The Industrious Woman

Economics usually makes us think about suits, spreadsheets, and stock prices, but Proverbs 31 starts somewhere far more ordinary and far more powerful: the household. We walk through the famous portrait of the “industrious woman” and ask a direct question with real consequences for marriage, family life, and the broader economy: what unique contributions do women make to economic life when home is treated as the foundation rather than an afterthought?

We trace three anchors from the text: priority, profit, and praise. Priority means the well-being of the household comes first, not because women are “only” domestic, but because a well-ordered home produces stability, trust, and strength that spills outward. Profit means Scripture is not embarrassed about women making money, building businesses, spotting opportunities, and reinvesting wisely, as long as the work grows from faithful stewardship rather than replacing it. Along the way, we confront modern pressure toward constant careerism, the burnout spiral it can create, and why child care costs often reveal deeper priority problems.

We also land on a surprising theme: attention. We unpack why what we focus on determines what we miss, how charm and beauty can distract us from what actually matters, and why husbands, children, and even the public square are commanded to praise what is truly praiseworthy. We end by looking to Jesus as the perfect example of steady notice and love that helps sinners grow into something new.

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Transcript

Scripture Reading Proverbs 31

SPEAKER_00 0:00

And I'll invite the rest of us to stand for the reading of God's Word, which this morning comes comes from Proverbs 31, beginning in verse 10. The word of God reads this way: An excellent wife, who can find? She is far more precious than jewels. The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain. She does him good and not harm all the days of her life. She seeks wool and flax and works with willing hands. She is like the ships of the merchant, she brings her food from afar. She rises while it is yet night, and provides food for her household and portions for her maidens. She considers a field and buys it. With the fruit of her hands she plants a vineyard. She dresses herself with strength and makes her arms strong. She perceives that her merchandise is profitable. Her lamp does not go out at night. She puts her hands to the distaff, and her hands hold the spindle. She opens her hand to the poor and reaches out her hands to the needy. She is not afraid of snow for her household, for all her children are clothed in scarlet. She makes bed coverings for herself. Her clothing is fine linen and purple. Her husband is known in the gates when he sits among the elders of the land. She makes linen garments and sells them. She delivers sashes to the merchant. Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she laughs at the time to come. She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue. She looks well to the ways of her household, and does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children rise up and call her blessed, her husband also, and he praises her. Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all. Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain. But a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. Give her the fruit of her hands, and let her works praise her in the gates. This is God's word. Thanks be to God, you may be seated, and may God bless this reading and preaching of his word. This is such a rich text, and we're gonna highlight just a few things in here. There's many things that we we can't comment on just because there's so much in here. Even reading it now, I'm realizing so many things that that could have been said. So continue to read it and think about it. But we've been in a series on biblical economics, and um we I was always planning on doing a sermon on Proverbs 31 that talks about the industrious woman, and realized that uh we could do that on Mother's Day, so we took the opportunity to do that. The etymology of the the word economics is interesting because it's a mashup of two Greek words, uh namas, which means law or even management or administration, and oikas, which means household. Oikonomics is where it comes from. So together it just simply means household management. In the ancient world, all economic activity grew out of the household. The household is the center of the ancient economy and even today's economy. The key to success in the market or in the field was a well-ordered and fruitful household. Typically, in today's terms, when we think about economics, we think about people in suits, we think about business and briefcases and corporations and jobs and wages and prices. But the first place that the Bible directs our attention is to the well-ordered household, which becomes a hub of economic activity. And no one knows more about this than the industrious woman of Proverbs 31. So this morning we want to study her and we want to consider the question: what unique contributions do women make to economic life? And from Proverbs 31, we learn that the industrious woman has the right priorities, she has profitable industry, and she ought to be praised. So to put that more simply, priority, profit, and praise. She has the right priorities, she has profitable industry, and she ought to be praised. And this is a good day to praise the Proverbs 31, women in our lives. So first, she has the right priority. The industrious wife puts the well-being of her household first. The work of the industrious wife does not end at home, but it certainly begins there. She cares for her husband. Verse 11 says, the heart of her husband trusts in her. And that's significant language because it that kind of language in the Old Testament is usually reserved for our relationship with the Lord, that our hearts would trust in him. But here, the husband's well-being is tied to the reliability of his wife. He trusts her with his whole life, and she can make him or she can break