Recently a friend asked me a most provocative question: “How many kids do you actually LIKE?” Now, generally speaking, I actually like MOST children-after all, I have six of my own and there is something “magical” about watching “little people” grow, mature, and develop their own personalities, gifts and unique interests. So, my quick answer was that I like the majority of kids that come across my path; and as for the ones I don’t - well, to be honest, it’s not really their fault, but the parents: parents who do not discipline them consistently and fairly, who do not adjudicate their conflicts and disputes wisely and justly or who allow them to run wild and unconstrained.

“That’s my point” my friend replied, “how many people do YOU know who raise their kids properly?” Now I had to step back for a moment and think. Right now, in our present church situation, I think ALL our parents are doing a very credible job of raising godly, dominion oriented children. However, to be honest, that has not always been my experience in the broader church over the past three decades. In fact, I have been pretty shocked at times at just how badly so many Christian parents have “flubbed” their parental responsibilities, which in turn has motivated me to spend so much time teaching on Biblical principles of child-rearing.

“Now, here’s the clincher” my friend concluded, “have you ever noticed a connection between women who work at home in a family business, and the fact that their children are all under control, civil, play well with others, and are respectful of adults as well as being superior students in home-school?” Now my friend is an entrepreneur whose wife works with him managing the family business. At the same time she also is busy raising their four children, home-schooling the older ones, while carrying the youngest on her hip and managing the household. He then cited several other families we both knew who were in similar situations. Each of these families had successful, growing home-businesses in which the wife was intimately involved (in fact, was essential in running), as well as home-schooling. And all of these families were raising delightful children; respectful, bright and articulate, little people who were a pleasure to be around.

Thus, my friend suggested that working in the family business actually FORCED wives to be more effective in every other area of their life; and he has a point. Many Christian women today are caught in a cultural cross-fire between contemporary values that elevate the self above the family, and their God-given desire to stay at home and care for their children. Some Christian women essentially abandon their children to day care and the public school system while they go about achieving their “dream” of having a career. Many “Christian” men actively push their wives in this direction because they want the toys a second income can provide.

In contrast, many godly women try to opt out of the contemporary cultural model by becoming what we call the “home-everything” type; the ones who grow their own wheat, to grind into flour, to bake their own bread. Some cynical types call them the “Little House on the Prairie” moms- those who think that if they have a garden, make their own clothes, and spend their day doing 19^th century type chores they are somehow closer to the Biblical ideal of motherhood.

Now, my friend has a passion for helping people improve their economic situation by encouraging them to become self-employed and starting their own businesses. Usually, these businesses demand that the wife play an important role in managing it. Many families are hesitant to actually take the risk because they fear that Mom will not be able to fulfill her domestic responsibilities. Yet, as my friend pointed out, the women who manage successful home businesses are also the very same moms whose homes are well ordered and whose children are growing into the kind of dominion oriented people we all want them to be. Hence, he wondered whether there was something about being an entrepreneur that led to women learning how to organize their time, develop their talents and make them into better wives, mothers AND business women.

As much as I appreciated my friend’s very interesting observations here, I had to point out that the above assessment contained a classic logical fallacy; “correlation does not imply causation.” Simply because two events happen close in space and time does not necessarily mean that one causes the other, since there may well be some other factor that caused BOTH. In this case, simply because a woman who is a successful entrepreneur is also a classic Proverbs 31 type woman does not mean she got that way because of running the family business. It is just as likely that the basic skill set that allowed her to become successful in her business is the same one that allowed her to become effective in running her home and raising her family. In other words, a woman who was self-motivated, well organized, intelligent and conscientious to her duties is likely to be successful in any endeavor, whether it be business, domestic management or raising children.

Remember, the section on the “excellent wife” in Proverbs 31 BEGINS with the fact that such women are indeed rare -“An excellent wife, who can find; her value is above rubies.” I think many highly successful, intelligent people often do not understand that not everyone can do what they find so easy. You see, whether our pride likes to admit it or not, people are different with different abilities, skills and opportunities. It may be heresy in modern American culture to say this, but some people are just better at some things than others. No matter how firmly we may want to be a certain type of person, or accomplish a certain kind of job, if we do not have the natural gifts, then we will never be successful at either.

Everyone acknowledges this fact of life in regards to certain talents such as athletics, music, painting, etc., and we usually highly value these gifted people, paying them extraordinary salaries to entertain us. Granted, many people never live up to their potential and most people do not work hard enough to reach even a portion of what they COULD do. But that is different from the popular cultural fantasy that anyone can do anything if they just believe in themselves hard enough. For example, if you want to win a gold medal at the Olympics, it takes more than dedication, hard work and self-confidence; you have to have the genes for superior athletic performance as well-after all, they only give one gold medal for each event (OK, apart from the team sports). Everyone who competes WANTS the gold, but only one receives it. However, what about the thousands of other people who work hard, have the “eye of the tiger” but never even make it to the national team?

