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January 1 - December 31, 2018
The hearts of the wise make their mouths prudent, and their lips promote instruction. . . .
At Pentecost the curse of Babel was reversed. Hearts were filled with the beauty of Jesus and his saving works, and when they spoke their speech was compelling to everyone who heard. As from Jesus himself (John 7:46), there were no unnecessary, untruthful, inapt, unkind, ungracious words. The quality of our speech, our prayer life, and our walk with God improve together.
Proper evaluation is gentle, guarded, well meant, and always reveals the speakers’ belief that they share the frailty, humanity, and sinful nature of the one being critiqued. It always shows a profound awareness of your own sin.
Gossip is listed in Romans 1:29 as one of the sins of a people or a person who has chosen to worship idols rather than God. It is no minor thing.
Every culture has deep “background beliefs” about life that are so taken for granted that they are invisible to us as beliefs. We think of them as “just the way things are.” No one becomes wise unless they allow these beliefs to be examined and challenged, supremely by God’s Word but also by teachers, colleagues, family members, and friends. If you always know best, you are stupid (12:1,15).
Adversity drives some people deeply into God’s love but convinces others that a God of love cannot exist. What will make the difference? The essence of foolishness is to be “wise in your own eyes.” The temptation for those who suffer is to assume that because we can’t think of any good purposes God may have for our suffering, there can’t be any. If you can’t imagine a God infinitely wiser and more loving than you, then you won’t be able to trust him and grow in grace.
A false witness will perish, but a careful listener will testify successfully.
Commenting on Psalm 32:8–9, Kidner writes, “Those who invite the rod are those who contrive to ignore the glance.”
All a person’s ways seem pure to them, but motives are weighed by the LORD. (16:2)
For Christians, new views of our sin can be accompanied by deeper discoveries of how righteous in Christ and perfectly loved we are (Philippians 3:9).
If a wise person goes to court with a fool, the fool rages and scoffs, and there is no peace. (29:9)
We are told to expect a long and painful process. But we must enter it maintaining other commitments, such as not despising the ranter (July 25) and always treating people respectfully (May 10). We are never to do to the ranter what the ranter is trying to do to us—to marginalize and demonize rather than convince.
Some people are argumentative because they cannot distinguish between essential truths worth contending for and secondary or nonessential issues.
Perhaps the main reason for loving an argument is that being proved right can be an exercise in power rather than in truth.
to “judge” someone means to make a final condemnation (not just a critique of something about them), which entails the kind of final knowledge of heart motives that only God has.
Disagreements become deadly conflicts when you move from rightly pointing out wrong behavior to assuming the ability to completely understand a person’s inner purposes, which is something only God can do (Romans 2:16).
If someone wrongs you, you start by hoping for that person to be unhappy. But then you may graduate to saying and doing things to hurt them and those around them. What is happening? The evil done to you has come into you and is shaping you. As Hawkeye says about the bitter Magua in The Last of the Mohicans, “Magua’s heart is twisted. He would make himself into what twisted him.”
virtuous yourself.
Most of us are either temperamentally direct, bold, and persistent or gentle, calm, and deferential—but never both. Yet the wise learn to be both. They follow the one who always showed boldness without harshness, humility without uncertainty, who spoke truth but always bathed in love.
Lord, your plans and counsels are flawless for you have perfect knowledge of all hearts and things. But drill deep into my consciousness that I don’t. Save me from precipitous conclusions,
Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails. (16:33, 19:21)
If you survey Proverbs for methods of discerning God’s will, you will conclude that the book does not talk about how God guides as much as whom God guides. What modern people want is almost a form of magic. They want little signs and feelings in order to determine from God the right decision to make. But that is the way you may guide an infant, who cannot understand you and must be carried or led. The way you would guide a youth or adult is to speak to them so they understand and can make decisions without being led by the hand in every instance.
Father, I don’t want to believe that sometimes every option, even with right action, might lead to a difficult, painful end. But this was the case for your Son—there
C. S. Lewis’s observation that in ancient times “the cardinal problem of human life was how to conform the soul to objective reality, and the solution was wisdom, self-discipline, and virtue. For the modern [person], the cardinal problem is how to conform reality to the wishes of man, and the solution is a technique.”
