.
Agur's solution bears a lot of resemblance to Jesus' parables. Jesus talks about the rich man who builds many barns to store up grain, feeling confident in himself and his works and not in God, only to pass away before he sees any use of them. And Jesus talks about the birds of the air and the lilies of the field, who do not toil or spin and yet God takes care of them. Agur presents the answer as resting in the day-to-day, resting in the present—we have enough for now and that is enough for now. Let tomorrow bring what it brings.
But how can this alleviate our worry about the future? In a way, it never fully does, because bad things can happen to Christians just as well as it does to anyone. And yet, our ultimate future is always secure. Our hope is not the avoidance of suffering, but rather than our pain will be righted in the end. "Store up treasure in heaven," Jesus says, “where moth and rust can not destroy.” We will get “there.” We will find rest and a place to relax. We just have to let go of the idea that it's us, and what we do, that will bring us there.
"I may have too much and disown you and say, ‘Who is the Lord?’" as Agur says.
It's terrifying to let go and let God bring us there himself, but that is when we'll feel most free. That is when we truly will be free from the trap of these two extremes of poverty and riches.
~~~
Latest blog: On Doing Things that Scare You
😮 “Just because something scares me, doesn’t mean I won’t do it,” I told a friend of mine. The truth is, almost everything scares me, and if I’d never learned to do things anyway I would never do anything at all…
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“I am too stupid to be human”—those words don’t sound like they come from Proverbs, do they? Proverbs is all about becoming wise, and that we can become wise. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” after all, and none of us want to be someone who doesn’t have this fear of the Lord. As Proverbs 4 urges us, “Get wisdom, and whatever you get, get insight. Prize her highly, and she will exalt you; she will honor you if you embrace her.”
But it feels so difficult to become wise—at times we do feel “too stupid to be human.” And grasping God, too, sometimes feels so confusing and difficult. There is a limit to human understanding. And guess what, there's a chapter in Proverbs about the limits of human understanding as well! This is Proverbs 30.
Maybe that’s why Proverbs sometimes feels like a hard book. Most of Proverbs seems to gloss over this difficulty. If you’ve ever been struggling with something in life and someone tried to comfort you with a Christian cliché—“just have faith” or something similar—you know how cold true statements can feel. Unlike Ecclesiastes or Job, Proverbs often makes us feel like we should understand everything. It makes us feel life has easy to understand “rules” and that if we just sort out the patterns we will be as wise as Solomon.
But turn the page to Proverbs 30. As humans we can get wisdom, but we can also humble ourselves in the face of the incomprehensibility of God. We can observe the patterns of life on the earth—comparing the ant to the sluggard and so on—but we can also marvel at the mystery of how nature unfolds.
Here in this chapter speaks Agur, an otherwise unknown wise man who does not appear to be a king like other authors of Proverbs. He starts off sounding very much like the book of Job. “Who has gathered the wind in his fists? Who has wrapped up the waters in a garment? Who has established all the ends of the earth?" He brings us face-to-face with the limits of wisdom. It's not us who did this. In Job too, God confronts Job to show him how little he understands: “Surely you know!”
And yet, because Agur asks "who” rather than “how do you know,” he reveals that life is not a hopeless mystery. The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord, and human wisdom comes in and through relationship with another “who”—with God.
In other words, the end of Proverbs repeats where the book starts. It's a relationship with God that will put our lack of understanding into context. It will give us a firm foundation in a world that seems to toss and turn. It gives us a starting point to seek truth.
Agur makes it very clear he know what the answer to his question of “who” is. " Agur says, “Every word of God proves true; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him,” echoing the words of 2 Samuel 22:31 which David repeats in many of his Psalms. The Lord, who was so faithful to his people Israel, is the God who both gathers the wind in his fists and surrounds his people like a shield.
It is possible for humans to live in relationship with him. And as a result, we can both stand in awe and wonder at the incomprehensibility and mystery of the world, humble ourselves in the limits of our knowledge, and also know that there is a firm foundation to build the wisdom we need to continually grow in.
To find out more about Agur's awe and wonder at the world around him, stay tuned for the next issue of this newsletter! The whole chapter of Proverbs 30 is fascinating.
Proverbs 30: 1-6
“The words of Agur son of Jakeh. The oracle.
The man declares, I am weary, O God;
I am weary, O God, and worn out.
Surely I am too stupid to be a man.
I have not the understanding of a man.
I have not learned wisdom,
nor have I knowledge of the Holy One.
Who has ascended to heaven and come down?
Who has gathered the wind in his fists?
Who has wrapped up the waters in a garment?
Who has established all the ends of the earth?
What is his name,and what is his son's name?
Surely you know!
Every word of God proves true;
he is a shield to those who take refuge in him.
Do not add to his words,
lest he rebuke you and you be found a liar.”
~~~
New to this newsletter? Want to read some past issues? You might enjoy this past issue:
If you have anything you’d like to see in this newsletter, or if you have anything you’d like to share with me, just reply to this newsletter and let me know! It’s nice to hear from my readers.
~~~
In case you missed it, I recently published a piece about Elon Musk and visions of the future in the Reformed Perspective
I also published a short history piece about the history of the churches in Edmonton that I grew up in, for Edmonton City as Museum
Are Proverbs an Ancient Form of Tweets?The trouble with Twitter, people say, is that it is simply too short. 280 characters just cannot express the nuance that is necessary for giving advice or expressing opinions. It reduces everything to extremes—first because it oversimplifies, and second because extremes are what grabs attention. Kind of like a proverb. “The early bird gets the worm,” so the saying goes, but what about all the times the early bird doesn't? What often bothers us about proverbs, including the proverbs found in the Bible, is that they seem to express a rule without paying attention to all the exceptions. “The righteous will flourish like a green leaf”—but what about all the times they don't? “The hand of the diligent will rule”—then why so many people who haven't worked a day in their lives are so rich? It's enough to make many of us rush through the book of Proverbs, or set it aside and not read it. Obviously proverbs are not exactly the same as a tweet, but they do rely on a form of viral communication that embeds them in people’s memory, and allows them to be passed on to others. It’s actually illuminating to think about how they’re similar to tweets—and even more illuminating to see how they’re different. It might even help us feel more comfortable with biblical proverbs. So let’s take a look: They're "Terse" (Short and Efficient)The most significant feature of tweets is that they're short, which means they can be ambiguous. Strangely enough, this is a features of Proverbs as well! Proverbs are “terse,” which means a short and efficient use of words. Take, for example, this proverb: “Better the poor whose walk is blameless than a fool whose lips are perverse.” This is a “better than” proverb, where one half of the proverb is contrasted with the other. However, it's the “poor” contrasted with a “fool” rather than what we'd expect—the rich. Even though it's not stated, we can take the implication that a rich fool might be what is meant. Efficient use of words! But being too efficient can make a statement harder to understand. Tweets have a problems where their short length increases their ability to be misunderstood. AP could probably have used more characters to explain what they were trying to say in this tweet: |
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Of course, in contrast to tweets, proverbs’ ambiguity is intentional. Their compact messages mean that turning proverbs over in your mind can bring more depth of meaning. Though they're short, they're something you can "chew on" for a while, like you can meditate on a poem. And that brings us to a major difference between tweets and proverbs—proverbs are much more poetic. Proverbs frequently use metaphors and literary devices, which increases the ambiguity of their meanings. Anyone who was made to study poetry in school knows how frustrating it can be to pin down the meaning of poetic language! Half the arguments on Twitter are started because one tweet was not enough space to fully express someone's ideas, or enough space to capture all the nuances of an argument, but it's rarely useful to engage in discussion about the precise meaning of a tweet. But it's far more worthwhile to discuss proverbs! Like a poem, layers of meaning can reveal themselves. Tweets very rarely contain poetry, and as a result proverbs carry more weight and the feeling of literary value. Proverbs Lack Context, Which Mean You Need Wisdom to Apply ThemTweets exist essentially without context—take any Twitter account that tweets out famous quotes and look for the debate about what that author really meant "in context." Every discussion is worse because people rarely understand the full picture of the topic is being discussed, and yet they're still willing to give their opinion. Proverbs can appear to lack context too—unlike other biblical chapters, a series of proverbs can look like they have very little relation to each other. This can make it a bit frustrating to read a chapter of Proverbs. It feels like one idea after another. But proverbs exist as more than disembodied tweets for people to argue over; they are actually meant to be embodied—in our own lives. Everyone knows the famous pair of proverbs: "Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes." (Proverbs 26: 4-5). They contradict each other—or maybe it just takes a wise person to know which fool requires which proverbial solution. After all, we know proverbs are not always true. The righteous don’t always prosper. The hardworking don’t always get rich. But they're true in the right context. Proverbs puts into words principles of living well that “the wise” have figured out from observing life. To live well before the face of God, you should strive to be righteous, hardworking and wise. Generally, this results in blessing. And while real life is complex and the “good life” of the righteous can be hard for us to see from our perspective, the book of Proverbs does hint at the deeper complexity of life as well. (For example, "There are those whose teeth are swords, whose fangs are knives, to devour the poor from off the earth, the needy from among mankind." Proverbs 30: 14) This means that you don’t take all the principles of Proverbs all at once and apply them to every situation. No, rather as you grow in wisdom and as you grow in your walk in the fear of the Lord, you will also grow in your ability to apply the right principle to the right situation. Proverbs are for Developing WisdomThe most significant difference between Twitter and Proverbs is obviously the end result of reading them. A sea of various opinions does not naturally float the wisest ones to the top, as our several-decade-long experiment in social media has proven. But Proverbs have carefully been selected, arranged and preserved with one specific goal: to make the reader wise. It offers a route to developing wisdom. |
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I recently took a course on the book of Proverbs and someone asked me to summarize it. I replied, "Well, Proverbs is basically about developing wisdom," and she said, "Developing wisdom? That's interesting." I guess the simple view is that Proverbs just contains wisdom. But a closer look reveals it's about growing in wisdom. You don’t just memorize the contents of the book and automatically become wise. You use the proverbs as guides to navigate life, applying the right principle in the right situation. After all, the book starts off with a father's teaching to his son, and closes with a mother's teaching to her son. The book doesn't expect the reader to start off already wise, but develop it through becoming familiar with these words of wisdom. You grow in it as you progress through life, and ideally you'll learn from the experience of the wise who've gone before you rather than learning each and every painful lesson for yourself. As David Bland summarizes it, Proverbs helps “the people of God is to grow into the character of God.” Growing in wisdom goes hand-in-hand with growing in the fear of the Lord. As you mature in faith, it becomes clearer how to apply biblical wisdom. Wisdom, ultimately, is living your life in relationship with your covenant God. All in all, those are some of the reasons Proverbs are not an ancient form of tweets! This was mostly a fun topic for me to explore, and I enjoyed working out the comparison. One note in conclusion—one of the lesser known authors of Proverbs is Agur, whose contribution to the book is a masterful exploration of the limits of wisdom and the complexity of life on earth. I hope to explore his chapter (Proverbs 30) a bit more in the upcoming months, so stay tuned for more! |
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New to this newsletter? Want to read some past issues? You might enjoy these issues about the beginning and end of the Bible: If you have anything you’d like to see in this newsletter, or if you have anything you’d like to share with me, just reply to this newsletter and let me know! It’s nice to hear from my readers.
~ Harma-Mae |
I was always fascinated by Rachel when I was told stories about women in the Bible as a child. A beautiful woman whom Jacob loved so much he was willing to work fourteen years for her? I guess I have always been a romantic at heart! But when it comes to women in the Bible that people write about, or make sermons about, or create devotionals around, there are far more of these focused on her sister, Leah, than on Rachel. Leah is the relatable one, and Rachel is—well, not much of a role model.
Why don't we feel much of a connection to Rachel?
First, she is beautiful. We can be suspicious of beauty, and see it as a marker of shallowness. We don't naturally feel a connection to someone who has a benefit they were just born with—we feel more comfortable with those who "work" for their benefits in life, because it reassures us that life is fair.
Second, Jacob is infatuated with her, and therefore favours her. We pity her sister Leah because Leah is not loved, and we feel Leah's pain when she laments being unloved. We can all relate to longings for someone who does not care for us as much as we care for them. Unconsciously, we take Leah's side.
Third, we feel most of Rachel's actions are not actions we should imitate. When Jacob leaves his uncle Laban's house, she steals his household gods. She follows other superstitious practices, such as acquiring mandrakes in the hopes they will help her conceive. And despite being beautiful, the words she is recorded as saying are not words that seem to point to a sweet and kind character—such as when she confronts Jacob: “Give me children, or I shall die!”
But we already know that these stories in Genesis are not records of actions we should imitate. It's worthwhile to point out that while Genesis says that Jacob loved her, nothing is said about her feelings towards him. When she discusses her marriage later, she describes her father as "selling" her. Has her beauty and Jacob's favouritism really made her life easier? While we may struggle to relate to her, there is a lot about her life that we can sympathize with.
Here are a few points that make her more relatable.
She struggles to have children. We have a lot of sympathy for other women in the Bible who struggle with this, such as Hannah and Sarah. Rachel clearly sees this as a disgrace. "I shall die!" speaks to her deep misery over the closure of her womb. Jacob rightly reminds her that only God can give her children, but he also does not sound overly sympathetic to her. This is in contrast to Abraham and Isaac, who prayed to God when their wives were unable to have children (Bruce Waltke points this out in his commentary on Genesis). Jacob does not cry to God in a similar way on behalf of his wife Rachel's disgrace.
Could it be because the struggle between Rachel and her sister Leah so closely mirrors the struggle between himself and his brother Esau? Jacob has spent much of his life fighting for what he wants, and not crying out to God for it. Here Rachel also struggles with her sister. Rachel wants what her sister has (children), and Leah wants what Rachel has (Jacob's love)—and Rachel the younger sees this struggle as a struggle to overcome her sister (“With mighty wrestlings I have wrestled with my sister and have prevailed," she says, when Naphtali is born through her servant Bilhah). Rachel and Jacob are startlingly similar in their striving with life. They fight, fight, fight for what they want, even when reality does not go their way.