The same difference in range of abilities applies to every other area of life as well; some people are smarter, with better natural abilities than others. If they have the character to work diligently and conscientiously at developing those gifts, then they will (all other things being equal in the providence of God) become more successful than less gifted people. However, some people, no matter how hard they work at trying to develop certain skills, will never be able to succeed in certain tasks. For example, a person who lacks basic mathematical ability will NEVER succeed at say, astrophysics.

Some people are smarter than others, some are more coordinated than others, and some are just able to organize their time and resources better than others. In other words, if you were to plot any human ability on a graph, a tiny number of people would be represented as being exceptionally gifted, some people would be represented as completely incompetent, and most people would fall somewhere in the middle-being able to do most things but not really excelling at anything. However, the good news is that in the modern world, even a person of average ability can often become quite successful because the “competition” is so often so lazy that they never begin to develop their natural talents. Since most tasks in life are done by people with average skills, then the person with above average discipline and diligence can often excel.

Most Christians, if they even consider these kinds of issues, rightly focus on the importance of character, rather than raw ability because we know that what a person IS, is far more important than what a person DOES. We acknowledge that God loves the poor, the dispossessed, the feeble and frail, and that being “successful” in life is just not as important as having a godly character. After all, God chose the weak, the base and the foolish of this world so that He might confound the wise (1 Cor 1:26-29). Furthermore we have an objective standard to measure character, the character of Christ; but something more ambiguous when evaluating “success.” Is “success” determined by the amount of money we make, the kinds of possessions we own, the types of vacations we enjoy? If we think about it, we might conclude that “success” in this life is determined by a person working faithfully and diligently at his calling and that as a result, he is able to bring more and more of life under the dominion of King Jesus.

Thus, when it comes to interpreting and applying Proverbs 31, most Christian women focus on the character aspects rather than the entrepreneurial ones; after all, every woman can aspire to being a godly woman (Pvbs 31:30) -not all can or will be a successful business woman. There is an insidious type of socialism that forms an unconscious set of assumptions amongst many Christians. Many American Christians, even though they enjoy one of the highest standards of living in human history, at the same time feel guilty about their wealth and tend to romanticize poverty, disparaging the  very idea of capitalism and profit. While we cannot open that particular can of worms here (but see my book, “Wisdom and Wealth”) let it just be acknowledged that many Christians equate poverty with spirituality, to the detriment of godly dominion.

Hence, as a result, many Christian women spiritualize certain aspects of Proverbs 31; i.e., the “home-everything” sort we mentioned earlier. Over the years I have met a number of conservative, godly women who just loved working in their gardens, baking their own bread, making their own clothes and were raising their daughters to do the same. They were “proud” of the fact that THEY did not fall prey to the humanist ideal of the independent woman who hates the family and refuses to raise children. And all of them use Proverbs 31 as their justification. Yet, sadly, I fear that many of them are misreading the passage- the Proverbs 31 woman has almost NOTHING in common with the life-style of the average, conservative Christian woman today; even the ones striving to respect their husbands, bear and raise a large family, and work at home.

Take for example just one verse, “She considers a field and buys it; from her earnings she plants a vineyard.” Am I the only pastor to have heard many sincere Christian women using this verse as their justification for spending a large part of their day working in the garden? Yet, was this really what King Lemuel’s mother was trying to teach (31:1-2)?

Now, just think with me for a moment; what was the historical context of this comment on how a godly woman spends her day? Land (like time) is a finite resource; there is only so much to go around and therefore, the wise person makes the best use possible out of it. A field (probably best understood as an enclosed piece of land) can be cleared to grow crops; however a wise person will grow those crops that promise the greatest return. For example, if lots of farmers are growing oats, then the supply of oats will exceed demand, and the price of putting another field into production will not be worth the time and investment of money. Furthermore, some fields are bottom lands near rivers and streams with good soil and other fields may be on rocky hill-sides making cultivation difficult. Bottom land is therefore more valuable and more expensive to buy than land that is hilly and rocky.

In this case, the Proverbs 31 woman “considers” a field; in other words, she analyses whether or not a particular field will be advantageous to her goals. And her goal is to plant a vineyard (which is clear from the second part of the couplet; her intention is not just to buy a field but rather to buy a field suitable for a vineyard). This means that rather than buy expensive bottom land, she might be able to buy cheaper, hill-side land that does not need to be plowed each season. In other words, she can buy cheaper land that is still suitable for her long term goals.

