6.6 - Don't Be That Gal

The Proverbs contain counsel that reminds women that wisdom and discretion are of more value than beauty. Join us in this episode as we consider some of the warnings and encouragements that women can find in the wisdom literature.

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Paul and Noah both preach and teach with the Cedar Park church of Christ in Cedar Park, TX. You can visit our site at: https://www.cedarparkchurchofchrist.org/

Transcript

Noah: 0:34

Well, good morning and welcome back again to this Stan Strong podcast. Here we are in season six, episode six. And you know, we have to make sure that we're even handed on this last week. We said, don't be that guy. Don't be that guy. And so we, we warned ahead of time this week. We're going to be saying. Don't be that gal. Now, I'll admit as a non Texan this is, this is one of the first times that I've probably non ironically used the word gal.

Paul: 1:04

I've been trying for a couple of years now to get you to say gal and guy and successful. Yeah, we, you know, So last week we, we, we spent most of our time in Proverbs. That's where we're going in this. We were calling it the Proverbs Project. So we're trying to really spend most of our time in the Proverbs. And so we did, yes, we came down harder. We let Proverbs show us some nuggets of wisdom and truth as it related to guys, primarily in Proverbs 5, 6, and 7 about that, and that every guy out there that's listening, Noah, he gets it, And whether he admits it or not, he gets it. It's a real thing and it's something that we ought to talk about. We need to talk about. So this podcast is, is being done by two guys, but we're, we're wanting the text to try to lead the discussion and dominate what, where we're going in this, because we're talking to women. So. Don't be that gal, but we're not trying to imply that all of a sudden for the next 20 plus minutes, you and I are going to become feminized and we're going to relate to women and understand. We're just trying to look at the text.

Noah: 2:10

That's right. Yeah. And, and the beautiful thing about Proverbs is that rarely does it mince words and it addresses topics for everybody. In basically every situation. And so we can go to the text and we can draw very strong scriptural principles that will benefit us. And hopefully we, our prayers will benefit those who tune in and listen as well.

Paul: 2:31

Yeah. And it paints a clear picture of the imagery that we're going to see in some of these Proverbs. I mean, as soon as you or I read it our, our audience, those listening are like, Oh yeah. Wow. Wow. All right. So where are we going?

Noah: 2:44

Well, there's a lot of different places we could go. In fact, I, when I was. Trying to think of, you know, how I wanted to approach my side of this, you could, you could spend more than the 20 minutes we have comparing two portraits of women that we have in Proverbs. You could compare the one in Proverbs seven that overlaps with the don't be that guy section. You could compare that to, for instance, the Proverbs 31, the virtuous woman, the hardworking, diligent, faithful. woman, that kind of thing. We don't have time to do a full rundown on that. So I think for today, it's probably better to just try to take some of the most clear and concise verses from throughout Proverbs and see what they tell us about Virtuous women and what God values in women and what can be detriments to women and their relationships with their family and friends. So one, you know, one of the things that struck out, stuck out to me, excuse me, after our discussion. Last week in Proverbs five through seven is we do in chapter five, we have this description of the forbidden woman. What, excuse me, I can't talk today. We have this description of the forbidden woman whose lips dripped honey and her speech is smoother than oil. Her feet go down to death and we describe that for the benefit of the men. But what's interesting is in verse six, it says her ways wander and she does not know it. She does not pander the path of life. That's a commentary on her, not on the, not on the man that's being allured by her. And I think that that's a really good place to start is this indiscreet woman that's being described. She also is showing a lack of wisdom and not just a lack of discretion, but a lack of wisdom. She's not pondering the path of her life. And this is a really strong warning for what can happen when we don't direct our paths according to God's wisdom. But according to our priorities and the world's priorities. And the result is this, this woman that leads others into sin,

Paul: 5:02

right? You know, where, where is God placing the priority or the premium, whether you're talking about male or female, but today's podcast is on the female. So the woman he's looking at the heart, he's looking at character, he's emphasizing the inward. A man or a woman so in Proverbs 11 verse 22, here's a clear picture. Everybody's going to get a picture when I read this Proverbs 11, 22, like a gold ring in a pig's snout is a beautiful woman who lacks discretion.

