When a wicked man dies, his expectation will perish,
And the hope of the unjust perishes.
The righteous is delivered from trouble,
And it comes to the wicked instead.
The hypocrite with his mouth destroys his neighbor,
But through knowledge the righteous will be delivered.
When it goes well with the righteous, the city rejoices;
And when the wicked perish, there is jubilation.
By the blessing of the upright the city is exalted,
But it is overthrown by the mouth of the wicked.
Proverbs 11:7-11 (NKJV).
Why do we like to see the "bad guys" lose and the "good guys" win?
At the heart, it's about what the motivations were for actions taken, more than the actions taken.
The "bad guy" slays many "good", and the "good guy" slays many "bad", but it's what makes them "good" or "bad" that has the audience at home rooting for them, or for their downfall.
The wicket set their sights on undoing what already is, so that they can replace it with a design of their own. The righteous instead seek to understand what already is, so that something new can be manifest from what is currently hidden away. The wicked have their goals set is corruption, destruction, in consumption, where the righteous have theirs set in understanding, patience, in self-awareness.
In this passage, we are shown the most basic formula for not only how we seek to live, but also how we are entertained, how we are inspired.
There is a reason that science came out of a Western Civilization that worshiped, albeit imperfectly, the God of the Bible. No other society, despite having existed for a much longer period of time, experienced such rapid advances in what would become "science". In living our lives in a way that would please God, we had revealed to us the hidden truth about things like pharmaceuticals, germ theory of disease, and those are just two big hitters in medical technology.
Materials science, physics, mathematics, all these "fields" which never existed before were made manifest, not because people were trying to get what they wanted, but because deep down we knew that God had created all these interconnected dynamics, and not only created them, but created us capable of understanding them, of examining them and then using our knowledge to build new things.
Computers aren't magic, they're the result of successive discoveries that built, one upon each other, using our best understanding how how everything works. We couldn't have done that pursuing validation of our own deity, trying to re-write the rules of reality instead of working with them.
The failures of the wicked have become ever more and more apparent as Western Civilization turns its back on God, convinced that, due to the very discoveries God enabled, that now we can replace God and things will work out just fine. We've learned "enough" and now we think we're ready to sit on the throne.
Yet look at the results. All we're doing is repeating the sins of past peoples who also rejected God, but now we have the shimmer and shine of technology to aid us. We're doing nothing that hasn't been done before, and we'll end up repeating a cycle where our great blessings become a burden, and God will graciously relieve us of them so that we can return to our true purpose.
When we pursue righteousness, our successes do not just build us up, but it produces an effect which impacts the lives of those around us as well. While never enough to cover the debt of sin, to save anyone else, when we figure out how reality works and how we can align ourselves to God's designs, everyone can benefit.
This is why people cheer on the "good guy", the righteous, because they know that the results of their labor will produce a net positive for everyone. Meanwhile, the "bad guy", the wicked, will only produce results that benefit them at the detriment of everyone else.
And now you see why it is so important for people to have a "good guy" and "bad guy" to identify in their struggles. How the modern world has not replaced this dynamic, but perverted it for its own selfish gain.
You see, the world views material salvation the way that God views eternal salvation, so the "good guy" for the world will be operating on completely different priorities than the "good guy" as God would define it.
So, again, it's not the individual, it's not what they do, it's what the motivations are. As a Christian, when you make choices which do not make you a "good guy" to the human world, you are to expect that you will be called the "bad guy", and they will cheer your perils and tribulations.
But God does not only operate on the temporal, and our souls continue on into eternity, so do not view success in the context of this life alone, as the human world does. View it on the timescale that God does, with respect to eternity, and understand that righteousness is alignment with God.
Be the "good guy" as God would define it.
Showing posts with label Devotional. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Devotional. Show all posts
20.6.18
Daily Bible Study - Proverbs 11:3-6
The integrity of the upright will guide them,
But the perversity of the unfaithful will destroy them.
Riches do not profit in the day of wrath,
But righteousness delivers from death.
The righteousness of the blameless will direct his way aright,
But the wicked will fall by his own wickedness.
The righteousness of the upright will deliver them,
But the unfaithful will be caught by their lust.
Proverbs 11:3-6 (NKJV).
There's a phrase that's been cited, in the context of relationships, where "you're either growing apart or growing together", though the specific phrasing varies from one citation to another, and also exists in various contexts as well.
That said, the basic idea is that there is no "middle ground". There is no "neutral", no "cruise control", that you're either actively investing in a relationship or you're letting it stagnate and die out. We dance around this idea with other idioms like "familiarity breeds contempt".
We hate being forced to choose. We hate when we find ourselves in a circumstance where a choice must be made and we don't like any of the options we're offered. We want to think there's a "third way" that is somehow being hidden, that if somehow we twist words and try to come at the issue a different way that we'll find another option, another path to take which better suits what we want.
When it comes to righteousness, however, there's only two paths, despite moderns efforts to try and claim otherwise.
"Sin", you see, is not an objective existence, it's subjective, in that like the concept of "cold", it exists in a relationship to another concept. Temperature is a measure of heat, and one temperature may be described as "cold" compared to another, "cold" itself is just a relative term.
Likewise, "sin" is relative to God's perfect character attributes. The greater you lack alignment, the more sinful you are, and while all have fallen short, some do fall further than others and that is reflected in the consequences they face here in this life.
To deny God's attributes as "good" undermines "sin", and so modern philosophies have sought to undermine the definition of God, or to change it such that they can sit on the throne. The problem is that this attempt at regicide only leads to more sin. There is no righteousness to be found at the end of a path which included denying God's desires for our own behavior.
We can't "get there" by any other path, and since God is the standard, the one perfect example, everything else is simply a variation of failure. There are a nearly infinite number of ways to miss the mark, to still not be perfect, and so we cannot on our own overcome sin completely.
Righteousness is not of us alone, it's in our response to God and in how we reflect God's characteristics in our behavior. It's not us blazing a new path, it's us taking the one God has pleaded with us to take from the beginning.
In seeking God's desire for us in our choices, we will constantly be doubting our own inclinations, and learn about how we each fail on a consistent basis. This self-doubt is necessary to combat the sense of solipsism, the belief that we're all that exists and everything else is just the products of our own imagination.
We see this dynamic play out all the time where people will suggest that reality is not as is objectively seen, but that it is open to revision, subjective, and that their thoughts or their mind is the source of both the current states and any future states. In short, that they are viewing the objective reality, and that everyone else needs to recognize this truth.
It's never about really denying the existence of God, but changing who God is, or who gets to wear the name badge. It's never about destroying the throne, but changing who should sit on it.
It's always about trying to change the standard for comparison, never abolishing the need for a standard in the first place.
And it's in this that, because the standards we would set are always much lower than what God really is, we find ourselves consumed with wickedness because of our foolishness. We even double-down after the first wave of consequences may arrive, hoping that perhaps the consequences were just a fluke, a rarity that would not manifest again. Until it does.
This is why God, in respecting the choices that humans make, will gladly break you if it would lead to your salvation. To take away your health, your wealth, your family, whatever it is that distracts you from the most critical truth: you are not God.
This passage highlights that we can either set God as our standard, pursue righteousness, and find satisfaction on into eternity as all that is sinful is destroyed or judged, or we can be caught up in that judgment and experience eternal punishment for our infinitely ungrateful foolishness.
We are either set free from the consequences of sin by obeying God, or we are condemned by how we deny and rebel.
There is no third choice.
But the perversity of the unfaithful will destroy them.
Riches do not profit in the day of wrath,
But righteousness delivers from death.
The righteousness of the blameless will direct his way aright,
But the wicked will fall by his own wickedness.
The righteousness of the upright will deliver them,
But the unfaithful will be caught by their lust.
Proverbs 11:3-6 (NKJV).
There's a phrase that's been cited, in the context of relationships, where "you're either growing apart or growing together", though the specific phrasing varies from one citation to another, and also exists in various contexts as well.
That said, the basic idea is that there is no "middle ground". There is no "neutral", no "cruise control", that you're either actively investing in a relationship or you're letting it stagnate and die out. We dance around this idea with other idioms like "familiarity breeds contempt".
We hate being forced to choose. We hate when we find ourselves in a circumstance where a choice must be made and we don't like any of the options we're offered. We want to think there's a "third way" that is somehow being hidden, that if somehow we twist words and try to come at the issue a different way that we'll find another option, another path to take which better suits what we want.
When it comes to righteousness, however, there's only two paths, despite moderns efforts to try and claim otherwise.
"Sin", you see, is not an objective existence, it's subjective, in that like the concept of "cold", it exists in a relationship to another concept. Temperature is a measure of heat, and one temperature may be described as "cold" compared to another, "cold" itself is just a relative term.
Likewise, "sin" is relative to God's perfect character attributes. The greater you lack alignment, the more sinful you are, and while all have fallen short, some do fall further than others and that is reflected in the consequences they face here in this life.
To deny God's attributes as "good" undermines "sin", and so modern philosophies have sought to undermine the definition of God, or to change it such that they can sit on the throne. The problem is that this attempt at regicide only leads to more sin. There is no righteousness to be found at the end of a path which included denying God's desires for our own behavior.
We can't "get there" by any other path, and since God is the standard, the one perfect example, everything else is simply a variation of failure. There are a nearly infinite number of ways to miss the mark, to still not be perfect, and so we cannot on our own overcome sin completely.
Righteousness is not of us alone, it's in our response to God and in how we reflect God's characteristics in our behavior. It's not us blazing a new path, it's us taking the one God has pleaded with us to take from the beginning.
In seeking God's desire for us in our choices, we will constantly be doubting our own inclinations, and learn about how we each fail on a consistent basis. This self-doubt is necessary to combat the sense of solipsism, the belief that we're all that exists and everything else is just the products of our own imagination.
We see this dynamic play out all the time where people will suggest that reality is not as is objectively seen, but that it is open to revision, subjective, and that their thoughts or their mind is the source of both the current states and any future states. In short, that they are viewing the objective reality, and that everyone else needs to recognize this truth.
It's never about really denying the existence of God, but changing who God is, or who gets to wear the name badge. It's never about destroying the throne, but changing who should sit on it.
It's always about trying to change the standard for comparison, never abolishing the need for a standard in the first place.
And it's in this that, because the standards we would set are always much lower than what God really is, we find ourselves consumed with wickedness because of our foolishness. We even double-down after the first wave of consequences may arrive, hoping that perhaps the consequences were just a fluke, a rarity that would not manifest again. Until it does.
This is why God, in respecting the choices that humans make, will gladly break you if it would lead to your salvation. To take away your health, your wealth, your family, whatever it is that distracts you from the most critical truth: you are not God.
This passage highlights that we can either set God as our standard, pursue righteousness, and find satisfaction on into eternity as all that is sinful is destroyed or judged, or we can be caught up in that judgment and experience eternal punishment for our infinitely ungrateful foolishness.
We are either set free from the consequences of sin by obeying God, or we are condemned by how we deny and rebel.
There is no third choice.
16.6.18
Daily Bible Study - Proverbs 11:2
When pride comes, then comes shame;
But with the humble is wisdom.
Proverbs 11:2 (NKJV).
There is a more traditional understanding of the word "humility", one which contains an element of self-deprecation, but it is balanced by truth. What I mean by this is that "humility" is about know who you really are in the grand scheme of things, not merely "thinking more of others".
I say this in that, because so many people think so highly of themselves, they trend towards outright narcissism, their solipsism eventually convincing them of their own deity, and so from such a height as that, falling entails a lot of self-deprecation. A lot of throwing away lies and deceit, both to oneself and to others.
After that process though, what next? When you've finished stripping away the falsehoods, what are you left with?
Hopefully there is "something", and that "something" is part of your humility.
Pride, as connoted in this passage, has more to do with hubris and unfounded arrogance than in simple confidence. When you know that you can perform a task, and you claim that you can perform such a task, to those who cannot or who feel threatened by the fact they cannot, it will appear like bragging.
Think of it this way. If all your life you've struggled with a particular issue, and you find out someone has an easy fix, but you don't understand it, are you quicker to try and do the work to understand, or seek a way to dismiss the apparent solution as a means of preserving your own ego?
The thought, "well it may have worked for them, but it won't work for me" is indicative of this pattern of thinking. The claim that "my circumstances are different", even if by all measures they are not.
That is why pride leads to shame, because at some point or another, someone is going to call you out on that bluff, that deceit. As much as we think of someone making a boast that they can do something is sourced in pride, so is the opposite, in people claiming that they cannot do something, and then giving a non-sequitur reason as to why. They're saving face.
Pride brings shame because it, in this context, deludes us into thinking we can or can't do something that, if we could swallow our pride and be honest with ourselves and others, would be completely possible. We want there to be any reason which cannot be pinned squarely on us.
Conversely, those who have humility, an understanding of just who they are and the truth of their circumstances, they also have wisdom, because wisdom is not contained inside of a person, but given to us by God, the designer of the processes that wisdom applies to. God is literally overjoyed when people stop trying to do things their way and instead pay heed to God's desires regarding their behavior in this life.
The humble are not incompetent, they are not dirt, they are "the greatest of sinners", aware of their own faults and shortcomings, but also aware of the gifts and strengths that God has bestowed upon them, and so because they have embraced truth, they will also learn how best to apply those traits in a way which glorifies and pleases God, which in turn brings them blessing both in this life and the next.
Clearly, this is not to say that the humble are never found doing shameful things, but that they already know what is happening and why, and how to repent of their behavior and, yet again, try to make permanent changes for their own betterment in their ability to reflect God's attributes.
Our pride trips us up, exposes us for what we are when we least desire such honesty. Humility teaches us to make peace with our faults and flaws, and when we need to rely on God, such that we are never completely defined by our mistakes.
Pride restricts who you are to what you can do.
Humility opens up who you are to what you have done and what you could do.
Is the shame worth the empty boasting?
But with the humble is wisdom.
Proverbs 11:2 (NKJV).
There is a more traditional understanding of the word "humility", one which contains an element of self-deprecation, but it is balanced by truth. What I mean by this is that "humility" is about know who you really are in the grand scheme of things, not merely "thinking more of others".
I say this in that, because so many people think so highly of themselves, they trend towards outright narcissism, their solipsism eventually convincing them of their own deity, and so from such a height as that, falling entails a lot of self-deprecation. A lot of throwing away lies and deceit, both to oneself and to others.
After that process though, what next? When you've finished stripping away the falsehoods, what are you left with?
Hopefully there is "something", and that "something" is part of your humility.
Pride, as connoted in this passage, has more to do with hubris and unfounded arrogance than in simple confidence. When you know that you can perform a task, and you claim that you can perform such a task, to those who cannot or who feel threatened by the fact they cannot, it will appear like bragging.