Now, in the ancient world, vineyards were quite important; the average person consumed massive amounts of wine compared to our modern habits. Granted, that wine was far less alcoholic than the kind we make today, but people still drank it probably more often than water. Now, here is the problem; if you do not make your own wine, then you have to buy it from someone. Hence, the cost of acquiring sufficient quantities of wine for one’s household is an ongoing expense; in other words it is money flowing out of the household rather than coming in. The godly woman of Proverbs 31 thus sees an economic problem and figures out a wise solution. She looks around for a suitable piece of land that will be good for growing grapes; likely land that is cheap, because while it is difficult to cultivate for grain crops, is suitable for vines. Furthermore, it has to be a piece of land that is going to be cost effective to own; putting in a vineyard is both capital and labor intensive; the costs do not stop with the purchase price. One has to have grape cuttings, which need to be tenderly and skillfully handled. The grapes have to be picked at the right time, in the right way. The grapes then have to be squeezed to obtain the juice and the juice wisely fermented to produce good quality wine (the juice will ferment regardless of what one does- but without the required skills it will ferment into vinegar).

Thus, the godly woman of Proverbs 31 diligently searches to find the right piece of property at the right price, which she can then develop as an ongoing source of a necessary daily household item. As a result, the cost of domestic consumption of wine goes dramatically down even as her capital assets go dramatically up. Furthermore, if she manages her new vineyard well, she can produce not only enough wine for her own household, but also a surplus that can be sold to other households as well. Thus, the Proverbs 31 woman both DECREASES the costs of a necessary product for her own family while INCREASING family income.

Now THAT is what this verse is talking about; a godly woman as a financial asset to her family. She not only saves the household money, but actually becomes an income producer. This verse simply has NOTHING to do with a woman who likes to spend her day in her garden. Now, there is nothing inherently wrong with liking to putter around in a garden but we need to call this what it really is, a hobby, of no more spiritual significance than playing golf, watching TV or reading a good novel.

Yet, many otherwise godly Christian women are incensed when I point this out to them. They have argued that they ARE saving the family money by eating food they grew themselves! OK, let us look at that for a moment; how many man (er, excuse me, I meant “woman”) hours does it take to grow all the vegetables your family eats in a year? Now, let us compare what it would cost to BUY those vegetables from the local grocery store. Vegetables are extremely cheap because we have entire agribusinesses dedicated to using state of the art technology, mechanization and the division of labor to lower the individual cost. Mom, working in her own little vegetable patch, simply cannot compete with the local grocery store.

What, you say that YOUR vegetables are organically grown and don’t have all those pesticides and such? Well, OK, let us go to an ORGANIC farmer, then, and compare HIS prices with YOUR labor costs. If you factor it out, the average person will find that they are actually working for pennies on the dollar. In other words, if the same woman was actually working in a family business for the same amount of time as she spent tending her garden, she would find that she could BUY all the organic vegetables she needed and still have considerable assets left over for all sorts of other things; things such as adding an extension to the house, replacing automobiles, saving for retirement, etc.

You see, even an organic farmer is able to maximize the amount of produce he obtains from his fields; something that the small subsistence farmer cannot hope to duplicate. As a result even without the advantages of fertilizers and pesticides, he can still produce food more cheaply and more effectively than the average person working in a small garden. Does it not make sense, then, for the godly woman to take advantage of this same division of labor to maximize HER time to generate MORE income for her entire family?

And the same principle applies to almost all the domestic skills that some Christian women so highly value. Granted, you make wonderful home-baked bread; but you can buy bread for a fraction of what it costs you in time to bake it yourself. Yes, we are all impressed with your sewing skills; however, clothing in the West is cheap and every hour you spend on making a dress is an hour you are NOT spending on work that could actually improve your family’s economic situation.

Yet, as often as I pointed these things out, there are a number of women who refuse to listen. You see, they LIKE how they spend their time making their own clothes, growing their own food, or baking their own bread and they really do believe that by doing these things, they are modeling the Proverbs 31 woman. And if their husband is one of those extraordinarily skilled men making so much money at his calling that the family does not NEED extra income, then I guess working in the garden is certainly better than watching soap operas. However, the average family is usually pretty strapped for cash. For a number of reasons, it is increasingly difficult for Christian families to live on just the husband’s salary. If a Christian woman refuses the temptation to leave the home, does it not make sense for her to find some way to contribute to the family income by working at SOMETHING she can sell to the outside world?

We are now into the second generation of “home-everything” women who were raised with the idea that by doing all these things they really WERE “holier” than all those godless strident feminists out there destroying the culture. And for taking such a stand, and being willing to sacrifice both income and personal enrichment for the benefit of the family, such women are to be commended. However, maybe it is time to start thinking about how godly women can actually do more than just play Martha Stewart during the day. At least we can dismiss the false piety that so many have come to associate with digging in the dirt.