However, in both Jacob's life and in Rachel's life, God shows them grace. Jacob shows no sign of depending on God or calling out to God in all his striving, and yet God shows up to him and makes him promises (such as at Bethel when he dreams about the ladder from earth to heaven, or when his uncle Laban cheats him of his wages but God promises to prosper him), until Jacob begins to learn to depend on his God. Rachel, too, struggles with her sister, using her servant Bilhah to bear children for Jacob, and asking for mandrakes to open her womb. But after all of this, and after Leah has born many children, the text says, "Then God remembered Rachel, and God listened to her." God remembers her. And it seems Rachel has learned her machinations with servants and mandrakes are useless, for it says God "listens" to her, meaning she has at this point been calling out to him.
The sad irony of Rachel's life is that, though her whole personality after marriage is consumed by her struggle to have children, it is by bearing a child that she meets her death. As she dies giving birth to her second son, she names him, Ben-Oni ("son of my suffering"). “In dying Rachel became a prophetess,” says Abraham Kuyper, meaning her naming of her son also points to the suffering the tribe of Benjamin undergoes, and the later massacre at Bethlehem. Whether or not this naming is meant to be a prophecy, it is undeniable that Rachel’s role as a weeping mother continues to come up in prophecy later on.
Rachel comes up twice more in the Bible after her story in Genesis—first in Jeremiah's prophecy, which is then echoed and fulfilled in Matthew.
In Jeremiah, God promises to bring all his scattered children of Israel back to the land. Though the prophecy says, “A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more,” it urges Rachel not to cry. The whole chapter is filled with happy scenes of the children of both Rachel and Leah rejoining in new wine, oil and flocks.
Matthew picks up this prophecy after King Herod’s slaughter of the children of Bethlehem, using Rachel’s voice to lament their deaths. But here it sets the stage for Jesus, who is the one to ultimately fulfill all prophecies, and gather all God’s children back to him.
It does sound like the passionate Rachel to refuse to be comforted like this. She is characterized throughout the rest of the Bible as the mother she longed to be, but a suffering mother. And here God comforts her as well. As Jeremiah 31 says,
“The Lord says to [Rachel],
‘Stop crying! Do not shed any more tears.
For your heartfelt repentance will be rewarded.
Your children will return from the land of the enemy.
I, the Lord, affirm it!
Indeed, there is hope for your posterity.
Your children will return to their own territory.
I, the Lord, affirm it!”
God hears Rachel’s grief. In her wrestling with God for the blessing of children, she had to learn to rely on God alone for this blessing. And this blessing did not result in the ultimate fulfillment that all humanity was looking for—neither of her two sons were the child of the promise that God had told Eve about. Suffering and grief continued after their births (and through the very act of them being born). But it is still God alone whom Rachel, and all of us, must rely on. He promises an end to grief through the work of his Son, Jesus.
God hears Rachel’s grief, and he hears ours. Life isn’t easy. Many of us have to struggle, and many of us might feel it’s just one thing after another, as Jacob and Rachel experienced. But through it all, God guided them, flawed though they were. And God promises to guide us through our life as well.
~~~
New to this newsletter? Want to read some past issues? You might enjoy these issues about the beginning and end of the Bible:
If you have anything you’d like to see in this newsletter, or if you have anything you’d like to share with me, comment below! It’s nice to hear from my readers.
~ Harma-Mae
At Christmastime, one topic that gets a lot of attention is the four women in the line of Jesus, in Matthew's genealogy. There may be more written about them, especially at Christmas, than about most of the other male names in that list. But there is one name of the four which is mentioned less often. While the “scandalous” backgrounds of these women are often mentioned, and Rahab’s description as a prostitute is often brought up, Tamar tends to get neglected. This may be because we don’t know what to do with her. Rahab’s background as a prostitute is somewhat incidental to her story—it adds a little colour to her but it doesn't affect her actions. Tamar, on the other hand, pretends to be a prostitute and sleeps with her father-in-law, gets pregnant by him, and this turns out to be the reason she is included in the genealogy of Jesus.
Yeah, most people are not sure what to think about her.
So her story goes like this. She is married to one of Judah's sons, who dies, and so she is married to the next one of Judah's sons, who also dies. She is promised to Judah's youngest son, but because Judah describes him as too young, she is told to wait and marry him sometime in the future. Of course, Judah doesn't seem to intend to keep this promise, and Tamar realizes it once his youngest son starts getting older and older. So she dresses as a prostitute and hangs out in a place she knows Judah will be, and just as she hopes, Judah doesn't realize who she is and sleeps with her. She gets pregnant, but because she retained proof that it was Judah who'd slept with her, she is able to prove the child is his. In the end, Judah declares, “she is more righteous than I!”
“More righteous!” That's quite something to declare after being deceived in such a way. But most commentators point to this as one of those big, pivotal moments in biblical history, one that Tamar contributes to. Up to this point, Judah appears quite callous (the previous story describes his role in selling his brother Joseph into slavery in Egypt, not to mention how he promises Tamar something and then refuses to grant her what was promised). But this exclamation shows he could humble himself when the wrong he did was brought to his attention. It appears in this moment he is confronted with his behaviour, and instead of avoiding it or getting angry, he accepts the ugly picture it paints of himself. He sees he is not righteous. And his actions later on in the Joseph story (Genesis 43) indicate that he acts differently in the future.
Tamar's role in ensuring that the “line of the promise” continues—the line that eventually leads to the birth of Jesus—is another point that is often discussed. Judah is in the line of the promise, and because of her actions his line continues when it looks like his actions might lead to him having no heirs at all.* Her actions are so significant that when her sons (twins) are mentioned, she is frequently mentioned with them (see Ruth 4:12 and 1 Chronicles 2:4). Some commentators go so far as to say she knew Israel was God's chosen nation and that she took action to preserve them and unite herself to this chosen nation. She certainly shows tremendous determination to stay within Judah’s family, and she has very little reason to, after how Judah treated her. If this is the case, she could hardly have done anything that would guarantee her name would be mentioned in connection with Israel and the line of the promise, more than what she did.
Tamar is indispensable in biblical history because of how her actions affect Judah’s story, and the line of the promise itself. And so she is mentioned in Matthew 1.
But despite this, we are still often uncomfortable with the actions she took. It’s not a story we tell children, or include in children's Bible storybooks. We struggle with the application of a story with no clear hero, villain, or moral lesson.
Tamar is an active female character, a character who takes action to change her destiny. (Sadly, in this way she stands in direct contrast with the other Tamar, the daughter of King David, who plays a very passive role in her story). She takes the future into her own hands. She bears a lot of similarity to her grandfather-in-law, Jacob, who also fought tooth and nail for what he'd been promised. Jacob begins his life in a struggle with his brother, grasping his heel and trying to pull him back. He continues by taking advantage first of his brother’s hunger and later of his father’s old age and blindness, to get what he wants from them. And he ends by wrestling with God himself, refusing to let go until God blesses him. This quality of being willing to strive for what they want is what makes both Tamar and Jacob interesting characters, but they are not necessarily people we’d want to be friends with.
The simple fact is, sometimes God does give us what we struggle for. Sometimes God doesn’t hold the messiness of our actions, deceiving our father or deceiving our father-in-law, against us but instead he upholds the “rightness” of our cause. Like the parable of the persistent widow in the New Testament, God does at times reach through the haze of messy human actions and give us what we struggle for. Even Tamar’s twins reflect the Jacob and Esau story, with her two sons striving with each other in her womb, but in her case the eldest (Perez) does succeed in being born before his brother despite his brother extending his hand from the womb first.
We sometimes feel if we’re struggling and striving for something, it must mean God doesn’t want us to have it. We imagine God plays games with us, holding what we want just out of reach to teach us not to want it too much. But we forget who our God is when we feel this way, imagining him in the image of the capricious Greek and Roman gods rather than our loving father.
But is the message, then, just take initiative? Is it, just do whatever, the ends will justify the means, it’ll work itself out “because God “?
We have a tendency to interpret biblical stories as stories of “what we should do.” This is probably related to the way we’re taught these stories as children, as morality tales.
This leads us to hasten to explain, excuse, or praise the actions of every one of the characters in the story — I mean, to look at another example, the discussion around the Rahab story also gets sidetracked by whether she was right to lie or not. Here, the story plainly isn’t trying to discuss the morality of Tamar’s actions. We can get really tangled up about the morality of Tamar’s actions, but I don’t think we need to be.
Several characters are called wicked in this story, but none of them are Tamar. Tamar’s first husband, Er, is called wicked before he dies. Her second husband, Onan, is also called wicked before he dies. And while Judah isn’t explicitly called wicked, he recognizes at the end of the story that he is not righteous. He knew the punishment for a prostitute in Israel all too well, and he called for it to be brought on Tamar while knowing that he himself had used what he’d thought was a prostitute for his own desires. The story isn’t written to try the morality of her actions, but it is making a strong judgment on Judah’s.
As theologian Abraham Kuyper puts it, “Neither before nor after the incident is anything disparaging said of Tamar.” (p 46)
You can, of course, take a look at the rest of the Bible and put together that Tamar committed several sins. But in order to wrap our heads around how the story frames her, it might be helpful to look at Kuyper’s words about the next woman in the line of Jesus, Rahab. He writes that many biblical commentators downplayed her prostitution, unable to believe a woman of her character could have had the faith to do what she did. But, as Kuyper writes, “‘All have sinned and come short of the glory of God, being justified freely by his grace.’ That is the significant truth that must be kept in mind... a truth which applies to all alike, to Rahab, of course but also to the most virtuous woman we may happen to know... Naturally, such standards are revolting to humanistic conceptions of virtue. But they are the only standards of Holy Scriptures all the same.” (p. 68-69)
“Rahab was not a harlot first and a woman of faith after that. She was both at the same time.” (p. 69)
I will not go so far as to say Tamar was a woman of faith, as her faith is not explored or explained in the text. But the fact Judah would call her “more righteous” indicates she had some orientation towards righteousness, and that it was possible for her to have that orientation towards righteousness even in those actions she took. She has some small beginnings of righteousness while doing deeds we shrink away from. She had both at the same time.
But aren’t we all? Aren’t we always both saints and sinners, striving for righteousness one moment and indulging ourselves the next? We try to do things in our lives, sometimes focusing very hard on what God wants from us and not being sure if we do it quite right. Other times we forget to think about God and rely on our own schemes and plans, only later worrying if any of what we did was godly. If we weighed all our actions on the scale, it would be wanting, and if we waited until we were absolutely sure our actions were the perfect course of action, we would do nothing. But instead we can have confidence in the God who sent his Son to fill up what was lacking in us.
Why is Tamar mentioned in so many biblical genealogies, including the genealogy of Jesus? Because the writers feel it’s important to remember her.
It’s about remembering what she did and what effect her actions had. It’s about God’s plan unfolding and where this vulnerable human female fits in his story.
Her actions, actions we’d criticize from end to end, landed and made an impression on Judah. God didn’t wait for a pure, well-behaved example of virtue to get through to him. Tamar got through, in all her realistic human struggle.
The genealogy of Jesus says more about God than about us. It’s not about which of his ancestors we should or shouldn’t imitate. It’s a line of people like us that have some idea of where they’re going and what is the right thing to do, but constantly wobbling around as they strive to get there. And God takes all these crooked lines and makes them straight.
*note: Judah's youngest son, Shelah, does end up having a clan in the tribe of Judah (Number 26:20), but this likely occurred after the business with Tamar was cleared up, as Tamar's story makes no mention of him being married to another.
Another resource on Tamar can be found in this sermon by Rev. George van Popta!
]]>~Love, Harma-Mae
As I browsed the internet a few months back, I came across this little story that was supposed to help me navigate the frustrating unpredictabilities of this pandemic. The story goes like this:
Once upon a time, as a man was walking through a forest, he saw a tiger peering out at him from the underbrush. As the man turned to run, he heard the tiger spring after him to give chase.
Barely ahead of the tiger, running for his life, our hero came to the edge of a steep cliff. Clinging onto a strong vine, the man climbed over the cliff edge just as the tiger was about to pounce.
Hanging over the side of the cliff, with the hungry tiger pacing above him, the man looked down and was dismayed to see another tiger, stalking the ravine far below. Just then, a tiny mouse darted out from a crack in the cliff face above him and began to gnaw at the vine.
At that precise moment, the man noticed a patch of wild strawberries growing from a clump of earth near where he dangled. Reaching out, he plucked one. It was plump, and perfectly ripe; warmed by the sunshine.
He popped the strawberry into his mouth. It was perfectly delicious. The End.
Yes, I didn’t find that story all that comforting either. And don’t worry, the author who retold this story in his article is well aware of that: “Most of us don’t like this story.” We want the man to escape, or at least to know what happens to the man. But, says the author, just like the man’s situation is precarious and out of his control, so is ours. All we can do is savour the goodness found in each moment of the present.
While I agree with appreciating the present moment, this story still left me empty, instead of encouraged.
Contrast this with the famous (alleged) quote of Martin Luther:
"If I believed the world were to end tomorrow, I would still plant a tree today.”*
It’s similarly mind-boggling, but this quote doesn’t leave me so empty. And what’s the difference? I think the difference is hope.
Some have interpreted this Luther quote to be just as present-centered as the first story—in other words, just ignore the apocalypse about to occur, and focus on the task right in front of you in that specific moment. But I don’t see that in this quote.
Yes, when disaster looms and we don’t know what to do, we can fall back on our ordinary duties. If we are not being called to extraordinary heroics, we can continue in the tasks set before us—as so many women carried on at home while the men went off to war, in WWI and WWII, for example. But this quote goes deeper than that. Doing your ordinary duties can also be very present-centered, but planting an apple tree is long-term. That’s why it seems so ridiculous. Why would you plant a seed that will never sprout if you knew the world would end?