Noah: 5:31

Yeah.

Paul: 5:31

So look, the picture that's painted by, by Solomon in Proverbs 7 for the man is this woman. One of the things that makes her so enticing is her physical appearance beyond her speech. She used to entice her physical form and appearance. And as men were visually stimulated. So he said, you can have a beautiful woman on the outside, but if she's ugly on the inside, The ugliness is the result of lacking discretion. Yeah. There's a lack of character. Yeah. And he paints that picture for us. Can you imagine? I mean, it's, you see a gold ring and a pig snout, and what you're immediately thinking is, that doesn't fit. Right. That looks silly.

Noah: 6:14

Right, it looks silly. And that gold ring doesn't fix the, the ugliness of the pig. It doesn't suddenly make the pig look better. Beautiful for those who are willing to look at it, right? There are, and the problem is there are some of us that are, we see the gold ring and that's all we see. Yeah. But the Proverbs writers is clear, this discretion and the wisdom and the insight, those are far, far more valuable. The in, the inner character. Yeah, far more valuable than the outward beauty.

Paul: 6:41

Absolutely. Gold ring and a pig's snout. What a waste. What a waste.

Noah: 6:45

What a waste.

Paul: 6:46

When I was in college, there, there was, you know, it's, it's the start of the semester and you start seeing people the first couple of weeks and then you don't see them anymore. Unfortunately, there was, there was this young lady that attended for the first couple of weeks and look, I'm just being honest most of the guys we were talking, we were talking this like, huh, we're going to get the first and last name almost like, and I can tell you about half the guys were thinking who's going to be the first to try to ask her out.

Noah: 7:20

Right.

Paul: 7:21

It was because she wasn't, she was nice looking. Yeah. She was nice looking. Then when you got to know her.

Noah: 7:27

Yeah, no, right, no, right. And, and the thing is, it doesn't matter how attractive somebody is on the outside. It's just once you get into that process of getting to know them, if their character is proven to be poor they don't have wisdom. They don't have discretion. That's going to become clear so quickly, you know, another image that's very strong in Proverbs. In fact, it's so strong that it's repeated three or four times throughout the Proverbs is, the image of the quarreling wife. It's in Proverbs 19 and in Proverbs 21, a couple of times. And then again, in Proverbs 23 But so for instance, in the Proverbs 19 one, it says a foolish son is a ruin to his father and a wife's quarreling is a continual dripping of rain. And that image of the quarreling woman as a dripping of rain that's seen again several times throughout Proverbs, but the one in chapter 27. Gives us, I think, a little bit more context as to why he uses this image in 27 verses 15 and 16, he says a continual dripping on a rainy day and a quarrelsome wife are alike to restrain her is to restrain the wind or to grasp oil in one's right hand. So, that's, there's a lot of imagery there that I want us to pause and I think it would be good for us to unpack a little bit. But first, there's the image of this dripping of rain, Paul. What do you got about that dripping of rain?

Paul: 9:01

Extremely annoying. In fact, he says back in the one you read in chapter 19, 13, it's the continual dripping. It's the constant dripping. And so not only do you have something that's annoying, but it's constantly annoying. And the, the dripping of a leaky roof in a rainstorm that's not going to fix itself.

Noah: 9:24

Yeah.

Paul: 9:24

Or you're, you, you, you know, if you, if you think about a dr, a dripping leaky roof and a rainstorm, it, it's not gonna stop on its own.

Noah: 9:32

Yeah,

Paul: 9:33

as long as it's raining.

Noah: 9:35

Yeah, which I think is what that verse 16 in chapter 27 kind of communicates to restrain her is to restrain the wind to grasp oil in one's right hand. No one else. Can do anything about the quarrelsome wife. No one else is going to be able to, the idea here isn't that restraining her as difficult. The idea is that it's impossible.