Yet, after having said all the above, it is NOT just as simple as women starting their own home businesses; as you will recall, this was my original point of departure with my friend. Not all women are equally gifted, not all, therefore, will be equally “successful.” It can be difficult to find a business that the woman can manage without having to sacrifice her home or her children. And I think it is self-evident that some women, no matter how sincerely they may WANT to do this kind of work, simply do not have the ability to create a successful home business. In fact, if a young single man WANTS the kind of wife we have been talking about, he needs to be careful about the kind of woman he marries in the first place; “Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord, she will be praised.”  (Hey, I just thought of the best Christian put down of all time; if you really, REALLY want to insult a godless woman WITHOUT getting a slap in the face, or a punch from her husband, just say, “My, what a charming and beautiful woman you are…!”)

I guess all that I am really calling for here is a little self-examination and a little intellectual and spiritual honesty. As a Reformed pastor, I am committed to the dominion mandate, of helping people look beyond their own pleasures and interests to the expansion of the Kingdom of God. Furthermore, I believe with every fiber of my being that the primary means of expanding the Kingdom will come, FIRST, through reforming the home. Growing populations displace stagnant or diminishing populations; furthermore, if we train self-governed, disciplined godly children, they will grow into dominion-oriented adults who will increasingly bring broader and broader segments of culture into submission to King Jesus. It is no accident that humanism in its feminist guise is culturally self-destructive (“those who hate Me love death”); women who buy into the contemporary model have far fewer children, later in life. They have so few in fact, that they are at sub-replacement levels - just look at the demographics for Japan, Britain, France, Holland, and Germany.

However, because we Christians believe the family to be so important, thus far, the best we have done to counter the culturally suicidal values of modern humanism is to take our wives and daughters OUT of the workplace and teach them to value their families over their careers. But, we have NOT yet managed to find an effective way for godly women to fully develop their skills and abilities within the context of the home. Instead, too often all we have done is make them wear metaphorical little bonnets and told them to play in the garden for a while. There was a reason why 19^th century women spent their work day baking bread, tending gardens, sewing and the like; in a largely agrarian culture, that was the best way a woman COULD support her family. But the culture has changed and we have to find a way to apply the unchanging principles of God’s law to a changing social reality.

In short, it is not godly women who have failed, but the ones who are responsible for understanding and working out the implications of a consistent Biblical worldview - in other words, people like me (and my professional colleagues who write long, brilliant books on economic theory but never seem to deal with how to make this work in an average family). However, please give us a break; it really is difficult trying to wade through the confusion of values, priorities, and challenges of what it means to live and thrive in a post-Christian, post-agrarian, and now postindustrial world. We know that godly women are gifted and that the family NEEDS their gifts if we are to see the next generation grow and extend the Kingdom; we just haven’t yet figured out all the details.

My friend is certainly correct that the families that we know who are successful economically are also successful in domestic issues. Each household has a godly, hard working woman with disciplined, well mannered and enjoyable children. Each of these women manages some sort of business requiring skill-sets that any corporation would love to recruit. However, we also know OTHER families, with people of “equal” commitment to godliness, people who by every indication, sincerely WANT to do the right thing, and BE the right kind of person, who are not QUITE so successful in life. The men are often employed in not so well paying jobs and do not really and honestly have the managerial skills necessary to own and operate their own businesses. The women I am thinking of are often sweet-tempered, gracious ladies who work hard every day at SOMETHING, even though, as far as I can see, no one is breaking down their doors bidding for their skills. And the children of these families are usually, “good” kids (and by “good” I mean that they are not living contrary to God’s law, they are respectful of their parents and they work diligently at whatever task is set before them). So is there anything that THEY can do to improve their economic situation and so truly emulate the Proverbs 31 woman?

Application

In order to find our way out of the current dilemma, we first need to take a step back and discuss several issues we raised earlier. A large part of the current problem facing godly women is that the world has changed since the Industrial Revolution that has negated her traditional role in the home. Until the advent of mechanization, a woman’s work had pretty much remained unchanged from creation. She had a vital, indispensable role in helping her husband with the dominion mandate. However, by the latter decades of the 19^th century, larger and larger areas of her traditional work were no longer essential.

Most Christians unconsciously assume as the model for Christian femininity a view which in reality came from a very brief cultural period from 1945-1960. During that time, America was the only major nation whose economic and industrial infrastructure had not been destroyed by the war. Furthermore, there was worldwide demand for American industrial products. As a result, wages were at an all time high and even working class families could expect a growing standard of living. With universal public education and widely held Christian values, American Christian families could send their children off to public schools with every expectation that their home values would be reinforced and supported by the state. With Dad earning high wages, there was no economic incentive for women to work outside of the home, and with the kids spending most of their day in relatively safe and civilized public schools, there was little to keep Mom occupied in the home. Cooking and cleaning were just not as labor intensive as they had been a hundred years before; just think of the difference in time it takes to wash clothing by hand in say, 1850 with a wash tub and board, and throwing dirty clothes into a electric washing machine! Cooking over an electric oven is a far less difficult endeavor than cooking over a wood stove. Buying prepackaged groceries from a Super-Market was considerably cheaper and more time efficient than taking care of chickens, milking cows and growing one’s own vegetables.

