2. Proverbs 31

3. Sonship
4:1 Hear, O sons, a father’s instruction, and be attentive, that you may gain insight. .
4:20 My son, be attentive to my words; incline your ears to my sayings.
5:1 My son, be attentive to my wisdom; incline your ear to my understanding.
31:2 What are you doing my son? What are you doing, son of my womb? What are doing, son of my vows?

4. Woman of Folly Woman of Destruction
9:13-15 The woman Folly is loud; she is seductive and knows nothing. She sits at the door of her house; she takes a seat on the highest places of the town, calling to those who pass by, who are going straight on their way.
Woman of Destruction
31:3 Do not give your strength to women, your ways to those who destroy kings.

5. Woman of Wisdom Wife of Excellence
9:1-3 Wisdom has built her house; she has hewn her seven pillars. She has slaughtered her beasts; she has mixed her wine; she has also set table.
Wife of Excellence
31:13-19 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.

6. Proverbs 31

7. The Bride and the Kingdom
Proverbs 31 .
The King of the Bride
The Bride of the King
The Bride and the Kingdom

8. The King of the Bride Intentionality 31:2-3 Clarity 31:4-5.
Intentionality :2-3
Clarity :4-5
Liberty :6
Victory :7
Advocacy :8-9
Charity :8-9
…And this is our King. This is not a King who can become ours, so long as we remain excellent and obedient but we are already His and He is ours—and He is this good of a King. So, for the NC, would this be the Jesus that you choose to disbelieve or believe in? And for the BAC, is this indeed the King you worship? Is the King in your heart as Biblical as this? When you worship, is this the Biblical King you are worshipping? And as a Church, this is the King who leads us, who is over us, who has purchased us.

9. The Bride and the Kingdom
Proverbs 31 .
The King of the Bride
The Bride of the King
The Bride and the Kingdom

10. The Bride of the King Descriptive vs. Prescriptive
Her Indicative Description
Trusted, Excellent, Precious 31:10-11
Clothed in Strength, Dignity 31:25
Blessed :28-29
Her Imperative Prescription 31:12
Second, as a result, her ultimate prescription is to simply do Him no harm but good—to serve Him and love Him and honor Him by doing Him good, all the days of her life. There is an obsession to do Him good and overwhelming resolve to do well for and towards Him, out of the magnitude of His descriptive, indicative, preceding love and goodness.

11. Matthew 7:21-23
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’”
He does not say He disagrees with what we did—He says He does not know who we are. He may recognize what we have done but He does not recognize who we are. Therefore, as a Church, we our first priority, especially when it comes to preaching and teaching, is to remind one another of who we are.

12. Isaiah 1:18-20
“Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool. If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be eaten by the sword; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
Likewise, Isaiah says it like this … What always comes first is the Gospel of grace to encourage and strengthen us to obey (Ex. JK and Calvin).

13. The Bride of the King Descriptive vs. Prescriptive
Her Indicative Description
Trusted, Excellent, Precious 31:10-11
Clothed in Strength, Dignity 31:25
Blessed :28-29
Her Imperative Prescription 31:12
Second, as a result, her ultimate prescription is to simply do Him no harm but good—to serve Him and love Him and honor Him by doing Him good, all the days of her life. There is an obsession to do Him good and overwhelming resolve to do well for and towards Him, out of the magnitude of His descriptive, indicative, preceding love and goodness.

14. The Bride and the Kingdom
Proverbs 31 .
The King of the Bride
The Bride of the King
The Bride and the Kingdom

15. The Bride and the Kingdom.
She Flourishes the Kingdom
She Flourishes the Community
She Fears the King

16. She Flourishes the Kingdom.
Willing Hands a
Food and Portions 15b, 26
Clothing , 25
Willing Hands: Willing to serve (14) far and wide; (15) long and hard; wide and deep  Serve not just when it is convenient and close; but to do so even at the cost of both—to not know what it is like for a church to simply succeed but to join Paul in considering all things rubbish in comparison to knowing Christ crucified and to share in His suffering for the formative and construction of His Kingdom.
Food and Portions: We need to provide for our church and nourish her as we nourish our own families; however, we ought to also be nourishing those who help steward this family as well  We need to feed one another the Gospel as regularly as we need it—and if you are too busy for this kind of fellowship, then you are absolutely disobediently busy. We need to be praying (as Paul commands) for and providing for our elders, for Gerry, for myself, and for the family that God is calling to shepherd His Bride at Parkview. // Globally, our household is starving in many places of the world (Ex. OMF whiteboard).
Clothing: There is a seasonal resilience to her provision that protects her from seasons and circumstances. As much as clothing reveals the culture of an individual, so the cut of cloth of a church reveals just as visible of a culture.  As children of Adam we want to clothe ourselves in anything but Christ-–thus we need to put on the full armor of God and clothe ourselves in the riches and splendor of His Gospel goodness in increasing measure, less we become a family that freezes in the winter and drowns in the storm. Furthermore, is this a church culture where anyone from anywhere can come and feel safe, feel accepted, feel celebrated, and feel embraced? Is this a place where people can feel like they’re home? Is this a place where people feel like a family? (Ex. LINC is no longer driven by a mission but by a very thick, familial culture) // Globally, when a church suffers, we should suffer; when a church closes, we should mourn; if a pastor falls, we should soberly pray in reverence and fear.

17. The Bride and the Kingdom.
She Flourishes the Kingdom
She Flourishes the Community
She Fears the King

18. She Flourishes the Community.
Grows Goods , 18
Sells Goods , 24
Shares Goods
What she produces is not only good for the Kingdom but it inevitably flourishes and provides good for the economy and livelihood of the community.

19. Proverbs 31:19
She puts her hands to the distaff, and her hands hold the spindle.
This is what makes this chapter so wildly difficult to understand and dissect because she is so involved in both the Kingdom and the community that it’s hard to separate which serves which… and thus, Jesus Himself says…

20. Matthew 6:2-4
Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
As our hands are both meant to serve the Kingdom and the community, so we see here a woman using her hands quite a bit as every verse either alludes to or explicitly mentions the work of her hands.

21. The Bride and the Kingdom.
She Flourishes the Kingdom
She Flourishes the Community
She Fears the King
As much of (I) and (II) are fairly abstract—which is why the most important verse here is verse 30.

22. Proverbs 31:30
Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.

23. The Bride and the Kingdom
Proverbs 31 .
The King of the Bride
The Bride of the King
The Bride and the Kingdom
My prayer for Parkview Church, in this unique season of Her life, not to strive and become this kind of a woman and this kind of a wife—but to simply be this kind of woman and this kind of wife because she already is. Thus, why not be the kind of woman we are and the kind of bride He has made us?