Think of it this way. If all your life you've struggled with a particular issue, and you find out someone has an easy fix, but you don't understand it, are you quicker to try and do the work to understand, or seek a way to dismiss the apparent solution as a means of preserving your own ego?
The thought, "well it may have worked for them, but it won't work for me" is indicative of this pattern of thinking. The claim that "my circumstances are different", even if by all measures they are not.
That is why pride leads to shame, because at some point or another, someone is going to call you out on that bluff, that deceit. As much as we think of someone making a boast that they can do something is sourced in pride, so is the opposite, in people claiming that they cannot do something, and then giving a non-sequitur reason as to why. They're saving face.
Pride brings shame because it, in this context, deludes us into thinking we can or can't do something that, if we could swallow our pride and be honest with ourselves and others, would be completely possible. We want there to be any reason which cannot be pinned squarely on us.
Conversely, those who have humility, an understanding of just who they are and the truth of their circumstances, they also have wisdom, because wisdom is not contained inside of a person, but given to us by God, the designer of the processes that wisdom applies to. God is literally overjoyed when people stop trying to do things their way and instead pay heed to God's desires regarding their behavior in this life.
The humble are not incompetent, they are not dirt, they are "the greatest of sinners", aware of their own faults and shortcomings, but also aware of the gifts and strengths that God has bestowed upon them, and so because they have embraced truth, they will also learn how best to apply those traits in a way which glorifies and pleases God, which in turn brings them blessing both in this life and the next.
Clearly, this is not to say that the humble are never found doing shameful things, but that they already know what is happening and why, and how to repent of their behavior and, yet again, try to make permanent changes for their own betterment in their ability to reflect God's attributes.
Our pride trips us up, exposes us for what we are when we least desire such honesty. Humility teaches us to make peace with our faults and flaws, and when we need to rely on God, such that we are never completely defined by our mistakes.
Pride restricts who you are to what you can do.
Humility opens up who you are to what you have done and what you could do.
Is the shame worth the empty boasting?
13.6.18
Daily bible Study - Proverbs 10:30-32
The righteous will never be removed,
But the wicked will not inhabit the earth.
The mouth of the righteous brings forth wisdom,
But the perverse tongue will be cut out.
The lips of the righteous know what is acceptable,
But the mouth of the wicked what is perverse.
Proverbs 10:30-32 (NKJV).
Throughout scripture, there are declarations made which should not be taken at face value. There are times when the literal words are describing a metaphorical truth, and sometimes when the literal words are describing a literal truth.
This passage is speaking to a metaphorical truth, because let's face it, David came long after the flood and God had promised that he wouldn't wipe out humanity again because of their sin. The wicked inhabit the earth in the literal sense, so you can either take this as one of those nebulous "contradictions" in the Bible, or just realize that it's not speaking literally.
Usually the parts of the passage which are metaphors would give this away, but it's worth repeating.
Or would any assert that the lips of the righteous literally know what is acceptable? I'd love to hear that explained.
Really, lips reflect speech, which is itself called an "overflow of the heart" elsewhere in scripture. Metaphors, lots and lots of metaphors, so when folks start playing the "you have to take everything literally in the Bible" card, you should raise an eyebrow with suspicion because not even the Bible itself claims that.
Moving on, the metaphor here is regarding legacy and behavior. Those who are wicked will make choices that end their lives early, and not just that, but they'll boast of their intent while they're doing it. Wickedness is infatuated with death because God is life. If you're going to rebel against God, you need to be in contrast on important character attributes, and so if God loves life, cherishes it, creates it, then the wicked will, by definition, do the opposite.
We see this with the discussions on abortion. Since nobody can be expected to take responsibility for their choices, such as having unprotected sex, we must make the murder of conceived babies socially and morally acceptable.
Oh sure, the "rape, incest, life-of-mother" distraction gets drug out, but any time spent with the statistics and data show that the significant majority of abortions are about convenience, not about "protecting women", unless you look at it as "protecting women from their own poor choices."
We see this in discussions about political correctness, where the superficial morals of decency are perverted to serve the wicked in trying to cloak their true intent. Everyone is supposed to talk and behave in a certain way, not because it is good, but because it gives certain people leverage in the social arena.
The wicked don't understand "good" or "bad", they aren't making a conscious choice to reject actual "good", they simply perceive "good" as just another "evil". They don't see a comparison on a moral dimension, merely on a practical one, a materialistic mindset where their experiences, not the consequences that come of them, are held up as the real guidance for behavior.
We've heard it from people who will claim they know something is "wrong", but they "don't care". What they're really saying is that they don't think the grounding for "wrong" is real, but they don't want to be rude, so instead of explaining their disdain for the system, they make it sound like they are "above it all", pretending their aloof retorts are a showing of strength and resolve.
Eventually this talk will catch up with them though, in this life or the next. There will be consequences and there is such a thing as an objective measure of "good" and "bad". This is why, despite the superficial alignment to the appearance of "good deeds", in time the true heart of the wicked always comes out, and it is quite literally the job of the righteous to prevent it from being spread further.
Cutting out the tongue of the wicked might be literal, but it can also be metaphorical in the sense that, other than the death penalty, a common punishment for sin in historical Israel was exile. Shunning, kicking people out of society, leaving them to fend for themselves.
We see this dynamic resurface for Christianity, where a "brother" living in "unrepentant sin" is not to be kept in close fellowship with others in the church, but is instead to be ostracized because holiness is more important than preventing people from feeling lonely because they're unrepentant of sin.
This works the same way with removing pastors from the pulpit when they spread only lies. The righteous are to take action, not sit around waiting for God to move, and it's for this reason that Solomon always describes the wise, the righteous, in active fashion, and the wicked as reactive.
The wise and the righteous build towards the future, are refined by God in the process of sanctification.
The wicked have only the consequences of their choices to look forward to.
Is there any confusion still as to why only the righteous have hope for the future?
But the wicked will not inhabit the earth.
The mouth of the righteous brings forth wisdom,
But the perverse tongue will be cut out.
The lips of the righteous know what is acceptable,
But the mouth of the wicked what is perverse.
Proverbs 10:30-32 (NKJV).
Throughout scripture, there are declarations made which should not be taken at face value. There are times when the literal words are describing a metaphorical truth, and sometimes when the literal words are describing a literal truth.
This passage is speaking to a metaphorical truth, because let's face it, David came long after the flood and God had promised that he wouldn't wipe out humanity again because of their sin. The wicked inhabit the earth in the literal sense, so you can either take this as one of those nebulous "contradictions" in the Bible, or just realize that it's not speaking literally.
Usually the parts of the passage which are metaphors would give this away, but it's worth repeating.
Or would any assert that the lips of the righteous literally know what is acceptable? I'd love to hear that explained.
Really, lips reflect speech, which is itself called an "overflow of the heart" elsewhere in scripture. Metaphors, lots and lots of metaphors, so when folks start playing the "you have to take everything literally in the Bible" card, you should raise an eyebrow with suspicion because not even the Bible itself claims that.
Moving on, the metaphor here is regarding legacy and behavior. Those who are wicked will make choices that end their lives early, and not just that, but they'll boast of their intent while they're doing it. Wickedness is infatuated with death because God is life. If you're going to rebel against God, you need to be in contrast on important character attributes, and so if God loves life, cherishes it, creates it, then the wicked will, by definition, do the opposite.
We see this with the discussions on abortion. Since nobody can be expected to take responsibility for their choices, such as having unprotected sex, we must make the murder of conceived babies socially and morally acceptable.
Oh sure, the "rape, incest, life-of-mother" distraction gets drug out, but any time spent with the statistics and data show that the significant majority of abortions are about convenience, not about "protecting women", unless you look at it as "protecting women from their own poor choices."
We see this in discussions about political correctness, where the superficial morals of decency are perverted to serve the wicked in trying to cloak their true intent. Everyone is supposed to talk and behave in a certain way, not because it is good, but because it gives certain people leverage in the social arena.
The wicked don't understand "good" or "bad", they aren't making a conscious choice to reject actual "good", they simply perceive "good" as just another "evil". They don't see a comparison on a moral dimension, merely on a practical one, a materialistic mindset where their experiences, not the consequences that come of them, are held up as the real guidance for behavior.
We've heard it from people who will claim they know something is "wrong", but they "don't care". What they're really saying is that they don't think the grounding for "wrong" is real, but they don't want to be rude, so instead of explaining their disdain for the system, they make it sound like they are "above it all", pretending their aloof retorts are a showing of strength and resolve.
Eventually this talk will catch up with them though, in this life or the next. There will be consequences and there is such a thing as an objective measure of "good" and "bad". This is why, despite the superficial alignment to the appearance of "good deeds", in time the true heart of the wicked always comes out, and it is quite literally the job of the righteous to prevent it from being spread further.
Cutting out the tongue of the wicked might be literal, but it can also be metaphorical in the sense that, other than the death penalty, a common punishment for sin in historical Israel was exile. Shunning, kicking people out of society, leaving them to fend for themselves.
We see this dynamic resurface for Christianity, where a "brother" living in "unrepentant sin" is not to be kept in close fellowship with others in the church, but is instead to be ostracized because holiness is more important than preventing people from feeling lonely because they're unrepentant of sin.
This works the same way with removing pastors from the pulpit when they spread only lies. The righteous are to take action, not sit around waiting for God to move, and it's for this reason that Solomon always describes the wise, the righteous, in active fashion, and the wicked as reactive.
The wise and the righteous build towards the future, are refined by God in the process of sanctification.
The wicked have only the consequences of their choices to look forward to.
Is there any confusion still as to why only the righteous have hope for the future?
12.6.18
Daily Bible Study - Proverbs 10:27-29
The fear of the Lord prolongs days,
But the years of the wicked will be shortened.
The hope of the righteous will be gladness,
But the expectation of the wicked will perish.
The way of the Lord is strength for the upright,
But destruction will come to the workers of iniquity.
Proverbs 10:27-29 (NKJV).
In a somewhat recent discussion a favored Christian Philosopher of mine, William Lane Craig, discussed the "Meaning of Life". A super-shortened version of his claim is that "without the supernatural, and therefore without God, life is ultimately meaningless, because the universe won't persist forever."
One of the other participants rejected this in favor of the "if you feel like your life has meaning, it does" argument, ignoring the practical reality that was serving as the context for WLC's claim.
In short, that it doesn't matter what happens outside one's life if what happens inside of it had meaning. Yet this view is essentially hedonistic in nature, betraying a childish understanding behind the concepts of "purpose" and "meaning".
If "right" and "wrong" do not objectively exist, then perception truly is reality, and there can be no coherent discussion about even things like "better" or "worse". You just "are" and it's up to you to supply subjective meaning because nothing external to you tangibly exists apart from your ability to perceive it. This is why, without at least the supernatural, all discussions of the meaning and purpose of life fall flat.
If our reality, our current circumstances the result of chance and objective truth does not exist, then there is no "good" or "bad". What you do, the consequences, exist only so far as you are required to perceive them, and they only impact others so far as they perceive them, so "good" is possible just by eliminating the perception of consequences.
Like someone overdosing on drugs.
This is an inherently wicked mindset, and why the passage discusses the disparity in behavior because, long before modern and postmodern philosophies found philosophical rationalization, the themes and premises had already existed in the human mind, they just needed a new coat of paint.
The fear of the Lord brings about respect for God's design of reality, and accepting the consequences that come from bad behavior. There is no accident that those who reject understanding of germs, of infections, of the consequences of their behavior so frequently die before those that do.
In the "Middle Ages", deaths from the "Black Plague" are almost mythical in nature, yet when you look at the numbers, a disproportional amount of deaths occurred among those with a lower intelligence, thus resulting in the average IQ of Europeans going up, not because they were smarter, but because only the smarter survived, even despite the lack of complete or correct understanding as to what caused the plague and how to avoid it.
The "hope of the righteous" is grounded in the idea that God rewards obedience, and the expectation of the wicked is that God won't punish disobedience. Can you see how, in a system designed by God where one's individual beliefs don't change the rules, the wicked who expect to escape the consequences of their choices would end up in such a bad state?
In both a literal and figurative sense, we cannot escape the consequences of our choices, and God set up this reality such that aligning with God aligns with the "rules of reality", and so that is why those in rebellion with God are so frequently challenging the "natural order" of things, so frequently trying to develop technology and laws to alleviate or eliminate the negative consequences from bad choices, so frequently trying to convince themselves that they have the power to re-write the "rules of reality".
Their hope is not in finding favor with God, but in replacing God with themselves. Their inevitable failure is always predictable, if not in the timing, the mechanisms. Evil always loses in the end, not because there's a bad hand dealt or a dice rolled, but because evil is literally fighting against God's design of reality, of existence.
Sin is, in many ways, just the label we apply to rebellion against God, who logically has every right to make recommendations as to the behavior of creatures which didn't deserve to exist in the first place. In turn, the wrath that is poured out due to the infinite ingratitude of those creatures who do not show God any respect or honor for the infinitely great gift of existence versus non-existence is terrifying, but understandeable.
Solomon is highlighting that where those who follow God have hope, those who do not have no hope, for they cannot ever succeed at doing anything but delaying their own perceptions. Consequences will come, one way or another, whether we like it or not.
And consequences scale with the sin. So learn from your own life, before it's too late, from your own failures that were not mortal in nature, lest you get caught up believing that when consequences do grow significantly in severity, you'll be able to escape them just as you think you escaped before.
You won't.
But the years of the wicked will be shortened.
The hope of the righteous will be gladness,
But the expectation of the wicked will perish.
The way of the Lord is strength for the upright,
But destruction will come to the workers of iniquity.
Proverbs 10:27-29 (NKJV).
In a somewhat recent discussion a favored Christian Philosopher of mine, William Lane Craig, discussed the "Meaning of Life". A super-shortened version of his claim is that "without the supernatural, and therefore without God, life is ultimately meaningless, because the universe won't persist forever."
One of the other participants rejected this in favor of the "if you feel like your life has meaning, it does" argument, ignoring the practical reality that was serving as the context for WLC's claim.
In short, that it doesn't matter what happens outside one's life if what happens inside of it had meaning. Yet this view is essentially hedonistic in nature, betraying a childish understanding behind the concepts of "purpose" and "meaning".
If "right" and "wrong" do not objectively exist, then perception truly is reality, and there can be no coherent discussion about even things like "better" or "worse". You just "are" and it's up to you to supply subjective meaning because nothing external to you tangibly exists apart from your ability to perceive it. This is why, without at least the supernatural, all discussions of the meaning and purpose of life fall flat.