You do that if you believe there’s a continuation between the present and the future.
We don’t really believe in futility. We believe everything that happens matters. When we see someone promising die young before accomplishing anything, we mourn at what looks like a potential that was never realized, but we hold onto the belief that God turns even these things to good. God redeems history. The broken-off arcs of potential, that look so futile, will matter because God has triumphed over darkness and promised us that the brokenness of the world will not have victory over us.
Christians are sometimes criticized for living for the next world and not caring about this earth, but that’s the wrong way to think about it. The next world is the fulfillment of this one, fully restored and fully healed. This means we cannot do anything other than care about this world, because it’s the start of what is to come. We don’t fully know how it will come together in God’s plan, but we do believe everything will reach fulfillment, and not erasure.
And humans do seem to believe this because, despite the sands of time erasing most of what humans have built and achieved throughout history, we still act as if what we do and what we build matters. As humankind, we haven’t given up in despair—we act in the hope of a future, in hope of our doings somehow reaching fulfillment. We need this hope in order to live.
To me, this quote is simply a way of saying, if I knew the world would end tomorrow, I would still act as if my actions today mattered forever.
Now, I’m not saying the second quote is “the” right way to think about apocalypses. After all, it’s likely not even a Martin Luther quote, but rather one of those spurious quotes that get passed around the internet because they sound cool. It’s not wrong to value the present, to take joy in the raindrops on the rose petals, or the taste of a strawberry in a perilous situation. But there’s a difference between appreciating the present, or living only for the present. There’s something to be said for living in the expectation of a future.
To live in the expectation of a future is to live in hope, even in the blackest, bleakest times.
After all, the Bible calls us to live in the expectation of a future—it would not talk about what’s to come if we were not supposed to live in hope, with eyes looking onward. After the Fall, the first thing God did was give humans the hope of a future again. He gave them a promise. He knew the present was not enough, when they had memories of a past that was impossibly good.
And Adam and Eve responded—they had children. They knew better than we know how the fallen world is afflicted with futility in comparison with paradise. But they had hope enough to bring children into the world because they had been given a promise that futility would never be all there is.
Christianity’s message is an offer of hope and a future in the darkest situations.
People dislike The Tiger and the Strawberry because they cannot limit themselves to the present—people are enmeshed in a past-present-future flow. The present alone is not what we’re made for. The present alone is not enough, and to content ourselves with it is to cut ourselves off from the richness of life.
So go out and enjoy those small moments, taking your day minute-by-minute and slowing down enough to notice life’s details. But don’t feel the need to convince yourself that this is enough. We need hope to live on, even when there looks to be no hope at all.
*Many scholars cannot find any evidence that Martin Luther actually said this, so it’s definitely one of those alleged quotes.
If you want to help the Hmm... Newsletter even more, share your reason for subscribing. You can let me know in the comments below (I always love to hear from readers), or mentioning this post on social media.
In case you missed it, I recently published a piece about fast fashion and Christianity at Ad Fontes Journal - you can check it out here: More than Ethics
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~Love, Harma-Mae
During the summer, I toyed with the idea of making one of these newsletters a list of summer reads. In the end I didn’t, because who wants assigned reading over the summer? It’s far more fun if you choose your own. However, September often feels like the start of something “new,” and so I have something to recommend to you this month. If you’re looking for a place to pick up regular Bible reading, my recommendation for this month is Ecclesiastes.
Ecclesiastes? You might sigh—that depressing book?
Why should you read Ecclesiastes? Especially nowadays, especially when everything is uncertain and you really don't want to hear why everything you're doing is meaningless. You might feel like you need something positive and peppy. Maybe Ecclesiastes always got you down a little, and it's the last thing you think you'd enjoy right now.
After all, just listen to this!
It just oozes weariness, doesn't it? We might even wonder how a perspective like this can mesh with a Christian perspective on living.
Well, I want to tell you why I enjoy this book so much. I’ve read it over and over this past year, a year that has sometimes felt full of futility. Even when writing about other topics, I find myself being drawn back in to think about this wisdom book again. And it hasn’t depressed me further—rather, it has helped me dare to hope.
First, it is unapologetic about enjoying the good things in life. For a supposedly “depressing” book, it discusses joy far more often than you might guess from a short description of the book. And it is a joy linked very closely with the real, physical world—it's not an inner, secret joy you have in spite of the circumstances—it’s not a heavenly joy far away from our day-to-day experience. It's grounded in the mundane, in the dirt and grime of life.
It first comes up in Chapter 2:
“There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil” (2:24).
It sounds like something very close to what modern advice on life might be: take time to enjoy the small things in life, (such as food and drink), and pursue work that you love to do. The teacher of Ecclesiastes finds this idea so important he repeats it again and again throughout the book. Take Chapter 3: “I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God's gift to man ... I saw that there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his work, for that is his lot.” (3:12-13,22).
When we give advice to others about the “good life,” we tend to give advice that points away from earthly realities, reminding others that life is about more than our stomachs, our work, or our short-lived pleasures. And while we are right to recognize the meaning of life is not found in a piece of bread (and that if we focus our lives on bread we will find ourselves unsatisfied), we have no reason not to feel joy from the good things in life, such as good food or accomplishing work. God is the one who gives life meaning, but God is also the creator who created good things and gave them to us for us to enjoy, and so accepting the goodness of these physical things is part of finding meaning in our lives.
The urge to enjoy is a repeated refrain: in Ecclesiastes 5, in Ecclesiastes 8, and finally in its most expanded form, in Ecclesiastes 9:
“Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do. Let your garments be always white. Let not oil be lacking on your head. Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life that he has given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going." (9:7-10)
And it chapter 10, it is stated so directly it is almost shocking:
Here, money is included in the good things of life. It feels risky to feed into the potential for greed in that way, and yet even the benefit of this very earthly reality is acknowledged by the teacher in Ecclesiastes.
Second, Ecclesiastes deals with life honestly. It's not a positive-thinking course that teaches you to push away the dark parts of reality that bother you, helping you to act as if those things aren't there.
The theme of Ecclesiastes that comes through even more strongly than the theme of joy is the vanity or meaninglessness of so many things: our toil, our riches, our wisdom, our strength. So many things that look like an advantage, that look like “progress,” just drift away with time. Sometimes other people actively tear progress down. It can scare us, when we put our hand to our work, to think we might have nothing to show for our work, or that our existence might be forgotten once we die. But the solution of Ecclesiastes is not, “don't think about reality and do it anyway.” This often works for humans, to a point—but many of us hit a day where the thoughts we are pushing away can't be pushed away anymore. We wonder, what is the point of our lives? Especially after a year that seemed to be a constant stop-and-start, where progress on anything seemed to disappear the minute it was made, it feels pointless to even try.
Does it matter what we do, whether we try to build, whether we strive to help, whether we have ambition? All this just fades with in the long arc of time, and we all come to an end no matter what we did in our lives. No wonder so many of us find Ecclesiastes depressing! It paints a good picture of the futility we often feel.
And worse than just futility of our own lives, there's evil and injustice all around us. “Again I saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun. And behold, the tears of the oppressed, and they had no one to comfort them! On the side of their oppressors there was power, and there was no one to comfort them. And I thought the dead who are already dead more fortunate than the living who are still alive.” (4:1-2)
How can a book that directly confronts and acknowledges the misery of being alive speak so often of joy? How do these two messages fit together?
Maybe it’s something like this. Even though it looks like everything is futile, everything is broken, everyone is evil—we do not have to go around with gloomy faces. Our lives do not have to be a testament to how much we know the world is wrong. We should acknowledge the problems and help with the ones we can help, yes—while also not feeling guilty about the laughter, the bread, the good wine, the clean clothes, and the loving relationships—not even about the money if you have been blessed with any.
What is the message? Even though the world appears full of futility, we are urged to live, live, live.
What follows the passage about bread being made for laughter? It’s this well-known set of verses:
We can look at our bread and horde it, or bury it like the man with the single talent. We can let futility get us down, and cause us to crawl into holes and give up on living. Or we can see the meaninglessness in our perspective as freeing—we can hold what we can loosely and take risks with it. We can be generous, or invest in something we're not perfectly sure about, or try a new venture.
“In the morning sow your seed, and at evening withhold not your hand, for you do not know which will prosper, this or that, or whether both alike will be good.” (11:6)
How does Ecclesiastes end? Well, then is how it ends: "For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil." (12:14). This comes across as a terrifying ending, at first glance. But ultimately it is the response to “meaningless, meaningless.” Everything does matter. Go and enjoy life and live freely—and know that even when what you do seems to end in futility, and no one seems to see or care about whether you live well or not, that it all does matter. Suffering matters. Injustice matters.
What is left in the end is just the goodness—God’s goodness—of which we already sometimes get a taste when we enjoy good food, good wine, good company and fulfilling work.
If you want to help the Hmm... Newsletter even more, share your reason for subscribing. You can let me know in the comments below (I always love to hear from readers), or mentioning this post on social media.
]]>~Love, Harma-Mae
Have you ever heard the saying, “the Bible begins in a garden but it ends in a city?” Since I wrote on gardens in the May issue, it makes sense to explore cities next. The interesting thing is that while I’m a city girl myself, I have a lot of friends who dislike cities. Many long for the quiet peace of the countryside, with space for themselves where they can do their own thing. What does it mean to these people, to say the Bible ends in a city? Does it mean we will all ultimately agree cities are best after all? As much as I'd enjoy that, that is not the point. But this shows we can explore what is beautiful in the good kind of cities.
Cities are obviously places where people live together, so the first and clearest image that a city gives us is the image of people living together
In the beginning, when there was just Adam and Eve, living as two in the context of a garden makes sense—but we know Adam and Eve were told to “fill the earth.” So we know humans were meant to live together and depend on each other (“woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up!”), and two progressing to many is part of the movement of the biblical story. In this way, it makes sense that the Bible would begin the garden and end in the city. It shows that the plan from the beginning is moving to fulfillment.
Of course, we know all too well that living in community in a sinful world brings challenges and harms, which is why so many of us would like to avoid it. In contrast with the cruelties of humanity, the wilds of nature can feel peaceful and freeing. Even in the God-established community of the church, we struggle to live in harmony. So this is not to say we should all strive to love cities more—but rather what an ideal city represents: living well in community.
But there’s more to the city at the end of Revelation than just “community.” Community is the most obvious difference between a garden and a city, but Genesis and Revelation bookend the story of the Bible in more ways.
Progression is also illustrated by this city, flowing from its garden beginnings. As Matthew Henry describes, “In the first paradise there were only two persons to behold the beauty and taste the pleasures of it, but in this second paradise whole cities and nations shall find abundant delight and satisfaction.” And progression is more than just the number of people—Revelation shows the potential of Genesis in full flower.
The city at the end of Revelation is a garden city. The parallels with the first chapter of Genesis jump out at us: a river flows through it, a tree of life grows in it, and gold and precious stones are found there. “A paradise in a city, or a whole city in a paradise!” as Matthew Henry describes it. And as beauty was an inescapable part of the garden of Eden, beauty is still an unescapable part of the garden city – even after the progression of the whole biblical story, beauty has not been discarded as an unnecessary extra, but also brought to its fulfillment here in the end. The potential of the gold and onyx, described in Genesis as near the garden of Eden, has now been brought into the city itself. The streets are paved with gold. The foundations are made with precious the stones. The very gates are pearls.
C.S. Lewis was rather unimpressed by the idea of jewellery and streets of gold, calling them small and chilling, but I have to disagree—as a child reading these chapters I was utterly fascinated by the description of the shine and colours. Just like cities don't connect with everyone, the idea of jewels doesn't either, and that's fine—but I think the excitement I felt over the beauty of a such a place hints at the message the chapter is trying to bring across. Human ideas of very beautiful things, like crystal and topaz, are needed to get across the full idea of perfect beauty. These very beautiful gifts were created by God, and we can take them from where they were placed in creation and make other things with them, and display what is unique and fascinating about these creations to an even greater extent.
This also shows that in paradise, beauty is not a frivolous extra, but part of the whole. Both natural and constructed beauty are hinted at: not just trees and river but also streets and walls and gates. By bringing out the potential of the land, nature has not been smothered—it is a place for humans to live and work and build with nature and not against it. And not just two or three people either: “the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it.” As one commentator explains, those who come into the city will bring their glory—their talents and virtues—to the life of the city. The beauty of the city will also come from the glory of what the peoples bring into it.
Cities represent places humans live together and build things together. Here humans are not represented as living isolated from each other, completely independent, and utterly separate. Paradise is us finding a way to live together and fulfill our purpose together, building things that astound us with their beauty through the gifts God gives us.
Of course cities aren’t idealized in the Bible—cities like Babylon are used to represent evil, and even Jerusalem is constantly used as an example of abandoning the way God wants humans to live with him and together. But the garden isn’t idealized either. In the gospels, the garden is the place of the betrayal of Jesus, an inverse of the story of Genesis. Jesus, in contrast to Adam, does not hide from the wrath of God by hiding from those coming to find and kill him, and rather than being punished with death he dies to bring life to all men (see Thoughts on Scripture for more on this topic).
But it is through this dark middle part of the story that God’s story moves on to its ending. Neither evil cities or gardens of betrayal will remain. In the celestial city, there will be trees for the “healing of the nations,” and “every tear will be wiped away.” Humans will live in community with each other, but most importantly, they will live in community with God. “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them...”
In the idealized city at the end of revelation, humans live and build in perfect harmony with God—God is their sun, and their river of life, and there is no need of a temple since God is there.
If you want to help the Hmm... Newsletter even more, share your reason for subscribing. You can let me know in the comments below (I always love to hear from readers), or mentioning this post on social media.
