Proverbs 19:20 (ESV)

Cease to hear instruction, my son, and you will stray from the words of knowledge.

                                                                                                                         Proverbs 19:27 (ESV)

I have these two verse numbers circled in my Bible with a line in the margin connecting them.  They approach the same issue from different perspectives, and because life isn’t always so simple, we need both lines of instruction.

One of the catch phrases of our day, “It’s complicated,” defines our lives.  Since the complications and temptations of life don’t retire from our lives when we reach a certain age, we all need increasing wisdom to navigate the current and future complications life offers us.  Proverbs helps us see the positive nature of acquiring wisdom and the negative nature of rejecting instruction.

That wisdom to “live life skillfully” comes our way through advice and instruction, and we receive them several different ways.  Reading the Word of God regularly advises and instructs us.  Good and godly friends provide advice and instruction.  Consistent attentive attendance in a good, Bible-teaching church offers God’s Spirit time to speak advice and instruction into our lives.

The key is listening.  If we get all that advice and instruction without listening, we’ll live our present and future without wisdom.  If we pay attention to the advice and instruction God brings into our lives, we’ll gain wisdom now and for the future.

The Proverbs Writer brings us to look at the dark side of the hearing issue, too.  While wisdom comes our way when we listen, danger awaits us if we choose not to hear.  We all know the consequences of not listening; most of us have paid the price more than once for straying from the way of knowledge.  We’ve known in small and big ways the consequences of not following the instructions!

If I could paraphrase verse twenty-seven, here is what I would say: Quit paying attention to your teachers, my son, and you’re bound to get into trouble.  When we learned to drive, the person teaching us continually told us to keep our eyes on the road.  Being a sightseeing driver, I’ve needed to hear that instruction over and over through my life. When I take my eyes off the road, I get into trouble.  That’s not a good thing!

It’s not a good thing in life, either.  So, we need to listen to advice and instruction.  Listening brings wisdom.  Not listening brings trouble.  It’s that simple.

                                                                                                                        Proverbs 18:10 (ESV)

The name of the LORD is a recurring theme in the Old Testament.  Israel’s armies went out to fight their enemies in the name of the LORD; it carried a sense of the sacred and the secure.  The writer of this particular proverb would have had that theme in mind when he penned these words.

When the wisdom writer tells us that the name of the LORD is a strong tower, he wants us to understand the source of our security.  He wants us to put this verse together with verse 11: The rich man’s wealth is his strong city, and like a high wall in his imagination (ESV).  We gain wisdom when our growing discernment lets us see the difference between real security and imagined security.

Our own inclinations and the culture around us encourage us to trust in ourselves, just like the rich man of verse 11.  The evil one works diligently to trick us into trusting anything but the name of the LORD!  It may not even seem like a big thing most of the time.

The problem with “most of the time,” is that we never know when “out of the ordinary” is going to interrupt “most of the time.”  If we’ve not learned the security of in the name of the LORD during “most of the time,” we may not learn quickly enough when “out of the ordinary” happens.  Choosing to learn early and well where our true security rests prepares us for the “out of the ordinary” times.

Are you like me?  Have you had those days when you needed to run and hide?  We know danger lurks near by, and we need safety.  We need a place to run that will provide security.  The writer might have been thinking of the cities of refuge when he wrote the last half of this verse.  It was so for the people of Israel when they were accused of killing someone, and they knew that it was not intentional or done with malice.  The accused could run to the nearest city of refuge and be safe there while his case was heard.  The righteous person can run into the strong tower and be safe.

It seems to me that we have a connection between the name of the LORD and the righteous person who knows to run to that strong tower.  It is in choosing to live righteously before God that we can learn the power of His name.  Knowing the power of His name motivates us to live righteously.  That cyclical wisdom enables us to live well and safe in “the most of the time” and in the “out of the ordinary times.”  Living righteously allows us the freedom to run safely to the strong tower that is the name of the LORD.

This line of wisdom from Proverbs 17 tells us something about people and about life.  It tells us something about relationships and why they are important.  These few words teach us, again, that God designed us to live in relationships, not isolation.

