I want you to imagine, for a moment, that you are walking down a path and come to a fork. You must veer right or left. You must choose which way to travel. How do you decide which path to take? If I don’t know what is coming, I will just go down one path or the other. It makes no difference. If I know what dangers there are on each path, I will choose the path that is best for me. Sometimes we don’t know what will come from our decisions now. We do the best we can knowing what we know. The Bible is filled with wisdom that warns us what is down some paths and rejoices over what is down others. It celebrates the good way, the way with good outcomes, and condemns the bad way, the way with negative outcomes.
This semester, we are talking about taking the good and profitable path and avoiding the path that will lead to our destruction. Solomon’s words are about making wise decisions in life. They are not about salvation. These words should not be misconstrued as some kind of “prosperity” or “health and wealth” gospel. It rains on the just and unjust. I do believe that God generally wants His people to live good and profitable lives according to His plan, not necessarily ours. This semester, we are going to see what sorts of lifestyles we should either avoid or embrace if we want to live good lives on this earth. For those who are in Christ, may we experience what it is like to also build up our treasures in Heaven rather than on the Earth, as Christ taught us.
Solomon begins:
The words of King Lemuel, the oracle which his mother taught him: What, O my son? And what, O son of my womb? And what, O son of my vows? Do not give your strength to women, Or your ways to that which destroys kings (Proverbs 31:1-3).
We can tell that a new section begins because Chapter 31 is introduced as its own unit here in Verse 1. If Solomon wrote proverbs for his children, we have to wonder who King Lemuel is. No record of a King Lemuel exists anywhere. By the time of Solomon, at the writing of Proverbs, there had only been three kings in Israel—Saul, David, and Solomon. Lemuel is a compound word in Hebrew, literally meaning “to God” or “for God.” When Solomon was born, his given name was Solomon. God called him “Jedidiah” as an alternate name (2 Samuel 12:25). Jedidiah meant “beloved of Yahweh.” Lemuel comes close, meaning “for God.” Solomon was especially loved and claimed by God in this way. It is my current belief that Solomon now uses “Lemuel” to refer to himself with reference to his mother—honoring her with the nickname that likely came from her. We are about to read wisdom that Solomon remembers learning from his mother, Bathsheba—the Queen Mother of Israel.
Bathsheba addresses her son, “What, O my son? And what, O son of my womb? And what, O son of my vows?” She gave birth to Solomon. She vowed to raise and teach Solomon well. This means that she dedicated Solomon to God. She gives her oldest living son her first, most important, instruction for life, “Do not give your strength to women, Or your ways to that which destroys kings.”
I want you to think for a moment about the wisdom of the world—the very way all of worldly society trains us to think from the moment we are born.
- Learn all you can.
- Experience as much pleasure or satisfaction as you can.
- Date often, it’s healthy.
- Make money.
- Retire.
- Die.
Bathsheba, giving advice to her son, who is to be king, rejects all that and teaches him not to give his strength to women. This is not a law. Someone with a boyfriend or girlfriend is not necessarily breaking God’s Law. This is practical and profitable advice. The dating scene destroys kings. Having that kind of agenda when you are young will negatively affect the success you experience later in life—success according to God’s ways, not ours. Bathsheba must consider this instruction to be some of the most important for her son. She doesn’t first say, “Don’t waste your time or money, and make sure you devote yourself to what is profitable.” Instead, she first teaches him to not chase women; Don’t be the type of man who is always dating or looking for women. I wonder why this is the single most important thing to her…
We remember how Bathsheba became the Mother Queen of Israel. King David lusted after her, raped her, killed her husband, and took her as a wife (2 Samuel 11-12). Even as King, David’s youthful tendencies ruled over his life (cf. 1 Samuel 18:20-21). David’s love of women was a snare to him until he died. Bathsheba did not want this for her son, Solomon, the next king. She is essentially telling her son not to be like his father. It’s a bad idea. Being that type of man will always be a snare, a trap, for you. It will ruin your reputation. It will cause you weakness. There are more important things for you to focus on. Our takeaway is if we want to live lives unbound by the snares of this world, we will be the kind of people who don’t date like the world does. That dating type of lifestyle will only ever be a snare to us—it will only lead to trouble. Chances are, if you have ‘dated’ at all, you’ve experienced exactly what Bathsheba warns her young son against.