If our reality, our current circumstances the result of chance and objective truth does not exist, then there is no "good" or "bad". What you do, the consequences, exist only so far as you are required to perceive them, and they only impact others so far as they perceive them, so "good" is possible just by eliminating the perception of consequences.
Like someone overdosing on drugs.
This is an inherently wicked mindset, and why the passage discusses the disparity in behavior because, long before modern and postmodern philosophies found philosophical rationalization, the themes and premises had already existed in the human mind, they just needed a new coat of paint.
The fear of the Lord brings about respect for God's design of reality, and accepting the consequences that come from bad behavior. There is no accident that those who reject understanding of germs, of infections, of the consequences of their behavior so frequently die before those that do.
In the "Middle Ages", deaths from the "Black Plague" are almost mythical in nature, yet when you look at the numbers, a disproportional amount of deaths occurred among those with a lower intelligence, thus resulting in the average IQ of Europeans going up, not because they were smarter, but because only the smarter survived, even despite the lack of complete or correct understanding as to what caused the plague and how to avoid it.
The "hope of the righteous" is grounded in the idea that God rewards obedience, and the expectation of the wicked is that God won't punish disobedience. Can you see how, in a system designed by God where one's individual beliefs don't change the rules, the wicked who expect to escape the consequences of their choices would end up in such a bad state?
In both a literal and figurative sense, we cannot escape the consequences of our choices, and God set up this reality such that aligning with God aligns with the "rules of reality", and so that is why those in rebellion with God are so frequently challenging the "natural order" of things, so frequently trying to develop technology and laws to alleviate or eliminate the negative consequences from bad choices, so frequently trying to convince themselves that they have the power to re-write the "rules of reality".
Their hope is not in finding favor with God, but in replacing God with themselves. Their inevitable failure is always predictable, if not in the timing, the mechanisms. Evil always loses in the end, not because there's a bad hand dealt or a dice rolled, but because evil is literally fighting against God's design of reality, of existence.
Sin is, in many ways, just the label we apply to rebellion against God, who logically has every right to make recommendations as to the behavior of creatures which didn't deserve to exist in the first place. In turn, the wrath that is poured out due to the infinite ingratitude of those creatures who do not show God any respect or honor for the infinitely great gift of existence versus non-existence is terrifying, but understandeable.
Solomon is highlighting that where those who follow God have hope, those who do not have no hope, for they cannot ever succeed at doing anything but delaying their own perceptions. Consequences will come, one way or another, whether we like it or not.
And consequences scale with the sin. So learn from your own life, before it's too late, from your own failures that were not mortal in nature, lest you get caught up believing that when consequences do grow significantly in severity, you'll be able to escape them just as you think you escaped before.
You won't.
8.6.18
Daily Bible Study - Proverbs 10:23-25
To do evil is like sport to a fool,
But a man of understanding has wisdom.
The fear of the wicked will come upon him,
And the desire of the righteous will be granted.
When the whirlwind passes by, the wicked is no more,
But the righteous has an everlasting foundation.
Proverbs 10:23-25 (NKJV).
If you've been keeping track of the themes which resonate with me, you know how this passage is going to go. There's a dead horse and I am going to beat it yet again.
Nobody looks wise until after consequences have landed. When the cards haven't been shown, when the dice haven't stopped, when the smoke hasn't cleared, when the dust hasn't settled, when the outcomes have not yet fully matured, there is a time of question, uncertainty. There is an excitement in that uncertainty, in taking a risk and not knowing what will come of your choice.
The problem is that not every choice in life is like this, unless you're a fool.
There are choices which have entirely predictable outcomes.
There are causes which produce the same effect every single time.
All modern technology is based on this being true. Every political system is based on this being true. Every piece of advice, every instruction, every word of warning, every caution, relies on this being true.
It's woven into the very fabric of our existence that there is a reason things happen, and that when we don't know why, that does not mean there is no reason, we just don't know what it is or how to define it.
Solomon discusses the ultimate fates of the wise and the fool so regularly and so frequently because even knowing what will come next, fools will make the same bad choice.
She knows he is bad for her but maybe this time it will be different.
He knows she doesn't respect him, but maybe the sacrifices he makes for her will change her mind.
We see the dynamics of wisdom and foolishness play out in relationships between people all the time. Choices are made not on what is going to be the inevitable result, based on what happened last time, but what we want to happen. We keep thinking that if we try again, maybe this time the odds will be in our favor.
That's our own stupidity on display, and nothing more. It's not about being a "dreamer" or an "ideologue", it's about denying reality in favor of fantasy, and then having the gall to be surprised when our fantasies do not manifest. We don't understand how or why they could, so we'll never learn whether they're even possible.
In this passage, Solomon is highlighting this for us yet again. Fools will view their rejection of wisdom like some sort of game, as if the consequences don't matter, as if all scars heal and go away, as if their ultimate fate is more random chance than anything else, so why not do what you're told not to do and see what happens for yourself?
The problem is that life is not pure chance. Humans behave in patterns, there's reasons why things happen and we can learn about them and adjust our behavior accordingly. This applies from the mundane, like the connection between brushing one's teeth and dental health, to the more intimate, like the consequences on our relationship future based on the attributes our mate possesses.
There are some aspects of life which are randomized, which do not have a clear outcome, but we do not exist in a binary where all outcomes are either all predetermined or all outcomes are random.
There's a mix, but fools act as if their choices don't matter, and then go one step further and turn the rejection of wisdom into sport.
Sometimes the choices we make won't have consequences which come to pass for many years, if not decades. Medical issues are a great demonstration of this, where past choices affect a future that is a very long ways away, or at least we hope.
We eat wrong, thinking that because the bad consequences aren't immediate, maybe they'll never show up at all. We ingest poisons, we do not exercise, we do not take care of our bodies, and by the time we've figured out how foolish we've been? It's often too late to change the path significantly because consequences have already started landing and permanently changing huge chunks of our lives at the same time.
But we invite that upon ourselves through our ignorant arrogance, our foolishness.
This is why Solomon, and in turn I, will keep beating this dead horse, why we'll keep trying to emphasize the value in wisdom in the present so that you can live it out and reap the rewards in due time, instead of only being able to appreciate what wisdom could have done for you, and only reap destruction.
But a man of understanding has wisdom.
The fear of the wicked will come upon him,
And the desire of the righteous will be granted.
When the whirlwind passes by, the wicked is no more,
But the righteous has an everlasting foundation.
Proverbs 10:23-25 (NKJV).
If you've been keeping track of the themes which resonate with me, you know how this passage is going to go. There's a dead horse and I am going to beat it yet again.
Nobody looks wise until after consequences have landed. When the cards haven't been shown, when the dice haven't stopped, when the smoke hasn't cleared, when the dust hasn't settled, when the outcomes have not yet fully matured, there is a time of question, uncertainty. There is an excitement in that uncertainty, in taking a risk and not knowing what will come of your choice.
The problem is that not every choice in life is like this, unless you're a fool.
There are choices which have entirely predictable outcomes.
There are causes which produce the same effect every single time.
All modern technology is based on this being true. Every political system is based on this being true. Every piece of advice, every instruction, every word of warning, every caution, relies on this being true.
It's woven into the very fabric of our existence that there is a reason things happen, and that when we don't know why, that does not mean there is no reason, we just don't know what it is or how to define it.
Solomon discusses the ultimate fates of the wise and the fool so regularly and so frequently because even knowing what will come next, fools will make the same bad choice.
She knows he is bad for her but maybe this time it will be different.
He knows she doesn't respect him, but maybe the sacrifices he makes for her will change her mind.
We see the dynamics of wisdom and foolishness play out in relationships between people all the time. Choices are made not on what is going to be the inevitable result, based on what happened last time, but what we want to happen. We keep thinking that if we try again, maybe this time the odds will be in our favor.
That's our own stupidity on display, and nothing more. It's not about being a "dreamer" or an "ideologue", it's about denying reality in favor of fantasy, and then having the gall to be surprised when our fantasies do not manifest. We don't understand how or why they could, so we'll never learn whether they're even possible.
In this passage, Solomon is highlighting this for us yet again. Fools will view their rejection of wisdom like some sort of game, as if the consequences don't matter, as if all scars heal and go away, as if their ultimate fate is more random chance than anything else, so why not do what you're told not to do and see what happens for yourself?
The problem is that life is not pure chance. Humans behave in patterns, there's reasons why things happen and we can learn about them and adjust our behavior accordingly. This applies from the mundane, like the connection between brushing one's teeth and dental health, to the more intimate, like the consequences on our relationship future based on the attributes our mate possesses.
There are some aspects of life which are randomized, which do not have a clear outcome, but we do not exist in a binary where all outcomes are either all predetermined or all outcomes are random.
There's a mix, but fools act as if their choices don't matter, and then go one step further and turn the rejection of wisdom into sport.
Sometimes the choices we make won't have consequences which come to pass for many years, if not decades. Medical issues are a great demonstration of this, where past choices affect a future that is a very long ways away, or at least we hope.
We eat wrong, thinking that because the bad consequences aren't immediate, maybe they'll never show up at all. We ingest poisons, we do not exercise, we do not take care of our bodies, and by the time we've figured out how foolish we've been? It's often too late to change the path significantly because consequences have already started landing and permanently changing huge chunks of our lives at the same time.
But we invite that upon ourselves through our ignorant arrogance, our foolishness.
This is why Solomon, and in turn I, will keep beating this dead horse, why we'll keep trying to emphasize the value in wisdom in the present so that you can live it out and reap the rewards in due time, instead of only being able to appreciate what wisdom could have done for you, and only reap destruction.
5.6.18
Daily Bible Study - Proverbs 10:17
He who keeps instruction is in the way of life,
But he who refuses correction goes astray.
Proverbs 10:17 (NKJV).
If you listen to instruction, you'll do well in life, but if you reject correction, you will lose yourself. This seems simple, right?
The problem is that the source of the correction, the instruction, often taints our ability to hear and understand what wisdom is being shared, and sometimes what we are to take away from an interaction isn't in the surface-level details.
For example, if a friend provides instruction and something goes wrong, their reaction to the correction by reality itself will be informational, if you learn from it. Reject the truth that your friend provides bad advice and you'll keep taking their bad advice at face value and making poor choices.
While there are no shortage of people trying to provide guidance and direction, it becomes much easier to sort between the signal and the noise when you actually listen, consider what is being shared, and then put it up against your existing experiences to see what does or does not align.
In studying counterfeit money, you can try to keep up on all the newest ways that a counterfeiter is creating counterfeits, or you can study the original such that when you come across a suspected specimen, you already know what to look for, and even if you do not understand the nature of how a bill or coin was faked, you can still be certain you do not have the genuine article in your posession.
The wisdom Solomon describes here is challenged by the phrase "how do you know that?" It's not so much a question about whether what is being said is true or not, but a means of trying to disqualify or discredit as a means of circumventing the actual details and trying to lay blame for a discrepancy on simple ignorance. If it's easy to show why a claim is false, why spend time trying to undermine why it could be true?
When we reject correction, we should not need to be discriminatory when collecting information. That's not the stage when we down-select, that's when we should be exploring the possibilities so that we have a full breadth of understanding to pull from.
Then we start the refinement process, the comparison to what we already understood to see if some new understanding really would change our conclusions, or if the conclusion remains unchanged but we find our problem to be even more trivial in that and we're just stubborn and refusing to abide by even what we understand truth to be.
We can't do that if we're constantly rejecting help, rejecting advice, rejecting a different perspective, even if we claim to be confident in our assertions, revealing a cowardice in us, a fear that we may have to admit something uncomfortable or change something we'd really rather not.
Instead, take the instruction and advice and ruminate on it, validate it, and then start figuring out which of it is truly useful to you and which of it is clearly coming from those who are already astray and just wanting to be less lonely while wandering through this life aimlessly.
But he who refuses correction goes astray.
Proverbs 10:17 (NKJV).
If you listen to instruction, you'll do well in life, but if you reject correction, you will lose yourself. This seems simple, right?
The problem is that the source of the correction, the instruction, often taints our ability to hear and understand what wisdom is being shared, and sometimes what we are to take away from an interaction isn't in the surface-level details.
For example, if a friend provides instruction and something goes wrong, their reaction to the correction by reality itself will be informational, if you learn from it. Reject the truth that your friend provides bad advice and you'll keep taking their bad advice at face value and making poor choices.
While there are no shortage of people trying to provide guidance and direction, it becomes much easier to sort between the signal and the noise when you actually listen, consider what is being shared, and then put it up against your existing experiences to see what does or does not align.
In studying counterfeit money, you can try to keep up on all the newest ways that a counterfeiter is creating counterfeits, or you can study the original such that when you come across a suspected specimen, you already know what to look for, and even if you do not understand the nature of how a bill or coin was faked, you can still be certain you do not have the genuine article in your posession.
The wisdom Solomon describes here is challenged by the phrase "how do you know that?" It's not so much a question about whether what is being said is true or not, but a means of trying to disqualify or discredit as a means of circumventing the actual details and trying to lay blame for a discrepancy on simple ignorance. If it's easy to show why a claim is false, why spend time trying to undermine why it could be true?
When we reject correction, we should not need to be discriminatory when collecting information. That's not the stage when we down-select, that's when we should be exploring the possibilities so that we have a full breadth of understanding to pull from.
Then we start the refinement process, the comparison to what we already understood to see if some new understanding really would change our conclusions, or if the conclusion remains unchanged but we find our problem to be even more trivial in that and we're just stubborn and refusing to abide by even what we understand truth to be.
We can't do that if we're constantly rejecting help, rejecting advice, rejecting a different perspective, even if we claim to be confident in our assertions, revealing a cowardice in us, a fear that we may have to admit something uncomfortable or change something we'd really rather not.
Instead, take the instruction and advice and ruminate on it, validate it, and then start figuring out which of it is truly useful to you and which of it is clearly coming from those who are already astray and just wanting to be less lonely while wandering through this life aimlessly.
1.6.18
Daily Bible Study - Proverbs 10:16
The labor of the righteous leads to life,
The wages of the wicked to sin.
Proverbs 10:16 (NKJV).
If you've ever known someone who worked hard to try and avoid actually working, then you are already familiar with the sentiment that Solomon seeks to share with us in this verse. Another manifestation might be, after someone has worked hard but not achieved the result they desired, still want some sort of credit for the efforts they put forth regardless.
It is possible to busy yourself and fill your life in such a fashion that you never have any rest, but the reward for your toil is not life but death.
I once chatted with a fellow about a pornography addiction and tools that can be put on a computer to help prevent being able to access such content on the internet. I was somewhat taken aback at the casual manner in which he indicated that he would just find a way to circumvent the mechanisms because his addiction was sufficiently strong.
His wages for such a work, to pursue poison for the mind, is sin.