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~Love, Harma-Mae
What does it mean to go “back to the garden”? “Back to the garden” evokes this sense of longing inside us, to return to a clean, natural state where all is peaceful and green. It’s a retreat from the rushing, noisy, ugly human world to reconnect with nature as it would be without us. Gardens are places to rediscover the natural state, the way the world would be without us.
Or are they?
Gardens, though filled with plants, are in fact the very demonstration of humans interfering with nature. The funny thing about gardens is that while they put us in mind of peaceful states of nature, they actually require a lot of work. Gardens are not “discovered”—or, if they are discovered, as the characters in The Secret Garden discover a rose garden hidden behind stone walls, they then must be restored after years of neglect. They’re not an escape from the grubby touch of man, but instead they have the fingerprints of humanity all over them.
It’s springtime, so I too am plunging my hands into the dirt, removing weeds and leaves and moss from the places they are not supposed to be, and encouraging pale green springs of plants to thrive in the places I do want them to be. I don’t suppose all of you are gardeners, but if some of you are, you can relate. The snow melts and the fresh smell of spring gets into your blood, and you have to get out and tend to your garden. The full bloom of summer might be weeks away and yet you still feel compelled to cluck over the dirt, preparing it for the show of beauty that is to come. And as I work, I think about this—this reality that we create gardens and yet at the same time they speak to us of a nature that lives outside of our control, nature we attempt to work with in harmony with instead of forcing or effacing.
Eden and Us
In the Bible, of course, the most famous garden is an example of man working in harmony with nature. The garden of Eden is not made by man, but God makes it and puts him inside it to work in it. It is striking that even in this state of perfection, man is not set in vast, untamed wilderness but rather in the somewhat regulated setting of a garden. We sometimes imagine we can only get in touch with who we really are, and what the world is truly like, by escaping all trappings of civilization and any reminder of what humans are, and experiencing the wild as it really is without humanity. We assume it is only untamed nature that has anything to tell us about reality, and we forget about enclosed and tamed nature. And yet we do not seem to be made to remain in the wilderness. God created both the wilds of the wilderness and the serenity of the garden, and it was the garden he gave to man to live in.
The wilds of the world demonstrate who God is to us, and we should explore and seek them out to stand in awe of who created us—as so many of do when we hike or canoe or camp in them. But it is in the garden that we come to see what we were made to do.
God put man in the garden, “not like Leviathan into the waters, to play therein, but to dress the garden and to keep it. Paradise itself was not a place of exemption from work... The garden of Eden, though it needed not to be weeded (for thorns and thistles were not yet a nuisance), yet must be dressed and kept. Nature, even in its primitive state, left room for the improvements of art and industry.” Nature could thrive if man worked well—in the state of perfection, it was not better off without our touch. God set it up for man’s enjoyment, including his visual enjoyment (“God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight...”), but it would take man to continuously nurture it to allow it to blossom into full beauty.
Garden Beauty Opens Our Eyes to the Relation Between Us and the World Around Us
Roger Scruton argues gardens are “between” places—between the built world of humans and the world of nature. “A tree in a garden is not like a tree in a forest or a field. It is not simply there, growing from some scattered seed, accidental in both place and time. It enters into a relation with the people who walk in the garden, belong with them in a kind of conversation.” (Beauty, p.67). Gardens are therefore about the relationship between humans and the natural world—we adapt it, and it adapts us. “This attempt to match our surroundings to ourselves and ourselves to our surroundings is arguably a human universal. And it suggests that the judgement of beauty is not just an optional addition to the repertoire of human judgments, but the unavoidable consequence of taking life seriously, and becoming truly conscious of our affairs.” By retreating to the garden we are not escaping ourselves, but becoming more aware of what we are.
So what does this mean for you? It means you can enjoy gardens—either working in them or just drinking them in if you don’t have a green thumb—and be reminded again of our place working in nature and allowing nature to work on us. We were placed to live in a relationship with our world. In the fallen world, our relationship with nature can frequently be damaging. But the very best gardens remind us that this is not the way it should be.
And gardens remind us again that beauty matters. The simple extravagance of flowers— “even Solomon in all his glory was not clothes as one of these.” There was a reason the tabernacle and the temple were adorned with flowers: cups shaped like almond blossoms on the golden lamp stands, flower-shaped ornaments and tongs, carvings of palm trees branching over the doors and walls. Beauty is not just a frivolous or optimal extra to life, but built right into our existence here on earth. Why are gardens so beautiful, far beyond their function? Because beauty itself has a value that’s hard to measure.
Conclusion
It is no wonder we feel nostalgic for “the garden.” Eden was a state of innocence that we should grieve over losing. We lost perfection, we lost naivete about evil and suffering, and now we are faced with destruction and ugliness. It is no wonder we sometimes search for a pristine corner of the world that humans have not touched—though even in the remotest corners of the earth we can see the groaning over creation as it waits to be restored to the way it truly should be.
But Christianity is not about looking backwards, trying to get “back” to the garden we were cast out of. The narrative of the Bible does not arc around in a grand circle back to the beginning. Revelation 22 echoes Genesis 2, but it shows where we will arrive when we’ve come through history: a place for many tribes and tongues to receive the healing of the Tree of Life. There is growth and fulfillment in the narrative of faith that threads through the Bible, just as a garden can grow and become better with time. We do not need to return to the garden, but we do need to continue to look to the throne of God, from which flows the crystal-clear river of life.
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You know what? The next issue of this newsletter doesn't exist yet—but you can help make sure it will exist:
All in all, I cannot do this newsletter without YOU—and I'm so glad you're here!
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Here are my top recommendations for interesting and uplifting links to get you through the month ahead—read at your leisure:
I enjoyed this exploration of what it might be like to eat a medieval diet in the modern day: "I Tried a Medieval Diet"
Here's a good question: "When Did You Last Read a Book?"
I made a video version of the first part of my Proverbs 31 article, which you can watch here.
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]]>~Love, Harma-Mae
God loves us so much he sent his Son to this world to die for us. That is what we remember on Good Friday. That kind of love is hard to wrap our minds around. On one hand, we can’t imagine the kind of love for another that would prompt us to give up something so incredibly precious. On the other hand, because God has given us a gift beyond value already, we can wonder how we dare ask him for anything else. Why would we bother him with our petty requests and wants, when he has already done everything for us? Our daily struggles look so meaningless compared to this great struggle he has already won for us.
This is what I found myself thinking when I found myself alone in Paris on Easter Sunday in 2014. I had nothing to complain about. I was in Paris, after all—so many Christians around the world suffer and struggle, and I was travelling for the pleasure of seeing things I deeply desired to see. And yet I found myself writing this in my blog account at the time:
Sometimes we convince ourselves to lower our expectations of God. First of all, we don’t want to ask for the wrong things, and we know almost all our requests are self-centered. So we tell ourselves we obviously should not expect an answer for prayers that might not be quite right anyway. Second, we want to avoid the crushing disappointment of unanswered prayers, so we tell ourselves not to expect an answer, and avoid the disappointment. Third, even if our request is not self-centered, we might hesitate to ask for more and more and more from a God who has already given us everything we need.
But the answer is not to lower our expectations of God. Our actions change nothing about his character.
We can’t wrap our minds around a love that can give and give and give, without resentment. But God is beyond our understanding—he is able to give and give to those who can never pay him back. He can receive our petty requests in love, and see how they could be turned to our good. He does not require us to get our prayers perfect before we dare to come before him.
“Grace” is often defined as “unmerited favour”: those who have no claim to God’s goodness receive his goodness anyway. We understand grace in the dramatic biblical events, where God covers our sin with the blood of Jesus. But at times we fail to recognize the grace that holds us in the palm of God’s hand every day, the grace that gives us every little joy we daily experience—the sun coming up each morning in a blaze of pink and red and yellow, the flowers that unfurl themselves in the spring, the taste of coffee that hits our tongue in the morning and satisfies something in us. We take all this for granted, and then we hesitate to pour our hearts out before God as if he had not been granting us gifts all along.
God loves, and he loves us perfectly. He is eternally moved to communicate himself to us, and it is a part of who he is. He will always delight in demonstrating his character to us so that we can know him more. We might fall short, but our inability does not require us to lower our expectations of him. God never changes.
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It’s nice to be back after a short break. As promised, I spent the break collecting my series on Proverbs 31 into an ebook (PDF), which is free to all email subscribers, so sign up to get your copy :)
This issue of {Hmm...} will be a little different than these past few months—I'm giving you a more practical topic to switch it up. I’m calling it “another bible study method” because I don’t think it’s “better” than any other method out there, but rather it’s an additional method that can be helpful! Try it out and let me know.
~Love, Harma-Mae
How do we usually teach the Bible? When teaching children, we tend to either tell them biblical stories, or give them verses to memorize. These can be great strategies, but both of these can reduce the Bible into chunks. Verse memorization especially can isolate individual verses from their context, but even children’s bible stories can simplify a biblical narrative to the point where a child might not realize how different the emphases of the different gospels are (to give just one example).
I don’t know about you, but I always found it hard to get a good sense of the “big picture” of the Bible, since we tend to take only a few verses at a time, or go chapter-by-chapter. When we read the next chapter, we may’ve forgotten about what was in the chapter before it, and we’re quite likely to have forgotten what was in the first chapter. I've found it feels like trying to get a good idea of what a painting looks like while having your nose pressed right up against it! Therefore, we often miss the way an argument might be built up chapter-by-chapter (as in Romans), or how a narrative alludes to or parallels an earlier narrative (for example, how Jesus bringing the Sermon on the Mount to the people echoes the way Moses brought the Law down from the mountain to Israel). In addition, the words of a chapter can become so familiar to us that we assume we know what they mean, but we don’t realize we tend to think of them in isolation and haven’t fit them in the context of the rest of the book.
This Bible is a big book, so of course it’s difficult to wrap your mind around it! There’s too many story arcs and repetitions and references back to itself to ever cram into your head, but in time you can start to get a lot of meaning out of its overall structures. One method that is often suggested to counteract reading verses in isolation is to read one whole Bible book in one shot. This is one great method, and if you haven’t tried it yet you should definitely see how it changes the experience. One potential drawback might be that you still skim over familiar sections, assuming that you “know” that part—especially if you’ve chosen a long book and you need to give your brain a break! So the method I suggest is similar but a little bit different: pick a Bible book and outline it.
This means picking a Bible book and creating a chapter-by-chapter summary of it. It's even better if you commit to attempt to memorize this outline, because you’ll try to keep it clear and short, and because you’ll be forced to draw connections between the chapters to help you remember the order they come in. But even if you don’t try to memorize this outline, the process of trying to summarize instead of reading verse-by-verse forces you to pull back from the text and think about the big picture.
A method like this can be as intimidating as committing to read a whole Bible book in one sitting! So there’s a few ways to make it less intimidating. Not all of us have the skill of easily summarizing what we read, so feel free to use other resources to help. For example, copy all the headings from one of your Bible translations, and read them through to see if you follow the story of that book by the headings alone. You can then adjust or add to the headings as you need, until you have an outline that feels like it sums the book up. Go back and read a chapter whose heading wasn’t clear to you, and you might be surprised at the details you never noticed were in that chapter!
Or you can look up outlines and summaries other people have made. I’ve seen several great summaries of Hebrews, for example. Another resource might be YouTube videos like the Bible Project. You may find some of these resources summarize too broadly, or they use different words than you would use, and so you can adjust your summary to what you think is most accurate. It’s okay to disagree with a summary you find, because then you’re really thinking critically about how you would describe this Bible book’s message in your own words.
The point is, consciously putting in the effort to see “the big picture” by creating something of your own helps you make the message of the Bible your own. Your summary will certainly not be better than the Bible itself—that is not the point. But the point is to internalize what you’re reading, rather than skimming it or assuming you remember what the familiar words mean when you’ve never really thought about them. It’s an attempt to get away from words that are so familiar you hardly realize you don’t hear them.
You might start to notice new details, like the parts of the stories left out of the Bible stories told to children. You might notice details like how Genesis is divided into ten sections starting with the repeated words, “These are the generations of...” (ESV), which is a structure unique to Genesis. Or how Exodus is punctuated, not by genealogies, but rather theophanies (when God visibly reveals himself to humans, such as in the burning bush).
Start small! Pick a shorter book to try it out—John is a good one to try for a narrative, since summarizing it will help you picture what it contains that the other gospels leave out, and you can use the seven major miracles of Jesus described in it as significant points. If you want something that’s more about doctrine, you can try Galatians—it's less familiar than Romans, but packs a lot in it.
The reason I recommend trying this out is that this is an exercise I was required to do for my courses in the Old Testament and the New Testament. I was required to get acquainted with each chapter, even the chapters I might be tempted to skip reading otherwise, and as a result I began to feel at home navigating through the message of the Bible as a whole. I definitely do not remember the chapter-by-chapter outlines I created. But as a result, each Bible book feels like an old friend, when I encounter it now, rather than new and intimidating territory.
There are some books that this method will work less well on—Psalms and Proverbs come to mind. I, personally, have found prophetic writings like Isaiah and Jeremiah hard to summarize as well. But it works very well for narratives, helping you pull back enough to see the plot progression. It also works well on much of the New Testament letters.
Who knows? By the end of this, you might find you finally remember what differentiates 2 Thessalonians from Philippians.
There’s been a lot of talk about newsletters lately, hasn’t there? One reason this might be is that readers want more control over what content they see—they don’t necessarily want to be fed by the algorithms at Facebook and Twitter. They want content that they know will be a reliably good read, from a writer they feel good about supporting. And they want to get it in a place where they know they will see it. For many of us, one place we check relatively frequently is our emails.
And for writers and other creators, newsletters give us a direct connection to people who are interested in our work. We don’t have the same opportunity for interaction, as we might in a Facebook comment thread (and I hope to think of a solution to have more interaction with readers one day), but we feel more connected to the handful of readers who trust us with their email address than to the fleeting visitors on social media.
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Here are my top recommendations for interesting and uplifting links to get you through the month ahead—explore at your leisure:
Article: Jane Austen’s novels have been used to treat shell-shock!