Paul: 9:58

Yeah. You can't restrain the rent wind.

Noah: 10:00

Right. Exactly. Good luck with that one. You can't hold oil in your hand. It's going to slip out. No one else can calm that no one else can change that temper. The only person that has that power is the person who's engaging in the quarreling, engaging in, in that type of attitude. And so that's a, that's a very striking picture because that means for someone who reads that and sees themselves, they're the only one who can make that change. They can't expect someone else to step in and do it for them.

Paul: 10:34

Well, here's a little bit of the rub or, or the, or the difficulty when we read that. or a woman hears that, she's thinking, okay, you, you're not married to my husband. You don't know my husband. Seriously. You're telling me this, this is on me. I'm the problem in this. If you go back to, you read from Proverbs 19, Proverbs 21, 25, 27. It, it, the commonality in all those, depending on the translation, you had quarrelsome woman or wife. Mm hmm. Other translations insert contentious, and even some translations, so I'm offering this in Proverbs 19, have nagging.

Noah: 11:13

Yeah.

Paul: 11:13

Wife. Now look, you can hear this and say, okay, the nagging wife is like a constant dripping and the nagging wife is, you know, you, how are you going to stop her? She's, she can only stop herself. And Solomon says that's true. But a woman hears that. Sometimes it says, well, I'd quit nagging my husband if he would, and fill in the blank, pick his, pick his clothes up that are thrown down all over the house and not make my job harder. Or I'd stop nagging my husband if he would make good on his promises. Cause he told me three weeks ago, he would do this. He would do that. And I'm, Solomon is not dealing with the deficiencies in the husband or the man.

Noah: 11:55

Yeah.

Paul: 11:56

He's, he's simply emphasizing the quarrelsome, the kind of woman that stirs up the strife and creates the arguments and, and fuels the arguments and nags and nags. Nagging doesn't fix any male. I promise you nagging your husband will not get out of your husband. What you're trying to get out of your husband. All that's going to do is stir up strife. And so, he's, he's trying to say to the woman, control what you can control. You can control you. Don't be that gal. Don't be the nagging wife.

Noah: 12:37

Right. Right. You know, a couple of the passages that we haven't read, specifically the ones in chapter 21, the context that the Proverbs writer puts this in is, it's better to live in a corner of the housetop, or it's better to live in a desert land, And then the contrast is then with this quarrelsome or nagging woman. And I think a lot of times we view that as a warning to. You know, essentially be careful, be careful who you're going to spend your life with because you know, it's gonna, there might be a time where you end up thinking, I'd rather be anywhere but here. And perhaps there's, there's good teaching there, but the more I look at it, perhaps the more it's a warning for the, the women in this. Equation saying, Hey, listen, that's not going to, like you said, that's not going to be effective. That's not going to accomplish anything other than make your spouse want to be anywhere else than here. And and that is, I, I know that if, if someone came and told me that about my relationship with my wife and said, Hey, you know what, the way that you're acting, is making Mikayla want to be anywhere other than around you. That is a bitter pill to swallow. I'm not going to want to take that. So I think it's important that we acknowledge that's, that's, those are not those are not easy words to try to deal with and grapple with, but there's, there is, you know, wisdom That we cannot ignore in these kinds of passages.

Paul: 14:15

Yeah. He doesn't just say to live, he says to live alone. And then he doesn't just say to live alone in Proverbs 21 verse 19, but he says to live alone in the desert.

Noah: 14:27

Yeah.

Paul: 14:28

And, you know, again, clearly Solomon has given us wisdom. Every father would tell his son, I think, don't marry this kind of woman. Amen. You know, lest, lest we appear in contrast to, you know, the Proverbs 19, 13, the quarrelsome contentious nagging wife is like a constant dripping in the very next verse, Noah in Proverbs 19. He says this by way of contrast, verse 14, but a prudent wife. It's from the Lord. And that's what, that's what I think are the women that are listening to this the women that we preach to all the time, that's what they want to be. They want to be that kind of woman because that kind of woman is from the Lord. That kind of woman is a blessing, not only to the Lord, but a blessing to her husband and to her children. So the prudent. It is, is the wise wise and how she deals with life wise and how she deals with relationships in her home. It's, it's the excellent wife of noble character in Proverbs 31, but also Proverbs 12.