Conversely, it is not easy to study the Bible. While at times we can be filled with a religious fervor, often we are distracted, tempted away by the concerns and opportunities of this life before us now. Yet if we struggle against those and pursue truth contained within scripture, we will find it and the reward will be life.
When it comes to salvation, this life is everlasting in the presence of God, but the Bible also contains truths that apply to the temporal world regarding wisdom, appropriate behaviors, and ideal paths to walk whilst still in the flesh.
For example, God forbids fornication, but doesn't spend a lot of time explaining the rather long list of reasons why that is an unwise and sinful act. We can see that some people expend considerable effort to fornicate in a maximally pleasurable manner, and since their desires are wicked, the results of their efforts is sin. Others who seek to avoid such interactions, are also having to work hard because we live in an openly sexual society where "everyone is doing it", and so the effort is not so much an active pursuit but ironically a resistance to the barrage of temptation and pressure.
It takes effort to sin or to avoid it, and so how we expend our energy, to what end we seek as well as the means by which we seek, all play a role in the circumstances of life. We do not sit idly by and sin is thrust upon us, at least not in the baseline experience. Even Adam and Eve had to eat of the fruit before their disobedience was complete.
Keep this in mind then, the next time you see someone "working hard", in that just because someone is not lazy or apathetic does not mean they are participating in a process of sanctification. Some are working hard towards their own destruction, whether they know it or not.
The wages of the wicked to sin.
Proverbs 10:16 (NKJV).
If you've ever known someone who worked hard to try and avoid actually working, then you are already familiar with the sentiment that Solomon seeks to share with us in this verse. Another manifestation might be, after someone has worked hard but not achieved the result they desired, still want some sort of credit for the efforts they put forth regardless.
It is possible to busy yourself and fill your life in such a fashion that you never have any rest, but the reward for your toil is not life but death.
I once chatted with a fellow about a pornography addiction and tools that can be put on a computer to help prevent being able to access such content on the internet. I was somewhat taken aback at the casual manner in which he indicated that he would just find a way to circumvent the mechanisms because his addiction was sufficiently strong.
His wages for such a work, to pursue poison for the mind, is sin.
Conversely, it is not easy to study the Bible. While at times we can be filled with a religious fervor, often we are distracted, tempted away by the concerns and opportunities of this life before us now. Yet if we struggle against those and pursue truth contained within scripture, we will find it and the reward will be life.
When it comes to salvation, this life is everlasting in the presence of God, but the Bible also contains truths that apply to the temporal world regarding wisdom, appropriate behaviors, and ideal paths to walk whilst still in the flesh.
For example, God forbids fornication, but doesn't spend a lot of time explaining the rather long list of reasons why that is an unwise and sinful act. We can see that some people expend considerable effort to fornicate in a maximally pleasurable manner, and since their desires are wicked, the results of their efforts is sin. Others who seek to avoid such interactions, are also having to work hard because we live in an openly sexual society where "everyone is doing it", and so the effort is not so much an active pursuit but ironically a resistance to the barrage of temptation and pressure.
It takes effort to sin or to avoid it, and so how we expend our energy, to what end we seek as well as the means by which we seek, all play a role in the circumstances of life. We do not sit idly by and sin is thrust upon us, at least not in the baseline experience. Even Adam and Eve had to eat of the fruit before their disobedience was complete.
Keep this in mind then, the next time you see someone "working hard", in that just because someone is not lazy or apathetic does not mean they are participating in a process of sanctification. Some are working hard towards their own destruction, whether they know it or not.
31.5.18
Daily Bible Study - Proverbs 10:15
The rich man’s wealth is his strong city;
The destruction of the poor is their poverty.
Proverbs 10:15 (NKJV).
Sometimes the message is very simple, but what comes out of that simplicity can become rather complex. When you have resources, you have means by which you can protect yourself, you have means by which you can manifest your will in this world, and if you do not have resources or power, those that do can rule over you.
Think of the phrase "beggars can't be choosers." The nugget of truth here is that if you do not have, and you are asking from those who do, and especially if it is not deserved (like a wage), the person asking is in no position to deny that which they have been given.
In our modern world, however, this has been upended by the "victim identity". No longer is your moral value determined by the choices you make, but by the choices others have made which negatively affected you, and so now restitution must be made and there are none who have any moral authority to disagree.
Rooted in consequences, there is some element of this dynamic which holds true. If you've been wronged by someone else, then restitution does need to be made, and the Bible shows records of how that process worked for Israel on a variety of different topics. The terms and conditions were set beforehand so that a vindictive spirit would not prevail in the process of restitution, but note that even here within Proverbs we have seen that some sins bear a cost which cannot ever be repaid.
When the dynamic of being wronged and needing restitution goes beyond a circumstance and becomes your identity, however, you are perpetually wronged and perpetually justified in whatever you do in seeking restitution.
On modern secular morality, the "beggar is the chooser", and so everyone is in a rush to be recognized as the most impoverished, the most persecuted, the most victimized, so as to maximize their currency in the economy of victim-hood. The bigger the victim you are, the more you can demand, and the less anyone can say anything about it.
Instead of seeking to be the rich man, then, people seek to be the poor man so they can just take the rich man's riches for themselves, as that is indefinitely easier than having to earn and keep those riches by their own efforts.
All the sudden, you deserve anything and everything you can imagine, because if you've been infinitely wronged, you're entitled to an infinite amount of "right", of "justice", to compensate.
Solomon's wisdom is that resources are a form of protection, and in the modern economy, the "riches" are no longer monetary, but circumstantial. In the modern world, "victimization" is the stronghold of the "rich", and the "oppression" of the "poor" is their destruction. It almost makes sense, doesn't it?
Either way, keep in mind this dynamic the next time someone promotes asceticism, or discusses reconciliation for some fictional wrongdoing. What you are being asked to give up is power over your circumstances in order to gain power in some abstract dimension of moral economics.
It's always about power, who has it, and what they'll do with it, and at the most basic level, everyone wants to survive and thrive, so they're going to scheme and toil as best they can to achieve just that.
Everyone is doing it, there are no exceptions, and people who claim otherwise are prime examples of those whose strategy requires deceit and lies instead of a more direct confrontation.
The destruction of the poor is their poverty.
Proverbs 10:15 (NKJV).
Sometimes the message is very simple, but what comes out of that simplicity can become rather complex. When you have resources, you have means by which you can protect yourself, you have means by which you can manifest your will in this world, and if you do not have resources or power, those that do can rule over you.
Think of the phrase "beggars can't be choosers." The nugget of truth here is that if you do not have, and you are asking from those who do, and especially if it is not deserved (like a wage), the person asking is in no position to deny that which they have been given.
In our modern world, however, this has been upended by the "victim identity". No longer is your moral value determined by the choices you make, but by the choices others have made which negatively affected you, and so now restitution must be made and there are none who have any moral authority to disagree.
Rooted in consequences, there is some element of this dynamic which holds true. If you've been wronged by someone else, then restitution does need to be made, and the Bible shows records of how that process worked for Israel on a variety of different topics. The terms and conditions were set beforehand so that a vindictive spirit would not prevail in the process of restitution, but note that even here within Proverbs we have seen that some sins bear a cost which cannot ever be repaid.
When the dynamic of being wronged and needing restitution goes beyond a circumstance and becomes your identity, however, you are perpetually wronged and perpetually justified in whatever you do in seeking restitution.
On modern secular morality, the "beggar is the chooser", and so everyone is in a rush to be recognized as the most impoverished, the most persecuted, the most victimized, so as to maximize their currency in the economy of victim-hood. The bigger the victim you are, the more you can demand, and the less anyone can say anything about it.
Instead of seeking to be the rich man, then, people seek to be the poor man so they can just take the rich man's riches for themselves, as that is indefinitely easier than having to earn and keep those riches by their own efforts.
All the sudden, you deserve anything and everything you can imagine, because if you've been infinitely wronged, you're entitled to an infinite amount of "right", of "justice", to compensate.
Solomon's wisdom is that resources are a form of protection, and in the modern economy, the "riches" are no longer monetary, but circumstantial. In the modern world, "victimization" is the stronghold of the "rich", and the "oppression" of the "poor" is their destruction. It almost makes sense, doesn't it?
Either way, keep in mind this dynamic the next time someone promotes asceticism, or discusses reconciliation for some fictional wrongdoing. What you are being asked to give up is power over your circumstances in order to gain power in some abstract dimension of moral economics.
It's always about power, who has it, and what they'll do with it, and at the most basic level, everyone wants to survive and thrive, so they're going to scheme and toil as best they can to achieve just that.
Everyone is doing it, there are no exceptions, and people who claim otherwise are prime examples of those whose strategy requires deceit and lies instead of a more direct confrontation.
30.5.18
Daily Bible Study - Proverbs 10:14
Wise people store up knowledge,
But the mouth of the foolish is near destruction.
Proverbs 10:14 (NKJV).
You should change "gurus" when they have no longer provide a path to truth. Whether this is a pastor at your church, or someone who shares the same hobby or interests, you should humble yourself and learn as much as you can from their greater experience, but then you must move on.
Wisdom is not itself an action, it's the guidance behind action, and to grow in wisdom you must grow in knowledge so that you can see the patterns in your circumstance and align it to the wisdom and knowledge you've already gained.
Take the earlier portions of Proverbs, for example. If you were to take the information too literally, you'd think that all you need to do to avoid adultery is not walk down particular streets. While "red light" districts are an exception, the true knowledge isn't in the specifics of how the ignorant fool was ensnared, but that he could be ensnared at all and what behaviors would be used by the immoral woman to ensnare him.
Compare this to the old adage about "teaching a man to fish" versus "giving a man a fish". Wisdom is not about giving someone a fish, a single correct answer which, outside that specific problem showing back up again, is essentially useless. Wisdom is about teaching how to fish, teaching the underlying dynamics, the patterns, and growing in knowledge about how all these things can interact with each other to produce unique circumstances where universal truths are still applicable.
In this short passage, the contrast between the wise and foolish is in how they spend time, what it is that could define them. In our lives, we've been around people who talk too much, folks who run at the mouth and don't ever listen. That's the kind of fool being described, because if you persist in speaking, eventually you'll say something that will ensnare you somehow, and the probability of that happening increases the more ignorant you are.
We know this colloquially under the label "inappropriate". Talking about disbursement of inheritance at the memorial service, for example, might be seen as lacking tact. A fool would run off at the mouth and offend their family and generate antagonism out of their ignorance as to the appropriate time to discuss such matters.
It's in this fashion that the words a person uses cannot, by themselves, tell you everything. You need context, and that's where the "wise" who are gathering knowledge will be quick to listen and slow to speak, wisdom which shows up later in scripture.
The fool doesn't know about or doesn't care about the consequences of destruction that their tongue will bring upon them, but the wise will speak, and act, with prudence and intention.
Solomon is drawing attention to this dynamic in the contrast between the wise who could share the knowledge they've gained versus the foolish whose lips will bring destruction.
Any one "guru" will have some sample of truth, a finite collection of useful knowledge, and you will eventually hit their limit and need to continue your journey. With God there is no limit, but we are not really interacting directly with God, but with people who have interacted with God, and whose knowledge is filtered through their own life experiences and ponders.
To continue gathering knowledge, then, you need to learn from people who have had different experiences and combine that with what you've already learned to synthesize your understanding of the universal truths behind the specific occurrences, to find the patterns, to see them play out, and to practice identifying where you are in any one pattern.
You can't do that by talking all the time.You need to listen, to gather knowledge.
“It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.” - Mark Twain
But the mouth of the foolish is near destruction.
Proverbs 10:14 (NKJV).
You should change "gurus" when they have no longer provide a path to truth. Whether this is a pastor at your church, or someone who shares the same hobby or interests, you should humble yourself and learn as much as you can from their greater experience, but then you must move on.
Wisdom is not itself an action, it's the guidance behind action, and to grow in wisdom you must grow in knowledge so that you can see the patterns in your circumstance and align it to the wisdom and knowledge you've already gained.
Take the earlier portions of Proverbs, for example. If you were to take the information too literally, you'd think that all you need to do to avoid adultery is not walk down particular streets. While "red light" districts are an exception, the true knowledge isn't in the specifics of how the ignorant fool was ensnared, but that he could be ensnared at all and what behaviors would be used by the immoral woman to ensnare him.
Compare this to the old adage about "teaching a man to fish" versus "giving a man a fish". Wisdom is not about giving someone a fish, a single correct answer which, outside that specific problem showing back up again, is essentially useless. Wisdom is about teaching how to fish, teaching the underlying dynamics, the patterns, and growing in knowledge about how all these things can interact with each other to produce unique circumstances where universal truths are still applicable.
In this short passage, the contrast between the wise and foolish is in how they spend time, what it is that could define them. In our lives, we've been around people who talk too much, folks who run at the mouth and don't ever listen. That's the kind of fool being described, because if you persist in speaking, eventually you'll say something that will ensnare you somehow, and the probability of that happening increases the more ignorant you are.
We know this colloquially under the label "inappropriate". Talking about disbursement of inheritance at the memorial service, for example, might be seen as lacking tact. A fool would run off at the mouth and offend their family and generate antagonism out of their ignorance as to the appropriate time to discuss such matters.
It's in this fashion that the words a person uses cannot, by themselves, tell you everything. You need context, and that's where the "wise" who are gathering knowledge will be quick to listen and slow to speak, wisdom which shows up later in scripture.
The fool doesn't know about or doesn't care about the consequences of destruction that their tongue will bring upon them, but the wise will speak, and act, with prudence and intention.
Solomon is drawing attention to this dynamic in the contrast between the wise who could share the knowledge they've gained versus the foolish whose lips will bring destruction.
Any one "guru" will have some sample of truth, a finite collection of useful knowledge, and you will eventually hit their limit and need to continue your journey. With God there is no limit, but we are not really interacting directly with God, but with people who have interacted with God, and whose knowledge is filtered through their own life experiences and ponders.
To continue gathering knowledge, then, you need to learn from people who have had different experiences and combine that with what you've already learned to synthesize your understanding of the universal truths behind the specific occurrences, to find the patterns, to see them play out, and to practice identifying where you are in any one pattern.
You can't do that by talking all the time.You need to listen, to gather knowledge.
“It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.” - Mark Twain
29.5.18
Daily Bible Study - Proverbs 10:13
Wisdom is found on the lips of him who has understanding,
But a rod is for the back of him who is devoid of understanding.
Proverbs 10:13 (NKJV).
Perhaps it's just the timing, but of late it's been on my mind that our lives have an inertia to them when we are intentional about how we live. When we take the time to think about what we do, why we do it, even down to what we say, not leaving anything entirely to chance. We experience no fewer struggles or setbacks, but because we've practiced intent, when circumstances really do demand our attention and our focused application of skill, even when things are going terribly for us we can keep moving forward.