him. He trusts in her. She carries his life in many ways. In verse 12, it says she does him good and not harm all the days of her life. The industrious woman is committed to the well-being and to the success of her husband. And in verse 23, it says, Her husband is known in the gates when he sits among the elders of the land. So this means that her husband is a leader in the land. He's a decision maker, he's an influencer, but he has that position only because of the support of his wife, who enables him to be a strong leader and empowers him for that position. Often we think of the trad wife as one who is supported by her husband. He goes out and he makes the money, he gets the bread, so that she can stay at home. But here in Proverbs, it's kind of the other way around. The influential husband is supported by his wife. He can go out and lead, he can go out and influence in the world because she supports him in countless ways. Behind every influential man is a strong and powerful woman who has enabled him to lead and empowered him to lead. And she cares for her household. Verse 27 gives us the big picture. It says, She looks well to the ways of her household. She attends to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. In the Hebrew, the sense is that she pays careful attention to the needs of her household. The needs of the children, the education of the children, the household budget, the family diet, the daily necessities. She manages all of these things and more. It's an incredible task. Verse 13, it says, She seeks wool and flax and works with willing hands. So she has some kind of profitable skill. Here in Proverbs 31, she is a weaver or a seamstress. She makes clothing and textiles, and she uses this skill first to benefit her family. Verse 15 says, She rises while it is yet night and provides food for her household. Don't worry, ladies, this is a metaphor. She is pictured as the lioness who hunts at night to provide food for the household. It doesn't necessarily mean that the industrious woman always wakes up early and goes to bed late. It is a metaphor, but it does mean that she doesn't drop the ball, that she does not miss the opportunity to take care of her family. In verse 21, it says, She is not afraid of snow for her household, for all her children are clothed in scarlet. So her husband and her children are the first to benefit from her skill, and her whole household is clothed in fine, warm clothing for the winter. And also she cares for herself. Verse 22, it says, She makes bed coverings for herself. Her c her clothing is fine linen and purple. So she also makes space to care for herself. Her bed is a place of luxury and rest. Her I'm sure many of your wives are going to enjoy taking a nap this afternoon. So let them do that. Her clothing is the finest clothing. It's linen and it's purple, very rare and expensive in the ancient world. So she advertises her skills by clothing herself in the finest garments. And even if she does not have children, her home is still a place of nurture and refuge for the weak. Verse 20 says, She opens her hand to the poor and reaches out her hands to the needy. The industrious woman is powerful and influential in the world because she puts the well-being of her household first. She has the right priorities. It all starts with the home. Many have heard of the remarkable Jonathan Edwards, considered to be the most important American theologian of all time. He was a Puritan congregationalist preacher. He pastored several churches. He was a missionary to the Native Americans. He wrote several influential books that are still studied today. And he was the president of Princeton Theological Seminary back when it was Princeton Theological Seminary. But there would simply be no Jonathan Edwards without Sarah Edwards, his wife. I don't know how many of you have heard of Sarah Edwards, but it was Sarah's responsibility to run their household. She made and repaired clothing. She oversaw household servants and delegated the many tasks and responsibilities. She managed their budget. She saw to home, medical care, and she saw to the education and the spiritual formation of their eleven children. Of course, with her husband's help, who read the Bible to them for an hour every day. Jonathan Edwards was a very accomplished and influential man only because he had a Sarah. Without the support and partnership of his industrious wife, we probably would not be talking about him today. But together their legacy is significant. A. E. Winship is a scholar of American history, and he did a study on the lineage of Jonathan Edwards, and he found that from that household, from those 11 children, down the generations, have come one U.S. vice president, one dean of a law school, one dean of a medical school, three U.S. senators, three governors, three mayors, 13 college presidents, 30 judges, 60 doctors, 65 professors, 75 military officers, 80 public office holders, 100 lawyers, 100 clergymen, they kind of balance each other out, I guess, and 285 college graduates. The industrious woman who puts the well-being of her household first becomes the most influential force in history. A magnificent impact. The Bible is certainly not opposed to women making money. It is not opposed to women running businesses. These things are clearly celebrated in Proverbs 31. But the Bible is opposed to both men and women prioritizing career over the well-being of their household. So we have to get our priorities straight. What does our culture teach women to prioritize? What kind of woman does our culture praise? The scriptures here are telling us to praise this kind of woman, the Proverbs 31 woman. So what does our culture celebrate? Our culture says, women, choose you. Prioritize your own well-being. Beware of having children. They might ruin your life. They probably will. Beware of getting married, or if you do, beware of losing your identity in your husband's calling. What's most important, our culture says, is that you establish your own independence and your own career and let nothing get in your way and you be a