Article: “The Pandemic Has Erased Entire Categories of Friendship” – I found this was a different perspective on social connections than usual
Video: I filmed a handful of videos in February, so here’s one, if you missed it
Podcast: Christianity & the Arts: Literature & Art (Mid-America Reformed Seminary's Round Table)
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The Conclusion of the Matter
Now we’ve reached the end of our series looking at that ideal Proverbs 31 woman. And now might be a good time to step back and look at the whole passage, to think about what this ideal is and isn’t. For instance, if we did manage to achieve this level of ideal, and we did somehow manage to imitate the Proverbs 31 woman perfectly, what would that mean? Would we then be perfect people? No. It is clear that even if we followed her example perfectly we would not be sinless in the same way we would be if we could somehow perfectly take on the likeness of Christ. This points to the importance of thinking through the function of this passage—what it is and isn’t.
Let’s take one last issue of this newsletter to look back at how this ideal woman can function in our lives. As an ideal, she is worth reaching for, and our discomfort with reaching for this ideal is worth examining. These past three issues have examined in detail the characteristics of hers and how they encourage us: her strength, her effectiveness, and her courage. The result of this passage should be to inspire us, and for us to inspire and encourage each other, but in order to do that without stirring up feelings of inadequacy in us, let us summarize once again how Proverbs 31 can be used without softening or minimizing the ideal she represents.
I have argued all along that Proverbs 31 is an ideal. But I think it’s wrong to use it in the place of our ultimate ideal, Christ—to say if we fail to reach her ideal, it is only because we humans need Christ. It is true to say that because of all our failings, we need to look to Christ. But I don’t think we should lay out a series of human ideals, and tell each other that if we fail to live up to these ideals it is the same as failing to live up to the ideal of Christ. In other words, we cannot interchange our ideals, substituting any of them for Christ, as if they were his equals—as if we could attain perfection by following any human ideal. And I have seen Proverbs 31 explained in this way, explained to mean it only exposes our failings and points to our need for Christ, and nothing more. I would argue that rather it lays out an example of someone who already accepts her need for Christ (she “fears the Lord”), and who puts that understanding into action.
It is possible to have more than one kind of ideal. There is an ultimate ideal which we fail to live up to, and which points us to our need for a saviour. But there are also ideals which are more like signposts on the journey. We strive to go where they’re going, not because we’re after salvation, but because they know what we know about salvation, and they demonstrate a way to live it out.
Why do we shy away from encouraging each other to aim for the ideal in Proverbs 31? Why do we often recite excuses—we're not meant to be like her, we’re only meant to see how far from her we are and turn to Jesus. Or, as we saw in the first article in this series, resort to making fun of her: she’s a little too perfect, and no one likes perfect people, so it’s fine to feel uncomfortable with her. Or by emphasizing the differences between her and us: she was a rich woman of status, and so if you aren’t you don’t need to worry about her much. We tend to present her as a kind of inhuman being that is impossible to try to be like, rather than a human possibility. We don’t show any kind of enthusiasm for the picture she presents.
I think we turn to these types of minimizations of this passage, and justifications of our feelings of discomfort, for two reasons. We are uncomfortable with this passage because we feel her example might be limiting. And we are uncomfortable with this passage because we feel her example, though a human example, is unreachable. Sprinkled throughout the previous issues have been counterarguments to these points, but let’s pull them all together here.
A Limited Ideal?
Let’s first look at this fear of limitation. We have already discussed how sometimes the ideal of Proverbs 31 is conflated with Christ, to the point where the implication is that we ought to be as much like her as we can be, and when we fail we need to look to Christ as our saviour. This kind of conflation implies that there is only one ideal for women. If there is only one ideal, that is limiting! But if Proverbs 31 is a human example, a human ideal, then we can have more than one ideal at the same time. She is more similar to the list of heroes of the faith in Hebrews 11, despite not being a historical person, than a rigid ultimate ideal which cannot be deviated from. You can be encouraged by her example, as well as your mother’s, for example.
In other words, she doesn’t exactly set the pattern for all women. After all, it is interesting to remember that this particular passage in its original context was not given to a woman (as a kind of lesson), but rather to a man. This is a passage from the lips of a mother to her son, King Lemuel. Its direct application is less about what women ought to be like, and more about what future kings ought to look for in a wife. So in its context, it is not presented as a direct command to women: “Women, be like this, and only like this.” It is far more similar to a virtuous woman like Mary, which women can draw encouragement and inspiration from. Does it give direction on what a godly woman can look like? Yes. It is definitely not wrong to apply it in this way, and to look for direction from this passage. But the case can be overstated: for example, by saying, “This is what God says to women.” It is not a measuring rod for determining the exact amount anyone falls short of the standard of being a woman.
At the same time, don’t forget what we discussed in September, about what the advantage of having the Proverbs 31 ideal is. “When we need a picture of a woman exercising female traits and positively affecting the world around her as a result of being a woman, we can look to Proverbs 31. . . Having examples can be freeing rather than limiting, because we see how different lives than ours can be lived.” While we are not limited to following her as the single female ideal, we should inspire each other by pointing to her example, as we would point to other Christian examples. We shouldn’t be uncomfortable in helping each other to strive for this ideal.
Another way she is sometimes seen as limiting is that her example is seen as narrow and confining. One aspect of her I have not discussed in depth is her roles as wife and mother. This is partly because I do not have a ton of advice to offer about those roles, as someone with no experience in them. But it is also because the traits in her that we’ve explored so far can be developed in women of all walks of life. I don’t think you necessarily take on specific roles and therefore become the Proverbs 31 woman, but rather that you can develop Proverbs 31 traits and use them in your roles, including and especially in the roles of wife and mother since these have the most direct descriptions in this passage.
But remember, there is another “virtuous woman” described in the Bible. We previously discussed the story of Ruth, and how she was known as a virtuous woman by Boaz long before she ever became a wife and mother. She was, in fact, both poor and a foreigner. Therefore her example demonstrates that while many of us may face obstacles in life which make us very different from the wife in Proverbs 31—we may be poor, or struggle with mental or physical health, or face social stigma–but even in those circumstances we are not barred from being “virtuous women” as Ruth was. Proverbs 31 is not applicable only to women with the right advantages in life. It is not meant only for women who take on specific roles. And this is encouraging.
An Unreachable Ideal?
Second, she achieves so much. She achieves so much. We do feel judged when reading the descriptions of her activity and comparing them to our own accomplishments. She feels unreachable.
First of all, remember that we described this as a heroic poem about a woman—do men despair because they have never slain a dragon? But a man encouraged by stories of dragon-slaying might like to be the kind of man that could slay dragons, in a different way. This is why I have focused more on her characteristics than on the modern ways to imitate her accomplishments.
Second, the function of an ideal is not to make us feel guilty and awful for the ways we fall short, leading us to apathy and despair—if it were, then the biblical commands to look to Christ’s example would not only lead to our misery, but to our inactivity as Christians. Ideals are not intended to paralyze us. Still, as humans we struggle to keep this in mind, since we do feel inadequate when we compare ourselves to any standard.
This is why it is of such deep importance to keep our focus first of all on Christ, with any other ideal in second place. It is through Christ’s strength that we can imitate any Christian example—we are not paralyzed because we know we have his strength. It is Christ who sets us free from standards that condemn us, so we have the freedom to pursue ideals of goodness without guilt. And it is because of Christ that all our efforts are ultimately not failures, not fruitless, not futile. We look to Christ first, and then to Proverbs 31, rather than first at Proverbs 31 to remind us to look to Christ.
“Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ”
If we accept this, then what can we imitate from her? Well, this is what this series has been all about! We can imitate her strength, even when we feel weak and fragile (October issue). We can imitate her effectiveness, even when we’re overwhelmed by feelings of ineffectiveness (November issue). We can imitate her courage facing an unknown future (December issue). There are likely more characteristics that can be drawn out of this passage, and more study that can be done—but those are some places to start.
We can use her example when inspiring and encouraging each other, without minimizing her or justifying why we bring her up. When we face negative stereotypes about women, either from the world around us or rising up inside our own minds, we can remember that these stereotypes are not necessarily true. The Bible, the book of truth, presents us with this woman of power to encourage us.
I hope this exploration has been encouraging for you, and that you do see your horizon broadened by her example, rather than limited!
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Feedback? Comment below :)
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Want more? Read Part 1 here: Who's Afraid of Proverbs 31?
Part 2 here: A Woman of Strength.
Part 3 is here: A Woman of Impact.
Part 4 is here: A Woman Without Fear
This is Part 5!
And do subscribe! Don't miss the next issue :)
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Right now, we’re living through times that make us nervous and on edge—and when we look at others around us, their anxieties just feed into ours. We’re, frankly, scared of the future. As one comic illustrating our attitude to 2021 depicts, we’re hesitantly poking open the door to the new year, unsure if we actually want to know what will happen next.
Don't we all need people in our lives that can laugh at the days to come? Someone who strengthens us by example, by personally facing the future without fear? It’s so reassuring to look to others and not be fed by their anxieties, but instead find they have strength we can draw on. We so quickly fall into despair in the face of the storms, and we relate all too deeply with the verse, “for all man’s days are full of sorrow.” (Eccl 2:23). But there is a woman—not a stereotypical emotional, frail, helpless woman—who dares to stand in the face of the storm and laugh. Let the future bring what it wills.
It’s easy to dismiss this fearlessness of the woman in Proverbs 31. After all, she seems to succeed at everything she puts her hand to. She seems to have access to abundant resources, and has no trouble turning them into more security for her family. And we can easily conclude that the reason she can laugh at the time to come is because she has put in the hard work—because she has prepared for every possibility and knows nothing that can happen will touch her.
But this cannot really be the case. First of all, she is a woman who fears the Lord, so she must know her human limits. She must know there is no way to humanly prepare for every possibility. She is not the man in the parable who built many barns for his grain, and felt secure in them, only to die in the night and never enjoy his riches. While prudence is one of her virtues, and while she is wise to prepare her household for winter and so on, this does not mean she feels secure as a result of her own actions. Further, if she is a realistic woman of her times, she must know that no high or rich person is ever secure—she would know how many kings have been deposed through history, and how many fortunes have been ravaged by unforeseen events. If she was a woman who feared the Lord, she must know every moment that God’s provision is his to give and take away.
She does not laugh because of her resources, her success, or her hard work. Her laughter was not a false confidence that she deserves to enjoy the fruit of her hands.
No, rather, her ability to laugh at the days to come is one of her qualities that makes her effective. Just like her “strength and dignity” in the same verse equips her to do her tasks, her fearlessness does as well. If she looked at the general decay and upheaval of the world, she would be discouraged. There is an enormous amount of risk in planting a vineyard, or bearing and raising children, and both grape vines and children die one day even if they flourish for a while. If she looked too closely at the days to come, the broken state of our world would make much of her daily work seem fleeting and pointless in the long run. That is why she laughs at the days to come. They do not stop her. She has confidence not in the state of the world, but in the God she fears, the God who brings her actions to bear fruit. And it is this great fearlessness that makes her effective, not the other way around—it is not her efficacy that makes her fearless.
Right now, many of us know all too well what fearfulness is. Viruses and lockdowns and economic uncertainty and job losses and inadequate access to healthcare and mental health struggles—to mention only a few—have demonstrated that much of what we relied on in our lives is actually not all that secure. I have not faced the worst of it, but I have gone without a job for months while searching for employment. It’s easy to just let your fears toss you around, because who knows what will happen tomorrow?
We never knew what would happen tomorrow, but nowadays we are forced to grapple with the reality of how much we cannot predict the future.
But now that we know how much the future is truly out of our hands, now that we are forced to accept this, we must learn to act while possessing this knowledge. It is possible to act without being paralyzed by the uncertainty we face. We can grow from the examples of others who laughed at the days to come.
Fearful Women
Women are often stereotyped as being more fearful. A Google search will turn up endless examples of bible studies about fear for women. One of them reads, “Women in general are created with a nesting instinct, a need for security and stability, and a desire to control our environment in order to create that security for us and for those we love.” It might be difficult to compare levels of fear between individuals, but it’s not unreasonable to conclude that if you are caring for children or other people, you will think about security and stability more strongly. However, stereotypes are not destiny. Female stereotypes are not necessarily inevitable for us. After all, the woman in Proverbs 31 also cares for many people, and has many dependent on her—not just her own children and her own household, but also economic dependents in lands far away who rely on her trades. Yet in all this she manages to strike the balance of building the stability she needs, without being paralyzed by the “what if.”
It is as if she knows the words of Ecclesiastes 11, “Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days.” Ecclesiastes is a book that also explores the futility of the world, but in the conclusion of the matter it emphasizes that our task is to set our hands to the many tasks before us because we do not know which will succeed. The wife in Proverbs 31 does not know what the future will bring, but she does know what she can do in the here and now with the gifts she has been given. She accepts her task in the expectation that God does allow the work of the righteous to take root in some way we do not always predict. We can follow her example and do the same.
Another Woman Who Laughed
If we look to biblical examples and not only to stereotypes, we can note that women are not necessarily associated with fear more often in the Bible—men are just as frequently described as acting out of fear (for example, Abraham acts out of fear when he says Sarah is his sister). And both men and women are continually commanded to fear the Lord. In fact, there is another biblical woman who is held up to us as an example of fearlessness, and that is Sarah in 1 Peter 3. In that chapter Peter says, “you are her children, if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening.”
Sarah was the wife of a rich man—similar to the wife in Proverbs 31. But just like the wife in Proverbs 31, her example is not restricted only to well-off and comfortable women. Her husband, Abraham, was a man who left everything familiar to him to follow the call of God. Sarah may have felt secure in her life in Haran, among her family, and married to a man of status—the Bible does not say. But it does say that she followed Abraham and left this, wandering in foreign lands and living in tents. She was willing to step out into uncertainty because of her faith in what she did not see directly.