In this passage, it's easy to desire understanding, if for no other reason than to avoid the contrast with the rod to our backs. Images of old childhood disciplinary methods bubble up, and that's not accidental given that wisdom and discipline are connected.
This seems rather obvious, right? Who would want to lack understanding if that meant "the rod"?
Thus the nature of the first deceit in Genesis, and the root of the most frequent pattern that has continued to this day. The deceit is that the rod doesn't exist, that consequences don't matter. You can choose whatever you want, do whatever you want, there is no "wrong".
And in turn, there is then no value in the sacrifices, the discipline, that is associated with wisdom.
Even in modern manufacturing we see this philosophy make an appearance, designing gadgets and widgets which can be assembled and subsequently operated with less and less skill required. The superficial claim is that this means that production is more efficient, less time wasted on steps for "quality", which are by nature not "value-added" activities. The end-users also don't have to waste time learning or validating anything, but can instead spend time just "doing".
Yet in practice the results are that because the people assembling and operating the gadgets and widgets don't need to be as skilled, they'll simply adapt and yesterday's "easy" becomes today's "normal", and folks start complaining all over again about the difficulties being faced. Instead of using that extra time more effectively, we fill it with wasteful activities, because whenever we've got a surplus of a resource, we never naturally try to make the most of it.
It's abundant, so why should we pinch pennies if we're "rich"?
We instinctively relegate our learning to only to that which are absolutely mandatory, what we're forced to learn, in the name of "efficiency". While we do then spend more time "doing", when anything goes wrong we have to stop, call on the services of someone who knows what to do next, and after the problem has been resolved we can then continue. Hopefully we also learn from the event so that we can avoid requiring assistance in the future, but if assistance is readily available, there's no pressure to take that understanding upon yourself.
We become like children, entirely incapable of acting beyond our current understanding, and constantly in need of "adults" to look after us, to direct us from moment-to-moment, to issue correction so that we can understand, and yet never really needing to grow up or go beyond what we know at the same time.
None of us knows everything, we all need help and assistance from time to time, we all have a lot that we could learn and have to select only so much to try and take on at a time, but that process is not prevented by anything but our own lack of motivation. There's nothing stopping us, we just don't want to do it.
And so we invite the rod to motivate us instead.
Wisdom without the welts would be so much better, no?
But a rod is for the back of him who is devoid of understanding.
Proverbs 10:13 (NKJV).
Perhaps it's just the timing, but of late it's been on my mind that our lives have an inertia to them when we are intentional about how we live. When we take the time to think about what we do, why we do it, even down to what we say, not leaving anything entirely to chance. We experience no fewer struggles or setbacks, but because we've practiced intent, when circumstances really do demand our attention and our focused application of skill, even when things are going terribly for us we can keep moving forward.
In this passage, it's easy to desire understanding, if for no other reason than to avoid the contrast with the rod to our backs. Images of old childhood disciplinary methods bubble up, and that's not accidental given that wisdom and discipline are connected.
This seems rather obvious, right? Who would want to lack understanding if that meant "the rod"?
Thus the nature of the first deceit in Genesis, and the root of the most frequent pattern that has continued to this day. The deceit is that the rod doesn't exist, that consequences don't matter. You can choose whatever you want, do whatever you want, there is no "wrong".
And in turn, there is then no value in the sacrifices, the discipline, that is associated with wisdom.
Even in modern manufacturing we see this philosophy make an appearance, designing gadgets and widgets which can be assembled and subsequently operated with less and less skill required. The superficial claim is that this means that production is more efficient, less time wasted on steps for "quality", which are by nature not "value-added" activities. The end-users also don't have to waste time learning or validating anything, but can instead spend time just "doing".
Yet in practice the results are that because the people assembling and operating the gadgets and widgets don't need to be as skilled, they'll simply adapt and yesterday's "easy" becomes today's "normal", and folks start complaining all over again about the difficulties being faced. Instead of using that extra time more effectively, we fill it with wasteful activities, because whenever we've got a surplus of a resource, we never naturally try to make the most of it.
It's abundant, so why should we pinch pennies if we're "rich"?
We instinctively relegate our learning to only to that which are absolutely mandatory, what we're forced to learn, in the name of "efficiency". While we do then spend more time "doing", when anything goes wrong we have to stop, call on the services of someone who knows what to do next, and after the problem has been resolved we can then continue. Hopefully we also learn from the event so that we can avoid requiring assistance in the future, but if assistance is readily available, there's no pressure to take that understanding upon yourself.
We become like children, entirely incapable of acting beyond our current understanding, and constantly in need of "adults" to look after us, to direct us from moment-to-moment, to issue correction so that we can understand, and yet never really needing to grow up or go beyond what we know at the same time.
None of us knows everything, we all need help and assistance from time to time, we all have a lot that we could learn and have to select only so much to try and take on at a time, but that process is not prevented by anything but our own lack of motivation. There's nothing stopping us, we just don't want to do it.
And so we invite the rod to motivate us instead.
Wisdom without the welts would be so much better, no?
3.5.18
Daily Bible Study - Proverbs 10:12
Hatred stirs up strife,
But love covers all sins.
Proverbs 10:12 (NKJV).
Love is an idea that has a lot of connotations, being used in a wide range of contexts. It's associated with feelings, with circumstances, with preferences, with motivations, it shows up pretty much everywhere.
Here, love is used in a contrast with hate in how people behave, where love can overcome problems, and hatred will cause them. Seems easy, right?
The question then is "why doesn't everybody love everybody else?"
Simply, the reason is because it costs to love, and finite beings have limited resources.
Humans are affected by the consequences of sin, and there are problems that we do not have the capacity to just ignore. Because of this relationship, where we are not independent from sin, humans cannot really love one another unconditionally. It's simply beyond our capacity, by definition, because we are not omnipotent.
We can try, and learn to love more, but we'll never perfect it, which is why Solomon spends so much time trying to warn against the follies of sin. People who love us will seek means for reconciliation, even at a cost to themselves, but for everyone else our sin creates a debt that must be repaid by our efforts, not by guilt-tripping those we have sinned against to "just love us".
You see, modern philosophies seek to try and invert the dynamic of the debt of sin, in that when someone wrongs you, it's your job to "be the bigger person" and absorb the damage caused from sinful behavior, while those who have sinned against you get off with little more than a stern warning.
People did this with God and with other people, which is why the universal salvation heresies became so popular. All of the sudden, it wasn't about how badly we have sinned and fallen short, but about how much God loves us, and how God would absolve all the consequences of our sin because of that love.
The truth is that God's love does not exist in a vacuum, and in fixating on God's love, God's justice and wrath were ignored, to the eternal peril of many. Sin is a violation of what God desires for our existence, it's a rebellion against God's order of things, and when we sin we bear the responsibility for the damage we cause, to correct what we have done wrong.
Jesus Christ did not eliminate that cost, merely repaid the debt conditionally, where we still have to accept his sacrifice on our behalf, to place our faith in him and not on anything else. This is easier said than done, because just saying it, or thinking it, isn't doing it.
While our actions are not what saves us, they do reflect that we have been saved and by demonstrating that we have genuinely shifted our priorities to reflect understanding truth and not continuing to entertain hollow fictions of our own designs. Even so, when tapped into the love that God has for us, and that can then be shared with others, we are still limited on our capacity. We are still damaged by sin. We are still limited in our ability to resolve the consequences of sin, and so even on the "other side" of salvation, we are never able to love unconditionally the way that God does.
Look, for example, at the New Testament recommendations relating to behavior of "brothers" in the church living in unrepentant sin. We are not to maintain intimacy with them, we are not to try and "cover" their sin with our (or God's) love, but we are instead to protect the body from the consequences of such unabashed sinful behavior and no longer have fellowship with them.
If one commits murder, does "love" bring the person murdered back to life?
If one commits adultery, does "love" undo the adulterous affair?
If one is drunk, does "love" bring down blood-alcohol content?
Love then does not eliminate sin, but simply provides a reason, a justification, as to why grace or mercy could be shown at all.
Love is cited as powerful, and while true, we have to be honest about our own limitations and not be deceived by lofty rhetoric which leads us down a path of destruction. Humans are finite creatures, our love is always limited, even when we are reconciled to God, and so despite our best intentions we will find we have inspired only hatred and conflict when our "love" has run out and there is still a debt to pay for our sins.
People do not hate those who could not ever pay their debts, but they would especially hate one who claimed they would to then back out at the last minute due to foolishness.
But love covers all sins.
Proverbs 10:12 (NKJV).
Love is an idea that has a lot of connotations, being used in a wide range of contexts. It's associated with feelings, with circumstances, with preferences, with motivations, it shows up pretty much everywhere.
Here, love is used in a contrast with hate in how people behave, where love can overcome problems, and hatred will cause them. Seems easy, right?
The question then is "why doesn't everybody love everybody else?"
Simply, the reason is because it costs to love, and finite beings have limited resources.
Humans are affected by the consequences of sin, and there are problems that we do not have the capacity to just ignore. Because of this relationship, where we are not independent from sin, humans cannot really love one another unconditionally. It's simply beyond our capacity, by definition, because we are not omnipotent.
We can try, and learn to love more, but we'll never perfect it, which is why Solomon spends so much time trying to warn against the follies of sin. People who love us will seek means for reconciliation, even at a cost to themselves, but for everyone else our sin creates a debt that must be repaid by our efforts, not by guilt-tripping those we have sinned against to "just love us".
You see, modern philosophies seek to try and invert the dynamic of the debt of sin, in that when someone wrongs you, it's your job to "be the bigger person" and absorb the damage caused from sinful behavior, while those who have sinned against you get off with little more than a stern warning.
People did this with God and with other people, which is why the universal salvation heresies became so popular. All of the sudden, it wasn't about how badly we have sinned and fallen short, but about how much God loves us, and how God would absolve all the consequences of our sin because of that love.
The truth is that God's love does not exist in a vacuum, and in fixating on God's love, God's justice and wrath were ignored, to the eternal peril of many. Sin is a violation of what God desires for our existence, it's a rebellion against God's order of things, and when we sin we bear the responsibility for the damage we cause, to correct what we have done wrong.
Jesus Christ did not eliminate that cost, merely repaid the debt conditionally, where we still have to accept his sacrifice on our behalf, to place our faith in him and not on anything else. This is easier said than done, because just saying it, or thinking it, isn't doing it.
While our actions are not what saves us, they do reflect that we have been saved and by demonstrating that we have genuinely shifted our priorities to reflect understanding truth and not continuing to entertain hollow fictions of our own designs. Even so, when tapped into the love that God has for us, and that can then be shared with others, we are still limited on our capacity. We are still damaged by sin. We are still limited in our ability to resolve the consequences of sin, and so even on the "other side" of salvation, we are never able to love unconditionally the way that God does.
Look, for example, at the New Testament recommendations relating to behavior of "brothers" in the church living in unrepentant sin. We are not to maintain intimacy with them, we are not to try and "cover" their sin with our (or God's) love, but we are instead to protect the body from the consequences of such unabashed sinful behavior and no longer have fellowship with them.
If one commits murder, does "love" bring the person murdered back to life?
If one commits adultery, does "love" undo the adulterous affair?
If one is drunk, does "love" bring down blood-alcohol content?
Love then does not eliminate sin, but simply provides a reason, a justification, as to why grace or mercy could be shown at all.
Love is cited as powerful, and while true, we have to be honest about our own limitations and not be deceived by lofty rhetoric which leads us down a path of destruction. Humans are finite creatures, our love is always limited, even when we are reconciled to God, and so despite our best intentions we will find we have inspired only hatred and conflict when our "love" has run out and there is still a debt to pay for our sins.
People do not hate those who could not ever pay their debts, but they would especially hate one who claimed they would to then back out at the last minute due to foolishness.
2.5.18
Daily Bible Study: Proverbs 10:11
The mouth of the righteous is a well of life,
But violence covers the mouth of the wicked.
Proverbs 10:11 (NKJV).
How many people have ever died for an ideal? Sacrificed their own lives in pursuit of some goal, some state of being?
Now, how many people have died for someone else's ideal? Sacrificed their own lives in pursuit of someone else's goal, someone else's state of being?
The contrast here is highlighted by Jesus Christ, who died for the sake of humanity, for the ideal of God to reconcile us in a way which we could never possibly do on our own.
The rest of us?
We only aspire to such sacrifices, or at least, we do so publicly. We want the social credit of being so loving, but without actually making the sacrifices that make such a response justified.
The wicked sell all sorts of paths to salvation. Get rich quick, get revenge on someone who wronged you, enjoy yourself and then skip out on the bills. Deny God and live in sin and resist the calling of the Holy Spirit in your heart, the true and only unforgivable sin.
In each case the sinner is taking action, and the actions are destructive. Adultery, fornication, murder, theft, all of them acts of aggression, justified in various ways, but all different types of violence.
In the original language, here are the various ways that the word "covers" is translated throughout the Bible in the NASB:
closed (2), clothed (1), conceal (1), conceals (8), cover (50), covered (51), covering (4), covers (20), engulfed (3), forgive (1), hidden (1), hide (2), keep (1), made a covering (1), overwhelm (2), overwhelmed (2), take refuge (1).
Notice the connotation, and apply it back to the passage. "Actions speak louder than words".
Where the wise speak and their words bring life, the wicked are silenced by their own actions.
Who cares about the "equality" in economic and social status if it requires the death of millions to sustain it?
Who cares about the "freedom" from parental burdens if it requires the murder of the unborn to attain it?
The wicked are quick with the tongue, but their feet and hands are quicker, and they sow only destruction in their path, hating all that is "good", all that is "wise", not being content to leave well enough alone and pursue their own ends, they must also seek validation from others to compensate for the nagging realization that they are terribly wrong and terribly damned and nothing they do can change that.
The immoral woman, referenced earlier in Proverbs, lured ignorant men in with empty flattery and wordplay like "honey". Desirable, lofty, something that one would want.
But to achieve such ends requires violence. It requires hostile, action be taken, and in due time no amount of empty rhetoric can distract from the natural consequences of those actions.
Be wary of the wicked, and in keeping company with them, for you cannot protect yourself from them with the same empty words that they use, but through the capacity for and strength to resist the violence they would seek to bring upon you to suit their ends.
While we can dream of being so strong, in the end only God is infinite in this regard, which is why it took an act of God to provide a path of reconciliation, and it's only by acts of God that our hard hearts are softened to understand truth.
Do not resist the work of God, and do not look away from the violence caused by the wicked. Understand where it comes from and why, and flee from those who do evil in the name of doing good.