Lord, you warn against being “double-minded” and indecisive (James 1:8). When I am, it is because I forget that you are powerful and you are loving and so I can’t ruin your good plan for me.
In our culture of fake news and social media, no one can be sure that the messages they are getting are trustworthy. Lewis Smedes wrote: “Truthfulness is one more invisible fiber that holds people together in humane community.
Mockers stir up a city, but the wise turn away anger. (29:8)
Literally, this verse says that mockers “set a city on fire,”
Proverbs, however, takes a remarkably balanced view of the unique splendor and glory of every age and stage of human life. The young have a strength and an unwearied ambition that older people cannot muster. The old have a perspective, wisdom, and dignity that younger people have yet to acquire. These are all distinct goods that should be enjoyed in their time.
I ask that I would grow stronger spiritually when I’m weak physically. Let my illness and discomfort be like smelling salts that show me my dependence and need for you more clearly.
One minister caught in adultery said that for years he had preached without praying. “A minister may fill his pews, his communion roll, the mouths of the public, but what that minister is on his knees in secret before God Almighty, that he is and no more.”
C. S. Lewis wrote: “If there are rats in a cellar you are most likely to see them if you go in very suddenly. But the suddenness does not create the rats: it only prevents them from hiding. In the same way the suddenness of the provocation does not make me an ill-tempered man: it only shows me what an ill-tempered man I am.”
The gospel’s message about our utter sinfulness keeps us from letting success go to our heads, but its message of God’s unconditional love helps us get through any dark valley.
We want feeling and we want results, but this produces a “simplistic activism that shows zeal without . . . insight into the complexities of life. We want answers and action before we have understood the questions.”186 This is one reason that Christian churches are constantly being taken by surprise by cultural shifts—we don’t understand how complex culture is.
Fill my mind with the truth that “my neighbor” is “the holiest object presented to my senses.”
Sociologist Max Weber argued that technology creates an “iron cage” that traps individuals into depersonalized bureaucratic systems, based purely on efficiency and calculation. Technology, however, will never solve all human problems because we are more than matter.
We may approach Proverbs asking, “How can this enrich my life?” But you should never learn God’s truth just for yourself. Others’ knowledge of the truth depends on us. Do you understand God’s words well enough that they can be quickly accessed
A wedding is not so much a claim of present love as a promise of future love.
as believers they would be true colleagues and students together in learning God’s wisdom from the Word of God. They should be intellectually curious together, fellow travelers in learning biblical truth and brainstorming how to align all areas of their lives with its wisdom.
A spouse should edify, build up the other. Indeed, your spouse has the power to make or break your dignity, confidence, and sense of self.
Your natural self-image is a compilation of verdicts that have been passed on you by various people over the years. But when you marry, your spouse has the ability to overturn all those verdicts.
Don’t be dripping your criticism in painful little jabs that only evoke similarly brief angry responses in return. Instead, pour. Take time to sit down, to identify the problem behavior instead of attacking character, and to propose practical ways to change, mixing all with often-expressed love and encouragement.
Marriage requires the ability to forgive freely without a shred of superiority, and to repent freely without begrudging.
in a world in which men tend to put down women, it is important that women realize they have, with God’s help, the same calling to be valiant as any man. Life—and family life—requires doing the right thing despite your fears.
“it requires more prowess and greatness of spirit to obey God faithfully than to command an army of men, to be a Christian than a captain.”
obey these patterns and not be crushed by them.
If you are listening only to your heart and not to advice, you have left the path of wisdom.
Proverbs teaches that the ultimate goal of parenting is neither mere control nor affirmation but to teach their children to become wise and righteous.
The main job of parents is to teach their children about right and wrong, good and evil. But this must be done in an environment of mutual delight. A teacher can have a good grasp of the material but still create a harsh atmosphere in which the students will not really want to learn, even if out of fear they try.
While parenting requires far more than discipline, it never requires less. Boundaries must be absolutely clear and consequences absolutely consistent, imposed with gravity but not with exasperation and withering remarks. That way the child can grow to see that the real conflict is not a battle of wills with the parents but a fight for self-control, without which the world and life itself will punish them forever.
