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

“There is gold, and a multitude of rubies: But the lips of knowledge are a precious jewel”

Proverbs 20:15

At first glance this proverb might seem to be just a simple comparison—as much as to say it is better to have this than that. Now of course there is something to that, and we can take this proverb at its face value. It is better to be knowledgable and wise than to have great riches. A man should always prefer one of them over the other, and if he does so, then he has already embarked on the path of wisdom.

But I believe that if we look closely, we can detect another layer of meaning, and that would be the distinction between riches and wealth. Riches would be having the money on hand. Wealth would be found in the knowledge of what to do with the resources that you have on hand. 

Put another way, we are not being told that riches are one thing and that knowledge is a completely different kind of thing, but a whole lot better. It would be more informative to see this as saying that knowledge is in itself “a precious jewel,” as the proverb expresses it. 

There is a difference between a redneck who won 10 million dollars in the lottery, and a diligent and hard-working person who bootstrapped himself up from his paper route as a teenager to a 10 million dollar fortune and a chain of successful retail stores. The difference between them is not to be found in the 10 million dollars. They both have that. The difference is that the second person has knowledge.

So put in a way as to make my point here, riches are riches, sure enough, but knowledge is true wealth—the very best jewel. But of course, in order for knowledge to be true wealth, it needs to be true knowledge.

Read Full Article

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

“A king that sitteth in the throne of judgment scattereth away all evil with his eyes”

Proverbs 20:8

One of the tasks that God assigns to the magistrate is the tasking of scattering evil.

We are aware of one of the more obvious ways of doing this. Paul says that the ruler is appointed by God, and the one who does evil should be afraid—because the ruler does not bear the sword in vain (Rom. 13:4). This is a right-handed justice. When this does not happen, then public order starts to disintegrate. 

“Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil” (Ecclesiastes 8:11). 

The second way this salutary thing can be accomplished is when a king does not tolerate wickedness in his cabinet, in his close circle of advisers. When a man assumes rule, what kind of men does he surround himself with? 

“Then said he unto me, Son of man, these are the men that devise mischief, and give wicked counsel in this city” (Ezekiel 11:2).

A ruler has a duty to listen to the counsel of good and wise men, and not wicked and mischievous ones.

But a third way of dealing with evil in a realm is by means of the bully pulpit. In our proverb here, the king scatters the wicked by means of moral authority. He causes the wicked to flee with his eyes, by means of his countenance. In Romans 13, as the deacon of God, he is charged with more than just punishing wrongdoers. He is to reward the righteous, and they are to receive this reward through the praise of the king (Rom. 13:3).

One of the best ways to discern the effete nature of our times is to look at a list of the recipients of the presidential Medal of Freedom. This is the highest award that can be given outside a military context, and so we should not be surprised that Richard Nixon gave one to Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon. But other recipients have included Lucille Ball, Bill Cosby, and Mr. Rogers—not to mention previous presidents. What goes around comes around. 

Read Full Article

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

“Also to punish the just is not good, nor to strike princes for equity”

Proverbs 17:26

“Also, to punish the righteous is not good, nor to strike princes for their uprightness”

Proverbs 17:26

Christians who want their fellow believers simply to defer to the state whenever some decree or other is handed down are quick to appeal to Romans 13. But that famous passage does not teach us that citizens are subjects who must do whatever they are told. 

No, that passage teaches us that all of us are under authority, the magistrate as well as the citizen. The magistrate is called diakonos twice in v. 4 and leitourgos in v. 6). The magistrate is a servant, a deacon, a minister. He is under orders. In that passage, he is commanded to reward the righteous and to punish the wrongdoer (vv. 3-4).

That point is reinforced in this proverb. When the magistrate rebels against his heavenly commission, and begins to punish the righteous, we have crossed over into a state of tyranny. Proverbs says that to punish the just is “not good.” In the same way, it is not good to strike at princes who are, unlike the king, standing uprightly. 

If the king has gotten out of line, the princes are lesser magistrates, and they might be in a position to do something about it. Moreover, taking all of Scripture into account, they are under an obligation before God to do so. 

When a citizen takes a righteous stand, say by protesting at an abortion clinic, and he is arrested and wickedly charged, this is a photo negative of what the magistrate—God’s deacon, remember—is charged to do. It is not the case that Christians who resist this are rejecting God’s authority. They are resisting a man who took the badge that God gave him, spit on it, and threw it away.

Read Full Article

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

“Wisdom is before him that hath understanding; But the eyes of a fool are in the ends of the earth”

Proverbs 17:24

This is a proverb that encourages us to think that the wise thing for us to do is right there in front of us. Duties are rarely across the globe, but rather are to be found in the “next step.”

By the same token, the fool’s eyes are beyond the horizon. 

A moment’s reflection should reveal why this is. If our duties are right in front of us, we can see what they actually are, and we are responsible to engage them. There they are—pick them up and go. In this scenario, our duties come to us from outside. They are assigned to us. We don’t make them up as we go.

But if we are playing the fool, and our eyes are darting back and forth, thousands of miles away, we are in a position to make up our duties, to fashion all our responsibilities to our liking, and to award ourselves with as many honors and awards as we can think of. In other words, we are set free to daydream. And all this daydreaming is detached from what is actually going on in the actual world.

Put another way, daydreaming grants us a measure of felt autonomy. When we look at the path of wisdom, however, there is no felt autonomy at all. There is the diaper to change. There is the report to write. There is the class to teach. We are summoned by the providence of God to do the next thing, which is an obvious thing. Moreover, it is an obvious thing that we are not in charge of, which is the principal reason it rubs us so wrong. 

All things considered, we sometimes feel like we are lost, not knowing what we should do. But the real problem is that we do know what we should do, and we don’t really feel like it.

Read Full Article

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

“Let a bear robbed of her whelps meet a man, rather than a fool in his folly”

Proverbs 17:12

There are times of the day when a fool is in a quiescent state. They are not “on” all the time. But this proverb tells us that when a fool is “in his folly,” that is an extremely dangerous time to meet him. How dangerous is it? It would be better to be hiking in western Montana, and glance over to the right side of the path and see a mama grizzly, and then to look over to the left side of the path and see three small grizzly cubs.

In other words, to meet a fool when he has gotten up a head of steam is a very dangerous thing indeed. 

One of the reasons why it is more dangerous is that when you meet the bears, it is possible that you might have some idea of which direction to run. There might be a path of escaper that makes some sort of sense. But when you are entangled with a fool, there really is no defense because it is impossible to defend against irrational behavior. 

In his most insightful book, The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity, Carlo Cipolla makes this point. It is possible to defend yourself against a thief because, although the thief is malevolent, he is nevertheless engaging in rule-guided behavior. It is possible to anticipate what his next move might be, and if you can anticipate that move, you can guard yourself against it. But Cipolla defines a stupid person as one who harms others without receiving any real benefit from those actions himself.

If you don’t want to meet a grizzly robbed of her cubs, then it is best just to stay out of bear country. But living in the world as we do, it is not really possible to stay out of fool country. The best defense a person can have is, after one encounter with a person who has been a fool in this way, to steer clear.

Read Full Article