All of us know that life throws us curveballs.  Adversity comes our way; life is not without hard days.  We live in a broken world.  We live in a world that, because it’s broken, sometimes weighs us down with care and pain.  And, we are as broken as our world.  Adversity walks into our lives, sometimes, because of our own wrong choices.  Don’t forget, too, that we have an enemy who is intent on bringing us damage.  The writer knew all of that when he wrote these words.

This verse is a reminder to cherish the people God puts in our lives.  The friends who love us no matter what come as a gift from God.  Really good friends love us all the time.  They love us when we’re doing well, but they also love us when we’re not so well.  Most of us don’t have too many friends like that; they don’t come along too often.  The Proverbs writer wants us to know the value of that friend.

Notice the second phrase of the verse.  “ . . . and a brother is born for adversity.”  The writer’s assumption is simple.  Adversity will come.  It’s not a maybe thing; it’s a definite thing.  He puts people in our lives for just those times!  They may be relatives by natural birth; they may be brothers and sisters by the “new birth.”  Whether natural or spiritual relatives, God puts them in our lives for the hard days.  He prepared them just for us before we had any idea we would need them!

God gives us these men and women to walk with us.  They don’t run when things get hard.  They don’t walk away if the adversity comes because of our own failures.  Friends, and brothers and sisters in adversity have lasting power, and they love us enough to engage life with us.  You and I need these them.  We need to recognize them as God’s gifts to us.

One more thought . . . you and I also share the privilege of becoming this friend who loves at all times.  We have the privilege of being the sister or brother born for another person’s adversity.  As much as we need people like this friend and brother in Proverbs, we need to be this friend and brother/sister to someone else.  God caused us to be born, at least in part, to befriend someone and walk with him or her through adversity.

A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.   Proverbs 17:17 (ESV)

 Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city.  (Proverbs 16:32, ESV)

These two thoughts from Proverbs 16 speak to different issues but share a common thread. Both of them confront us with personal responsibility.  In vs. 17, the Proverbs writer tells us that we have personal responsibility to “guard [our] way.”  The second verse places upon us the personal responsibility to “rule [our] spirit.”

Our fallen humanity tells us that someone other than us is always to blame for our problems.  That tactic is as old as Adam and Eve.  Adam blamed Eve, and Eve blamed the serpent.  Neither of them wanted to take responsibility for their failures in the garden.  We’ve all tried that way out of a situation.  It wasn’t so bad when we were children, but  now we’re grown-ups.  Choosing responsible behavior should mark our lives in Christ.

Notice the pluses of personal responsibility in these two verses.  In vs. 17, the writer tells us that choosing personal responsibility for our way will preserve our lives.  At the simplest level, that means that we’ll avoid the pollution and damage that comes when we don’t depart from evil.  We protect ourselves by choosing responsible behavior.

The next line tells us that practicing self-control makes us stronger than those who take cities in conquest.  Ruling our spirits by the grace of God is the wise choice, and making that choice strengthens us for all life brings our way.

Accepting responsibility is often difficult.  It’s always easier to avoid it.  Choosing to walk in the way of wisdom doesn’t offer avoidance as an option.  We engage our minds and hearts, aware of the evil around us.   We discover that we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us.  (Philippians 4:13)  That assurance allows us to take responsibility for how we walk and how we talk.

                                                                                                                        (Proverbs 15:18, ESV)

Several verses in this chapter speak to the issue of anger, strife, and the way we use words.  Having wasted far too much energy on anger, and knowing the damage words spoken in anger can do, I know how important this verse (and others in this chapter like it) is for me.  Maybe it’s true for you, too.

Take a look at vs. 1: A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.  Vs. 4 tells us that, A gentle tongue is a tree of life.  Vs. 23 is worthy of our consideration, too: To make an apt answer is a joy to a man, and a word in season, how good it is!  Put all of these together and we conclude that how we speak and how we manage anger makes a difference in our own lives and in the lives of those around us.