Noah: 15:31

Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. One of the themes that has already come up in our discussion today is that a virtue that is to be greatly appreciated in women is wisdom. I mean, the, the first part that we talked about, we, you know, the, the woman who doesn't ponder the path of her feet or the, the idea of a beautiful woman without discretion, you know, wisdom and character are incredibly important. In, in a woman. I mean, they're incredibly important in everybody, but that's what Proverbs is highlighting. And then we get to this quarreling woman. And again, the contrast is that a woman that is, that is has wisdom and discretion. That's from the Lord. This is a prudent woman. That is something that it should be fully appreciated as a gift from God. There's this consistent theme of that. And we also see the idea of wisdom itself. You portrayed personified as a woman worthy of pursuit in the Proverbs. And so there's a, it really starts to center down on this idea of, of women who are wise and, and discreet. And there's this idea of good natured and calmness in partnering with that. But then also we start to see things about the conscientiousness of. So for instance, in Proverbs chapter 30 verse 20, the Proverbs writer says there excuse me, this is the way of an adulteress. She eats and wipes her mouth and says, I have done no wrong. Now we're, we're hearing that and we're like, wow, that's, you know, what in the world? Well, the idea there is it's. When someone has lived that kind of a life long enough, the conscience is seared. Engaging in that sin It's like eating a meal. It's just something that we do. And what's being described as a conscience that just, it's not soft anymore. The wisdom, the discretion, if it ever was there, it's gone. And again, what that emphasizes is this conscientiousness it comes from a heart and a mind. That desires to have wisdom and discretion. So I, I think it's interesting how so much of what we read in the Proverbs when it comes to specifically being directed to women or about women, comes back to those two ideas of wisdom and discretion.

Paul: 18:03

Yeah, because what, what, what Solomon, what the Lord is trying to say is to, to show us in Proverbs, both with the man and the woman with, with the, the husband and the wife is the power that each has to, to build up each other and the home, the family. They're indispensable. To, to the well being of that marriage and that family. And that's why there's the contrast. And that's why the two pictures are painted. You know, you've got the excellent wife, the one of noble character, and she builds up her house. Then you've got this other woman who lacks discretion. Who's not giving careful attention to the ways of her household. And he says, this is, this is the kind of woman she is. And this, these will be the, these will be the consequences of her actions. It's what, what damage is going to be done in the marriage and in, in the lives of these children. There's in Proverbs 12, Noah and verse four, he starts out with the excellent wife, there's the noble character, a crowned her husband and amen to that, but by contrast. She who, one translation says shames her husband, another translation says but the woman who causes her husband disgrace, listen to this, is like decay in his bones. I mean, you think about the man, we already talked about the husband, that when he comes home from work, he's not, he's not trying to spend time with his wife. He's trying to, after he eats, cause he's hungry, after he eats, he's trying to get to the garage or get somewhere else, anywhere else. As long as it's, I just need to be away from her.

Noah: 19:46

Yeah.

Paul: 19:47

And, and you think what's making him do that? I mean, that's a counselor question. That's a probing question. Right. But here in this situation, if someone's decaying your bones, I mean, you're, you're ashamed. You're embarrassed. You're, you're very uncomfortable when people say, Oh, you're married to so and so. Oh, she's your wife. And look, I'm not saying we love, we stop loving them and we, and we walk out on them. No, I never said that. Solomon doesn't say that, but I've known situations where because of the woman's foolish choices, they're the result of lack of character. She's not thinking she lacks discretion. She carries himself. She, she deports herself in such a way that's so shameful and disgraceful that he's embarrassed to be around her. He's embarrassed when others find out that's, that's my wife. Now he probably will never say that, but Solomon saying it for us. It, it's like decay in his bones. I mean, don't be that gal. Don't be that kind of woman that, that sabotages your husband. And look, it's. All of us could talk about the positives. You and I and the podcast is not about us. And so the podcast is not about Michaela and Amy. We, we both think we married the prudent wife, the excellent wife but I see how your Michaela carries herself and you have every right. To one of the people to know that's my wife. There's a reason why you speak of her in a, in a praising kind of complimentary way publicly, because you want other people to know I belong to Michaela.