But violence covers the mouth of the wicked.
Proverbs 10:11 (NKJV).
How many people have ever died for an ideal? Sacrificed their own lives in pursuit of some goal, some state of being?
Now, how many people have died for someone else's ideal? Sacrificed their own lives in pursuit of someone else's goal, someone else's state of being?
The contrast here is highlighted by Jesus Christ, who died for the sake of humanity, for the ideal of God to reconcile us in a way which we could never possibly do on our own.
The rest of us?
We only aspire to such sacrifices, or at least, we do so publicly. We want the social credit of being so loving, but without actually making the sacrifices that make such a response justified.
The wicked sell all sorts of paths to salvation. Get rich quick, get revenge on someone who wronged you, enjoy yourself and then skip out on the bills. Deny God and live in sin and resist the calling of the Holy Spirit in your heart, the true and only unforgivable sin.
In each case the sinner is taking action, and the actions are destructive. Adultery, fornication, murder, theft, all of them acts of aggression, justified in various ways, but all different types of violence.
In the original language, here are the various ways that the word "covers" is translated throughout the Bible in the NASB:
closed (2), clothed (1), conceal (1), conceals (8), cover (50), covered (51), covering (4), covers (20), engulfed (3), forgive (1), hidden (1), hide (2), keep (1), made a covering (1), overwhelm (2), overwhelmed (2), take refuge (1).
Notice the connotation, and apply it back to the passage. "Actions speak louder than words".
Where the wise speak and their words bring life, the wicked are silenced by their own actions.
Who cares about the "equality" in economic and social status if it requires the death of millions to sustain it?
Who cares about the "freedom" from parental burdens if it requires the murder of the unborn to attain it?
The wicked are quick with the tongue, but their feet and hands are quicker, and they sow only destruction in their path, hating all that is "good", all that is "wise", not being content to leave well enough alone and pursue their own ends, they must also seek validation from others to compensate for the nagging realization that they are terribly wrong and terribly damned and nothing they do can change that.
The immoral woman, referenced earlier in Proverbs, lured ignorant men in with empty flattery and wordplay like "honey". Desirable, lofty, something that one would want.
But to achieve such ends requires violence. It requires hostile, action be taken, and in due time no amount of empty rhetoric can distract from the natural consequences of those actions.
Be wary of the wicked, and in keeping company with them, for you cannot protect yourself from them with the same empty words that they use, but through the capacity for and strength to resist the violence they would seek to bring upon you to suit their ends.
While we can dream of being so strong, in the end only God is infinite in this regard, which is why it took an act of God to provide a path of reconciliation, and it's only by acts of God that our hard hearts are softened to understand truth.
Do not resist the work of God, and do not look away from the violence caused by the wicked. Understand where it comes from and why, and flee from those who do evil in the name of doing good.
1.5.18
Daily Bible Study: Proverbs 10:10
He who winks with the eye causes trouble,
But a prating fool will fall.
Proverbs 10:10 (NKJV).
There's an adage that goes "oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive."
Winking of the eyes, or shuffling of the feet, are old testament phrases which connote when someone is scheming or planning something, or when you need to be able to send secret messages, and which in a high-trust society, would look entirely out of place and suspicious.
It's thus not difficult to imagine that even pretending to "send signals" will draw undue attention and problems, whether you've really anything to hide or not. Just think about it briefly, why would you behave like someone sketchy without a good reason? Why would you intentionally draw attention to your own behavior in this manner?
In addition, we've got a direct repeat of the prior phrase about prating fools, the obnoxious and verbose type of fool who runs at the mouth. So, what's the contrast here?
While behaving in an odd manner causes problems, or at least implies them, regardless of one's intent, it won't necessarily cause problems like blabbing endlessly can. While causing trouble is not good, falling is downright bad.
People may think you odd, and you may have to explain your behavior to alleviate curiosity, but if you're incessant in conversation, you'll blurt out things which you have no need to say at all in the first place.
More than once in popular culture have there been comedy routines where someone was trying to convey some sort of secret message, and their failure to do so was the source of the humor. These types of scenarios often endear us to the characters, because we can understand communication difficulties, and how perceptions can mislead and cause unintended problems.
However, we do not ever really like the chatterbox. The humor is always at their expense, mocking who they are and not just what they're doing at that time. We laugh at them, not with them.
Similarly, when outside the realm of comedy, we treat people different based on their behaviors, because those behaviors have a reason behind them and we're responding to that reason, as best we understand it.
While those who scheme may still be fools, the consequences for their behavior are different, and in the process of seeking wisdom it's good to understand that not all bad behavior leads to the exact same negative consequences. This is not to redeem or to suggest that the "less bad" are acceptable, but just to understand the dynamics of behavior and what's really going on and how our actions lead to different consequences.
But a prating fool will fall.
Proverbs 10:10 (NKJV).
There's an adage that goes "oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive."
Winking of the eyes, or shuffling of the feet, are old testament phrases which connote when someone is scheming or planning something, or when you need to be able to send secret messages, and which in a high-trust society, would look entirely out of place and suspicious.
It's thus not difficult to imagine that even pretending to "send signals" will draw undue attention and problems, whether you've really anything to hide or not. Just think about it briefly, why would you behave like someone sketchy without a good reason? Why would you intentionally draw attention to your own behavior in this manner?
In addition, we've got a direct repeat of the prior phrase about prating fools, the obnoxious and verbose type of fool who runs at the mouth. So, what's the contrast here?
While behaving in an odd manner causes problems, or at least implies them, regardless of one's intent, it won't necessarily cause problems like blabbing endlessly can. While causing trouble is not good, falling is downright bad.
People may think you odd, and you may have to explain your behavior to alleviate curiosity, but if you're incessant in conversation, you'll blurt out things which you have no need to say at all in the first place.
More than once in popular culture have there been comedy routines where someone was trying to convey some sort of secret message, and their failure to do so was the source of the humor. These types of scenarios often endear us to the characters, because we can understand communication difficulties, and how perceptions can mislead and cause unintended problems.
However, we do not ever really like the chatterbox. The humor is always at their expense, mocking who they are and not just what they're doing at that time. We laugh at them, not with them.
Similarly, when outside the realm of comedy, we treat people different based on their behaviors, because those behaviors have a reason behind them and we're responding to that reason, as best we understand it.
While those who scheme may still be fools, the consequences for their behavior are different, and in the process of seeking wisdom it's good to understand that not all bad behavior leads to the exact same negative consequences. This is not to redeem or to suggest that the "less bad" are acceptable, but just to understand the dynamics of behavior and what's really going on and how our actions lead to different consequences.
30.4.18
Daily Bible Study: Proverbs 10:8-9
The wise in heart will receive commands,
But a prating fool will fall.
He who walks with integrity walks securely,
But he who perverts his ways will become known.
Proverbs 10:8-9 (NKJV).
Your ways will find you out, sooner or later. That is the inevitability of a world which is constantly veering towards chaos, or at least an order which is not hospitable to our own comfort, let alone survival.
Knowing that, from prior passages, the wise are already self-aware, being able to receive commands is just an extension of receiving wisdom and guidance. For the same reason that you are humbling yourself to learn from God, you can do the same for those in positions of authority over you. This is especially important when dealing with complicated circumstances where your own perceptions are limited and you need to rely on someone who is looking at things from a bigger perspective.
In contrast, we have the fools who run the spectrum on whether their folly is discovered in the short or long term. The "prating fool" is obvious, and we've all run into them in our lives, the type of person who can't be told anything but has to be the one making all the pertinent points in a conversation, dominating it. Even if all they're contributing is the sound of their voice, they must simply keep talking.
This first group falls because their decisions are only as good as their ability to act on their own perceptions, and given that we're all finite beings, we're prone to misunderstandings. There are generally three types of knowledge: what you know you know, what you know you don't know, and what you don't know you don't know.
For the prating fool, the first type of information they have in spades, at least according to them. The second type only contains information which is irrelevant or useless, and the third type simply doesn't exist. Amusingly, one does not need to think hard about circumstances in their own life where the second type of information became an issue, let alone the third, so again the failures are found in the disparity between claims and reality.
When highly competent, even the prating fool will see success, but only for a time. The immediacy of consequences is not the most important aspect compared to the inevitability of them. For the same reason that, having jumped out of an airplane without a parachute, it doesn't really matter how long you're falling before the final consequences hit, that you may still be halfway to the ground does not mean you won't ever hit the ground.
This also leads to the second group of fools which, while perhaps not as overtly talkative, is still refusing to make choices which are wise. The contrast here is between integrity and perversion, which may imply that even fools who listen to wisdom, but do not then apply it as they indicated they would, are not spared the inevitability of their choices being brought to light.
If someone gives you good advice and you choose to ignore it, the disparity will become obvious as consequences play out, because our behaviors reflect our choices, and pursuing different means will get you different ends that, even if superficially similar, are not quite the same at all.
Take used car sales. The goal is to make a profit selling used cars. One could do this by ensuring that the vehicles are adequately serviced and that you have good customer relations, or by simply pushing the vehicles out the door to the unsuspecting and focusing on volume instead of individual deals.
Both are trying to achieve the same "ends" of making a profit selling used cars, but the means are different, and one will lead to a destroyed reputation, albeit with cash in your pocket faster, than if you'd dealt with integrity and honesty. The ends don't necessarily distinguish, and so the means is how the wise and the fool are distinguished.
Because the fools and the wise behave differently, even if hidden for a time, or blatantly obvious at the outset, the differences will always come to light, and no amount of explanation after-the-fact will change the circumstances from what they are as a result of the past choices.
Listen to wisdom, the exhortations of those whose perspective encompasses information which you may not be aware of, and then move forward with integrity.
But a prating fool will fall.
He who walks with integrity walks securely,
But he who perverts his ways will become known.
Proverbs 10:8-9 (NKJV).
Your ways will find you out, sooner or later. That is the inevitability of a world which is constantly veering towards chaos, or at least an order which is not hospitable to our own comfort, let alone survival.
Knowing that, from prior passages, the wise are already self-aware, being able to receive commands is just an extension of receiving wisdom and guidance. For the same reason that you are humbling yourself to learn from God, you can do the same for those in positions of authority over you. This is especially important when dealing with complicated circumstances where your own perceptions are limited and you need to rely on someone who is looking at things from a bigger perspective.
In contrast, we have the fools who run the spectrum on whether their folly is discovered in the short or long term. The "prating fool" is obvious, and we've all run into them in our lives, the type of person who can't be told anything but has to be the one making all the pertinent points in a conversation, dominating it. Even if all they're contributing is the sound of their voice, they must simply keep talking.
This first group falls because their decisions are only as good as their ability to act on their own perceptions, and given that we're all finite beings, we're prone to misunderstandings. There are generally three types of knowledge: what you know you know, what you know you don't know, and what you don't know you don't know.
For the prating fool, the first type of information they have in spades, at least according to them. The second type only contains information which is irrelevant or useless, and the third type simply doesn't exist. Amusingly, one does not need to think hard about circumstances in their own life where the second type of information became an issue, let alone the third, so again the failures are found in the disparity between claims and reality.
When highly competent, even the prating fool will see success, but only for a time. The immediacy of consequences is not the most important aspect compared to the inevitability of them. For the same reason that, having jumped out of an airplane without a parachute, it doesn't really matter how long you're falling before the final consequences hit, that you may still be halfway to the ground does not mean you won't ever hit the ground.
This also leads to the second group of fools which, while perhaps not as overtly talkative, is still refusing to make choices which are wise. The contrast here is between integrity and perversion, which may imply that even fools who listen to wisdom, but do not then apply it as they indicated they would, are not spared the inevitability of their choices being brought to light.
If someone gives you good advice and you choose to ignore it, the disparity will become obvious as consequences play out, because our behaviors reflect our choices, and pursuing different means will get you different ends that, even if superficially similar, are not quite the same at all.
Take used car sales. The goal is to make a profit selling used cars. One could do this by ensuring that the vehicles are adequately serviced and that you have good customer relations, or by simply pushing the vehicles out the door to the unsuspecting and focusing on volume instead of individual deals.
Both are trying to achieve the same "ends" of making a profit selling used cars, but the means are different, and one will lead to a destroyed reputation, albeit with cash in your pocket faster, than if you'd dealt with integrity and honesty. The ends don't necessarily distinguish, and so the means is how the wise and the fool are distinguished.
Because the fools and the wise behave differently, even if hidden for a time, or blatantly obvious at the outset, the differences will always come to light, and no amount of explanation after-the-fact will change the circumstances from what they are as a result of the past choices.
Listen to wisdom, the exhortations of those whose perspective encompasses information which you may not be aware of, and then move forward with integrity.
29.4.18
Daily Bible Study: Proverbs 10:6-7
Blessings are on the head of the righteous,
But violence covers the mouth of the wicked.
The memory of the righteous is blessed,
But the name of the wicked will rot.
Proverbs 10:6-7 (NKJV).
Life is not without struggles, whether you are in allegiance with God or still living in an unrepentant rebellion. The difference is in what significance those struggles play in your life, and thus how you will be remembered by those who hear tails of your exploits.
For the righteous, struggles are part of the path towards incremental refinement. Temptation is the warning that there is an area of weakness, a warning sign for an avenue for sin to manifest. This weakness is never going to go away completely because we are imperfect beings, and despite our efforts to convince ourselves otherwise, we can't conquer the desires of the flesh without help.
That's where the biggest contrast between the righteous and the wicked comes from, where we place faith. The righteous place their faith in God, in Jesus Christ, as their savior. The wicked place it in themselves, or some other temporal being of significantly more finite power. These beliefs then affect behavior, in the same way that placing a colored lens over a light will make it produce that color of light.
For the righteous, struggles are a stop along the way to a different destination, but for the wicked, the struggles end up defining them, being the end of their journey, because they put their faith in power which denies reality instead of aligns with it. The wicked see the struggle as something to avoid, and in so doing, they will not generate the strength, the inertia, to break through to the "other side".
As an example, if you have small children, they try your patience on a regular basis. They are difficult little solipsists who do not understand reality and will demand that you bend every rule in existence to keep them happy.
The wicked would rather just kill the child, or prevent its conception, and avoid the difficulty altogether because raising a child would distract them from more important achievements in this life. They're not wrong in that children do cost time and money which could otherwise be spent on whatever your heart desired, but it's a short-sighted and myopic view of existence.
Hedonism, by any other name, would still be just as selfish.
This also explains why the wicked are so often surrounded by death. Recently a child was left to die by medical professionals who refused to give the child back to the parents who had secured a means to try and treat their child. They weren't even allowed to try and fight to keep their child alive, they were told that they needed to just let him die and then move on.