In middle school through my first semester of college, I wish I would have had enough sense not to care about dating. The world made it seem so important. So, I felt like I needed to have crushes and ask girls out, go on dates, and have an exclusive significant other. Here is what I found in my own dating experience—when I asked a girl out, my motives were always selfish and I was always asking her out because I liked the way she looked or felt or the way she made me feel. I was not wise enough to know that infatuation did not equal love. We are already off to a bad start when I ask someone out so I can use that person for my own satisfaction; it’s a set-up for failure. Later, I came to the conclusion that any form of dating in the world is just a nice way of telling others that we are using someone else for our own personal benefit. When things don’t work out the way I want or when I no longer feel like I do now, we can just break up. There are problems during the relationship because my expectations are not met one hundred percent of the time. There’s drama. People get hurt. Then, I do it all over again even though the dating system doesn’t generally work—which is the definition of insanity. If I simply would have read the Bible’s wisdom before wasting all that time, money, and emotional investment. The Bible literally tells us not to live like that. It’s insane. Men, don’t give your strength to women.
I remember the day I stopped dating. I dated in middle school all the way into my first semester of college. In large part, I based my worth on whether or not I had an exclusive girlfriend. Having a girlfriend meant going on dates. Going on dates meant putting myself in compromising situations where I could easily do something I would later regret. Dating meant having private conversations on the phone that even my parents didn’t always see—providing more opportunities to say and insinuate things I would regret. I did some things that I’m not proud of in the context of those dating relationships because I wanted to satisfy myself. Just like the Bible claims, it was a bad idea. Those relationships were snares for my life, keeping me from doing anything meaningful. There was one girl I dated for about three years. During my first semester of college, I found out she cheated on me. After recovering from the breakup, having repeated this dating process over and over again for years, I decided that I was finished. Still not knowing, really, what kind of wisdom the Bible had for my life on this topic, I thought to myself, “There has to be a better way…” It was only after I stopped dating that I met my wife. She became my best friend first. I was upfront with her. I told her from the start that I did not want to date until I knew I would marry her. She was okay with that. Our marriage is better because of that because we were friends first. The loyalty of a true friend is better than the fleeting passion of a lover any day.
There is a better way. There is a better way to find a spouse at the appropriate time than dating like the world does. It begins with being content as a single person (cf. 1 Corinthians 7:8). Don’t buy the lie that your worth is based on dating relationships in any way. In fact, we can live more worthwhile lives if we reject the whole concept of modern dating altogether. In all reality, why would anyone want to put themselves through all the hurt that comes with dating in the first place? Solomon will talk about the better way later in Proverbs 31. Know for now that the dating scene is one of the ways that destroy kings. We are warned against it. If you are not content as a single. You won’t be content as a partner with someone else. Marriage is a good thing, but dating like the world does ensures that we will never really be ready for a good and prosperous marriage. The good news is that sometimes God makes it good in spite of our initial selfishness. More often, things break because we create the perfect storm by approaching relationships in the wrong order and stealing exclusivity and intimacy from marriage in order to “date.”
I know this is Bathsheba’s instruction for her son who will be king. Solomon is recording it for his sons, which means it applies to more than only Solomon. If this is the profitable way for all young men to conduct themselves, then it is the way young women should expect young men to conduct themselves if those young men are to be worthy of their attention. So men, live like kings and not like those who are on the path to destruction. Women, don’t be easy. Be hard to get. If any man is interested in dating you, it really is best to tell him “no.” That’s the way of the world. Exclusivity and intimacy are for marriage. In fact, tell him if he really likes you he has to give up dating altogether. His response will reveal his motives for liking you in the first place—whether he is a boy or a man. His friendship will be more profitable for both of you than some manmade relationship status that only brings hardship. You are worth more than your body. You are worth more than your ability to make a man feel good. You are queens. A worthy man will treat you like a queen—not like an object.
I recognize that I’m fighting an uphill battle, here. Society conditions us to think the way we do about dating and marriage almost from birth. The Bible gives us a better, but completely different picture of what marriage is and how two people come together ready for it. This truth applies to more than merely marriage. If we want to live profitable lives, we do not give our ways to that which destroys kings (and queens). We choose a different path.
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