Grace & Peace

At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)

Where no oxen are, the crib is clean: But much increase is by the strength of the ox.

Proverbs 14:14

Another way to state this is to say that profit is messy. Profit is of necessity messy. A good way to keep your workshop clean is by never going in there. A good way to keep your desk in great shape is by never sitting down at it.

Returning to the proverb, do you want a clean barn or a productive barn? If you want a productive barn, then you want one that will be routinely and regularly and constantly in need of a cleaning.

Work is hard. Work is heavy. Work leaves bits of things on the floor that need to be swept up at the end of the day. An elegant table requires a messy kitchen.

Now of course, as sinners, we have a propensity to quote the wrong proverb to ourselves. As C.S. Lewis once put it, when confronted with a flood we break out the fire extinguishers. We crowd to the side of the boat that is about to go under. What this means is that the lazy farmer who needs to shovel out his barn a lot more frequently than he does, is the farmer who is likely to know about this particular proverb. A cross-stitch sampler of it may even be hanging over his mantle. But he still needs to clean out the barn.

There are disorderly places that are not the sign of productivity, and have descended to nothing more than being a fire hazard. To the proprietors of all such, the exhortation would be to remember that there is a ditch on bothsides of the road. If the fastidious need to learn how productive the right kind of messiness can be, then theyneed to learn how productive the right kind regular maintenance can be.

So you should clean up your workspace regularly. But you should do this because you mess it up regularly.

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At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)

Every prudent man dealeth with knowledge: But a fool layeth open his folly.

Proverbs 13:16

This proverb supplies us with a good example of how one half of the verse illuminates the other half. We are told that a prudent man deals with knowledge. That sounds good, but what does it mean precisely? We find out by looking at the contrast. The fool lays his folly open. He is open and vocal about the stupid thing he is just about to do.

The prudent man, the godly man, keeps his cards close to his chest. He does not say everything he is thinking. He does not share his plans with everybody. He does not announce on Facebook that he is going to go here and there, and do business, and make money (Jas. 4:14).

It is better, as our proverb goes, to keep your mouth shut and have people think you are a fool, than to open it and remove all doubt.

Some Christians might struggle with an aspect of this. It doesn’t seem honest or transparent to them. Shouldn’t Christians be open and vulnerable? No. They shouldn’t. The prudent man is cagey and canny. 

There are things a man should share with his wife, and with no one else. There are things he should say to his family, and no one else. There are views that a man should tell his closest friends, and no one else. And then there are the things he should be willing to say to anyone.

This is not hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is when you say A to one person and not A to another. I am talking about saying A to one person, A and B to another, and A, B, and C to a third. And to have some notion of which group you are with before you start talking. A prudent man understands the importance of security clearances.

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At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)

A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children’s children:
And the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just.

Proverbs 13:22

Before getting into a discussion of this particular proverb, we need to remind ourselves again about the nature of proverbs. Proverbs are not axioms in geometry, where you might say something like “triangles have three sides, yea, four sides only are to be found in a rectangle.” Proverbs are generally true, and true enough to steer by them in day-to-day decisions. A bird in the hand really is worth two in the bush. But there are exceptions here and there.

That said, we have two related but distinct statements made here. The first is that a good man leaves an inheritance for his grandchildren. It is an obligation of parents to seek to lay up material wealth for their children and grandchildren. I emphasized the word material here because there is a Gnostic streak in many devout evangelicals, an impulse that wants to rush straight to making this proverb a limited spiritual truth. We are taught in Scripture to be wary of material wealth, but not in the way that is common in our circles. “Behold, the third time I am ready to come to you; and I will not be burdensome to you: for I seek not yours, but you: for the children ought not to lay up for the parents, but the parents for the children” (2 Cor. 12:14). So if parents have sacrificed material wealth for the sake of Christ and the gospel, they may be content that they are in fact leaving a spiritual inheritance for their grandchildren. But if they are frittering away their substance in an undisciplined manner, and calling it “spiritual,” it is time for them to reevaluate.

The proverb also pushes in the opposite direction. It is not fitting for sinners successfully to store up treasure for up-and-coming sinners. The wicked can appear to thrive for a time (Ps. 37:35), but read on to the next verse (v. 36). When the just come into wealth that was first collected by the unrighteous, the just ought not to have any qualms about it. It is the way it ought to be.  

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At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)

The way of a fool is right in his own eyes:
But he that hearkeneth unto counsel is wise

Proverbs 12:15

One of the most striking differences between a wise man and a fool has to do with their relationship to information outside their own views and opinions. The wise man checks and cross-checks himself. One of the ways he does this is through listening to counsel—and counsel comes from elsewhere. Counsel comes from outside the self.

This is why a wise man seeks counsel, and seeks it from multiple sources. “Where no counsel is, the people fall: But in the multitude of counsellers there is safety” (Prov. 11:14). Now of course it is possible for someone to follow the externals of this proverb mindlessly, and not be seeking for true wisdom. Some foolish people go from counselor to counselor until they get the advice they wanted all along. And others think that is a matter of collecting multiple views and taking an average. But that doesn’t work either. A man with a watch knows what time it is, and a man with three watches is never sure.

No, a wise man seeks outside counsel, and he weighs and evaluates the options. He checks and he cross-checks. But the main thing he is guarding against is the temptation to be a fool, the one who is simply right in his own eyes. The fool’s views are right simply because they are his. So if one friend says one thing and another friend says another, you don’t split the difference. You think it through. But the main thing you are doing is guarding your own heart.

The fool doesn’t need to go check anything. He knows how he feels already. What’s to check? This is the sin of subjectivism. This is the folly of using the thing that needs to be measured as the measuring rod itself.

“For we dare not make ourselves of the number, or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves: but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise” (2 Cor. 10:12).

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At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)

A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband:
But she that maketh ashamed is as rottenness in his bones.

Proverbs 12:4

One of the curious things that has developed in the contemporary Christian world is the phenomenon of women not sinning as women. This is more than curious, and manifestly unbiblical, and yet we act as though it has somehow come to pass.

We allow that a woman could rob a bank, and that would be a sin, but it would be the same identical sin that is committed when a male robs a bank. In the same way, a woman could cheat on her taxes, say, or covet her neighbor’s car. But we have drifted into the notion that modern Christian women don’t commit any sins that are characteristically feminine sins. If you doubt what I say, ask yourself when you last heard uniquely feminine sin admonished from the pulpit.

In this verse, we find that women, just like the other kind of human being, are divided into the two categories of wise and foolish. There is the woman who is a crown to her husband, and there is a woman who is a shame to her husband. Now this virtuous woman is a crown to her husband in a characteristically feminine way. She is crowning him in a way that could not be done by another man. And the shameful wife is a rottenness in her husband’s bones in a characteristically feminine way. She disgraces him in a way that is unique to her station. No one else is in a position to be a rottenness like that.

If someone were to say that some wives are an embarrassment to their husbands, the automatic response in these corrupt times is to accuse that person of attacking all women. The sentiment is promptly characterized as necessarily misogynistic. To say that some women are foolish is to say that all women are foolish. But this is clearly ludicrous.

One telltale sign that there might be trouble, that this might be going on, is if a woman reads these words, and then goes to ask/demand her husband to say if she makes him ashamed in any way, fully prepared to cry if he says yes. He will of course not say yes, but if that was the game that was going on, then the answer is in fact yes.

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