strong independent woman. Our culture places this pressure on women, and I think for many women, it's very exhausting because deep down, many women naturally do want to focus on the home. But this natural desire has been distorted by abuse in pain. Women who should be cherished and praised and treasured, as Proverbs commands, have been neglected and abused and abandoned by godless men and left destitute. Much of the impetus behind many of the women's movements of the 20th century were the horrible failures of men. Even if we don't agree with the direction that some of those women's movements went, ultimately, we must admit that the reason they popped into existence were because of the failures of men. But today, one error has led to another, and the desire for fierce independence is simply not working. It can cost uh one of our modern crises, quote unquote, for example, is the cost of child care. It can cost upwards of$60,000 per year to provide enough child care to ensure that both husband and wife can work full-time outside the home and have independent careers. Meanwhile, the children have very limited time with their parents. Both husband and wife are exhausted, and the household doesn't really feel like a well-functioning, cohesive unit. And for what? It's also that women can fulfill this cultural expectation. Because this is unaffordable and unsustainable, many expect that the government should subsidize it in order to solve the problem of the cost of child care. But the cost of childcare is not the problem, it is a symptom of the real problem. The real problem is the unnatural lifestyle that we have created in the 21st century and the expectations that we place on women. The scriptures give us a much better way, a much more ancient way that is time-tested, that has survived down the generations in many different cultures, a way that's much healthier and more natural. As we will see in the next point, women can and should play a significant role in business and the economy, but this is not something that takes the focus away from the home. Rather, it is something that grows naturally out of the home. So she puts her priorities first, the household first. But second, she has profitable industry. The industrious wife is entrepreneurial and profitable. Many commentators have seen a progression in the Proverbs 31 woman. Her skills are first employed at home, but they don't stay there. Verse 18 says, She perceives that her merchandise is profitable. So she began by making clothing and making textiles for her family and her household. And as she does that, it's not unrealistic that she might make more in order to sell. So oh, I'm sorry, I skipped a little bit. She perceives that her merchandise is profitable. She began by making clothing and textiles for her family, but she also has a good mind for business. She's a businesswoman. Verse 24 says, She makes linen garments and sells them. She delivers sashes to the merchant. If she already has the tools and the skills to clothe her family, it's not unrealistic to make more in order to sell. So the industrious woman sees business opportunities and takes advantage of them. This enables her to further enrich her household. Verse 14 says, She is like the ships of the merchant. She brings her food from afar. Because her business is profiting, she is able to reinvest in the home, and she enriches her table. She brings delightful foods from afar, and she she improves the quality of life in the home. And more than this, she is able to invest in even more profitable ventures. Verse 16 says, She considers a field and buys it. I don't know what I would think if I came home and learned that my wife had bought a field. With the fruit of her hands, she plants a vineyard. The Hebrew behind the phrase, she considers a field, carries the idea of careful planning and strategy. She strategizes for how to purchase more land that will produce even more income. And this seems like a lot to take on, it certainly is, and she doesn't do it without help. Her ventures are profitable enough to be able to employ others. Verse 15 again says she rises while it is yet night and provides food for her household and portions for her maidens. So her maidens would be her servant girls whom she hires to help, and in all likelihood she would also have hired young men to help with the work in the vineyard as well. The industrious woman of Proverbs 31 is not economically inactive. Her priority is at home, but her home becomes a bustling hub of economic activity. She's an entrepreneur, she uses her skills to make valuable goods, which she sells. She gains enough money to buy land, which she uses to start even more ventures. A married woman's first calling is to be a wife and a mother, and she must devote herself to these things. Just like a married man's first calling is to be a husband and a father, of course, assuming that the Lord blesses us with children. But the industrious woman also knows how to make money, and even to make significant money without abandoning her primary calling. This is a perfectly normal and reasonable thing in a pre-industrial economy. An agrarian economy where most industry was based out of the home rather than out of an office building or out of a factory, which were given to us by the Industrial Revolution and the Technological Revolution. So, what might this look like today in a world that is shaped by those things? Well, I'm proud, I'll boast on my wife a little bit. I'm proud of my wife because she's very business-minded. She's good at finding opportunities, way better than me at making money, actually. I remember years ago she wanted to acquire fine linen, bed sheets for herself and for her family, and she learned that a very expensive linen company donated all of their returns to local thrift stores. Like a lioness who rises early, she rose to the occasion and found one of these local thrift stores that received them, and no one else knew about them, so she bought them all and she turned around and sold them online for a lot more than she bought them for, and she made thousands of dollars