‘The sayings of Lemuel, a king an oracle that his mother taught him.’
So Proverbs 31 is rapidly becoming one of my favourite Bible passages. The more I read it the more subversive and revolutionary I decide it is. We tend to focus on the valiant woman in this passage, but a whole heap of people are mentioned, so over the next few weeks/ months I’m going to go through the whole passage verse by verse and try and find out what sort of people made up the community that enabled this woman to achieve so much.
So here goes:
First ten verses connected or not?
There is some debate as to whether the author of the first ten verses of Proverbs 31 is the same as the rest of the chapter. My personal feeling is that I’m going to trust the Bible's own claims about the chapter's authorship. So we’ll go with Lemuel as the writer. Either he dictated this and his scribe wrote it down or he himself physically wrote it himself. But let us also be very clear about who the author was. This Proverb was authored by a woman- Lemuel’s mother.
Therefore, the valiant woman of Proverbs 31 is not a man’s definition of what a woman should be. These are not Lemuel’s own musings of what his perfect lady wife might be, how she might benefit him... Rather the valiant wife is a wise woman’s vision of what a woman might be allowed to be.
Therefore, the valiant woman of Proverbs 31 is not a man’s definition of what a woman should be. These are not Lemuel’s own musings of what his perfect lady wife might be, how she might benefit him... Rather the valiant wife is a wise woman’s vision of what a woman might be allowed to be.
Firstly, then, a Proverbs 31 community is one that is not afraid of the wisdom of capable and powerful women.
Secondly, Lemuel respected his mother enough to be taught by her and to credit her as the source of his knowledge. Several commentators I read presumed that this teaching was imparted when Leumel was a child. They didn’t feel the need to explain this. It seemed to them that this was just self-evident somehow. Perhaps it was the nursery room scenes that the phrase "mother taught him" conjured up but given the content of the chapter it would most naturally be the sort of teaching you would give to a young man not an infant.
A Proverbs 31 community then recognises and acknowledges the teaching gifts of women.
Thoughts welcome.
Maura from Nicaragua team here. I am heartened to see your link to 'PinkStinks', being the mother of two little girls and becoming more and more disheartened by the way everyone around them is contributing to their 'pinkilisation'!! Thank you for putting into words the celebration of 'un-masculine' Christian men.....there are a few in Pablo's men's group who are just as you described - beautiful, tender, totally masculine and totally not 'Alpha' male. I could ramble on....keep your thoughts coming - I'm enjoying them!
ReplyDeleteMaura, Lovely to hear from you. How are you and yours? I find catch phrases are always helpful in changing tides - we're going with 'Pink's a nice colour but so are all the rest.' How old are yours now? I have another children's book brewing and once its written will need some proof readers. Would love to know what they think of this: http://p31community.blogspot.com/2012/02/i-recently-listen-to-song-called-gather.html esp is they understand womb and nursing and how easy you think it would be to explain these things to them.
ReplyDeleteJenny