And Sarah is also famous for her laughter. It is a different kind of laughter than the laughter of the wife in Proverbs 31—she laughs at the idea she will bear a son at ninety years old. She laughs with cynicism about what the future will bring her. And yet, when she does bear a son, she faces up to her previous disbelief: “God has made laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh over me... Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children?” (Genesis 21: 6-7) She may not have originally laughed out of fear, but she certainly had laughed at the thought that God would bring the goodness he’d promised her. But this laughter later turns to the real laughter of joy when God confirms she really can have confidence in him in every area of her life.
She laughed like we sometimes laugh, in disbelief that the future will bring anything good. She laughed in contrast to the fearless laugh of the wife in Proverbs 31, the wife who laughed out of a confidence in the goodness of God. But God graciously turned her laughter into real joy for her and those around her.
We Might Fail
Still, we can’t help but wonder—why don’t we have more biblical examples of women failing? What about a woman who places all her trust in God, pours out her heart to him, and still feels like she falls short? In our lives, we stop and start many things, and fear that many of these things were a waste of time: Why did I start that degree that I ended up quitting? Why did I work two months at that job and get laid off? Why did I start that business that went broke? Or that relationship that ended? We conclude there’s no use in trying. Recently, while reading the parable of the talents in Bible study, one of my friends remarked, “I wish one of the servants had actually failed—had actually lost all the money his master had given him. Because they all succeeded, we can agree that the servant who buried his talent was wrong. But what most of us are really afraid of is losing all the master’s money.” And we can feel the same when we look at women in the Bible like the wife in Proverbs 31, and Sarah, wife of Abraham. These are not examples of women who lost it all. Where is the woman we feel like, the woman who is ground down by life and who has tried and tried and just can’t seem to make progress?
Let’s back up a bit first. The gospel message is not based on our success or failure. As Christians, it’s always a difficult balance when we encourage each other to “do” something. Encouraging action always brings the danger of legalism. So when I look back over what I’ve written so far—that Proverbs 31 can encourage us as women to use our strength and capacity to impact the community around us, without being held back by fear of failure—it can so easily slip into the idea that we must do this if we are Christians.
But what I intend is to open our eyes to the broad horizon of opportunity that exists for us. I intend to push against the idea that Proverbs 31 is limiting. But what I do not intend is to lay out a new path for salvation. We know Christ’s actions are what has brought us our salvation, and not anything we do (or anything another human, even a human as virtuous as the wife in Proverbs 31, can do). So everything we do, following in the example of Proverbs 31, are actions that flow from our joy, from the joy of being blessed with capacities and resources by God, and wanting to learn how to use them throughout his creation. Hopefully this removes the sting of judgment from any failure we may possibly experience. Our failures and weaknesses are not what define us—we do not have to overcome them to be saved. But we are saved, so we can act in spite of our fears and flaws, and exercise the full range of opportunity God has put before us.
Because of this freedom, we can work. We haven’t been guaranteed to never fail, or to never make mistakes. All we have is the instructions in Ecclesiastes: “Cast your bread upon the water...” We have the knowledge that we need to go forward, we need to live our lives, and we need to intentionally put one foot in front of another instead of being tossed about. It’s risky. It’s terrifying. But we have the reassurance that God’s plan never fails, and that he uses our actions in ways we would never plan, or imagine, if we planned the story of history ourselves.
One reason there are not more examples of failure is because there are no failures in God’s plan—God promises he will turn all things to good. “For whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.” (Hebrews 11: 6) We recoil at that, because so much in life is not good. However, in the very same chapter that this reward is promised, Hebrews 11, it makes clear that throughout all of Old Testament history believers did not receive what was promised (Christ). If you look at each of their individual lives without any sense of the bigger picture, you can conclude their hope was in vain because they worked for a goal that never came to fruit. But the chapter makes clear that in the end the blessing was even greater—they, with us, would be made perfect through Christ. We know we are a success, not because of what we’ve done, but because God’s plans succeed in the end.
The parable of the talents illustrates that God knows what we are capable of, and he will provide us with the opportunity to use it. We would prefer to know and see the return ourselves. But we cannot let our preference for knowing and seeing the fruit we bear to lead us to refuse to act unless we know what will happen. Then we would be burying out talents.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the fearlessness of the wife in Proverbs 31 can inspire our fearlessness. And to be inspired by her, we will need fearlessness. After all, much of the reason she is intimidating is because we might fail to live up to her example. It’s easy to look at ideals and decide we shouldn’t try for them, that they’re ideal and not realistic. Ideals can be terrifying to reach for. But she demonstrates fear does not need to hold us back. She offers her fearlessness as an example that we can draw strength from. And she offers her laughter as an example of the joy we can have in our work as we face the future.
“The fear of man lays a snare,
but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe.”
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If you really, really liked this, you can support the production of this newsletter by buying me a coffee
Feedback? Comment below! :)
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I wrote a bit longer this week, so I have only one "recommended read" for you! It's the Christmas season anyway, so I hope you spend some time enjoying the holidays in one way or another! This piece is a meditation by Tim Challies on the fear of God, and it provides another perspective on fear: I Fear God and I'm Afraid of God.
If you're interested in short fiction, I just released a new novella, Paris in Clichés, this month.
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Want more? Read Part 1 here: Who's Afraid of Proverbs 31?
Part 2 here: A Woman of Strength.
Part 3 is here: A Woman of Impact.
Part 5 is here: What She Is and Isn't.
And do subscribe! Don't miss the next issue :)
A Feeling of Futility
We so often feel helpless to make an impact. We wash the dishes, only to immediately see the sink fill up again. We buy groceries, only to eat them all within a day. As one article I recently read about the chore of laundry states: “Even the act of laundering creates laundry, if you wear clothes while you’re doing it. There is no single moment when all possible laundry is done.” Even in the workplace, we can feel like just another cog in the machine that would run without us. It feels like much of the world is arranged in a way that constantly erases our progress. We don’t feel like we make an impact—“a woman’s work is never done.”
So we hang in there, engaged in our Sisyphean task of eternally rolling boulders up various hills, and our gaze wanders over to our ideal woman, the Proverbs 31 wife. And immediately we see she is so effective. She succeeds in clothing her family against the snow. She succeeds in feeding everyone in her household. And not only that—she impacts her community by taking care of the poor. She impacts faraway lands by contributing to their economy, by trading with them. She impacts the government of the land, by enabling her husband to take up a place among the elders at the gate.
The woman in Proverbs 31 exercises her strength to make an impact on those around her. After all, a woman of strength and power is a woman who has an effect. “Give her of the fruit of her hands” indicates that she has, indeed, borne fruit. And her impact is what makes her intimidating! Are we supposed to impact the world as much as she did?
Passivity: A Virtue?
Not only do we feel ineffective, we can also struggle with the idea of an effective woman. Much has been made in other media of the passive roles women are often presented as playing—the damsel in distress, for example, or the princess who must be rescued. Women are presented as the receiver in relationships too: men traditionally ask women out, and men typically propose to them. All of this can add up to the perception that passivity is the characteristic that marks out what femininity is. Passivity can appear to be a virtuous female trait. So we can feel that maybe women aren’t meant to make an impact anyway.
Passivity is something I personally struggle with—I am convinced in my mind that if things do not just happen, they’re not meant to happen. If I ask for something or take action on these things, I can feel that I am actually warping the natural order of things, or rebelling against a cosmic plan—the only things that are meant to happen are the things that happen without me making them happen. This is a bit extreme! There was a reason “needs to take initiative” was written on my report card so frequently as a child! And yet as an adult I know there is no avoiding asking for jobs, communicating your needs, and starting projects of your own. And here it is clear that in Proverbs 31 the excellent wife does not wait for everything to happen to her, or seek step-by-step instructions for everything she does.
She is presented as an ideal because of how she goes out and gets things done. “She brings her food from afar”—nowadays we think nothing of bringing home fruits from the tropics, but food from afar would be more exotic in her day. She “provides food for her household”—literally, provides “prey,” rising at dawn to hunt like a lioness. And as a result, “her lamp does not go out at night.” She can afford to keep her lamps burning all night (Job 18:6 indicates it was a bad sign if one’s lamp was put out).
This ideal woman is an active woman, not a passive woman.
Home
But she does work in the home. Unfortunately, work in the home is often presented as an extension of passivity, a retreat from having an impact on the world. The sheltering walls of the home keep the storms of the world outside, and provide the safety a woman needs to provide a pleasant place for her family. She need not bother about society or economics in her private domestic realm.
However, as you know, in the home “a woman’s work is never done.” This inevitably leads to this reaction: women need to be set free from the drudgery of the home. In this view, women can make an impact, but it’s out in the “real world,” outside the domestic sphere.
But when we turn to Proverbs 31 we find it contrasts with all that—in Proverbs 31, through the home, this woman has an impact that reaches out even into the world. Home is not a retreat, but neither is it a prison.
In other words, you can follow the lead of Proverbs 31, fully embody what it means to be a woman, and you will not be held back from making an impact on the world.
Take, for instance, the realm of economics.
What is striking about Proverbs 31 is how much this passage presents the home as an economic unit of society. She is an excellent wife, but the passage does not focus on the emotional connection she has with her husband. It’s not about how this family is psychologically and relationally healthy. No, listen to the list of her activities: “She considers a field and buys it” and “she delivers sashes to the merchant” and “she perceives that her merchandise is profitable.” She does not act as if business activities are off-limits to her. And the home here is overwhelmingly connected to economics.
This is simply because in her context (and in many other eras of history as well), economics and home life were intertwined. A household had to produce to be able to survive, and so domestic and economic life was not separated in the way we expect today. This illustrates how a household was not a sheltered place away from the world, but it played a role in the broader society and community—and economically, it was one of the building blocks of trade and business.
So this passage’s focus is not meant to say emotional connection or her relationships are not important, but rather it highlights her quality of effectiveness. She uses her position, and what resources she has, to be effective in many spheres: business (trade), society (giving to the poor) and management (directing her servants).
Her relationship with her husband is significant as well. It says, “the heart of her husband trusts in her.” As I mentioned in the last issue of this newsletter, it does not mention her consultations with her husband, and while she must’ve made her plans in dialogue with him, it does not look like he micro-managed her or told her exactly what to plan next. As an ideal woman she clearly cannot contradict the New Testament advice to wives, and so she demonstrates that submission and passivity are not the same thing. Rather, it seems her husband trusts her with everything he has, and allows her to do what she thinks best with it. He sits among the elders governing at the city gates without distraction.
Her husband’s trust reminds me of the various parables of Jesus where a master entrusts all he has to tenants or servants. Unlike the bad tenants in Matthew 21, the virtuous wife of Proverbs 31 takes all she has been entrusted with and returns the benefit to the family. Unlike the servant who buries his talent, she put what she has been given to use, even to the economic risk of buying fields and vineyards. She readies herself for difficult action—again, paralleling a heroic poem—to do what must be done for her household’s success.
This woman is entrusted with much by her husband, but we’re all entrusted with gifts whether or not we are married. We may have a boss who needs to trust we will carry out our responsibilities. We may have employees (as she had servants) who depend on us. One commentator on this passage points to Lydia of Thyatira in the New Testament, and how she used her business gifts. Through her effectiveness she was also able to help the church. And no matter who we are, we are entrusted with gifts from God, gifts that God does not intend us to bury, but rather to use to his glory.
So a woman working in the home can see her work bear fruit, and she can see that impact spill over into the world. This contradicts the idea of the home as an isolated unit, adrift in the suburbs, unconnected to the bustle of the real world. Her specific context is in the home, but she is active through it, not confined in it. While in a modern world with increased specialization and separation of many areas of life, our effectiveness might look different than hers, we can be encouraged by her activity in so many spheres. And we can also be encouraged that the productive work of the home is not necessarily isolated to the home, but can have a larger impact. Woman’s work can contribute to the financial stability of those around her, and the well being of the poor, and the economy of her community.
A Woman Who Fears the Lord
A second striking thing about this passage is that she is described as “a woman who fears the Lord,” and yet it does not mention a single detail about her worship practices. It does not say she rises early to have a “quiet time” of devotion to God. It does not describe how she tells her children stories of what God has done for his people.
No, rather it goes into detail about mundane, everyday tasks—earthy activities that require the use of her hands, such as weaving, planting and sewing. Historically, interpreters have been puzzled over how task-oriented her excellence is, and wondered why there is no mention of more standard forms of worships such as prayer or ascending to the temple. She is an excellent woman who fears the Lord, so why doesn’t it talk more about her relationship with the Lord?
It becomes less puzzling when we resist seeing life divided into the sacred and the secular, between pure worship and daily life. Work flows out of our faith. It is our mundane daily tasks that display our faith as much as our organized worship. And it is our tasks that point to God’s glory, demonstrating the goodness of the world as it should have been in the beginning, where work was not futile, and where our labour so clearly shaped and built up the world.
When we accept this, we can see that religion is not restricted to verse 30, but it is part of every verse of the passage. In a world that frequently makes us want to shout, “meaningless, meaningless” as we toil, the Proverbs 31 wife demonstrates that she has hope. She has confidence that if she casts her bread upon the water, she will see a return from it. In other words, she does not shrink back from work because she sees the futility all around her, but she focuses her eyes on the God who gives meaning to all things, including her daily work.
I don’t know about you. Maybe you are trudging through the tedium of living—scrubbing and eating and toiling and sweating, and doing it all again the next day. It’s hard when your effectiveness isn’t obvious to see. It doesn’t help when so much of drudgery doesn’t feel like worship.
But God sees every single thing you do, and he promises you that your work matters. “We know that for those who love God all things work together for good.” (Rom 8:28) We have hope that futility will ultimately be a lie.
Comparing Ourselves
This leaves the question—are our accomplishment to be measured by hers? If we do not clothe our families in scarlet, or if once in a while we leave the dishes undone, are we condemned by this ideal woman?