As the blessings of middle class prosperity spread throughout the culture, many Christian women found that they enjoyed large amounts of free time. Many spent their day involved in church activities, or social projects for their community. Others dallied the day away in watching the infamous soap operas. Regardless of HOW a woman in this period spent her time, industrialization had changed the way that women worked.

Then, in the 1960’s and 70’s, much of that changed; increasing affluence meant that the middle classes could now send ALL their children (all 2.2 of them) to college with the hope that a college education was a ticket into the upper middle-class. Since the modern university system had been occupied by the humanists for an entire generation, young women were indoctrinated into a new worldview that taught them that ANY differences between gender roles were entirely artificial. After all, because industrialization and mechanization had removed the necessity of brute, male strength, now women could do 80% of the same work as men. Work at home was hardly challenging and humanism provided a philosophical justification for women to enter the workforce in large numbers. No one, of course, foresaw that with so many women competing with men for jobs that real wages would go down for everyone, but that is what happened.

With women entering the workforce, and trying to find fulfillment in a career, the family directly suffered. You simply cannot work outside the home and still raise a large family. As women’s wages went up, birth rates plummeted. However, now, because of the downward spiral of wages due to the increased number of women entering the work-place, the family NEEDED the income from the wife’s labor outside the home. However, by the 1980’s a massive shift was beginning in the Christian community. More and more Christian women realized that they had been sold a false bill of goods; working outside the home did NOT provide the kind of self-realization and fulfillment that had been promised to them. Many wanted to come BACK to the home; but many men simply could not earn enough money because of the changing economic situation.

Which then brings us to our current problem: these sincere Christian women rejected the humanism of feminism and reclaimed their God-given place as wives, mothers and keepers of the home. However, the cultural situation has changed since 1950; her traditional work is no longer cost effective. Godly women want to WORK at home, but she does not have a good role model of what that work should be; what is she to do? Many women chose to go back to the 19^th century model of the “Home Everything” approach because it WAS real work, it resonated with our most ancient domestic values and it was certainly better than watching the “soaps.”

So, where does that leave us? One of the main points of this essay has been to demonstrate that our very picture of the Proverbs 31 woman is in error; she is not a domestic diva, but a wise and talented woman who contributes to the household’s economic well-being while not sacrificing her family for her career. Our task, therefore, is to take the universal, unchanging qualities of this woman and apply them to a changing cultural and economic situation. For example, the Proverbs 31 woman makes belts and sells them to the local merchants; this is NOT a Biblical exhortation for godly women to get into the belt crafting business, but rather represents the principle of bringing income into the household by using her gifts, time and energy.

Not every woman can or will be as successful as her model from Proverbs 31, but every godly woman can and should consider HOW to evaluate her situation wisely and consider how she can really contribute to the family’s economic progress. Our goal ought to be to find a way to keep our wives at home, while at the same time, allowing her to be a financial asset to the family. This is exactly what the Proverbs 31 woman did; what we have to figure out is how to apply those same principles to modern culture.

In the final analysis, my friend and I noted that there was one factor common to every successful Proverbs 31 woman; each and every one of them had a strong, godly man who was the undisputed head of the house. Each of these men had self-consciously looked for a godly, talented woman to act as his help-mate and was motivated by something other than the myth of romantic infatuation as the basis for a strong Christian marriage. After marriage, these same strong, godly men created opportunities for their wives to develop their gifts and callings, usually within the context of the man starting the business and then turning its management over to their wives (if nothing else, she kept the books, managed the inventory or ran the necessary errands). In other words, it was not an autonomous woman, seeking to “find” herself outside of the covenant relationship, but rather a true partnership wherein a godly woman found a strong man she could respect who then helped to her develop the very talents that made her successful.

On the other hand, we both knew of too many situations wherein weak men attracted women who were tempted to usurp dominion over their husbands. Precious time and emotional energy were then wasted as the two battled for control of the relationship- with the man, almost always eventually giving in and letting the woman take dominion. Neither she, nor her husband was very happy, and the children were usually tyrannical little monsters. Godly women, on the other hand, wanted and waited for godly men; men whose leadership and character they could trust. And as a result, they built not only strong marriages, and godly families, but successful businesses as well.

In fact, many Christian men object to their wives being a financial asset because it is a matter of pride that “my wife doesn’t have to work.” However, that again is a cultural value that came AFTER industrialization when the average man went from working for himself on a family farm or family business, to working in a plant or mill. Households that required a woman to work outside the home demonstrated that a man’s labor was not valued highly enough to take care of his family. However, the Proverbs 31 woman DID work “outside the home,” at least in some sense, since she bought land, created and managed family business as well as caring for her husband and children. 

So, let us look at this situation from the perspectives of a single woman, a woman without children, a woman with young children (who need close supervision) and a woman whose children are older and able to be more responsible. Each situation may require slightly different applications of the same, universal principles.

