Bible Reading Challenge Blog

It is almost as if this chapter contains two distinct parts.  The first part goes from vs.1-16, and then the second part goes from 17-29.  In the first section I want to focus on vs.9 which states that those who are generous are blessed, because they share their bread with the poor.  The blessing that comes with identifying yourself as a child of God, and then being able to identify all other people the same way, regardless of the means that we have accessible to us, is a blessing ultimately to us.  Our ability to help others ultimately is an incredible blessing to us.  We should never feel entitled because we have the resources.  We should never feel as if people should be coming to us on our terms because we have the means.  No, instead, God has placed us in that situation as someone who has an opportunity to be blessed because they have a task to do which is God inspired.  We are the ones who are blessed when we bless others with material goods.

There are a couple posts where Solomon lifts up what he would call the misery of being with a wife who is either contentious or fretful.  It seems like Solomon probably had some life experiences which made him calloused to the role that women, and especially wives, played in his day and age.  A big part of that would have been the number of wives which he had.  This had to, I am sure, translate into a disrespect and view of women that was not healthy at all.  Solomon was very flawed and those flaws do reveal themselves even in these Scriptures.  

If you look at vs.17 you will find a counter intuitive truth.  If you love pleasure you will always be needy.  If pleasure is your pursuit, then you will never have enough and you will never be satisfied.  That is a sad state of affairs for that person.  But he goes on.  If you love wine and oil, the finer things in life, then you will never gain material possessions beyond your pursuit of wine and oil.  Now, let’s be clear, becoming rich should not be anyone’s goal or pursuit.  I know, this may sound counter intuitive to some of you.  Our goal ought not to be to amass as much material goods as we possible can.  If that is our goal, then we will never be satisfied.  What a terrible way to live with this goal.

Not super crazy about that last verse here, let’s not read into it, although that was certainly the mentality that beatings cleansed the innards and righted the ship.  We have come  a long way, fortunately, from that verse.  

My focus on this chapter, though, is recognizing the role that alcohol plays in some people’s lives.  He begins this chapter not as a teetotaler, but rather as someone who preaches prudence.  It is something that can easily lead astray.  Interestingly enough he follows that up with a statement on anger, and I can easily see how these two can be related.  

A couple verses caught my interest.  Look at vs.17 where it states that bread gained by deceit is sweet, but then it turns to gravel.  The other verse which struck me was vs.20 where we are told to stay away from the gossiper, not because they will tell us gossip, but because they more time we spend with them then the more they will find out about us and tell others about our lives.  Just stay away from them and they won’t be able to speak poorly about you.

Do you feel like these chapters seem to run together and overlap each other?  There continues to be advice on how to live and underlined is the necessity to treat the poor with dignity and respect.  I love the line where it states that when you give to the poor, you are giving to the Lord.  Look at vs.17.  There is not the sense that we see in some circles today that the poor just haven’t applied themselves enough and so are to be scoffed and mocked and not taken seriously.  We simply do not know their story or why they are in the position in which they find themselves.

Since we do not know that story then we are to treat them with the same dignity and respect that we treat our own family members because they should be considered family.  We do see a lot of emphasis on how we ought to treat the poor and I like that in Proverbs.  It is a bit ironic because we have a king, King Solomon, writing about the poor when he was the richest man in the land.  But he was also a man of God, so I guess he got it.

As I was reading this Proverbs I couldn’t help but think of this song, even though I know it comes from Psalm 61:3.  But look at vs. 10 and maybe you can understand why I thought it was an appropriate Scripture.

So verse 13 doesn’t quite have my benediction covered, in fact, it is probably the opposite.  Every Sunday I charge the congregation to return no one evil for evil.  Vs. 13 tells us “evil will not depart from the house of one who returns evil for good.”  That is a logical sensible statement.  But a less sensible statement we find in Matthew 5:44 where our Savior, you know Jesus, states the following:  “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”  That is very different, especially since we are told that those who are evil, we should pray for them.  Another less sensible statement we find in Romans 12:17 where we read that we are not to return anyone evil for evil.

So all that we are reading in Proverbs is just incredibly sensible.  There are no ultra radical thoughts, but rather it just reflects the common sense of that day and the common sense of today.  But what we often find is that what we consider to be common sense, is not at all common to the Lord.  The common sense at times is our own thinking, when the Lord demands, at times, that we take risks which would be frowned upon by society, and probably by Solomon as well.  If you love your enemies and pray for them, aren’t you also enabling someone to do the wrong thing?  

