Okay, so curiosity got the better of me on this thread. And I agree with Tabin, interesting – and thought-provoking – question,
@BenFTW.
I hear what you’re saying. It seems that priorities for a worldly woman are fame, fortune (finances) and influence. As a (I want to say, “modern”) Christian, whilst, these should not be top priorities in looking for a husband, are they, in
reality, on the priority list – and if so, how far up or down? Have I understood you correctly?
Your original question is, “From the Bible, what are you, as a virtuous woman, supposed to expect of a righteous man?”
You hit the nail on the head with your description there, Ben. What should we expect from a
righteous man? To throw a cat amongst the pigeons, I’d like to highlight the first “righteous man” that comes to mind. No, not Jesus, but his adopted dad, Joseph.
The Bible calls him a “righteous” man. Let’s read his profile in Matthew 1:19,
“Then Joseph her husband, being a
just (Strong’s #1342:
dikaios – upright, blameless, RIGHTEOUS, conforming to God’s laws and man’s), and not wanting to make her a public example, was minded to put her away secretly.”
Joseph was a righteous man and yet he was by no means well off financially. In fact, they were so poor that they could not afford to redeem the Son of God with a lamb – they had to resort to the poor man’s concession and redeem Him with two turtle doves. Yet God saw fit for this righteous man to father His Son – not because of his ability to provide, but his character and ability to raise him in godliness. I’m not in any way suggesting that it is a virtue to be poor, but I am suggesting that when choosing a partner, it is not whether he is wealthy or not that should be the swaying factor, but that he is RIGHTEOUS.
To swing the table the other way, the second “righteous man” that comes to mind is our dear friend Boaz. The Bible doesn’t necessarily call him a righteous man, but we know that he is one. Here is a man who possesses all three attributes: fame, wealth and influence. But it was because of his righteousness that God saw fit for him to become the great grandfather of King David.
Another righteous man with “the full package” according to worldy standards is Job. And yet we see what suffering and hardship he went through because of his righteousness.
To me, I would personally re-phrase the original question and say,
“As a virtuous woman, what are you looking for in a man?”
And my answer would be
righteousness.
So what is righteousness then? Abraham was called righteous because he
BELIEVED in God. So we know that righteousness has to do with
faith. From the account of Joseph that I used above, we see that the word “righteous” and the word “just” can be interchangeable.
Habakkuk 2:4 says
“the
JUST (RIGHTEOUS) shall live by his
FAITH.”
My pastor always says that
self-righteousness is taking care of yourself at the cost of others;
righteousness is taking care of others at the cost of yourself and TRUSTING IN GOD for your provision (Isn’t that a beautiful description of Jesus?).
In essence, it is a
deep trust in God that makes you righteous. It is that trust that leads to
obedience to the Lord in the craziest situations.
If you are looking for financial security,
DON’T go looking for a righteous man! Because he, like Abraham, just might make some crazy decisions in his obedience to God. Or like Job, he might end up going through a hard time BECAUSE of his righteousness. Or God might deprive you of financial prosperity to work on your character and teach you to look to HIM and not to yourself for provision, like Joseph.
At the end of the day, give me a righteous man who walks in obedience to God over a “Christian” man who believes in Jesus for
eternal salvation yet looks to money for
short-term “salvation.”
Let me work on being that virtuous woman, like Ruth, so that God can send me that righteous man – and make sure I’m not like Job’s wife, who, when the moment things got tough, abandoned her faith in God because material possessions meant more to her than character.
A different perspective, but food for thought anyway!