Proverbs 31: a bride adorned for her husband

 Proverbs 31

"A woman of excellence, who will find?

For her worth is far more than precious jewels."

i won't claim to know what it's like for godly women who read this chapter and only measure themselves against it. But i would imagine it is similar to how any of us who loves God and loves His law feels when we read the Beatitudes and realize what Christ's standards really are: "Be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect." Or as James expounds upon it, "For whoever keeps the whole law but stumbles in one point only has become guilty of all of it." If we see Proverbs as only pithy sayings of how we should be, then we are the same as those who think their salvation is secured by keeping the law of God and proving ourselves acceptable. We are in short damned and we know it when we read these verses, because no matter how good we think we are, we know we are not perfect.

But this chapter is a bookend. Proverbs begins and ends with the description of a woman. An ideal woman. A symbolic woman. i have maintained all throughout that Wisdom is Jesus. And we could surmise that this too, here in chapter 31 is description of Jesus, His faithfulness, His goodness, His diligence, His provision, His work ethic, His loyalty, His generosity, His righteousness, His care for those He loves and for those in need and it is...

but that is because His Bride will be like Him. "You will be holy because I AM holy." Lev 19:2 "because those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, so that He should be the firstborn among many brothers." Rom 8:29 The church is the bride of Christ and when she is at her best, walking in His Spirit, abiding in Him, she will look like him, she will act like him, she will do His work here upon the earth. She will witness to him by everything she says and does, from suffering for His name sake, to her generosity with the prosperity He provides her. When we, who are the church, do this together, our Husband will be known at the gates in his seat among the elders of the land and he will praise us, "many daughters have done excellence, but you surpass all of them."

"Charm is deceit and beauty is vain,

(hypocrisy, doing good so people will praise us, so God will be in our debt)

but a (church) who fears (loves with all our mind, body and soul) YHWH shall be praised."