Borrowing from my brother-n-law

My brother-in-law James Jackson recently wrote an insightful article for Lifeway's Inside Girls' Ministry blog, and I thought it should be shared.

http://blogs.lifeway.com/blog/girlsministry/2012/03/teaching_girls_not_to_be_the_p.html

One of the rewards of being disciplined about daily Bible reading is that, occasionally you get rewarded with a belly laugh you never saw coming. Several years ago, I got into the habit of reading a chapter of Proverbs every day. Since there are 31 days in most months, and there are 31 chapters of Proverbs, it works. So, on one random 21st day of the month, I came across this little gem:

Better to live on the corner of a roof than to share a house with a nagging (“quarrelsome” in other translations) wife. [Proverbs 21:9 HCSB]

This made me laugh. I could imagine King Solomon, author of many of the Proverbs having a bad day with one of his seven hundred wives (1 Kings 11:3), and taking his royal sleeping bag to sleep under the stars. Come to think of it, with seven hundred wives, he may have spent more than a few nights on a corner of the palace. This must be true, because the exact same verse is repeated, word for word, just four chapters later:

Better to live on the corner of a roof than to share a house with a nagging wife. [Proverbs 25:24 HCSB]

Now, since the Bible is God’s inspired Word, nothing gets in there by accident. And for a verse to be there twice means we ought to sit up and pay attention. It can’t just be that Solomon was having a marital spat and decided to make a dig at his 438th wife. There’s more to it.

Much is made in girls’ ministry of “The Proverbs 31 woman.” Proverbs 31:10-31 is a list of some extraordinary virtues a woman can bring into a marriage: strong work ethic, shrewd business sense, generosity and compassion to the poor and needy, wisdom and faithful teaching of her children. These are all good, good things. But is it worth at least one mocha at McDonald’s to talk with your girls about how not to be a Proverbs 21:9 woman?

How do you encourage girls not to be quarrelsome or nagging? Can you build a Bible study around Ephesians 4:29, and help the girls in your small group to hold each other accountable to “letting no unwholesome word come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for the building up of the body of Christ.”? Can you help them understand that “mean girls” who cut each other down in high school or are constantly sniping at even their closest friends are much more likely to become “mean wives” and “mean moms?”

Girls need to know that the personality they bring into a relationship with the opposite gender is, in many ways, the one that is developed in their relationships with their friends of the same gender.

Throw in a healthy dose of Proverbs 21:9 and Proverbs 25:24 in your girls' ministry. It will help your girls see the characters in the Bible as real people, and it will give them something to mull over in their current relationships as well.