doing so before the opportunity eventually dried up. One year she even paid for our flights to Florida on vacation with her own earnings. This is a small but a good example because it began with her commitment to her home, which led to an economic opportunity which she capitalized upon. And I'll admit that when I first found out that she was spending some of my money on bed sheets, on linen, I was concerned. And I didn't give her enough credit. But once I saw the money coming in, I did what husbands do best, and I acted like it was my idea all along. So what does this mean for us? Well, let me speak to the men for a moment. Brothers, those of you who are married, uh my goal for my wife is that she would not have to make a dime if she doesn't want to. For many years, I have aspired to make enough money so that she can focus on the home and doesn't feel any pressure to bring in any income. And by God's grace, we have made that work for nearly 15 years, and I probably make less money than most of you, especially for earlier parts of that span. But I would encourage you to work toward the same goal if you're not already there. For some of you, that might mean significant lifestyle changes, but talk to your wife and find out whether or not she is willing to pursue that and wants to move in that direction. But for those who have wives who do want to make money and who have the energy and the bandwidth to do so, they need some seed money. And I'm looking at you, you've got to open up your wallet and invest in them. You have to invest in your wife and in her skill set. And this does not mean that every business idea is going to work out. Some investments don't pay off, and that's part of the game. And it doesn't mean that it needs to be a large amount of money. Julie only needed a few hundred dollars to get started with her linen project, which I begrudgingly gave her. But she turned it, she multiplied it, she turned it into thousands of dollars, so my ideas worked in the end anyway. So I would encourage the husbands here to do two things. One, to make enough money so that your wife doesn't have to make money if she doesn't want to. And then number two, to invest in your wife's skills and abilities. Give her that seed money that she needs. And to the ladies, I will say this. Your home is your priority, but it is not your prison. Just because you manage a household does not mean that you must be economically passive. But your home can become a base of operations for fruitful enterprise. You just need to capitalize on your skills, to look for opportunities that exist, and to take risks, to take bold action, and your husband will fund it. And you will make returns and he will be pleased. So that's point two. She has profitable industry. And then point three, she ought to be praised. The industrious wife possesses a glory that must be recognized and celebrated. The industrious wife should be highly praised and highly valued by her husband, by her children, and by society, by our culture. You don't know this, but Proverbs 31 is an acrostic poem. Each line begins with the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and it's as many lines as there are letters in the Hebrew alphabet. The author is seeking to praise the excellent wife, and he praises her from A to Z. She is multifaceted and she contributes so much value that it's difficult to capture it all in words. So he goes through this acrostic poem. Verse 10 calls her precious. It says, An excellent wife who can find, she is far more precious than jewels. Any woman can become a Proverbs 31 woman through the fear of the Lord. Even those who never marry, or those who never have children, can become this kind of woman. Still, not many women do. So the industrious woman is precious. She is rare, is what it's telling us. She is scarce. She's more difficult to find than jewels buried in the earth. I don't know how many trenches you've dug. I've never found any jewels. I've found lots of other stuff, but nothing of value. She is more difficult to find. She's far more precious than jewels. So if you're married to a woman like this, or if you're dating a woman like this, or if you have been born to a woman like this, you had better acknowledge that. You'd better treat her like she is precious, and she had better feel uh appreciated and cherished. So the author admonishes us to praise her. We ought to praise her. Verses twenty-eight through thirty-one says, Her children rise up and call her blessed, her husband also, and he praises her. Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all. Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain. But a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. Give her the fruit of her hands, and let her works praise her in the gates. So it's saying, Her children ought to praise her, kids, her children ought to praise her. Okay, do this today. Her children ought to praise her. Her husband ought to praise her, and she ought to be praised in the gates, which means the city ought to praise her. The culture ought to celebrate women like this. We must be told to praise her because we don't. Her work is often thankless, and she is often not treated as precious. Our culture, along with countless others, praise things that the Bible calls vain. We celebrate charm and beauty, and we lead women to believe that their value is in their charming personality and in their physical beauty. But the scriptures tell us that these things, while interesting, are deceptive. By themselves, they do not lead to happiness. But a woman who fears the Lord is rare indeed, and she is the one to be praised. In order to praise our wives rightly, we must pay attention to them. Did you hear you hear what I'm saying? In order to praise our wives, we must notice them. We must pay attention to them. Do you know that our attention span as human beings is surprisingly narrow? It's far more narrow than we think. And there's a lot more going on around us all the time than we notice. And this has been proven. In the late 90s, two psychologists conducted a famous study. A group of