In the first place, an ideal is not a rule. An ideal is not like the Law given by God on Sinai, from which the slightest deviation could bring punishment. Rather, there are many ways to live out the potential God put in you, and this ideal demonstrates one way. Especially in our increasingly complex society, we’re not required to be active in all the same spheres she is active in, and even more so since many of these things are not conveniently centered in the home.
And when it comes to the Law that God gave on Sinai, that was a Law that Christ fulfilled for us—we are not told to now reach for a difficult ideal and be condemned if we do not fulfill it. Christ has set us free from these rules! And now, to live in our freedom, we can look to ideals to see the broad scope of what we can do. A woman can be effective in God-given freedom: work is not futile, and neither is she doomed to passivity in the home or beyond it.
Christ didn’t only save those who succeed. Christ saved you so you have the freedom to use what has been entrusted to you. This can be intimidating, it can be a little scary.
So next month we’ll explore more about what Proverbs 31 reveals about fear.
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Want more? Read Part 1 here: Who's Afraid of Proverbs 31?
Part 2 here: A Woman of Strength.
This is Part 3 :)
Part 4 is here: A Woman Without Fear.
Part 5 is here: What She Is and Isn't.
And do subscribe! Don't miss the next issue :)
In what way is the woman in Proverbs 31 inspiring? In what way does she challenge us to stretch ourselves, and what characteristics does she have that we could develop? I have already talked about how she presents an exciting example to us. But we all know many women, many wives and mothers, many who do the same or similar activities as laid out here. And so if she is supposed to be an ideal, there should be some characteristics that stand out about her—some aspects that opens our minds to wider possibilities. Well, this female ideal is unique in many ways, when compared to other female stereotypes throughout history. And one way is how she lays before us an example of strength.
Strength is not the first word I associate with women, but it is the first association brought out here, in the very first line: “A woman of strength, who can find?” She draws our eyes to the quality of female strength specifically.
Strong and Weak Stereotypes
What is a strong woman? On one hand, we have many talking heads in media calling for more “strong female characters” in entertainment. On the other hand, strength is not typically the first female trait that comes to mind. If asked to come up with a list of feminine qualities, and you weren’t too afraid of going with the honest associations that came into your mind, you might come up with words like delicate, soft, gentle, meek. Asking for strong female characters is seen as one way to counteract this, to create new stereotypes that counteract the old. But too often “strong females” are interpreted as physically strong, as demonstrated by the number of “kickass” female characters who keep up with, surpass, or beat up men. But this kind of knee-jerk, opposing reaction to the stereotype of a weak female often glosses over the reality that women actually live.
Women live their lives under the awareness that they will never be as strong as men. There is a limit to what we can physically do, and aside from a few exceptional women, most of us will burn out measuring our strength against men’s. Because of this, some of us can conclude it is not worthwhile to develop our own strength and capacity. Or others may choose to highlight only these exceptionally strong women as a defense against perceptions of weakness, in a way that makes regular women feel inadequate.
Another way we do not feel strong is in our awareness of our vulnerability—we live knowing we can be overpowered and harmed by others with more strength. We structure our lives because of our awareness of our vulnerability, not walking alone in the dark, or holding our keys in our fists when we feel threatened. So no, I don’t believe that physically strong female characters in media are enough by themselves to encourage and inspire us in our regular lives.
However, it does not follow that in order to be a woman, we must emphasize our weakness. There has been a growing awareness through time that strength in women is a benefit and not a drawback, starting with the nineteenth-century encouragement to throw off tight-laced corsets and be physically active. Nowadays, the capacity of women is recognized on a society-wide level, and women are encouraged to develop and use their abilities to accomplish what they set their hand to do. And Proverbs 31 gives no support to ideas that weakness, fragility or delicacy are defining characteristics of womanhood.
It is at this intersection between “kickass” female stereotypes and the experiences of regular women that the woman in Proverbs 31 stands. This passage is “a heroic poem which recounts the exploits of a hero,” or, “an ode to a champion.” In this way, she stands alongside Achilles and Beowulf. And yet she is not unreachable or alien to us in our everyday life. In fact, one thing many commentators notice about her is the mundane normalcy of what she is described as doing, even as the passage uses phrases such as “girds her loins” as she does these things. We might expect a woman who does “great things for God” would have more in common with female superheroes than with us. But we can relate to the strength needed to consider a field and buy it—or, in more modern terms, decide to launch a business, or plant and harvest a garden, or challenge ourselves with an activity we have never tried before.
Let’s take it a step further and compare the Proverbs 31 woman with some older female stereotypes—she may be rich and of high status, but she does not spend her days in the cool shade of her porch, being fanned by servants. She has not retreated from the world to seek the safety of a carefully ordered life, buffered from anything that might jolt her poor nerves—an image of femininity that would be unreachable to most of us, even if we did desire such a life. Instead, her strength is demonstrated by taking up the task of living, including the hard things, and by working with her own hands.
In other words, she demonstrates that strength is a non-gendered Christian quality. It is not men with strength, and women with fragility. But both draw on God’s strength to use their full capacity.
Christianity has never been about strong men and weak women. Christianity has always been about strong men and strong women.
A Woman of Strength
We’re not used to hearing the first verse of this passage quoted as, “a woman of strength, who can find?” It is more recognizably quoted as, “a wife of noble character.” The description is translated in various ways: a wife of noble character, an excellent wife, a virtuous woman. Literally, it is a woman of valor, and the description is the same description given to Gideon (“The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor”) and Ruth (“I will do for you all that you ask, for all my fellow townsmen know that you are a worthy woman.”) When we read it translated as “virtuous woman” we might not quite get all the overtones of power, competency and initiative this word carries. But it would be misguided to read this chapter and come away thinking this woman is not empowered (she is a woman of power), or that she is a passive housewife experiencing a lack of control over her life.
And it doesn’t really matter if the power this woman possesses does not come through in every translation, because further verses in the passage underscore it: “She dresses herself with strength and makes her arms strong,” and “Strength and dignity are her clothing.” If there exists any strong female character, it is this female character! She is the purest demonstration that strength and women can, in fact, go together. But what does it mean that she is strong? What does this equip her to do? Well, we’ll take a good look at what she achieves next month, when we study her impact.
However, it is clear that while she is described with power, capacity and strength, this is not reduced to the physical ability to bench-press heavy weights. It is not an ability to defend her home from intruders, or protect herself through hand-to-hand combat. The various translations demonstrate the meaning of this word is much broader. Her strength is her competency at what she does, and her capacity to consider a plan and complete it. Strength in this passage is not only physical strength (though a certain amount of physical strength would be necessary for her to accomplish all the things she does), but also includes competency and strength of character. And when we talk about “strengths” we tend to use this term in a broad way as well.
Strength of character in particular is important, as she is “a woman who fears the Lord.” When we think of that other “worthy woman,” Ruth, we understand it was her character that brought her notice, and not only her unflagging energy while gleaning for grain.
Lastly, don’t forget that this passage is directed to a man—a king, instructing him on what kind of wife to look for. A strong woman will not be a drawback for him. “She does him good, and not harm, all the days of her life.”
Strength in Action
There is, then, such a thing as female strength, in that woman can develop and exercise their strength. There are some aspects of this that are uniquely female, such as the ability to bear a child, but in a more general way it is women intentionally developing their capacity, skills and character. Developing one’s individual capacity is something everyone can do, regardless of what your starting point is.
Sometimes women don’t realize how strong they are. They may hesitate to do things by themselves, or to take initiative to develop an idea of theirs, or to build on their skills and talents. There is nothing wrong with depending on other people, as humans are made to interconnect and rely on the strength of each other. But sometimes, if we habitually rely on others, we forget what we ourselves can do. In Proverbs 31, it does not mention her consultations with her husband over her initiatives, such as buying a field or planting a vineyard—this is not to say that she did not consult her husband (and I would argue most likely she did, and it says he trusts in her completely and her plans always brings him good). But it does demonstrate that the emphasis in this passage is that this woman can have an idea and carry it through. She knows her strength, and does not shrink away from taking action. She makes plans, and then puts in the grunt work necessary to bring her vision into reality.
This is especially true when it comes to our own faith life—we all need spiritual leaders to follow, but we also need to be able to study, learn, grow, tell truth from error, and so on, even when not directed by someone else. When many sections of Christian publishing target fluffy, easy, devotional reads to women, we can get a glimpse at what some marketing bodies think of the readers of these books. But we can also counteract these stereotypes by growing in our own faith.
Strength can be used wrongly, of course. Strength can be used to bully. Strength can be used to overwhelm others. This is true of female strength too, and there can even be extremes such as female-on-male abuse. However, strength and gentleness are not contradictory. After all, 1 Peter 3:4 still applies: “let your adorning be… the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit.” If you can think of strong men who are gentle, you will know strong women can be as well.
Am I a Strong Female Character?
There are two responses to this idea of strength. The first is to glorify the strength of women as if this strength did not come first from God. To elevate the strength of women to the point where we almost require women to attain the same level of strength as men, or to speak as if female strength always surpassed men’s. We are afraid to betray our gender if we speak of our fragility. A broader understanding of strength is a good defense against this. The other response is to feel intimidated because we personally feel so very beaten down and weak. There are many of us who hate hearing about how strong women are because we don’t feel able to take even another step.
Can you tell I relate more to the second? I have never considered myself the strongest, and because of health reasons I’ve spent the past couple years feeling very weak. To the point where, when certain types of men have expressed the idea that women are inconveniences, I felt like I agreed, in that I wasn’t sure I could help anyone much. It is a modern cliché—“the strong, female hero”—but I tend to notice all the ways I am not strong, physically and otherwise. And then I am reminded of verses like 1 Peter 3:7: “live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel,” and I feel like a weaker vessel. “A woman of strength, who can find?”
In this regard, it’s worthwhile to remember that weakness is not a gendered characteristic either. What does Paul say about weakness? “For when I am weak, then I am strong,” he says, because as he says elsewhere, “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” He knows his weakness points him to the power of Christ. We all know what it is to be weak, and we all need to know where to turn to be strong.
The modern female hero can feel intimidating and unreachable and alien, in a way the woman in Proverbs 31 is not. Female superheroes might be fun to watch, but they do not change how I live. But Proverbs 31 is different. Proverbs 31 inspires me, because she is both like me and better. She challenges me to reach higher, through Christ who strengthens me.
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Recommended Reads for October:
Here are my top recommendations for interesting and uplifting links to get you through the month ahead (just one this month!)—read at your leisure:
On Hope in a Tough Situation: Still Life
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I can still see the cartoon in my memory—she was robed in white, her nose in the air, gracing a marble pedestal under which lesser women cowered. Inscribed on the pedestal were the words, the Proverbs 31 woman. It was illustrating a comedic piece in a Christian women’s magazine, describing exactly what the author felt when faced with such a perfect, perfect woman. My mother lifted the magazine out of my hands. “Don’t read that nonsense,” she said.
“Why not?” I wanted to know.
She thought a moment. “People like to mock her. It’s easy to make fun of her. But I don’t like it.”
Lots of women do feel intimidated by Proverbs 31. We feel if we were to meet her in real life, we would only meet with judgment. We react to her as if she is a standard that points out all our inadequacies. And authors who write about her know this—they feel compelled to include an apologetic paragraph somewhere near the beginning of their article: Don’t worry, everyone comes from a different life situation. Don’t worry, this woman appears to be rich, and you might not be. Don’t worry, everyone is unique, and not everyone needs to live up to this passage in the same way. A recent article I read started off with, “Reading Proverbs 31 can be discouraging! Who can live up to such expectations?” The first reaction to her is to downplay her a little, and make her more approachable.
The assumption is that an unsoftened look at the woman in Proverbs 31 will lead to discouragement. The assumption is that the first emotions this passage will raise in us will be negative emotions, and that these negative emotions will need to be navigated and managed before we can get anything useful out of the passage. And I don’t deny that this is often the case, that often these are the emotions stirred up by this passage. But I don’t think this needs to be the case. It should be possible to re-frame the passage as a whole, from discouraging and disheartening to uplifting and inspiring. Maybe the Proverbs 31 woman can be encouraging without being softened.
Actually, I know it is possible. I have often read this passage with a sense of excitement, a sense of possibility. In contrast to many human writings, it does not downplay the capabilities of women, and it acknowledges and appreciates them (and urges the rest of society to do so). It is not a passage that needs to be clarified with the sentence, “oh, this applies to women too,” but it is directly applicable. However, this woman can clearly inspire either excitement or discouragement in many women. What causes the difference? Can she be inspiring to everyone?
The Ideal Woman
One problem is that we tend to think of ideals in the wrong way. The woman in Proverbs 31 is an ideal, and ideals are judges. Ideals are meant to draw our attention to the gap between them and us. They do give a verdict on our conduct by demonstrating the ways we fall short of them. But ideals are meant to be a vision of what could be, of what we can strive for, rather than a standard that is meant to crush and punish us. They aren’t there to push us to quit, but instead give us a vision of a different way to live.
Our modern world doesn’t like ideals very much. In the past, people did frequently talk about the ideal country or ideal city or ideal king. But nowadays, who talks about the ideal prime minister? We don’t believe any politicians could ever be ideal. Our cynicism is unavoidable—if you speak of a just and equal society, we are much more comfortable speaking about the way our current society is not just and equal, than speaking of what a just and equal society would actually look like. Human realities have led us to give up on utopias, and create lists of our problems instead. But maybe we should take our eyes off our lists of problems, and learn to feel inspired once again. We can draw fresh enthusiasm from working towards a vision of the good.
When presented with an ideal, we feel like ideals force conformity on us, tell us to be all the same, and can only make us feel bad about ourselves. But instead, the power of ideals is that they can open our eyes to a better way of living. In that way they are not limiting, but rather are a demonstration of opportunities we would never have imagined in our current circumstances.
