Proverbs

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

“The rod and reproof give wisdom: But a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame” (Prov. 29:15).

This is not the only place in Proverbs that praises the rod of correction in the practice of child rearing. Here the word child means “lad,” or young man. This verse, and others like it, give the lie to those advocates of “gentle parenting,” who want children to grow up into the paths of righteousness—with parents only supplying a gentle nudge from time to time.

But much more is required than that. Our proverb says that a rod and reproof deliver wisdom. Wisdom, in other words, comes from the flat of the rod. But it is only going to be the case if the rod has wisdom on the other end of it also. The one wielding the rod must be wise if the one receiving the strokes is to grow in wisdom at all. Inconsistent discipline, or erratic discipline, or petulant discipline, is not going to impart wisdom. This is because wisdom is not going from the wood to the boy, but rather from the man to the boy.

Two other things must be mentioned. The first is that children are not to be thought of as naturally good. What happens when a child is left to his own devices? Where will a child wind up if he is left to himself? The answer here is plain—it will be something that humiliates his mother.

We can see that wisdom can be imparted, or not, by the behavior of the parents. We know this for two reasons. The first is that the verse commands parents to impart wisdom by this means. If God tells us to do something like this, it must be possible to do. That’s the first thing. The second is the mother’s humiliation. Parents are shamed by the bad behavior of their children because their behavior had something to do with it.

Read Full Article

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

“When the wicked are multiplied, transgression increaseth: But the righteous shall see their fall” (Prov. 29:16).

When people give up on righteousness, it is because righteousness (in this fallen world) is hard. But when people give up on wickedness, it is because everything has collapsed. Righteousness is like climbing a steep hill, while wickedness is like falling off a steep cliff.

When you go off a cliff, particularly if you do so in the grip of a delusion, the entire first part is easy. It can feel like you are flying. No exertion whatever is required. We sin, as we sin, by the pull of gravity. The difficulties come when we reach the rocks at the bottom. The righteous watch all this from the top of the cliff, and then they resume their difficult and arduous climb.

This proverb teaches us that wickedness can flourish for a time—for a very short time. The wicked multiply, and the transgressions they bring with them are greatly increased. But if we might borrow some terminology from the environmentalists, this strategy is not at all sustainable. In the long run, taking the long view, stupidity never works. This would include every form of moral stupidity.

As the righteous watch the wicked in their multiplying stage, they do not panic. They have seen this before. Short cuts, including ethical short cuts, rarely fulfill their promises. They are liars, and so why should they fulfill anything? And so the old saying comes to fulfillment . . . if you don’t have time to do it right, where will you find time to do it over?

This proverb encourages the righteous to cultivate the virtues of faith and patience. We have the Word of God, and so we that the grasping approach that promises results quickly is a snare and a delusion. One of the things that the righteous must learn how to do is wait. Wait and watch.

Read Full Article

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

“Whoso loveth wisdom rejoiceth his father: But he that keepeth company with harlots spendeth his substance” (Prov. 29:3).

This is yet another proverb where the parallelism fills the instruction out, giving us quick of bit of extra detail. A son who loves wisdom gives his father joy. That is the first half. The second half is that a son who keeps company with whores is one who is wasting his money.

The first thing we should note is that wasting his money most likely means squandering his inheritance, the way the prodigal son did. The older brother made a point of saying that he had thrown it all away on harlots. Now to throw away an inheritance that a father had painstakingly accumulated over the course of many years is the opposite of bringing a father joy.

We can also see that there is a basic choice set before young men. They will either be keeping company with wisdom, or they will be keeping company women who are easy. A son who is wise is one who can see the end of the story, and not just a very pleasurable first chapter.

The lips of a woman of pleasure are like honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil (Prov. 5:3). But the end of the affair is wormwood (v. 4), that and some grotesque STD (v. 11). Your honor is shot (v. 9), your money is all gone (v. 10), and syphilis ate your brain (v. 11). While it is true enough, that would be a bad time to realize that the problem was that you hated instruction (v. 13).

But a wise son, the kind of son who gives his father joy, is the one who stays away from porn, and everything related to that world in any way.

Read Full Article

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

“To have respect of persons is not good: For for a piece of bread that man will transgress” (Prov. 28:21).

“To show partiality is not good, because for a piece of bread a man will transgress” (Prov. 28:21, NKJV).

This proverb reminds me of an apocryphal story that has floated around for years—attributed variously to Winston Churchill, George Bernard Shaw, Groucho Marx, and others like that. The story goes this way: a man asked a woman if she would sleep with him for a million dollars. After a moment’s hesitation, she said, “yes, probably.” Then he asked if she would do it for twenty dollars. She was offended, and asked, “What do you think I am?” And the riposte is “we’ve already established what you are . . . now we are just talking about the price.”

Back to the proverb. Having respect of persons means to show partiality. And if you are the kind of person who shows partiality, this means that you are bought, or influenced, or dazzled by something that ought not to have that kind pull on you. And once that establishes what kind of person you are—the kind who can be bought—the price can gradually be ratcheted downward. The end result is you have become the kind of person who would sell someone out for a morsel of bread.

So what does it mean to avoid showing partiality? It means that we are to love everyone with whom we come into contact. Now to love someone means that we are to treat them lawfully, from the heart. This does not make us egalitarians, where we treat everyone the same. That is not an avoidance of partiality. The Bible says we are to render honor to whom honor is due. But we are to do it under divine authority, and not because the person honored has an undue influence over us. If we give way to that, then everything afterwards is just haggling over price.

Read Full Article

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

“Boast not thyself of to morrow; For thou knowest not what a day may bring forth” (Prov. 27:1).

This proverb presents in brief compass the same instruction that we find in the epistle of James.

“Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that. But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil. Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.” (James 4:13–17).

We are bluntly instructed to make sure we hold all of our tomorrows in an open palm before the Lord. The reason given in Proverbs and in James is the same. We do not know what is going to happen tomorrow, and James adds the detail that our lives are like that three yard bit of mist that came up off the river, and which you drove by on the highway at sixty miles an hour.

Boasting in our own names would be bad enough—James calls it evil. Putting everything together, it is both evil and stupid. Matters are not helped if Christians say that they have determined that it is the will of God to go to thus-and-such city and make a pile of money. You are still a bit of vapor.

We are instructed to encompass all our plans concerning the future with a qualified Deo volente, Lord willing.

Read Full Article