September 27, 2018: Day 47 – Proverbs 5

So does it strike you as a bit surprising that Solomon, who according to I Kings 11:3 had 700 wives and 300 concubines, is giving advice to his children about fidelity and not aligning themselves with adulteresses and loose women?  It does strike me as a bit of a hypocrisy, but still it is good advice.  There is a Scripture that rings so true to me and that it would be great to think through.  If you look  at I Corinthians 6:12-20 we read that if we are with another person in a sexual way then that person becomes one with us.  Yes, it mentions physically, but I would argue that it is true in so many other ways.   I would guess that every person remembers vividly all of their sexual experiences, for better or for worse.  As a result, what a dishonor that is to your spouse.

The author speaks about this as he states: “Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth.”  This chapter gives you advice on how important it is that fidelity be understood as a mandate directly from God.  Maybe it is advice from someone who walked on the wrong road and is learning from his mistakes.  If you look at vs.8 and following you read the author encourage his child to stay as far away as possible from the door of the house of the loose woman.  Now, of course, truth be told, if there is a loose woman, then there is also a loose man.  Isn’t it interesting that even today in our cultural perspective we don’t think of a loose man but rather a macho man.  After all, boys will be boys, but girls aren’t allowed to be girls.

Yeah, that doesn’t work any longer and never should have worked in the first place.  Those who are able to follow the advice of allowing our intimate relationships to be confined to marriage then the better off we all would be.