subjects were told to carefully watch a video of people playing basketball, and they were told to count how many times the ball was passed between teammates. And they they did this, and then afterward, they were asked, how many times did the red team pass the ball? What about the gorilla? And then people would say, What? What do you what gorilla? And they played it back, and sure enough, in the midst of the basketball game, a man in a gorilla suit walked onto the court, beat his chest, and then walked off. Roughly half the participants completely missed the gorilla, though it was one of the most obvious things that happened in the video. And the study shows that what we choose to focus on, what we are paying attention to, determines what escapes our attention. Our attention is surprisingly narrow. You can change your whole world simply by changing what you pay attention to, what you choose to notice, because there's a lot going on all around you that you never notice because your attention is so narrow. What's more, what we pay attention to is always determined by what we most value, what we most love. To rightly praise the women in our lives, we must value the right things. We must value what Proverbs is telling us to value, and we must pay attention to the right things. So when it comes to the women in our lives, what are we paying attention to? What are we noticing? What are we zeroing in on? Charm and beauty are deceptive because they easily capture our attention. But they can cause us not to notice many red flags, and we can get caught up in painful and dysfunctional relationships all because we have been deceived by charm and beauty. Likewise, we can fail to celebrate our wives because our attention is focused on a narrow scope of items. We get so focused on the things that bother us, the things that annoy us, the things that disappoint us, that we completely fail to notice the praiseworthy woman who is right in front of us. We fail to notice her fear of the Lord, her faithfulness, her hard work, her intelligence, her industry. They were there the whole time. We just didn't see them because our attention was focused elsewhere. So, men, study your wives. Be students of your wives, pay careful attention to them. She looks closely to the ways of her household. Look closely to her. And when you see any glimmer of these virtues, when you see them crop up because they are being brought out by the Holy Spirit, call them out and praise them and celebrate them and water them, give them the encouragement that they need to know that they are seen and appreciated, and not just with words, but with affection, with time, with service, and with all of the attention that we pay to the things that we value the most. Is this not what our Lord Jesus does for us? Nothing escapes his attention. Nothing escapes his attention. He sees us as we are. He sees warts and all. He sees all of our sin and our foibles, and he sees the grace that he has put into our lives that he's working out within us. He sees his goodness and his grace, and he sees more. He's in his goodness, he sees us in Christ. He sees who we are in Christ and who we are becoming in Christ, so that when we fall short of God's glory, he does not condemn us. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. He doesn't say, Well, there goes Billy, being Billy again, he'll never be any different. Jesus would never say that about me, thank God, because instead he sings over us and reminds us that we are a new creation, that the old has gone and the new has come, that we have died the sin and we now live to God. Jesus, our good husband, does not wait to love us and attend to us until we have gotten better. Otherwise, we would never get any better. But the gospel is that we get better because He loves us and attends to us, even though we are sinners. Paul says that at the right time, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. The women in your life are sinners. But if they are in Christ, that's not the most important thing about them. Pay attention to what God is doing in their hearts and in their lives by the power of His Spirit. Pray that God would open your eyes to what he is doing in and through the women in your life. It's been there all along. We just have to recognize it. We have to call it out and celebrate it. We must do this in private. We must do this in front of our children. We must do this in public and around others, never tearing her down in front of others, but celebrating her. And our culture must learn to praise that which is truly praiseworthy, because what men praise will shape what women aspire to become. So let's make sure that we're praising the right things and let the men of this church lead the way in that. To these ends, let us pray. Our Father, we thank you for the many wonderful and excellent women that you have blessed us with in our lives and in our church community. We thank you for our mothers who, um, though they are sinners and though though we all fall short of the glory of God still, there is so much that they sacrificed for us in order to help us, and uh, they are to be praised, even though they are imperfect. Teach us how to do that. Lord, we pray for our wives. We thank you for them, and we pray that you would bless all wives and mothers today in this congregation and in this city, that they would uh feel seen and appreciated and cherished. Lord, we thank you for the women in our lives who are spiritual mothers to us. Maybe they don't have any children of their own, but they have made an impact in our lives, they have cared for us, they have been nurturing toward us, they have helped us, they have blessed us in so many ways, and we thank you for them. We pray for the women of this congregation that they would be strong women, that they would be godly women, that they would fear the Lord, uh, and we pray that you would bless them and establish the work of their hands, and that they would feel appreciated and seen, and that they would flourish and thrive. We ask this in Jesus' mighty name. Amen. Amen. Let's stand and sing together.