Noah: 21:32

That's right. Same, same way with

Paul: 21:33

me and Amy, but that's not the case for every husband. And so what we're trying to say to women, when we say don't be that gal is he wants to praise you. He wants to have you on his arm and say, Oh, I love you. Look, I feel so secure in who I am and in the relationship because of what my wife does in the home, what my wife does in the community, how she carries herself, her character.

Noah: 21:59

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And really that's the, that, that's where it comes around. And we can say like, obviously the, the title of this, this episode is don't be that gal, but in the Proverbs, what is even more portrayed than that is don't be that be this. And and the fact is there's, there are so many people including let's just be honest, many men who act like they want. A woman who, you know, it's just, it doesn't have that, it's not real critical thinker. Isn't, isn't, doesn't have that wisdom and discretion doesn't have a lot of character because that makes it easier for him to feel like this dominating presence in the relationship and that kind of thing. And there's parts of our culture that, that try to push that idea on, on women. And the wisdom of the wisdom literature is clear. No, the woman that's from God. Is the prudent woman, the woman that is valuable for a lifetime. The woman that is, is praiseworthy for a lifetime is not the pig with the gold ring in its snout. It's the, it's the woman who has character and wisdom and discretion and prudence. That is, that is what's valuable in the eyes of God. And that's going to be what's valuable. to men in who have God's character in them. So,

Paul: 23:26

yeah, absolutely. I want to offer this in a sensitive way but in a loving way, because I can speak as male and I can tell you, I speak for men, a loud, boisterous, obnoxious woman in her speech in public. And they know who they are. I mean, just, just, they comport themselves. They carry themselves in a very loud, boisterous with the tongue. They're very cutting. And so when you're out to eat with a big group, when you're standing in the foyer of the church building around others, the way she speaks, whether it's about her husband or not, like tearing him down, sarcastic, ridicule, cutting, or she's just the kind of woman in general, her speech and her tone and her demeanor, she's just a loud. Boisterous. There's no, there's very little in her that's meek and quiet and of a gentle spirit. I'm speaking as male, that, that shames, you're shaming your husband, whether, whether you intend to or not. You may not be speaking about him, but if you're just that kind of person, just, just the boisterous loud woman that's, that's the Proverbs 21 or 12 and verse four. It's like decaying his bones. And most of the time. He won't come and tell you in the car ride on the way home because he's figured out that doesn't go well. Because now this may move now into the continual dripping.

Noah: 24:57

There's some really difficult things to work through and deal with in the Proverbs, but Our prayer is that by looking at the text, we can be helpful in, in identifying pain points for us as Christians. That's why we took time to do. Don't be that guy. Don't be that gal. The Proverbs offers wisdom, practical wisdom for our lives, no matter who we are.

Paul: 25:21

Yeah. And we did the gas first. Guys came first, ladies, guys came first. So where are we, where are we going next?

Noah: 25:28

Well, next week we're already going to be on episode seven. And Paul, remind me, you've got the title for next week's lesson.

Paul: 25:36

It's me, my money and my master, me, my money and my master. So obviously what Proverbs is going to say to us about wealth and money, but me, my money, And my master.

Noah: 25:51

Oh, that sounds good. I'm looking forward to that discussion. Thank you for tuning in today. And we are, we pray that until you join us again next week, you will be strengthened in the wisdom of Christ, that you will continue to grow in his spirit and in his character, and that you will continue to stand strong in God.