First, for singles, young men and women must carefully evaluate potential life-mates. Other proverbs tell us that it is better to be poor and live in the corner of an attic then to share a house with a contentious woman. And ladies, there are a lot of quick talking but mushy headed fools out there who can and will make your life miserable if you fall for their line. Thus, before we are ready for marriage, or consider whether someone else is suitable, both single men and single women ought to see if a person has a good track record of being responsible, hard-working and thrifty individuals. Remember, the best indicator of future performance is past performance. If a person has NOT been thrifty, reliable, frugal, diligent and conscientious to his duties, no matter how “gifted” he or she may be, then there is no reason to suspect that this will change in the future.

Therefore, I think all women ought to develop a skill set in their own area of gifts and abilities with the idea of one day using them to help the family economically. Now, different girls have different strengths and abilities and their education should be oriented towards using their natural gifts in some way.

Since the godly woman wants, FIRST, to be a godly wife and mother, she should probably not, generally speaking, invest in a “professional” education that would equip her to be a doctor, lawyer, or the like. I can almost hear the cries of outrage here but just think with me for a moment; and before you start writing that nasty email to put me in my place. Even the feminists recognize that a career and a family is an intolerable burden with inevitably, the family suffering. You simply cannot raise a large family while working full time as a professional. Hence, the brightest and most gifted women who try to balance both end up having fewer children.

Now, think with me in the long term; all of us are stewards of not only our natural gifts, but of our genes as well. God gave the human race only a certain number of exceptionally gifted people; gifts which one needs to be successful in most “professions.” If a woman with these “gifted” genes has a career, rather than a large family, then she might do much good in the world, but not as much as she could by bearing and raising GIFTED children. The more godly children she raises, the greater investment she is making in the future as the gospel spreads through the world. And that, I fear, is the real reason why so many wonderfully gifted women choose career over family; they think in the short-term, with their own self-interests being valued over long term dominion in the name of King Jesus.

However, if a woman has a grasp of history and of God’s providential work, she will realize that she is a steward of what has come down to her from her ancestors and is responsible to her descendants. Therefore, logically, what BETTER investment of her life could she ever make to the advancing Kingdom of God than bearing and raising superior, gifted, godly children? However, most people, even Christians do not think this way because at the heart of our value system is the importance of the self; i.e., it is MY life and MY pleasure and MY career that takes precedence over ANYTHING else. We simply do not think we have any duty or responsibility to the future because all that concerns us is THIS life. The above is consistent with autonomous humanism, but is NOT historic, Biblical Christian faith.

Thus, for women to seek advanced academic education in preparation for a demanding professional “calling” is not unlawful, but simply not the best investment of her time, money and life. It takes years of formal, difficult academic education to achieve minimum proficiency in any of the professions. Yet, if she then decides to focus on raising a family, all that investment is GONE (not to mention the incredible amounts of capital spent on an education that she will never then use). This is why there is such a strong negative correlation between education and the number of children a woman has. By the time she is ready to BEGIN her profession, she is already in her late twenties. After working for five-seven years, she is now rapidly approaching the age where she can no longer have children. Hence, at best, she may have one or two. This means, that in the long view, the percentage of gifted, intelligent people is DECREASING at the same time that modern technology DEMANDS ever more capable people!

However, the godly woman, like the godly man of Psalms 127, understands that she lives to facilitate dominion over the earth in the name of King Jesus and that her children are her arrows into the future. Thus, she willingly gives up her personal career, confident that this sacrifice is going to be a blessing to generations unborn. Yes, there are some women that could make brilliant surgeons, outstanding scientists, or even wise and insightful lawyers (such as Debra). However, by focusing on her children, she is gifting the NEXT generation with five, six or even 10 times the number of gifted, godly men and women. Thus, she is in fact MULTIPLYING her effect on the world! And is THAT not a far more important and significant contribution to godly dominion than ANY work she might do in this life?

Thus, the godly woman, even those wonderfully gifted, will want to find some way to work IN her home raising HER children while at the same time, doing some work that will bring in extra income. She will see her first duty to God by being “fruitful” and multiplying, sending out a godly seed that will rise up and bless her for her sacrifice.

So now we have a godly Mom, raising her dominion-oriented children for the future, but also recognizing that she must work in the PRESENT to help THIS generation; how does she contribute financially? Now, generally speaking, a person makes money by selling either goods or services. However, since mechanization means that fewer workers are needed to produce ever more goods and services, most people cannot actually produce a product at home that can compete with a large company; hence in one sense, there are fewer opportunities here for a home business. However, no matter how productive manufacturers may be, they STILL need ways of distributing their products, and managing their sales. This is where a wise woman can find a niche in the market to sell either the product directly OR help by providing some sort of administrative service.

