Drink water from your own cistern,
And running water from your own well.
Should your fountains be dispersed abroad,
Streams of water in the streets?
Let them be only your own,
And not for strangers with you.
Let your fountain be blessed,
And rejoice with the wife of your youth.
As a loving deer and a graceful doe,
Let her breasts satisfy you at all times;
And always be enraptured with her love.
For why should you, my son, be enraptured by an immoral woman,
And be embraced in the arms of a seductress?
Proverbs 5:15-20 (NKJV).
Not even to Song of Solomon yet, but you can already get a sense for why he wrote that one too, right?
Solomon starts off comparing the resource of water to that of intimacy with one's wife, and this is not to make of her an inanimate object, but to emphasize the importance of the physical relationship between her and him, and the exclusivity of that relationship.
Water, especially in an arid environment, is precious. It is desirable, it is necessary to live and to thrive. While Solomon may not be intending to attach the entirety of that connotation to sexual intimacy between husband and wife, it would have been an analogy that people of that era would recognize immediately.
Modern technology has diluted the significance of this reference, with plumbing and city water supplies and each household not needing to tap its own water supply, but before the invention of modern plumbing systems, if you could not find a source of water on your property, you were in trouble.
Without access to water, you could not irrigate crops, provide water to your livestock, as well as have access to water for your family. You'd have to set up an arrangement with a neighbor, and that could get complicated fast. Realize that there weren't ways to transport large quantities of water over any great distance, so to feed a herd of cattle, you'd have to take the whole herd to the source of water. All the while, those creatures are grazing, and eating of the grass of your neighbor's fields while on the way to get water, thus reducing the amount of grass that they'd have for their own cattle, further entwining the relationship with your neighbor as they take their herds onto your lands in order to have sufficient access to food.
The reason I emphasize this is that water was necessary, important, and access to it was carefully guarded, carefully protected from those who would not appreciate it, take care of the water infrastructure, or perhaps even poison or taint it through foul play.
In the same sense of importance then Solomon emphasizes the physical relationship between the husband and wife. For the same reason that you wouldn't waste water by spilling it out into the street, you wouldn't just grant anyone access, nor would you try to gain access to someone else's water supply when you have your own, so should a husband find satisfaction only in his wife, and she only in him.
This is not just an intellectual love, a romantic or idealized emotional love either, but a physical one, which should be clear in that Solomon is literally saying to enjoy your wife's body, even after the youth has departed from both of you. The immoral woman may be more attractive, more desirable.
The water always seems cooler when drawn from someone else's well, right?
The problem is that the seductress is not interested in your future, only in leveraging your present desires to satisfy her current needs, or the needs of whomever has deployed her, and will not shed a single tear for the destruction you wreak upon your own family, your own legacy, your own future in pursuing her embrace.
Instead, care to and appreciate what you already have, because the "wife of your youth" is intimately invested in both you and your family. She cares deeply about the results of the decisions you make, and not just because of how she benefits from them, but because there is no way for her to benefit without lifting up the rest of the family as well.
In the modern world, through legal and social changes, this dynamic has been destroyed, almost entirely. No longer are women encouraged to seek the benefit of their entire household, only themselves, through the deception of their own emotional state supposedly acting as an accurate reflection of the reality of the family status. In turn, men are no longer able to enjoy the wives of their youth, who have been perverted by and fallen prey to demonic deceits, and so in response, in still desiring a helper, a companion who sacrifices of themselves, they turn to immoral women to satiate desire, but not to continue to grow their own legacy.
It's the pattern of The Garden, of The Fall, all over again. Eve is tempted to lust after that which she cannot, or at least should not, obtain, and as a reaction, Adam elects to pursue physical companionship and intimacy instead of obedience to God.
This is why Solomon states what he does about intimacy in marriage, not because there is nothing else important about the marriage dynamic, but because this is what can so easily destroy it, and has done so reliably since the dawn of human civilization. It's because of how frequent, how damaging, these acts are that they get so much emphasis.
Later in Proverbs, Solomon will discuss other details, other dynamics, but it's important not to miss the significance that in the first discussion of marriage dynamics, he emphasizes the need to avoid adultery, to appreciate what you have and not lust after what only appears desirable, but in fact leads to destruction.
