Proverbs 31:26 (ESV) … “She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.”
She exemplifies all of the characteristics of wise speech taught in Proverbs. She is discreet. She doesn’t get her husband into trouble by saying foolish things (18:7; 20:19). Nor does she nag him (27:15). She builds up her husband and others with her kind words (15:4). She teaches her children and grandchildren (1:8; 31:1; Titus 2:3–5).[1]
So, based on spiritual strength, based on virtue and having elevated her thoughts above common things, mundane things, trivial things, worldly things … verse 26, “She opens her mouth in wisdom.” And she has credibility because of her life. “She opens her mouth in wisdom … and I love this … and literally the law of kindness is on her tongue.” She opens her mouth, she speaks wisdom. But that wisdom comes with kindness. She guides her family daily, including her husband, with words of wisdom from the law of God. Proverbs 1:8 tells a young man to follow the law of his mother. Her’s is not a formal class, there’s a place for women to teach women, women to teach children and we understand that. And women are limited in not being able to teach the church, as we read in 1 Timothy 2. But women have a class that is not formal and informal … not formal but informal, it’s the home. And it’s all the time her classroom. It’s the instruction in the flow of her life day in, day out, day in, day out she is the teacher. And out of her mouth comes, it says in verse 26, the teaching of kindness, literally the Torah of kindness, the Law of God … the law of kindness. Kindness, w what’s that? That’s that magnificent Old Testament word chesed, it is translated kindness, loving kindness, mercy. Its perhaps truest translation is grace. So she teaches law, God’s law to her family with grace. With pleasing, kind, gracious speech her tongue is regulated. Behind the teaching of the law is the tempering of mercy, compassion. This is the noble, excellent woman.[2]
[1] Newheiser, J. (2008). Opening up Proverbs (p. 179). Leominster: Day One Publications. [2] MacArthur, J. F., Jr. (2014). John MacArthur Sermon Archive. Panorama City, CA: Grace to You.