For example, a single woman, if she has the gifts, might want to get a general education in business or office management with maybe an emphasis on accounting or book-keeping. This way, she can MANAGE the family business, if she and her husband can start one, allowing him to work OUT of the home, while she contributes fully, but stays IN the home.

In the same way, computer graphics, word-processing and web-site design and management are also good possibilities for investing in education. If a godly woman today cannot MAKE her own products as the Proverbs 31 woman did, she still may well be able to retail the products of others IF she understands how to buy cheap and sell dear. The Internet has opened up a whole new world of business opportunities to the home-based business if a woman understands how to make that infernal machine (i.e., the computer) do what she wants it to do.

However, not all women are oriented towards business, accounting or computer type skills; some women have real gifts in the more “artistic” areas. However, a woman who likes to wile away the hours painting pictures of birds or bowls of fruit is going to find it difficult to be a financial asset UNLESS she thinks of it as a business. There is work for free-lance artists, writers and musicians (especially in terms of tutoring) and though not as economically advantageous as say, running a retail, mail-order business, a godly woman CAN contribute to her family’s income this way. She just has to take it seriously as a job, find the niche in the market and work diligently at it.

For example, say a young woman has a gift for writing. J. K. Rowling has become a multi-millionaire by telling stories about that Potter kid; so it can be done. However, writing professionally requires a specific gift, a lot of work, and the ability to handle constant rejection, for not a lot of money. There are a lot of people who want to get published and of the few who do, even fewer can make a living at it. Thus, you have to study the market to find out what people are paying to read. You also have to have the natural gift of being able to tell a story BETTER than all the other wannabe’s out there. You then have to find either a publisher, or set up your own publishing business and be willing to do the work of selling your books to a distributor who will then get it into bookstores.

In short, whatever a woman does, she has to think of it as a BUSINESS, not just an interesting way to pass the time until her husband comes home. She has to find a market for her goods or services, compete with others in the market place, manage her time and work diligently at whatever she does.

For married women with very young children, the choices become more restricted. Clearly, when you have four babies at home, all under four, your day is already exhausting with just taking care of the kids. New babies often have erratic sleep and feeding schedules that keep Mom up half the night. Little children during the day have to be kept safe from experiments with electricity, chemicals and strange dogs. Then, if the husband works outside of the home, any woman will want to spend some quality time with him when he gets home, if nothing else to just talk to an adult for a while.

Obviously, the best situation is one wherein the husband works at home in his own business allowing him both to encourage his wife as well as be around for his children. It is a completely different dynamic to work at home, with the kids crawling around your feet than it is to have to make the mental readjustment so many men are forced to make from “work” to “home.” Dad’s presence in the home, even when working, has a powerful impact on the entire family dynamic which must never be underestimated or under-appreciated. However, few families enjoy the luxury of Dad working at home.

However, even the Mom with a growing crop of kids to manage CAN still maintain SOME sort of economic activity IF the husband is willing to help her research and create a business. Here is where an Internet based “mail-order” business can be quite helpful and profitable. Together, in the evenings, husband and wife can work together, do the required research on what is selling and then develop a system. However, again, this has to be treated like a real business; a woman who wants to sell lace dollies is going to be frustrated if she spends thirty hours a week crocheting them but no one wants to buy them. Being an “entrepreneur” means constantly analyzing the market and discovering finding out just what people WANT to buy and how much they are willing to pay for it; and then finding a source that will allow a reasonable mark-up. All this research takes TIME- time that could be spent working in the garden, making your own clothes or vegetating in front of the TV. However, knowledge always pays off IF used wisely.

A home-based retail business like this requires constant analysis of the market; the “hot” product one month may be stone cold the next. A woman running this kind of business ought to be willing to see ten products fail for every one that succeeds. Furthermore, she will base her business on “ship on demand” companies so that she basically NEVER ends up stuck with a garage full of unsold inventory.

If a person is gifted in doing research, and has some basic computer literacy, she CAN build quite an effective home business by using market-places such as eBay and the like to sell something. In effect, this is basically the equivalent of having an electronic yard sale; don’t sneer-my mother bought and paid for three houses and left an inheritance for her five children by running a constant “yard sale” out of her garage. Her inventory came from other people’s yard sales but because she had a good eye for what something was worth, she managed to pick up antiques and the like fairly cheaply, and then resold them to the “classier” up market shops the tourists visit. No, my Mom never got “rich” this way; but for a woman with an eighth grade education and no formal skills, she took care of herself and her grandchildren this way. EBay and the like may provide a more sophisticated selling mechanism but the canny business woman CAN make a nice contribution to the family’s bottom line every month.

