While there are many ways the Bible asks us to be thankful for things of nature, and to use such things well, more times than not, the Bible is telling us something spiritual, something beyond the nature of the words we're reading.
Proverbs 31, for example, describes the virtues of a wife who is really blessed during Old Testament times. That's what we see at first glance. But the more we know our Savior, we realize God gave a spiritual vision to the Old Testament mother who was describing her future daughter-in-law.
You see, that vision wasn't only about her future daughter-in-law; it was about the church. The vision of Proverbs 31 is a kind of prophecy about the church, Jesus' "bride."
The church had not been born yet, when a mother spoke or wrote the words of Proverbs 31. But that Old Testament mother foresaw the wise purchase of a field for godly work. She did not know it, but she was seeing the church, time and again over the centuries, buying fields for godly use.
Scores of years after Proverbs 31, the church was born through Jesus, and, eventually, the church did begin to always use its earnings to buy such. The prophesy of Proverbs 31:16 is true.
That prophetic Bible verse is sometimes misused to say it would be virtuous for a woman to invest in things like the many commercial vineyards that have prospered over the centuries. But when Proverbs 31 says "she plants a vineyard," it's not meant for us, today, to think about an Old Testament vineyard. It's for us, today, to think about what the church has done and is doing. She, the church, has planted church after church, vineyard after spiritual vineyard.
And many church-goers who are the vineyard, have faithfully planted homes for themselves, and have raised families, vineyards of their own.
Going deeper, we can see other spiritual truths in this prophecy. And, often, we can see Israel as a vineyard. For example, in Psalm 80:8-9 and 80:12-18, Israel remembers the family of Joseph and their escape from Egypt:
You have brought a vine out of Egypt;
You have cast out the nations, and planted it.
You prepared room for it,
And caused it to take deep root,
And it filled the land.
Numerous Bible verses describe the Hebrew people as a fruitful vineyard. But, time and again, that people of faith suffered attacks from enemies all around, sometimes because of the people's own backsliding. That people had grown strong, having hope for the promised Messiah, but sins of enemies and sins of the people wore down faith and left the people unsure.
So that all who pass by the way pluck her fruit?
The boar out of the woods uproots it,
And the wild beast of the field devours it.
Return, we beseech You, O God of hosts;
Look down from heaven and see,
And visit this vine
And the vineyard which Your right hand has planted,
And the branch that You made strong for Yourself.
It is burned with fire, it is cut down;
They perish at the rebuke of Your countenance.
Let Your hand be upon the man of Your right hand,
Upon the son of man whom You made strong for Yourself.
Then we will not turn back from You;
Revive us, and we will call upon Your name.
God took care to cultivate Israel "in Spirit," even caring for the fringes of Israel in Judah, in times of trouble. When parts of that fruitful people were destroyed in the past, the Bible promised, "the surviving remnant of the house of Judah" would again "take root below and bear fruit above." (2 Kings 19:30)
Think it through.
Faith is a vineyard.