I’ll never forget the crisis we had in our food bank in Florida when a police officer caught one of our food clients selling the food that they got from our church in order to get crack/cocaine.  We almost shut down the program because we did not want to enable anyone in their drug addiction.  But then we realized for every one person who was an addict and used our food to help their problem, we had 20 who were using this food as a supplement to their already stretched budget.  We kept it up and running.  We are told to love our enemies whether it enables them or not.

I guess we can focus on vs.18 here.  The verse is where we get the statement: pride comes before the fall.  But it doesn’t limit itself just to that.  It actually states: “pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.”   Yes, it is the same thing, but there is a double understanding that is important for us to recognize.  Pride is that within us, which we mentioned the last chapter, which makes us think that we can handle things on our own.  At times it goes beyond that.  At times we think we are invincible and nothing that we do can be stopped.  Pride is that within us which makes us believe that we are the creators and we are the ultimate arbiters in all things in our life.  

At a certain point in our life we ought to come to the realization that there is so much more beyond our control than we could ever imagine.  Just that realization alone ought to be humbling, but not debilitating.  Humility is not an excuse for inaction.  Humility is not synonymous with submission.  Humility is not the same as cowardice.  Humility is what Jesus exhibited.  Fear is the opposite of humility.  It takes strength to be humble, it is not weakness.  I could go on and on, but I am not sure I know of any other identifying feature of my Savior which is more inspirational than His  humility, except maybe His love.

Let’s start with the end, the end of this chapter that is: “humility goes before honor.”  True humility is a sign of someone who has understood the perspective that we are the clay and God is the potter.   What happens to us is beyond our control, but once it happens, then we better be the best vessel there is in carrying out God’s work.  When we think that we can start dictating or controlling how the potter is going to shape or maneuver our future and our life, it is then that things start to go down the wrong path.

A couple things gave me pause here.  One line is interesting in vs.6: “But trouble befalls the income of the wicked.”  It doesn’t say that the wicked will not gain income, because they will and they do, but that it is fraught with trouble both while it is gained and after it is gained.  What a great verse.  

Not sure about the verses which states (vs.20): “A wise child makes a glad father, but the foolish despise their mothers.”  I’ll never forget when it was that I started to appreciate my parents.  It took my second year out of high school with my parents in a foreign country to recognize that most of what they taught me, or tried to teach me, was actually pretty wise.  It took some time for that to sink in for me.  You know the saying that absence makes the heart grow fond.  That was certain the case for me.  I did not despise my parents, but I’m not really sure I respected them as I should have.  That changed once I was in college.

There is a real contrast in these verses between good and evil especially in the way that people act in certain places and at certain times.   The foolishness of the evil one is contrasted with the wisdom of the good person.  But there are a couple places where the fear of the Lord is described as something after which we ought to strive.  The fear of the Lord.

So how do we describe the fear of the Lord.  We already saw in Proverbs 9:10 that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.  That is a great start.  We read in the New Testament in II Timothy 1:7 Paul states that we did not receive a Spirit of timidity, or of fear, but rather one of power, love, and self-control.  We are to fear the Lord in a way that we fear our parents.   We absolutely love our parents, but we do not want to disappoint them.  We do not regard them as people to be feared to be with alone in a room.  We do not regard them as people of which we are afraid.   But we respect them and we consider that which they are able to do for us is beyond what we can do for ourselves.  I love this scene from Narnia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jn2n3wdAQi4

We find some controversy in this chapter.  Go ahead and skip right to vs.24 where we find the classic: “spare the rod and spoil the child.”  There is so much controversy around the way in which children are disciplined.  My take is that every family must find and settle upon what is the best way for them.  In my premarital counseling classes I encourage couples to talk about what it would look like to them to discipline their children.  The question centers around whether discipline should include some corporeal punishment, or not.

Just in a sense of full disclosure, I was spanked by a spoon and a belt and a hand.  Not in any particular order, but that was the process that I needed, more than any of the other brothers, in order to understand what the rules and the regulations were.  With my children a hand was used for two daughters and one simply didn’t need it.  As you can guess from these statements that I am in favor of this type of punishment as long as it is administered in a specific way.

This type of punishment cannot be administered impulsively and without planning.  The child needs to know what is going to happen, why it is happening, and how to avoid this from happening again.  It is not a lashing out in anger or a display of force in order to drive fear in the hearts of the child.  That is not what spanking is about.  But I also understand parents who could not imagine spanking their child.  There are so many other ways in which to discipline a child.  I get it.  This chapter has created a lot of discussion for a lot of people and I am sure that it will not end today.