As the children mature, some households may want to start some sort of “service” business, such as professional office cleaning. This requires working outside of the home, but may well be a suitable business of those women who may not have outstanding managerial or computer type skills. Mom will use some of the older children to watch the youngest ones, while the others provide her basic work force. Here, her larger family size is actually creating a “workforce” that benefits the entire family. One of the reasons (not the only one) for decreasing family size since the Industrial Revolution has been that children went from being economic assets (more hands to work the family farm) to economic liabilities (more mouths to feed, clothe and educate). However, the godly woman will seek creative ways to teach her children not only the value of hard work but also as means of increasing family wealth; wealth that will pay their education costs and leave a godly inheritance for THEM!

Since many businesses do not want the costs of hiring a full time janitor, there is a market for people to come in, before the start of the work day to make their premises presentable. This will mean getting up at 4:00 in the morning, which will require going to bed much earlier than most people are accustomed. Usually, the “work” is nothing more strenuous than some light cleaning, vacuuming, buffing floors and emptying the trash; certainly things which people with average strength can do. Most often, the business itself has all the equipment needed so the investment cost is minimal.

I have known several families who made a very respectable living from offering such services. Usually, Dad was the major worker with help from the children, while Mom managed the accounts, recruited new clients and kept the books. However, a mother COULD do such work with just her children, and be home ready to start the school day by 9:00 AM. One of the advantages of having a large family is that as the older ones depart the home to set up their own households, the younger ones can be trained in the family business, learning the basic skills they will use in whatever their calling turns out to be.

Granted, no one has ever gotten excited about a glamorous career in professional cleaning; however, each of us must work with the natural abilities God has given us. The work may not be exciting, but it can be pleasingly remunerative; several families in my experience made six figures every year just by earning a reputation as reliable, conscientious cleaners. Furthermore, though they had to start their work day early, they finished usually by late morning and thus had the rest of the day to use as they wished. The kids thus learned both the value of hard work (the parents paid them) but also received exceptional home-school educations. And for the Moms who liked working in the garden, they had all the time they needed.

For older women whose children have now all grown up, or for those families who in God’s providence, are not blessed with children, many may consider working outside of the home. While I can find nothing innately unlawful about this, my experience has been that usually, this kind of work brings an incredible amount of stress on the woman, and puts her in a difficult position. Many women find themselves torn between their desire to please their husband, and their desire to please their boss. Furthermore, many Christian women have discovered that working with unbelievers leads them into situations, conversations and associations that interfere with their Christian walk; Paul said it this way, “Do not be deceived, bad company corrupts good morals.”

Thus, even the most godly woman can find herself at the end of the day stressed out, anxious, depressed and is likely to take it out on the one human relationship God requires her to honor; the one with her husband. Because men and women are different, with different needs and orientations, such a woman often NEEDS to relieve that stress by receiving soft, nurturing attention from her man. However, their husbands have also faced difficulties, trials, stuffy bosses, stupid co-workers, etc., during the day and have a great many frustrations, worries and irritations of their own. But a man usually does not want to TALK about the day, but put it behind him by watching the news, reading the paper (or the Internet variant), work around the yard or such.

Hence, two people, both with things to work out of their systems, have completely different and often incompatible ways of dealing with the stresses of the work place. Some women can feel as if they are being ignored, undervalued, unappreciated and that their husband is an inconsiderate, ungrateful brute. Some men, on the other hand, may feel that their wife is an irritating, constant nag and seek relief someplace else; i.e., at the local bowling alley, bar, gym or just tuning everything else out by watching TV or playing on the computer. In other words, while the economic situation of the family may improve with two incomes, often the price that is paid is the very relationship that the income is supposed to encourage and support. People then grow apart, have unresolved anger and sometimes even bitterness about their partner.

Thus, I would suggest, if possible, a woman with no children in the home might want to avoid working for someone outside the home and instead try to think creatively with her husband to find ways that she can still remain “home-based” in one way or another. Granted, any home business has a certain degree of frustration and stress; but there is a whole magnitude of difference between that stress that comes from having to deal with bosses and co-workers, which often leaves a person feeling powerless and hopeless, and those that come from making something YOU own, work efficiently and effectively.

The above list just scratches the surface of what a woman CAN do to assist her family economically. The means can be as diverse as the gifts, skills and abilities that God gives to each of us. A woman does NOT have to be a “super-woman” to emulate the Proverbs 31 woman; she just has to learn to see the opportunities that exist around her; and she needs a godly man to lead and support her. Granted, not every woman will create a home-based business that makes the family millions; but every woman CAN help the family economically and give her children a godly inheritance of character, education and wealth.

It is never too late to repent and put things in order. Let the man, first, become self-governed, seeking wisdom and getting his own life under control and THEN he can begin working on helping his wife discover and utilize her gifts. When he learns to lead firmly, confidently and self-sacrificially, demonstrating his willingness, like Christ, to “give himself up” for his wife, then God may grant him grace so that his wife will follow. And with that kind of husband and that kind of wife, they will not only raise godly, civilized, dominion oriented children, but will likely find some measure of economic prosperity as well.