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

He that spareth his rod hateth his son: But he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes (KJV).
He who spares his rod hates his son, But he who loves him disciplines him promptly (NKJV).

Proverbs 13:24

Hatred can be sentimental, and within tangled family situations, it frequently is. To love someone is to treat them lawfully, from the heart. To hate someone is to treat them unlawfully, whether or not you have certain soppy emotions going on while you do it.

Scripture says that sons require corporal punishment, as the occasion requires. Some Christians have reacted against this teaching (or, more likely, have reacted against an ungodly misapplication of this) and have argued for childhood training that does not involve spanking. The emotions that seem to require this may be soft, tender, and kind, but Scripture says that at the end of the day it all reduces to hatred. If someone grew up under cruel or inept corporal punishment, that is certainly sad, but it doesn’t change what Scripture says here.

So the Bible teaches that if a father refuses to discipline his child, this is equivalent to disowning that child—treating him as an illegitimate bastard. “But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons” (Heb. 12:8). God corrects us, and He is a true Father. So we also should correct our children, and thus imitate the true Father as we do. God does not disown us through lack of discipline, and this means that we should not disown our own children through lack of discipline.

Some in the anti-spanking contingent might want to say that this verse is talking about a rod for the back, not a spanking spoon for the bum, and that it is not talking about spanking at all. But this is an objection that proves too much. If it is legitimate to beat a recalcitrant teenagers with a rod, according to their reading, how much more would it be appropriate to spank a two-year-old with a spoon, thus averting the drastic punishment over a decade later? 

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

Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? There is more hope of a fool than of him.

Proverbs 26:12

Folly is often bred in the bone. Conceit is something that frequently comes from a flattering education followed by a couple of years of graduate school. The folly is a severe deficiency, and as the book of Proverbs tells us in multiple places, it really is bad. But here we are told of something that is akin to folly, and belongs in the same general family, but it is somehow far worse.

Notice how it is described. He is wise in his own conceit. The ESV has “wise in his own eyes.” The NASB and NKJV have the same. What we see here is some kind of mental construct. He has woven a framework of cognitive assumptions together, at the end of which is his glorious conclusion that he is the intellectual hero of the day. He is wise in his own eyes, meaning that he occupies a seat that he was appointed to, and the one who appointed him was his very own self.

Who can remove him from that place? Who can challenge the chancellor who appointed this coxcomb a regius professor? This is difficult to do when the chancellor and the regius professor are all the same person. That same person is also the chairman of the tenure review committee.

Even so, what is impossible for men remains possible for God. If God can make sons of Abraham out of blocks of stone, then He can certainly do it if the block of stone is sitting on top of a fool’s neck.

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

It is better to dwell in the corner of the housetop, than with a brawling woman and in a wide house.

Proverbs 25:24

This is a form of reasoning that is very common in Proverbs, and it is particularly Hebraic way of helping us set our priorities. I will begin with the meaning of this particular proverb, illustrate how it works in this instance, and then expand it to other areas.

It would be better to live in a tiny hovel with a sweet woman than to live in a spacious mansion with a cantankerous woman. The form of the statement is that we should “rather this than that,” and the this and that are made up of two variables—in this case, a big or small dwelling, and a contentious woman and (implied) a non-contentious woman. A wide house is mentioned, a little attic corner is mentioned, and a brawling woman is mentioned.

So with these variables fixed, we find that we have four basic options.

1. A spacious house and a sweet woman;
2. A spacious house and a brawling woman;
3. A narrow corner and a sweet woman;
4. A narrow corner and a brawling woman.

Now this is basically a counterfactual thought experiment, and in that experiment it is crucial to stipulate something like “everything else being equal.” We are trying to sort out our priorities with regard to just a handful of things. We don’t want to complicate the math to a point where it is beyond our capacity even to consider. “What about if you have live in a narrow corner with a sweet woman, but you have crippling migraines every day and your only child is dying of leukemia?”

How does this principle apply to other areas? Take any two things that you are evaluating. Would you rather be rich and stupid, or wise and poor? Would you rather be beautiful and ungodly, or plain and godly? Would you rather be a satisfied cow or a dissatisfied man?

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

Withdraw thy foot from thy neighbour’s house; Lest he be weary of thee, and so hate thee.

Proverbs 25:17

One of the things that friends do is wreck their friendships. This is not what is intended, but that doesn’t keep it from happening.

This proverb says that it happens by means of wearing out your welcome. It is always a good idea to leave while everybody is still having fun. If you have overstayed your welcome, and then finally say something like “well, I guess we ought to think about going, and your host is immediately standing right by the door, holding your coat and hat, then this should be your indication that you have done a Prov. 25:17 blooper.

Always leave when people are sorry to see you go. And this is because the alternative is staying until they are exasperated by the shape of your head. If you believe that your hosts would be happy to have you stay until 9 pm, then you should make a point of being done by 8:45. Every five minutes before 9 is the equivalent of ten minutes, and every five minutes after 9 is the equivalent of half an hour.

Once you have overstayed your welcome, and your host notices it, he goes through two stages. The first is that he grows weary. And when he grows weary of you it becomes easy to find fault—first with this particular tedious situation, but then the exasperation can grow and expand, with the end result is that he hates you. Once the fault finding begins, it can be difficult to stop.

The sin here is that of taking a friendship for granted. You start to believe that because you “are friends” you are somehow entitled to take presumptive advantage of him. And that is way to lose friends. We sometimes think that when we have close friends, they are supposed to cover our little discourtesies. And even though they might do so, the discourtesy of taking advantage this way can grow to the point where it is hard to overlook. 

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

He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, and without walls.

Proverbs 25:28

Temptations are invaders. They come at the small city of your life, and seek to overthrow it, reducing it to shambles. Someone with self-control (one of the fruits of the Spirit) is someone with a militia or company that is capable of defending intact walls. Someone without that fruit is someone whose walls are broken down, and who has dispirited soldiers retreating through the rubble.

Without self-control, without self-government, the necessary result is that someone or something else is going to seize the power of government. Either you rule over your own city, and keep the walls intact, or you let the walls go, and someone else will rule.

Why would someone let their walls deteriorate? Well, budgets reflect priorities, and some people do not want to spend all that much money on defense spending. They would rather that it go to beer, or concerts, or something that tickles the nerve endings.

Building the city walls requires undergoing hardship, and that of course is . . . hard. But when the orc hordes come pouring through the walls, that also introduces a certain measure of hardship. And unlike the first kind of hardship that you worked hard to evade, this second kind of hardship is hard all the way through, and all the way down.

And this is why self-control should be considered a militant virtue. It builds the city walls. Think of your need for self-control as one of the Israelites following the lead of Nehemiah. You want to be working with a sword in one hand and a trowel in the other.

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