Showing posts with label Relationship. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Relationship. Show all posts
21.3.18
Daily Bible Study: Proverbs 2:16-22
To deliver you from the immoral woman,
From the seductress who flatters with her words,
Who forsakes the companion of her youth,
And forgets the covenant of her God.
For her house leads down to death,
And her paths to the dead;
None who go to her return,
Nor do they regain the paths of life—
So you may walk in the way of goodness,
And keep to the paths of righteousness.
For the upright will dwell in the land,
And the blameless will remain in it;
But the wicked will be cut off from the earth,
And the unfaithful will be uprooted from it.
Proverbs 2:16-22 (NKJV).
Wisdom is spoken of like a woman, and when contrasted to the results of a relationship with an immoral woman, the choice to anthropomorphize wisdom as a woman makes a bit more sense. Solomon is a king, his son is a prince, and as a result of the naturally high social status he would attract attention from women of all types despite personality flaws.
The dynamic of his affections being competed for by various companions would be intimately familiar, as well as the requirement to teach what he should be looking for in those relationships.
Yet if you look at the flaws of the immoral woman, you'll notice a similarity between her and the stereotype of the "modern man". The regular, run-of-the-mill, often "creepy", modern man who is likely presumed to be obsessed with some pastime people think he should have left in his childhood.
This is not accidental, as the modern man has been told for many decades that he is to act more like a woman, to deny God's calling in his life, to deny God's design in creating him as a man, that the result of these denials would create "equality" between men and women in the material sense, and finally that they would then increase their mating success as well.
The problem is that men are inherently idealistic about relationships with women, and women are inherently pragmatic about relationships with men, but nobody wants to admit this to themselves, let alone in the public discourse. What this means is that for the same reason men sing love songs, write poetry, and make total fools of themselves over women, they would fall prey to the empty flattery of an immoral woman pretending to be the one who can satisfy these fantasies for him.
The reality is that she just sees him as a means to an end, and his ideals are only fodder for mundane conversation, and as soon as he has lost whatever status or wealth that can be made of use to her, she'll immediately jump ship and start looking for a replacement, if she wasn't already entertaining one in secret. The modern divorce rate is between 40-50%, but how often is that paired with the fact that almost 70% of divorces are also initiated by wives?
The modern man invests himself emotionally into the immoral woman, and tries to be like her, in hopes that by mimicking her, she would be comfortable and stay with him. This doesn't really work because the behavior patterns he is trying to copy are a fitness test put on by her to determine whether the man in front of her is actually a suitable mate or not. They are a ploy, a scheme, and so in failing to see past this, he fails the test and is significantly downgraded in value.
This is why the seduction of the immoral woman is cited by Solomon as being so damaging, because the ruinous results of such relationships are evident all around us. Even men who survive are still marred by that relationship, changed forever by it.
When a divorce occurs and resources are split up, families broken, homes torn apart, that is a damage which cannot be recovered from. It can be survived and you can rebuild, but even that is still just a reaction to the original relationship. It never ceases to be a part of the context of that man's life.
To stay on the path of wisdom means to see through flattery and deceit to the truth of a relationship, in the case of this passage, to see beyond the words of the immoral woman to know what the realities are, and making decisions based on truth and reality instead of idealism. This is difficult for a man who has not courted wisdom, who has not pursued her, and has not internalized the truths she shares.
To pursue wisdom is to shun the tempting lies of foolishness. The righteous will build a legacy in honesty and truth. Fools will be betrayed by their empty ideals and left with nothing. Do not be a fool.
From the seductress who flatters with her words,
Who forsakes the companion of her youth,
And forgets the covenant of her God.
For her house leads down to death,
And her paths to the dead;
None who go to her return,
Nor do they regain the paths of life—
So you may walk in the way of goodness,
And keep to the paths of righteousness.
For the upright will dwell in the land,
And the blameless will remain in it;
But the wicked will be cut off from the earth,
And the unfaithful will be uprooted from it.
Proverbs 2:16-22 (NKJV).
Wisdom is spoken of like a woman, and when contrasted to the results of a relationship with an immoral woman, the choice to anthropomorphize wisdom as a woman makes a bit more sense. Solomon is a king, his son is a prince, and as a result of the naturally high social status he would attract attention from women of all types despite personality flaws.
The dynamic of his affections being competed for by various companions would be intimately familiar, as well as the requirement to teach what he should be looking for in those relationships.