After all, children look to their parents to see what it is like to be a person who can accomplish more than what their childish limbs can manage. They can’t do what their parents do, but they can imagine growing into a future where they will be able to do more. When they look to their parents they can see an example of how to live a life they have never yet experienced—an adult life. And Christians are inspired by Christian role models too. Paul the apostle advises the Corinthians to imitate him as a model in their Christian life, as an example of a more mature Christian (1 Corinthians 11:1). Having examples can be freeing rather than limiting, because we see how different lives than ours can be lived.
Yes, visions of what could be are intimidating. But to erase them is to limit ourselves only to what exists right now.
And this is the way I think the woman in Proverbs 31 can function. She can demonstrate the power of a virtuous woman, and lead us in turn to feel enthusiasm about what is possible for us in our femininity. After all, it does not take much for us to feel ground down in our femininity—we're confronted daily by negative portrayals of silly women, clingy women, bullying women, or passively helpless women in media, online, or just mentioned in general conversation. We can feel hormonal and wonder if our genetic makeup is a curse. We can struggle to perform heavy labour and feel dependent on others as a result of who we are. We can hesitate to speak up and make our voice heard, and feel held back. And when others reject us, label us, or neglect to appreciate us, we can become vulnerable to harmful images of femininity.
When we turn to our Bible to counteract this, we find the Bible itself does not shy away from portrayals of the shortcomings of women (just as it does not shy away from the shortcomings of men). Women can be gullible (2 Timothy 3:6), weak, (1 Peter 3:7), or just unpleasant (see elsewhere in Proverbs itself, such as Prov 21: 9). Faced with all this, how does one remain hopeful about womanhood? Is there any vision of a woman being a woman in a positive way? Yes, there is.
When we need a picture of a woman exercising female traits and positively affecting the world around her as a result of being a woman, we can look to Proverbs 31. We can look to Proverbs 31 and begin to heal from our doubts and worries about womanhood. There are many things a woman can do, even a very “traditional” woman such as this woman. She can be strong, both physically and mentally, even though we’re tempted by negative images to believe we’re doomed to be fragile and unstable. She can be effective, even though we’re afraid we’ll only be passive and ineffective. And she can be courageous, even though we’re worried and anxious. In this way she is purely encouraging. We are not fated to be that taunting caricature of ourselves that may live in our imagination. When we need to insist our womanhood is a gift God has given us and the world, she is on our side.
“A heroic poem which recounts the exploits of a hero,” is how one commentator classes this passage. Another calls it, “an ode to a champion.” What women do is not only worthy of being recorded, it is worthy of being applauded in exactly the same way as a warrior who slew a lion. But she girds her loins and takes up the heroic role in a very different setting.
And we can feel confident in this picture we receive in Proverbs 31. This is not like the argument over whether Cinderella is a good role model for girls or not; we can take it as a given that this woman is a good role model. And if she is, what opportunities does that present to us? I want to dive in much, much more into the details of this woman, but the examples of her strengths will have to wait until the next issue. She brings so much to the discussion that I cannot begin to include everything in a single article, though I’d love to go on about her for a while!
The Greatest Ideal
What do you do if you don’t feel this way? If you feel ground down by Proverbs 31 and don’t feel enthusiastic about its picture of opportunities for women?
First, there is another ideal that is very familiar to Christians, and that is the ideal of Jesus Christ himself. All Christians are called to conform themselves to Christ. And all Christians are aware of where we fall short in this. Do we look to Christ to feel bad?
Of course, the woman in Proverbs 31 is not an ideal in the same way Christ is. We are not required to live up to the ideal of Proverbs 31 in the same way we are commanded to put on Christ-like-ness. But while pursuing Christ we can see the examples of other Christian role models, who give us ideas about how to apply Christ’s work in our own lives. The Bible has not neglected women—rather, it speaks right to us.
Second, there is an undeniable cultural context here. It’s not wrong to point out that this woman is set in a specific place and time, and this affects the way she is described. She acts in the way a wife of a rich, high-standing husband would act. And since this passage is advice given to a king by his mother (see Proverbs 31: 1), it is in a sense an ideal woman viewed through the eyes of a man who will need to find a wife someday, which does explain why some features are emphasized more than others. After all, Jesus Christ himself put on human flesh in a specific place and time, and we still understand that the universal application of his example is not tied to being an unmarried carpenter. It is correct to say she’s rich and you’re not, but not as a way of downplaying her achievements or making her easier to stomach, but rather as a way of re-contextualizing your response to her. In your circumstances, what can she inspire you to do?
Therefore, the third point is that we can see her as an example of a different way to live, rather than a standard meant to intimidate us. We are not doomed to some of the repeated negative stereotypes about females that are spread around: neurotic, weak, anxious, gullible. None of this is our destiny. It is not encoded in our genes, a sentence given by God at birth. No, we can draw enthusiasm about our femininity from this picture presented here.
The woman in Proverbs 31 does many things. As Wikipedia sums it up, she is “an industrious housewife, a shrewd businesswoman, an enterprising trader, a generous benefactor (verse 20) and a wise teacher (verse 26).” You can look at all that and think, oh wow I have to do all that? Or you can think, wow, I could be a business woman. I could be a trader. I could be a benefactor. Look at all the things I could do and be.
And that sense of possibility is a good place to start.
Don’t be afraid of her. Remember, she comes to you with words of kindness on her tongue.
Want more? Read Part 2 here: A Woman of Strength. Or get the whole 5-part series as an ebook by subscribing to the {Hmm... newsletter}. Plus receive a new issue of encouragement in faith each month :)
More Articles/Links I Enjoyed This Month:
It can be difficult nowadays to find online articles that don’t drag your mood down. Here are my top recommendations for interesting and uplifting links to get you through the month ahead—read at your leisure:
On beauty: The Difference Between Beauty and Usefulness
On love: Anna Dostoyevskaya on the Secret to a Happy Marriage
On beautiful cities you’d love to live in (with lots of pictures!)
It’s funny how we have a tendency to push large areas of Christian knowledge to the category of “unimportant.” One of the most common responses I get, when I tell people that I’m going to study theology, is, “Ok, so you are, you know, actually interested in all of that?” And, “I’d like to know more, but it’s just so much detail—it’s just a bit overboard for me.” And, “That’s all good to know, but it’s not really essential, is it?” These are the responses I get from Christians, I mean, not secular people, who tend to go, “Good for you.” And I nod to these Christians and say “yes,” and feel like some weird egghead academic who is insistent on living in an ivory tower.
Geeking Out:
So there seems to be a level of detail in theology that most people accept is a bit much—a level of theological nerdiness, if you will. But if there’s one thing that modern culture has taught us in recent decades, it’s that nerds have taken over the world. “Nerd” and “geek,” once such potent insults, are now labels of pride that people apply to themselves. And “geeking out” over a topic—once considered a bad thing to do—is now celebrated. Nobody cares if you know all the roads in Westeroes, or how many parasecs it takes to cross the Star Wars galaxy. Or rather, a lot of people in a niche fanbase located somewhere on the internet do really, really care if you know these things, and you won’t have to work hard to convince yourself it’s worthwhile to know them.
I thought of this because on Tuesday we had our first Old Testament Background class, and we have to memorize prominent roads in Israel. Now, the roads in Israel are something I never thought about before. When the Good Samaritan saved the man by the road, I never thought much about the road itself or where it was going to. I never thought this might’ve been the very same road that the Israelites fled down away from the Babylonians at the end of 2 Kings, or that the men who killed Ishbosheth took Ishbosheth’s bloody head down this road to David. In other words, it was just an isolated text plucked out of the Bible, and not a concrete place in spot filled with the history of a particular nation. I never imagined the unpaved, dirt path avoiding the loose gravel and deep fissures in the ground to wind down into the Jordan valley, or pictured the dusty dangers of that path, or thought the travelers may remember the fates of the people who went down that way before them. But suddenly, after hearing the description of this place, the land that the stories took place in felt very close and real.
A storied place in an unfolding drama...
It brought me right back to my childhood, curled up over The Lord of the Rings or The Silmarillion, trying to orientate myself to where exactly the characters I was reading about supposedly were in their fictional world. And I know this is an odd comparison, to say the Bible’s similarity to a work of fiction made the Bible feel more real—but then, does not fiction borrow these elements of real stories in order to appear more convincing? And do not so many fans enter into the game of knowing all these obscure details about an imaginary world in an attempt to enter that world more fully? So, in fact, there may be merit in achieving a greater level of knowledge of obscure biblical details.
Maybe we ought to wonder why so many throw themselves into being nerds of fictional worlds, but find the real world tedious. It could be that Christians lack passion for their faith. Or it could be that Christians don’t realize there is a whole wealth of knowledge that is known about their beliefs, which they could geek out on (in which case, passionate and knowledgeable teachers can open doors). Or there may be more to this observation of mine...
On the Edge of the Knife:
Because if I guess right, many of you who read this are thinking about my opening paragraph and the arguments that rise up between Christians. If all Christians were passionately devoted to even the most obscure details of their faith, then wouldn’t arguments between Christians get out of hand? The briefest glance at online fan culture demonstrates how utterly toxic some of these fan communities can be. The backlash at the conclusion of both Game of Thrones and the last two Star Wars movies demonstrates how inconsistencies in details such as what the Force is capable of doing, or whether Daenerys’ character was properly set up to commit a massacre, lead to torrents of outrage from people who “know” these worlds better than the people tasked with creating stories about them. If passion about fictional worlds leads to such anger, vitriol and at times even abuse, then what can we expect in Christianity if people become passionate about details? You even see, sadly enough, a whole host of Christian blogs by people claiming to be theological nerds that basically seem to exist to pour flames on any thought voiced by other Christian in the public sphere. It just looks ugly.
People shrink back from this. It appears to be better to not feel any personal connection to these debates, to stand back and observe as if some monk was arguing about the precise weight of a human soul, and think, “This doesn’t really matter. This is not important.”
The church is balanced on a knife’s edge here, as we tend to be in so many areas. On one side of the edge is a deep ditch of apathy and lack of passion. On the other is a sea of venom and anger and church splits. Often we weigh up the two sides and feel if we have to veer towards any side at all, we’d rather be just a little closer to the apathetic side. After all, if we’ve fallen in the apathetic ditch and are struggling to climb out, it’s all too easy to launch ourselves right over the balanced edge into infighting, more infighting and infighting.
But, as in so many things, we have to strive for the ideal, not the “better” ditch.
Why We Need More Theological Nerds:
So yes, my conclusion is that we should all be theology nerds. I don’t think we should allow our knee-jerk reaction to be That doesn’t matter, but rather that we should evaluate this knee-jerk reaction and understand where it stems from. Instead of holding back and feeling superior to other debates, we should look at ourselves and think about why we feel superior because we don’t care. Are we right to not care? Maybe on this particular subject, we are right to not care (there are many stupid debates as well as worthwhile ones). But let’s be less quick to jump to this conclusion, because it might be possible to really get something out of knowing whether the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, or just from the Father.
Now, we can’t all have the same level of theological nerdiness—I can hear the howls of protest at the idea everyone should know all the roads in Israel. I’m not one to talk, either, as my eyes tend to glaze over when people ask if there was one, two or three covenants, or whether I’m infra- or supra- lapsarian. But no, I’m arguing for more theological geekiness, not for an enforced program of subjects all Christians must memorize. I'm not arguing to identical, uniform Christian passion in all areas. We are all individuals, and we don't all have the same level of interest in obsessive detail. But we can look at what theological geekiness a bit closer, before we dismiss it.
If you’re still wondering what on earth theological geekiness could be, think about what we call geekiness in general, especially the kind of geekiness that is now considered a positive thing. Individuals geek out over different things, but the wide variety of individual passions (one for drawing maps, one for creating lists, one for doing material calculations, and so on) drive the whole fandom forward - people eagerly share the “good stuff” found or created by others that relate to their shared fandom. Geekiness is an enthusiasm for collecting knowledge, for fleshing out the full picture of a subject, to find value in facts that other people overlook, for imposing organization on the knowledge found and to work together to do so (think of wikis and so on). It’s people who enjoy putting forward an opinion, constructing an argument for it, and working out the implications of it with others (and deciding if it fits the rest of the story well). And lastly, there’s this fascinating definition of geekiness found online that might be incredibly relevant:
“A person who displays the willingness to bear the public shame of liking some weird thing and not caring who knows it.” (Jim MacQuarrie)
There’s a lot more that can be said—a lot about whether someone can fall down an unproductive rabbit hole, or the value in exploring areas of interest one doesn’t have a passion for, or the danger of becoming a theological crank instead of a theological nerd. But let’s leave all that aside for now. If we see a complete absence of theological geekiness in ourselves or others around us, what does that say?
We need more theological geekiness overall, even as we recognize not everyone has a mind that thrills over every obsessive detail. Don’t allow yourself to play this card, while looking at biblical information, this card that allows you to flip by it all while thinking, this is not essential, this is not essential, this is not essential... Passion revels in the utter joy of something, rather than the strict judgment of precisely how useful it might be.
A lack of theological geekiness leads to endless repetition of big-picture, encompassing summaries that skate over the actual depth of Christianity—ideas like, Christ is the Lord of your life, the Lord’s strength is revealed through your weakness, only God’s fullness can fill your emptiness.... —these ideas are all true, but they lose so much of the immediacy by retreating into such a grand, over-arching summary that gets repeated until people's ears can't grasp what it means anymore. This is when an advance into detail can really dig in and demonstrate how all the pieces do fit into this overall theme, how this idea has been demonstrated at a micro-level over and over in salvation history, and therefore actually refresh your understanding rather than dull your ears.
What’s the benefit to you, or finding a seam of theology that your mind dig into, of finding a topic that’s like a feast to you? What about it is worth the risk of your passion making you overzealous? Well, you’ll feel alive, for one thing.
Maybe you’ll feel that old feeling of excitement as you bring out treasures new and old to share with those in faith around you.
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