A Gift Worth More Than Jewels (Proverbs 31:10)
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Proverbs 31:10
An excellent wife who can find?
She is far more precious than jewels.
Oh my goodness—do you know what week it is? It’s Christmas week. And on Christmas we celebrate many things—chiefly, of course, the birth of Jesus. But we also give gifts. And Proverbs is telling us here about one of the greatest gifts a person could ever receive.
“An excellent wife—who can find her? She is far more precious than jewels.”
That phrase is doing more work than we might realize. Proverbs constantly compares wisdom to riches, and here wisdom is not an idea—it’s a life. It’s character lived out in ordinary faithfulness. That’s why she’s described as rare. Not flashy. Not impressive. Rare.
This verse echoes Proverbs 18:22: “He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord.” So for those of you who are married and listening—this is an invitation to gratitude. Not because your spouse is perfect, but because faithful love is precious, and God entrusts it to very ordinary people.
And yes, I know—I’m in a unique position saying all this. I can’t exactly hype up my wife, because she doesn’t exist yet. Though I trust she’s out there somewhere, faithfully living her life. GOING CRAZY FOR THE KINGDOM! But that actually helps us hear what this text is—and isn’t—saying.
Proverbs 31 is not saying a woman’s value comes from marriage. It’s saying her value comes from wisdom, from reverence for God, from a life shaped by faithful love.
Marriage is the context here, not the source of worth.
And that’s important, because our culture has thinned marriage down into something transactional—personal fulfillment, shared expenses, maybe tax benefits if we’re honest. So commitment feels risky, and people delay it, or avoid it altogether. But Scripture pushes back—not with outrage, but with vision. It says: faithful character is rare, and therefore priceless.
“Many a man proclaims his own steadfast love,
but a faithful man who can find?”
In the verses that follow, King Lemuel’s mother paints a picture of the kind of life worth treasuring. In that sense, yes—this is guidance for a man in what to seek. But it’s also a picture for all of us of what wisdom looks like when it takes flesh and blood.
And yet, if you read this and feel a quiet ache—Where do I find someone like this?—the gospel gently flips the question. Christianity says the truly excellent one has already found us. Jesus loved His bride not because she was flawless, but in order to make her so. He gives us worth before we ever earn it. That’s pretty awesome!
So let me ask you:
What do you tend to value most—and how does that compare with what God calls truly precious?
Let’s pray:
Lord, teach me to treasure what You treasure. Shape my character by Your wisdom, and help me trust that my deepest worth comes not from being chosen—but from being loved by You.