Yet if you look at the flaws of the immoral woman, you'll notice a similarity between her and the stereotype of the "modern man". The regular, run-of-the-mill, often "creepy", modern man who is likely presumed to be obsessed with some pastime people think he should have left in his childhood.
This is not accidental, as the modern man has been told for many decades that he is to act more like a woman, to deny God's calling in his life, to deny God's design in creating him as a man, that the result of these denials would create "equality" between men and women in the material sense, and finally that they would then increase their mating success as well.
The problem is that men are inherently idealistic about relationships with women, and women are inherently pragmatic about relationships with men, but nobody wants to admit this to themselves, let alone in the public discourse. What this means is that for the same reason men sing love songs, write poetry, and make total fools of themselves over women, they would fall prey to the empty flattery of an immoral woman pretending to be the one who can satisfy these fantasies for him.
The reality is that she just sees him as a means to an end, and his ideals are only fodder for mundane conversation, and as soon as he has lost whatever status or wealth that can be made of use to her, she'll immediately jump ship and start looking for a replacement, if she wasn't already entertaining one in secret. The modern divorce rate is between 40-50%, but how often is that paired with the fact that almost 70% of divorces are also initiated by wives?
The modern man invests himself emotionally into the immoral woman, and tries to be like her, in hopes that by mimicking her, she would be comfortable and stay with him. This doesn't really work because the behavior patterns he is trying to copy are a fitness test put on by her to determine whether the man in front of her is actually a suitable mate or not. They are a ploy, a scheme, and so in failing to see past this, he fails the test and is significantly downgraded in value.
This is why the seduction of the immoral woman is cited by Solomon as being so damaging, because the ruinous results of such relationships are evident all around us. Even men who survive are still marred by that relationship, changed forever by it.
When a divorce occurs and resources are split up, families broken, homes torn apart, that is a damage which cannot be recovered from. It can be survived and you can rebuild, but even that is still just a reaction to the original relationship. It never ceases to be a part of the context of that man's life.
To stay on the path of wisdom means to see through flattery and deceit to the truth of a relationship, in the case of this passage, to see beyond the words of the immoral woman to know what the realities are, and making decisions based on truth and reality instead of idealism. This is difficult for a man who has not courted wisdom, who has not pursued her, and has not internalized the truths she shares.
To pursue wisdom is to shun the tempting lies of foolishness. The righteous will build a legacy in honesty and truth. Fools will be betrayed by their empty ideals and left with nothing. Do not be a fool.
20.3.18
Bible Study: Proverbs 2:10-15
When wisdom enters your heart,
And knowledge is pleasant to your soul,
Discretion will preserve you;
Understanding will keep you,
To deliver you from the way of evil,
From the man who speaks perverse things,
From those who leave the paths of uprightness
To walk in the ways of darkness;
Who rejoice in doing evil,
And delight in the perversity of the wicked;
Whose ways are crooked,
And who are devious in their paths;
Proverbs 2:10-15 (NKJV).
One of the rants I made on twitter a little while ago was about the usefulness, but not necessity, of the Bible. This passage echoes the sentiment as to why, in that when truth is internalized, cherished, retained, then how you act will be an outpouring of that.
In the "heat of the moment" you may not have a Bible handy. Or the internet, to look something up. The truths in the Bible are necessary, but the Bible itself is just a container. If all you do is pick stuff up, gander at it, marvel at it, and then put it back, then you are not understanding God's desire for you in reading scripture.
The purpose of reading scripture is to etch it into your mind, to not just experience it, but to know it and be able to share it and the understandings of it without it being present.
Think of it this way: how hard is it for you to describe attributes of a friend that you've had for a long time?
The longer you've known someone, the better you can get at predicting how they'd react in a given circumstance. While there are surprises sometimes, humans are terrible at behaving outside a pattern, and so once you learn someone's patterns, you know them in an intimate and personal way that informs how you communicate with them, the kinds of things you try to do with them, or even just which topics are good or bad.
So it is the same with the Bible and God, and us. The Bible is our second-most direct means by which the truth of God can be known, and through studying the Bible we are to grow in understanding of God's nature and heart for us in the same way that spending time with a friend does the same.
