A Woman's Wisdom: How the Book of Proverbs Speaks to Everything (15 page)

In God’s economy, there are far more important things to pursue than money, such as righteousness and the blessings of acquiring a reputation that brings glory
to him:

Because God’s agenda for us is different from the world’s, we are wise to keep upper-income-bracket potential from being the primary determiner in our choice of career or spouse. And also we can let go of our regrets over past financial mistakes and get on with what really matters. Are you living with monetary regret of one sort or another? If so, take it to God and ask him to transform you through it and bring good out of it. He will do so. Whatever our financial past or present may be, its future can be governed by wisdom, and a good first step is making the prayer of Agur our own.
Will you?

the world . . .

“I doubt that fidelity is absolutely essential
for a relationship. Neither Brad nor I have ever claimed
that living together means being chained together.”

—Angelina Jolie,
Das Neue
magazine

the word . . .

Drink water from your own cistern,

flowing water from your
own well.

Should your springs be scattered abroad,

streams of water in the streets?

Let them be for yourself alone,

and not for strangers
with you.

Let your fountain be blessed,

and rejoice in the wife of your youth.

—Proverbs 5:15–18

In a society where gay marriage and the practice of pedophilia are being argued as rights, it’s hard to believe that adultery is still illegal in some states. We find this on the law books in Minnesota:

The reason we are unaware of such laws is that they aren’t enforced; they are used primarily as negotiating tools in divorce settlements.
²
But what matters to us is not so much what the law books say about sexual practices as what God’s
Word says.

Sex is a major theme in the book of Proverbs. The original intention of this sex education was to instruct young men about what sort of woman to seek and what sort to avoid. Even though the original audience was male, we women can learn a lot from it too. First, as we consider Proverbs’ teaching about the difference between the nice girls and those who aren’t so nice, we can examine our hearts to make sure we are the right sort. Second, because we live in a society where women have freedom like no other women in history, the advice in Proverbs about what to guard against isn’t applicable only to men today.

Back when Proverbs was compiled, women weren’t independent as they are now. They pretty much went from the home of their parents to the home of their husband without experiencing the interim seasons of dorm or apartment life as do young women today. Additionally, the initial consequences for sexual sin in ancient Israel were far more dire than they are today, which served as a deterrent. So, although we enjoy greater independence now, with that freedom comes more opportunity for temptation and
sexual sin.

As we delve into all that Proverbs has to say on the subject, we want to ask ourselves how we can be the sort of woman that the young male readers of the proverbs were being advised to seek. We also want to become wise about how to deal with our own temptations when it comes to sex and to understand where and when they arise and how to
master them.

why is sex outside of marriage so bad anyway?

Sexual sin, like all other sin, springs from the heart, and it can explode into actions and infect our thoughts, our words, and our deeds. The fool allows the hidden immorality in her heart to break out into open sexual sins. But is sexual sin really so bad? That question hits everyone at some point, and not just unbelievers. After all, unbelievers aren’t the only ones having affairs and questioning the legitimacy of heterosexual-only marriage. There are professing Christians living in unrepentant sexual sin who have also asked that question and answered it in the negative.

But it is bad. Really bad. For one thing, it’s a violation of God’s creation order. God didn’t design marriage only for Christians; he established it at the time of creation for all people. Marriage—the joining of one man to one woman in a lifelong commitment—was set up by God for mankind in general. As for believers specifically, there is something about sexual sin in particular that violates our union with Christ, as we see from something Paul wrote to the Corinthians:

In some mystical way, we become one with whomever we have sexual intercourse. And Paul seems to be saying that this becoming one is more than just a physical oneness; there is a spiritual
component too.

The consequences of sexual sin bear this out. Consider the fact that sexual sin is destructive in one way or another, physically, relationally, and always spiritually. As we noted earlier, Paul makes clear in Romans 1 that sexual sin issues from hearts that reject God, and those who do not forsake it grow increasingly perverse in their sexual desires. It leads to spiritual insanity.

Sexual sin is bad also because it blocks the process of our sanctification:

Nowhere in Scripture do we read that sex is okay if you love someone enough. Nor do we find passages that address the oft asked question, “How far can I go before it’s sinful?” To even ask this question is to reveal a divided heart, because undivided hearts aren’t thinking along those lines at all. An undivided heart asks instead, “How holy can
I be?”

Proverbs 5 and 7 warn susceptible young men not to get seduced by a certain type of woman. She is dangerous, although her danger is hidden beneath
charming lies:

In other words, she knows how to turn a man on, and she has no scruples about going after the men she wants. People—all of us—can be flattered when someone finds us attractive, and the Devil knows that this sort of appeal to our ego is enormous. Temptation to sexual sin is most often going to hit us, whether we are male or female, smack in the ego, and there are terrible consequences for
giving in:

• Loss of honor (Prov. 5:9)
  
• Life’s labors taken away and used by others (Prov. 5:10)
  
• Loss of strength and character (Prov. 7:22–23, 26)
  
• Ongoing physical consequences (Prov. 5:11)
  
• Regret (Prov. 5:12–14)
  
• Death (Prov. 7:26–27)
  
• Divine judgment (Prov. 5:21)
  

Yes, sexual sin is really
that bad.

the immoral woman

Character references to the immoral woman, also called the “forbidden woman” and the “adulteress,” are sprinkled throughout Proverbs, and there are two large sections in the book that paint a fuller picture:

Taking a close look at the immoral woman in Proverbs teaches us a lot about our own hearts. We are likely to discover that we have more of her in us than we’d like to believe.

First, we discover that she is a
discontented
woman:

A discontented woman is always looking for something different from what she already has. She wants something that she believes God hasn’t provided. We see her in the single woman who is desperate for a husband and in the married women who wants a different husband or a more perfect marriage. Whatever our situation, we can be sure that discontentment has set in whenever we find ourselves thinking, “God didn’t do right by me, so I’ll get what I want anyway.” Oh, we don’t think or say it quite like that. But however we spin it, we are doing it whenever we seek satisfaction in our own way by our own means.

The second thing we notice about her is that she
fuels
her
lust
:

Lust is typically thought of as a man’s issue, but that’s incorrect. Lust is not a gender issue; it’s an
opportunity
issue. Men or women exposed to or exposing themselves to sexual stimuli are going to lust. If the protections are lifted, or if we lift them, we will lust. And if we feed lustful thoughts and desires, before long they will break out into acts of open immorality.

Third, Proverbs reveals that the immoral woman
seeks to get what and whom she wants with her
speech
. Young men are advised to embrace wisdom so that they won’t fall victim to “the adulteress with her smooth words” (2:16ff.). Such a woman has no compunction about trying to attract and draw the attention of other women’s husbands. Perhaps you’ve felt the sting of jealousy because another woman has, in one way or another, drawn the attention of your husband. It’s an awful feeling! But are we never guilty of doing the same thing ourselves? We might be at times, without recognizing that we are
doing it.

This can be a special danger in an office setting, where men and women work side by side and spend more of their waking hours with their colleagues than with their spouses. For the working women among us, are we careful what we do with such close proximity? It is to be hoped that we conscientiously avoid flirtatious repartee with our married coworkers, but do we do all we can to safeguard our married colleagues from temptation? Office banter can be a slippery slope, as can having discussions about our personal lives—or about theirs. Working together is a bonding experience, and, naturally, friendships arise. But because this is so, it is all the more reason to guard our words in the office.