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

“If a wise man contendeth with a foolish man, whether he rage or laugh, there is no rest”

Proverbs 29:9

“If a wise man contends with a foolish man, whether the fool rages or laughs, there is no peace”

Proverbs 29:9 NKJV

When reading through devotional literature grounded in the book of Proverbs, one is not usually anticipating encountering a quote from Ricky Gervais, but there is a first time for everything. “Remember, when you are dead, you do not know you are dead. It is only painful for others. The same applies when you are stupid.”

As I was mulling over the meaning of this proverb, that quote came to mind for some reason. This is a proverb that—thanks to the Internet—has become increasingly relevant. This is because a fool can keep up appearances online a bit longer than he can in real time. Comment threads provide good cover or camouflage for a fool. But even though that is the case, it all comes down to the same end . . . which is that there is no end to it. And the folly does become apparent at some point. 

It is interesting to note how Scripture categorizes the fool’s likely responses—they are rage and mockery. Not only so, but they are rage and mockery that just won’t quit. There is “no peace.”

If a wise man is considering such a scenario knowing that the other man is a fool, then he needs to be able to weigh what the situation actually is. There is a way of getting into it with a fool that is simply joining him in his folly (Prov. 26:4). But there are also times when it is the responsibility of a wise man to shut the fool down promptly (Prov. 26:5). You have to be able to read the situation rightly.

Having said this, there are times when a wise man realizes that he made the wrong call. At such times, he should just say “I can see we are not getting anywhere. Good night all.” He is not going to be able to shut the fool down, and the fool has only been encouraged and emboldened by the whole affair. This brings to mind the old folk adage, which says that you should never wrestle with a pig—you both get muddy, and the pig likes it.

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

“If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat; And if he be thirsty, give him water to drink: For thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head, and the Lord shall reward thee”

Proverbs 25:21–22

A common faulty assumption is that Jesus introduced a new ethic in His Sermon on the Mount. Before His day, it is assumed, the Old Testament was full of law, wrath, and a bunch of rules, and Jesus came to bring in the sweetness and light. That assumption runs aground on passages like this.

The apostle Paul quotes it at the tail end of Romans 12, and he clearly explains the context and meaning. When you have an enemy, the chances are good that he has done you wrong, and that you will want to get some of your own back. But Paul tells us not to take revenge ourselves (Rom. 12:19), not because vengeance is wrong, but rather because vengeance belongs to God. Our duty is to step aside and leave room for God to exercise the vengeance that belongs to Him. We see, just a few verses down in chapter 13, that the civil magistrate is the appointed deputy of wrath (Rom. 13:4), God’s deacon of wrath. So don’t go home and get your gun—call the cops instead.

Varied suggestions have been plentiful for what is meant by the burning coals on the head. Some say the Egyptians would carry a tray of burning coals on the head as a sign of repentance. Others say that burning coals were great for starting your hearth fire at home, and so this would be another kind gesture, helping the guy out with even more than the previous food and water you gave him. Another possible interpretation is that by you being nice to him his response becomes a matter of burning shame to him.

But in my view, the most likely one is the one that fits best with how Paul argues from this passage in Romans—your kindness to your enemy is a precursor to the wrath of God.

“As for the head of those that compass me about, Let the mischief of their own lips cover them. Let burning coals fall upon them: Let them be cast into the fire; Into deep pits, that they rise not up again”     

Psalm 140:9–10

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

“As snow in summer, and as rain in harvest, so honour is not seemly for a fool”

Proverbs 26:1

We live in a time when honor for fools is seemingly the order of the day. We have adopted the fundamental axiom that what every last person on the planet needs is to be flattered and feted and cozened until they finally bloom into a full version of their radiant selves. People suffer, we are told, from “low self esteem” and our cure all for this affliction is to honor their work, however bad, and to praise their performances, however lame.

A generation or more of this delusion has shown us what a powerful mirror society is—far more potent than an actual physical mirror. If a woman has five roommates who all assure her that her outfit is “cute,” and the mirror in the hallway tells her that it is dismal and godforsaken, she will likely go with the roommates.   

The end result of this kind of flattering honor is the most impudent brazenness, with people going out in public in the most outrageous ways—from their outfits, to their piercings, to their Halloween hair, to their secondary sexual characteristics. And when this happens, our society has determined that such people must be honored. 

Now it used to be that when someone in the grip of such high folly went out in public that they could be treated pretty savagely. But this is one of those inescapable concepts. We still treat people savagely, only now it happens when someone treats the folly as folly. They get the treatment if they use the wrong pronouns. 

But this proverb tells us that to render honor to fools is not fitting. It doesn’t sit right with how God made the world. It its like snow in summer, or like rain during harvest. What is happening is incongruent with what ought to be happening. This proverb provides us with a strong argument against going along with any of this woke nonsense.

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

“Say not, I will do so to him as he hath done to me: I will render to the man according to his work”

Proverbs 24:29

What we have here is a negative form of the Golden Rule. Jesus teaches us that we should do unto others as we would have them do unto us (Matt. 7:12; Luke 6:31). That is the positive form. A straightforward negative form of this would be “do not do unto others what you would not want done unto you.”

This proverb steps into an application of the principle in media res, after the other person has (unaccountably) already started it. Someone else has already done you wrong, and you are trying to figure out how to respond. This proverb instructs on what not to say. 

Do not say things like “we’ll see if he can finish what he started.” Do not say “sow the wind, reap the whirlwind, pal.” Do not say “God is not mocked, and a man will reap what he sows.” Do not say “doesn’t the good book say to do unto others what they did unto you?” Well, no, it doesn’t. As we can see here, it says precisely the opposite.

There are certainly times when there needs to be a judicious response to a particular form of wrongdoing. But when this happens, whether coming from the pastor, or the elders, or a father, or a magistrate, there must be absolutely no ego-crackle in it. A desire for justice is one thing. A cutting desire to hit back is quite another. 

And so this is the place where the Lord’s instruction to turn the other cheek needs to come into play. In short, the ethos of the Golden Rule has nothing about it which is retaliatory.

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

“Cast out the scorner, and contention shall go out; Yea, strife and reproach shall cease”

Proverbs 22:10

We have all heard the phrase “level playing field.” Not only have we heard the phrase, but we like the idea. It makes us think of fair play, equal weights and measures, and so on. But there are striking situations where it does not apply at all, this proverb gives us a good example.

In the book of Titus, the apostle Paul says this: “Reject a divisive man after the first and second admonition” (Titus 3:10, NKJV). What are we supposed to do with a divisive man? Well, to be blunt, Paul tells us to divide from him, reject him. We are to divide from the divisive. Isn’t that a contradiction? Well, no.

In this proverb, we are told that to move a scorner out of your company is going to greatly reduce the amount of disputing within that company. Contention will go out. Strife and reproach shall cease. This is no contradiction because obedient and disobedient actions never occur on a level playing field.

With the level playing field paradigm, offsides for one team should be offsides for the other. Clipping for one is clipping for the other.  Unsportsmanlike conduct should be evaluated justly, regardless of the color of the uniform. That is what we mean by the phrase, and it is a just standard.

But Jesus gets to call the Pharisees whited sepulchers, and they do not get to call Him a drunkard, glutton, or demon-possessed. And the reason is that what Jesus said about them was true, and what they said about Jesus was false. 

So when Diotrephes excludes friends of the apostle John, he is doing it because he is sinning, and is in love with his own preeminence. When the scorner is fired from your workplace, and the morale of everybody goes up, this is not an inconsistency. It is a verification of the truth of the Word.

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