This is why the Bible is useful, but not necessary, because the Bible isn't the goal, God is, and the Bible is just the most reliable tool we have to communicate those truths. Sometimes those truths are made implicit in historical accounts, sometimes explicit in allegory or parable, but they are all working together to pain a coherent picture of God that enriches our relationship with God.
We do not hold the Bible in high esteem because it's the Bible and God inspired it, but because of what the Bible says about God. In some ways, the dynamic in which Jesus Christ humbled himself and yet was exalted by God is seen in how the Bible is handled, in that while it can be easy to see it as a single book, nobody sat down one day and said "hey lets write stuff about God."
The Bible was written over a period of time and contains the most accurate descriptions of God's actions and God's nature that we can get outside direct revelation (such as what Saul, not yet Paul, experienced on the road to Damascus). Studying the Bible is important, not for the Bible's sake, but because the result of studying the Bible aligns us with God.
Were we perfectly aligned, the Bible wouldn't be needed. After this life, in the next, I don't know what purpose, what role the Bible will play, when we have direct access to God and Jesus Christ to experience and enjoy them without barrier or hindrance. The Bible's value then would be greatly diminished, because why read about someone when you could just talk to them instead?
Wisdom is a subset of God's knowledge, of God's nature, and studying wisdom, gathering knowledge, is just as much a part of "becoming more like God" as the behavioral changes we make given what we newly understand.
And knowledge is pleasant to your soul,
Discretion will preserve you;
Understanding will keep you,
To deliver you from the way of evil,
From the man who speaks perverse things,
From those who leave the paths of uprightness
To walk in the ways of darkness;
Who rejoice in doing evil,
And delight in the perversity of the wicked;
Whose ways are crooked,
And who are devious in their paths;
Proverbs 2:10-15 (NKJV).
One of the rants I made on twitter a little while ago was about the usefulness, but not necessity, of the Bible. This passage echoes the sentiment as to why, in that when truth is internalized, cherished, retained, then how you act will be an outpouring of that.
In the "heat of the moment" you may not have a Bible handy. Or the internet, to look something up. The truths in the Bible are necessary, but the Bible itself is just a container. If all you do is pick stuff up, gander at it, marvel at it, and then put it back, then you are not understanding God's desire for you in reading scripture.
The purpose of reading scripture is to etch it into your mind, to not just experience it, but to know it and be able to share it and the understandings of it without it being present.
Think of it this way: how hard is it for you to describe attributes of a friend that you've had for a long time?
The longer you've known someone, the better you can get at predicting how they'd react in a given circumstance. While there are surprises sometimes, humans are terrible at behaving outside a pattern, and so once you learn someone's patterns, you know them in an intimate and personal way that informs how you communicate with them, the kinds of things you try to do with them, or even just which topics are good or bad.
So it is the same with the Bible and God, and us. The Bible is our second-most direct means by which the truth of God can be known, and through studying the Bible we are to grow in understanding of God's nature and heart for us in the same way that spending time with a friend does the same.
This is why the Bible is useful, but not necessary, because the Bible isn't the goal, God is, and the Bible is just the most reliable tool we have to communicate those truths. Sometimes those truths are made implicit in historical accounts, sometimes explicit in allegory or parable, but they are all working together to pain a coherent picture of God that enriches our relationship with God.
We do not hold the Bible in high esteem because it's the Bible and God inspired it, but because of what the Bible says about God. In some ways, the dynamic in which Jesus Christ humbled himself and yet was exalted by God is seen in how the Bible is handled, in that while it can be easy to see it as a single book, nobody sat down one day and said "hey lets write stuff about God."
The Bible was written over a period of time and contains the most accurate descriptions of God's actions and God's nature that we can get outside direct revelation (such as what Saul, not yet Paul, experienced on the road to Damascus). Studying the Bible is important, not for the Bible's sake, but because the result of studying the Bible aligns us with God.
Were we perfectly aligned, the Bible wouldn't be needed. After this life, in the next, I don't know what purpose, what role the Bible will play, when we have direct access to God and Jesus Christ to experience and enjoy them without barrier or hindrance. The Bible's value then would be greatly diminished, because why read about someone when you could just talk to them instead?
Wisdom is a subset of God's knowledge, of God's nature, and studying wisdom, gathering knowledge, is just as much a part of "becoming more like God" as the behavioral changes we make given what we newly understand.
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