Pray tell, how can anything else that comes from the mouth of someone who says that ever be heard? If someone has just told you that you have to accept death, that you cannot struggle, that you cannot expend resources as you see fit, but that you must submit to their higher authority and rule? These folks speak of "freedom" and "empowerment", and yet they must control and micromanage the lives of others to accomplish their goals.
Does it then make sense why the "mouth of the wicked" would be "covered by violence" if what they do and what they say to not match? Their words don't matter in contrast with their actions.
You see, the wicked want to be God. They mimic the relationship dynamics through laws and social manipulation in believing that if they can wrest control over someone else's life, then perhaps they can even one day overturn God's sovereignty over their own existence.
It's that very power they wield which ends up destroying them, because they keep gathering until it overcomes them. There is no point at which "ok I am close enough" ever crosses their mind, it's an all-or-nothing pursuit to become infinite.
This is why struggle refines the righteous and defines the wicked, both now and on into the future, because the "test of time" only makes the disparity all the more clear in hindsight.
But violence covers the mouth of the wicked.
The memory of the righteous is blessed,
But the name of the wicked will rot.
Proverbs 10:6-7 (NKJV).
Life is not without struggles, whether you are in allegiance with God or still living in an unrepentant rebellion. The difference is in what significance those struggles play in your life, and thus how you will be remembered by those who hear tails of your exploits.
For the righteous, struggles are part of the path towards incremental refinement. Temptation is the warning that there is an area of weakness, a warning sign for an avenue for sin to manifest. This weakness is never going to go away completely because we are imperfect beings, and despite our efforts to convince ourselves otherwise, we can't conquer the desires of the flesh without help.
That's where the biggest contrast between the righteous and the wicked comes from, where we place faith. The righteous place their faith in God, in Jesus Christ, as their savior. The wicked place it in themselves, or some other temporal being of significantly more finite power. These beliefs then affect behavior, in the same way that placing a colored lens over a light will make it produce that color of light.
For the righteous, struggles are a stop along the way to a different destination, but for the wicked, the struggles end up defining them, being the end of their journey, because they put their faith in power which denies reality instead of aligns with it. The wicked see the struggle as something to avoid, and in so doing, they will not generate the strength, the inertia, to break through to the "other side".
As an example, if you have small children, they try your patience on a regular basis. They are difficult little solipsists who do not understand reality and will demand that you bend every rule in existence to keep them happy.
The wicked would rather just kill the child, or prevent its conception, and avoid the difficulty altogether because raising a child would distract them from more important achievements in this life. They're not wrong in that children do cost time and money which could otherwise be spent on whatever your heart desired, but it's a short-sighted and myopic view of existence.
Hedonism, by any other name, would still be just as selfish.
This also explains why the wicked are so often surrounded by death. Recently a child was left to die by medical professionals who refused to give the child back to the parents who had secured a means to try and treat their child. They weren't even allowed to try and fight to keep their child alive, they were told that they needed to just let him die and then move on.
Pray tell, how can anything else that comes from the mouth of someone who says that ever be heard? If someone has just told you that you have to accept death, that you cannot struggle, that you cannot expend resources as you see fit, but that you must submit to their higher authority and rule? These folks speak of "freedom" and "empowerment", and yet they must control and micromanage the lives of others to accomplish their goals.
Does it then make sense why the "mouth of the wicked" would be "covered by violence" if what they do and what they say to not match? Their words don't matter in contrast with their actions.
You see, the wicked want to be God. They mimic the relationship dynamics through laws and social manipulation in believing that if they can wrest control over someone else's life, then perhaps they can even one day overturn God's sovereignty over their own existence.
It's that very power they wield which ends up destroying them, because they keep gathering until it overcomes them. There is no point at which "ok I am close enough" ever crosses their mind, it's an all-or-nothing pursuit to become infinite.
This is why struggle refines the righteous and defines the wicked, both now and on into the future, because the "test of time" only makes the disparity all the more clear in hindsight.
27.4.18
Daily Bible Study: Proverbs 10:4-5
He who has a slack hand becomes poor,
But the hand of the diligent makes rich.
He who gathers in summer is a wise son;
He who sleeps in harvest is a son who causes shame.
Proverbs 10:4-5 (NKJV).
We make our own way on this side of life. We eat from what we have worked to obtain, and for those who don't work hard, they must rely on the goodwill and charity of those who did work hard to overlook the personal indiscretion of laziness to keep their stomachs full.
Sometimes people we know run into "hard times" where, even despite their efforts, things just don't go well. People get sick, accidents happen, and nobody lives in a vacuum where they get to control everything, so there are times when the unexpected happens and now you're caught short.
The problem is in figuring out whether folks who need help actually need help, or if they're just lazy and expecting that other people will take care of them. Oh, sometimes it may look like they're "busy", but spinning tires in the mud is not trying to make progress, it's just the appearance of trying.
This dynamic is then compounded in that, due to modern communications and their power, we can be made aware of those that have needs, but we can't really ever understand why. We're supposed to "trust" that everyone who is needy is so for reasons outside their control, and any attempt to validate this is met with hostility.
Pride is the main reason for this, in that people want to have the dignity and respect that is due to someone who has made good choices, but without making the good choices.
The old phrase "beggars can't be choosers" spoke to this, where folks who do not have, for whatever reason, are not entitled to anything that anyone else has, even if it would be a "good" thing to "share".
Life just isn't that simple though, and the further away from someone you are, the easier that it can be to lie about something, and the more one has to gain in doing just that. We can tell ourselves that we're doing "something good", but how many folks are able to validate that with their own two eyes?
We live in an r-selected society due to the prevalence of resources, real or imagined, and so "morality" all gets filtered through this, whether secular or spiritual in nature. If resources are abundant, than anyone "holding out" on someone else is simply being greedy.
There's enough for everyone, quit being so selfish! There's no reason for you to steward resources well either, just give money to whoever provides you the most emotional satisfaction and trust that somehow "God will put it to good use"!
What we're supposed to believe is that, despite humans having a habit of behaving according to human nature, which is sinful, selfish, and to continue beating the dead horse, solipsistic, people on the other side of the world that desperately need help would otherwise be hard working, despite their nation sucking on the teat of foreign aid for decades, and that they're not using the free resources as an excuse to avoid actually developing their own countries through diligence, but that they've just continued to have bad luck year after year despite everything they've tried?
At some point you have to realize that people exist in circumstances which are the result of their own choices, and not some cosmic unfairness in a zero sum system that just happened to hurt only them and now it's time for you to put your cape on and be their savior. People who can make money of cheating and lying are going to do it instead of working hard, whether they live next door to you or on the other side of the globe.
Nations of sheep judged as if they are responsible for the nations of goats, and how nations of goats treat themselves and their own people.
Do not be foolish with the resources you have been granted responsibility for. The only gift we can give freely is the Gospel, the good news from God to all mankind regarding the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on behalf of all, that if your faith is placed in Jesus you would be saved.
Preach Jesus, and see how quickly people want to be associated with you when the only genuinely unconditional love you have to offer comes from God.
But the hand of the diligent makes rich.
He who gathers in summer is a wise son;
He who sleeps in harvest is a son who causes shame.
Proverbs 10:4-5 (NKJV).
We make our own way on this side of life. We eat from what we have worked to obtain, and for those who don't work hard, they must rely on the goodwill and charity of those who did work hard to overlook the personal indiscretion of laziness to keep their stomachs full.
Sometimes people we know run into "hard times" where, even despite their efforts, things just don't go well. People get sick, accidents happen, and nobody lives in a vacuum where they get to control everything, so there are times when the unexpected happens and now you're caught short.
The problem is in figuring out whether folks who need help actually need help, or if they're just lazy and expecting that other people will take care of them. Oh, sometimes it may look like they're "busy", but spinning tires in the mud is not trying to make progress, it's just the appearance of trying.
This dynamic is then compounded in that, due to modern communications and their power, we can be made aware of those that have needs, but we can't really ever understand why. We're supposed to "trust" that everyone who is needy is so for reasons outside their control, and any attempt to validate this is met with hostility.
Pride is the main reason for this, in that people want to have the dignity and respect that is due to someone who has made good choices, but without making the good choices.
The old phrase "beggars can't be choosers" spoke to this, where folks who do not have, for whatever reason, are not entitled to anything that anyone else has, even if it would be a "good" thing to "share".
Life just isn't that simple though, and the further away from someone you are, the easier that it can be to lie about something, and the more one has to gain in doing just that. We can tell ourselves that we're doing "something good", but how many folks are able to validate that with their own two eyes?
We live in an r-selected society due to the prevalence of resources, real or imagined, and so "morality" all gets filtered through this, whether secular or spiritual in nature. If resources are abundant, than anyone "holding out" on someone else is simply being greedy.
There's enough for everyone, quit being so selfish! There's no reason for you to steward resources well either, just give money to whoever provides you the most emotional satisfaction and trust that somehow "God will put it to good use"!
What we're supposed to believe is that, despite humans having a habit of behaving according to human nature, which is sinful, selfish, and to continue beating the dead horse, solipsistic, people on the other side of the world that desperately need help would otherwise be hard working, despite their nation sucking on the teat of foreign aid for decades, and that they're not using the free resources as an excuse to avoid actually developing their own countries through diligence, but that they've just continued to have bad luck year after year despite everything they've tried?
At some point you have to realize that people exist in circumstances which are the result of their own choices, and not some cosmic unfairness in a zero sum system that just happened to hurt only them and now it's time for you to put your cape on and be their savior. People who can make money of cheating and lying are going to do it instead of working hard, whether they live next door to you or on the other side of the globe.
Nations of sheep judged as if they are responsible for the nations of goats, and how nations of goats treat themselves and their own people.
Do not be foolish with the resources you have been granted responsibility for. The only gift we can give freely is the Gospel, the good news from God to all mankind regarding the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on behalf of all, that if your faith is placed in Jesus you would be saved.
Preach Jesus, and see how quickly people want to be associated with you when the only genuinely unconditional love you have to offer comes from God.
26.4.18
Daily Bible Study: Proverbs 10:2-3
Treasures of wickedness profit nothing,
But righteousness delivers from death.
The Lord will not allow the righteous soul to famish,
But He casts away the desire of the wicked.
Proverbs 10:2-3 (NKJV).
Biblical interpretation is not an easy thing, in part because it wasn't written in a single "go", and often without a lot of commentary from the era of origin, so while we can find considerable amounts of commentary and veritable textbooks written about the Bible now, we can't make the text say something that it doesn't and claim that we're being honest about our scriptural interpretation.
Taken most literally, all by itself without any context of the rest of scripture, it is easy to see how this bit of wisdom is simply wrong. Wickedness does profit, in this life at least. There are many righteous souls that have died from starvation.
While there are hints as to a bigger context, "profit" being contrasted with death, if taken literally again this wouldn't make sense in that the righteous die just as frequently as the unrighteous.
Context and meaning then don't come from just this little passage by itself "versus the world", and helps to highlight how there are themes and patterns of wisdom given throughout scripture, and you have to actually have read all of scripture in order to start picking them up yourself.
You have to read and re-read and then learn something completely unrelated and come back and read it again from a different perspective. The scriptures aren't changing at any point, they're trying to say the same thing the whole time, but our capacity to perceive the truth that is presented is contingent, and it changes over time, so it's not that "new truths" were inserted for our benefit, but that they were there the whole time and we just didn't see them.
The "treasures of wickedness profit nothing" because in the end, everyone dies physically, though Solomon is likely referring not to physical death, but spiritual. This theme of death not being physical started way back in Genesis with the serpent asking Eve "Did God really say you would die?"
Immediately after eating the fruit, neither Adam or Eve physically died, so the death was not a physical one, but spiritual. In the same manner, while those familiar with this theme from scripture will automatically begin connecting the dots to the larger connotation, to the memetic quality of the passage, if you just took this by itself it would seem entirely easy to disprove and show to be complete foolishness.
The second portion of the passage even moreso, if you do not know that the "life" being discussed, the nourishment, is not the physical but the spiritual. For those who are righteous, even though the body may suffer and die, their spirit is alive and well, being tended to by God on regular basis.
I hammer on this because, on the surface, God seems to make many promises to those who follow and obey that translate to material gain or satisfaction. The "problem" is that the writers of scripture are accounting for "dimensions" of understanding beyond just what's literally written on the page. They're relying on folks at least grasping that there is complexity, subtlety, nuance.
Without diving into downright gnosticism, re-read the passage and think of it entirely in spiritual terms, in the terms of how you will spend eternity after judgement by God. Separate the physical and the spiritual and understand that the analogy, the similarity, is not meant to be taken literally, but to be taken figuratively in trying to demonstrate a deeper truth through a dynamic that we'd already be familiar with and could then pattern the dynamics of understanding after.
A secular example of this is drawing parallels between plumbing and electrical systems. If you are familiar with how water flows through pipes, the properties of water and whatnot, there are a great many details about electricity which are also understood, despite the fact that we cannot literally see or observe electricity doing these things in the same way that we could with plumbing.
It's the use of an observable dynamic to help understand a hidden one that works of a similar pattern.
In eternity, it won't matter if you were a king or a pauper, what God judges is not your material success but your spiritual success, how well you lived your life according to the perfect standards God has set. Obviously, we all fail to meet this high standard, so it's not in what we did that determines our inevitable fate, but what we did with the works of Jesus Christ.
Do we place our faith in their ability to save us, or do we place our faith in our own works, hoping that they'll be worth anything at all? Do we trust in the fruits of wickedness, of our denying the order that God has set in place, to attempt to pay our fare across the river into the afterlife ourselves, or do we instead give up all claims of glory to make much of Jesus Christ instead?
Our actions betray our allegiances, our priorities.
But righteousness delivers from death.
The Lord will not allow the righteous soul to famish,
But He casts away the desire of the wicked.
Proverbs 10:2-3 (NKJV).
Biblical interpretation is not an easy thing, in part because it wasn't written in a single "go", and often without a lot of commentary from the era of origin, so while we can find considerable amounts of commentary and veritable textbooks written about the Bible now, we can't make the text say something that it doesn't and claim that we're being honest about our scriptural interpretation.
Taken most literally, all by itself without any context of the rest of scripture, it is easy to see how this bit of wisdom is simply wrong. Wickedness does profit, in this life at least. There are many righteous souls that have died from starvation.
While there are hints as to a bigger context, "profit" being contrasted with death, if taken literally again this wouldn't make sense in that the righteous die just as frequently as the unrighteous.
Context and meaning then don't come from just this little passage by itself "versus the world", and helps to highlight how there are themes and patterns of wisdom given throughout scripture, and you have to actually have read all of scripture in order to start picking them up yourself.
You have to read and re-read and then learn something completely unrelated and come back and read it again from a different perspective. The scriptures aren't changing at any point, they're trying to say the same thing the whole time, but our capacity to perceive the truth that is presented is contingent, and it changes over time, so it's not that "new truths" were inserted for our benefit, but that they were there the whole time and we just didn't see them.
The "treasures of wickedness profit nothing" because in the end, everyone dies physically, though Solomon is likely referring not to physical death, but spiritual. This theme of death not being physical started way back in Genesis with the serpent asking Eve "Did God really say you would die?"
Immediately after eating the fruit, neither Adam or Eve physically died, so the death was not a physical one, but spiritual. In the same manner, while those familiar with this theme from scripture will automatically begin connecting the dots to the larger connotation, to the memetic quality of the passage, if you just took this by itself it would seem entirely easy to disprove and show to be complete foolishness.
The second portion of the passage even moreso, if you do not know that the "life" being discussed, the nourishment, is not the physical but the spiritual. For those who are righteous, even though the body may suffer and die, their spirit is alive and well, being tended to by God on regular basis.
I hammer on this because, on the surface, God seems to make many promises to those who follow and obey that translate to material gain or satisfaction. The "problem" is that the writers of scripture are accounting for "dimensions" of understanding beyond just what's literally written on the page. They're relying on folks at least grasping that there is complexity, subtlety, nuance.
Without diving into downright gnosticism, re-read the passage and think of it entirely in spiritual terms, in the terms of how you will spend eternity after judgement by God. Separate the physical and the spiritual and understand that the analogy, the similarity, is not meant to be taken literally, but to be taken figuratively in trying to demonstrate a deeper truth through a dynamic that we'd already be familiar with and could then pattern the dynamics of understanding after.
A secular example of this is drawing parallels between plumbing and electrical systems. If you are familiar with how water flows through pipes, the properties of water and whatnot, there are a great many details about electricity which are also understood, despite the fact that we cannot literally see or observe electricity doing these things in the same way that we could with plumbing.
It's the use of an observable dynamic to help understand a hidden one that works of a similar pattern.
In eternity, it won't matter if you were a king or a pauper, what God judges is not your material success but your spiritual success, how well you lived your life according to the perfect standards God has set. Obviously, we all fail to meet this high standard, so it's not in what we did that determines our inevitable fate, but what we did with the works of Jesus Christ.
Do we place our faith in their ability to save us, or do we place our faith in our own works, hoping that they'll be worth anything at all? Do we trust in the fruits of wickedness, of our denying the order that God has set in place, to attempt to pay our fare across the river into the afterlife ourselves, or do we instead give up all claims of glory to make much of Jesus Christ instead?
Our actions betray our allegiances, our priorities.
25.4.18
Daily Bible Study: Proverbs 10:1
The proverbs of Solomon:
A wise son makes a glad father,
But a foolish son is the grief of his mother.
Proverbs 10:1 (NKJV).
We've gotten past the relatively more extensive narratives in Proverbs and enter into the portion of the book where there are much shorter little tidbits.
This passage speaks to the same dynamic as to why mothers want to hear from their kids, to know how their lives are going and so forth, while fathers are stereotypically less interested in such trivial affairs.
In movies and such, this has been a bit of a joke, a subtle jab at the "clueless" or father who is just minding his own business, whether the kids were little or all grown up. The father figure is detached not for a lack of caring, in capacity or capability, but by the nature of the relationships of the father in contrast with the mother and their children.
At childbirth, there is a literal chemical release inside the mother's body which creates a psychological bond with their child. The father never experiences this same type of bond, there is no obvious trigger to tell the male body to release the same chemical and form the same social bond.
For this reason, the bonding with men and their sons tends to come later in life, when shared activities are participated in. This performance-based bonding is still emotionally detached though, and so while the mother starts and never stops feeling the presence and strength of the bond between her and her children, the relationship with the father has just isn't ever the same, it isn't ever quite as "close".
The father is not tasked with the detailed care of children, though he still plays an important role, because his primary task is to bring home the resources that the mother needs to rely on in the raising of the children and the caring for the home.
These resources are essential to the dynamic of the family, and so the father has to detach himself from distractions and pondering the "what if" in order to focus on "what is" and do that as efficiently and effectively as possible. Men are, by nature and nurture, conditioned and prepared for dealing with terrible circumstances and being able to just shake it off. This comes at the price of being able to shake it all off, both the good and the bad, as is necessary in order to achieve a goal or complete a task.
Further, it's not that a mother is not happy about her son being wise, or that the father is not disappointed in a foolish son, but because the reactions of the father and mother at the different "ends of the wisdom spectrum" are the strongest at that respective end.
A wise son makes his father glad more than his mother. A foolish son pains his mother more than his father.
Fathers and mothers and their children have different relationships with each other and between one another, even if everyone is in harmony and living in the same household, the experiences are different, and so how people respond to your highs and lows will be different.
Keep that in mind when you next interact with your own parents, in how the distinct nature of your relationship with your father and your mother is unique. Appreciate the distinctions.
A wise son makes a glad father,
But a foolish son is the grief of his mother.
Proverbs 10:1 (NKJV).
We've gotten past the relatively more extensive narratives in Proverbs and enter into the portion of the book where there are much shorter little tidbits.
This passage speaks to the same dynamic as to why mothers want to hear from their kids, to know how their lives are going and so forth, while fathers are stereotypically less interested in such trivial affairs.
In movies and such, this has been a bit of a joke, a subtle jab at the "clueless" or father who is just minding his own business, whether the kids were little or all grown up. The father figure is detached not for a lack of caring, in capacity or capability, but by the nature of the relationships of the father in contrast with the mother and their children.
At childbirth, there is a literal chemical release inside the mother's body which creates a psychological bond with their child. The father never experiences this same type of bond, there is no obvious trigger to tell the male body to release the same chemical and form the same social bond.
For this reason, the bonding with men and their sons tends to come later in life, when shared activities are participated in. This performance-based bonding is still emotionally detached though, and so while the mother starts and never stops feeling the presence and strength of the bond between her and her children, the relationship with the father has just isn't ever the same, it isn't ever quite as "close".
The father is not tasked with the detailed care of children, though he still plays an important role, because his primary task is to bring home the resources that the mother needs to rely on in the raising of the children and the caring for the home.
These resources are essential to the dynamic of the family, and so the father has to detach himself from distractions and pondering the "what if" in order to focus on "what is" and do that as efficiently and effectively as possible. Men are, by nature and nurture, conditioned and prepared for dealing with terrible circumstances and being able to just shake it off. This comes at the price of being able to shake it all off, both the good and the bad, as is necessary in order to achieve a goal or complete a task.
Further, it's not that a mother is not happy about her son being wise, or that the father is not disappointed in a foolish son, but because the reactions of the father and mother at the different "ends of the wisdom spectrum" are the strongest at that respective end.
A wise son makes his father glad more than his mother. A foolish son pains his mother more than his father.
Fathers and mothers and their children have different relationships with each other and between one another, even if everyone is in harmony and living in the same household, the experiences are different, and so how people respond to your highs and lows will be different.
Keep that in mind when you next interact with your own parents, in how the distinct nature of your relationship with your father and your mother is unique. Appreciate the distinctions.
24.4.18
Daily Bible Study: Proverbs 9:13-18
A foolish woman is clamorous;
She is simple, and knows nothing.
For she sits at the door of her house,
On a seat by the highest places of the city,
To call to those who pass by,
Who go straight on their way:
“Whoever is simple, let him turn in here”;
And as for him who lacks understanding, she says to him,
“Stolen water is sweet,
And bread eaten in secret is pleasant.”
But he does not know that the dead are there,
That her guests are in the depths of hell.
Proverbs 9:13-18 (NKJV).
If you've ever been to a party or political event, or perhaps just have a social media account, you can easily bear witness to some of the most self-destructive behaviors that men and women subject themselves to, and try to justify, in the process of denying God's designs in this world.
Time and again, the Bible extols the different virtues and follies of men and women. Each has a distinctive role in relation to each other and in relation to the remainder of creation, and each of them received a different prescription for the state they would find themselves in because of their sin.
Yet despite this difference, our modern culture tries to blend the two into androgyny and turn God's curses into virtues, evil into good.
Note that nothing the "foolish woman" does is compulsory. Her hands are not forced, she's not being put out on the street, she's simply bored and stupid, looking to create drama and excitement by snaring ignorant men who happen to pass by. These men are also just as bored and stupid, thinking that partaking in adultery is going to be beneficial to them in any way.
At no point is anyone forced in this entire situation. Everyone is willingly participating in their own destruction, presuming that "they know best" and that the choices they are making are sufficiently well thought out. They are "leaning on their own understanding", and will bear the full responsibility for the decisions they have acted out on.
Much ado has been made in our modern culture about the dynamic of compulsion, about victims, about oppressors, about abuses, and yet all of it is carefully crafted in such a way that, while everyone is apparently harming everyone else, nobody is really responsible for anything at all.
Whether genetics, your parents, your school, what someone did, what someone said, what someone believes, the list of reasons as to why one is absolved of any individual responsibility is long and growing by the day, the more fantastical the more enthusiasm will be found in adding it.
But here's the thing: we're just doing it to ourselves.
Nobody is forcing us to sin.
Nobody can force us to sin, and if hypothetically killed for refusing, God is not ignorant as to whose glory you were proclaiming in your dying breath, but that's another topic altogether.
On top of this, how men and women sin, the material or temporal nature of our sin, is different, and that is seen back in Genesis if you need to understand the nature of specifically how men and women failed from the beginning and have continued to fail to this day. While all have sinned and fallen short, in one fashion or another, we always make decisions in the context of who we are and what our place is in reality.
The circumstances were real, and so were our choices and the actions that flowed from them.
While both the "foolish woman" and the "ignorant man" sin, the nature of their sin is different, and the material consequences for each of them would be different as well. The motivations may be simplified to the same dynamic, but each of them is playing a different role.
So why the focus on the differences? Why focus on individual responsibilities?
Because teaching your sons and daughters how to avoid being the foolish woman or the ignorant man is going to require different lessons for each of them. The temptations they will face will be different, and trying to teach a boy not to be a foolish woman or a girl not to be an ignorant man should sound ridiculous but is what is put forth as "natural" in our "post-gender" society, as part of sustaining the various narratives regarding victims and oppressors.
Nowadays, you're not supposed to teach your daughters to be lovely, and your sons to be respectable, to teach your daughters to be chaste, and your sons to recognize empty flattery. Teaching different things is viewed as discriminatory, instead of just being accurate and pertinent.
But this will end only in death, and we'll have nobody to blame but ourselves.
Thus is why turning to God, relying on genuine wisdom, is so important. Having that reconciled relationship is so critical to moving forward in this life, because on our own, trusting only our own instincts, we'd be hopelessly lost.
Learn who you are, what God designed you to be, the role God intended for you to fulfill, and embrace it. You'll need God's help, but even wanting to change is signs that God is already working in your heart on your behalf. If you do not resist that work and your eyes will be opened to the truth.
She is simple, and knows nothing.
For she sits at the door of her house,
On a seat by the highest places of the city,
To call to those who pass by,
Who go straight on their way:
“Whoever is simple, let him turn in here”;
And as for him who lacks understanding, she says to him,
“Stolen water is sweet,
And bread eaten in secret is pleasant.”
But he does not know that the dead are there,
That her guests are in the depths of hell.
Proverbs 9:13-18 (NKJV).
If you've ever been to a party or political event, or perhaps just have a social media account, you can easily bear witness to some of the most self-destructive behaviors that men and women subject themselves to, and try to justify, in the process of denying God's designs in this world.
Time and again, the Bible extols the different virtues and follies of men and women. Each has a distinctive role in relation to each other and in relation to the remainder of creation, and each of them received a different prescription for the state they would find themselves in because of their sin.
Yet despite this difference, our modern culture tries to blend the two into androgyny and turn God's curses into virtues, evil into good.
Note that nothing the "foolish woman" does is compulsory. Her hands are not forced, she's not being put out on the street, she's simply bored and stupid, looking to create drama and excitement by snaring ignorant men who happen to pass by. These men are also just as bored and stupid, thinking that partaking in adultery is going to be beneficial to them in any way.
At no point is anyone forced in this entire situation. Everyone is willingly participating in their own destruction, presuming that "they know best" and that the choices they are making are sufficiently well thought out. They are "leaning on their own understanding", and will bear the full responsibility for the decisions they have acted out on.
Much ado has been made in our modern culture about the dynamic of compulsion, about victims, about oppressors, about abuses, and yet all of it is carefully crafted in such a way that, while everyone is apparently harming everyone else, nobody is really responsible for anything at all.
Whether genetics, your parents, your school, what someone did, what someone said, what someone believes, the list of reasons as to why one is absolved of any individual responsibility is long and growing by the day, the more fantastical the more enthusiasm will be found in adding it.
But here's the thing: we're just doing it to ourselves.
Nobody is forcing us to sin.
Nobody can force us to sin, and if hypothetically killed for refusing, God is not ignorant as to whose glory you were proclaiming in your dying breath, but that's another topic altogether.
On top of this, how men and women sin, the material or temporal nature of our sin, is different, and that is seen back in Genesis if you need to understand the nature of specifically how men and women failed from the beginning and have continued to fail to this day. While all have sinned and fallen short, in one fashion or another, we always make decisions in the context of who we are and what our place is in reality.
The circumstances were real, and so were our choices and the actions that flowed from them.
While both the "foolish woman" and the "ignorant man" sin, the nature of their sin is different, and the material consequences for each of them would be different as well. The motivations may be simplified to the same dynamic, but each of them is playing a different role.
So why the focus on the differences? Why focus on individual responsibilities?
Because teaching your sons and daughters how to avoid being the foolish woman or the ignorant man is going to require different lessons for each of them. The temptations they will face will be different, and trying to teach a boy not to be a foolish woman or a girl not to be an ignorant man should sound ridiculous but is what is put forth as "natural" in our "post-gender" society, as part of sustaining the various narratives regarding victims and oppressors.
Nowadays, you're not supposed to teach your daughters to be lovely, and your sons to be respectable, to teach your daughters to be chaste, and your sons to recognize empty flattery. Teaching different things is viewed as discriminatory, instead of just being accurate and pertinent.
But this will end only in death, and we'll have nobody to blame but ourselves.
Thus is why turning to God, relying on genuine wisdom, is so important. Having that reconciled relationship is so critical to moving forward in this life, because on our own, trusting only our own instincts, we'd be hopelessly lost.
Learn who you are, what God designed you to be, the role God intended for you to fulfill, and embrace it. You'll need God's help, but even wanting to change is signs that God is already working in your heart on your behalf. If you do not resist that work and your eyes will be opened to the truth.
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