I think of these words in a particular context.  The New Testament tells me that followers of Jesus are predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.  Simply put, we are to be increasingly like Jesus.  Understanding that as we read Proverbs 15:18 means that a hot temper has no place in our lives, and that, like Jesus, we are to be those who quiet contention.

This one verse in Proverbs, attached to others in the same chapter, creates a picture of the person God wants each of us to be.  We’re to be people who offer a “soft answer.”  We’re to have a “gentle tongue.”  (One alternate translation of the word “gentle” is “healing.”)  We are to be slow enough to anger that we can quiet contention before it explodes into full-blown hostility.  We are to be people who can speak a word in season—at just the right time.

So many of us know the experience of speaking first and then thinking.  The wisdom writers invite us to think first and then speak.  They ask us to use words for good, not for bad.  They ask us to use words for peace and healing, not for conflict and pain.  In a world filled with conflict, may we choose to be those who quiet contention by being slow to anger.

                                                                                                                        (Proverbs 14:16, ESV)

One advantage of age is perspective.  I came to Christ in a church that practiced a rigid kind of “don’t do” Christianity.  We didn’t smoke, go to movies, dance, etc.  The girls didn’t wear slacks, and the guys and girls didn’t swim together at youth camp.  We measured the quality of our faith by all the things we didn’t do.

Here’s the perspective: as the world around us has continued to degenerate, many Christians have discovered that they can do a lot of what they didn’t do years ago and still be separated from the world.  The gap between the righteous and the unrighteous is the same, but are the righteous living righteously or foolishly?  Do we live cautiously, or do we flirt with evil?

I’m not advocating a return to some form of legalism that isn’t justified by Scripture.  God’s Word must inform our choices, and we shouldn’t be compelled to live by some standard devised by men.  We do have freedom in Christ; that freedom allows us to discern what is good and not good for us.  But that freedom must be used cautiously.

Too many of us want to live to close to the edge.  A few years ago I had the privilege of driving up Pike’s Peak.  Once you get above the tree line, the road becomes gravel, and there are no guardrails.  I chose to hug the middle of the road that day!  Choosing to live on the edge made no sense at all!  Caution seemed the wiser choice.

The Proverbs Writer advocates for caution in this description of a wise man.  Once wisdom begins its work in our lives, we become less macho and freely admit that some things deserve caution.  Evil, in any form, is one of those things.  Some things warrant us choosing to keep our distance; carelessness and recklessness can only get us into trouble.

We live in a corrupt world; it is not our friend.  Evil is pervasive in our society, and it’s only going to get worse.  Those who follow Jesus need to respect this exhortation to live cautiously and be ready to turn away from evil.  No matter how benign it may look, it’s still evil.

Wise men and women know their limits, and they run from evil; reckless and careless people flirt with it foolishly. This really is simple stuff.  If God’s wisdom is at work in our lives, we’ll figure out the nature of evil and know when to be cautious.  If we choose to live recklessly and carelessly, we’re foolish.  If we’re living closer to the edge than we should, we may need to think about how far down it is if we get too close.

The themes of correction, reproof. and instruction run throughout Proverbs.  It is as though the wisdom writers knew how resistant we are to those things.  If you are like me, you know how often defensiveness perks up when someone offers correction.  The human condition seems to make us resistant to instruction and/or rebuke.

I’ve often wondered why I so often resist receiving counsel from one who cares enough to confront me.  A good friend of mine who travels the country teaching on prayer may have the answer.  He speaks of believers struggling with “the residue of the flesh.”  All of us have that “residue,” and I think it often wants to flare up when rebuke or correction comes our way.

The writer of Proverbs 13:18 wants us to see the benefit of a godly rebuke.  He wants us to know the danger of resisting correction.  Do you remember the crossroads where Lady Wisdom and Woman Folly meet? Lady Wisdom stands there and calls out to us?  She reminds us that we receive blessing when we accept needed rebukes.  She’ll also let us know that we’re wrong when we won’t accept correction from those who care about us.  We need to listen.

A good pastor friend confronted me a few years ago about an issue that plagued my life for years, my anger and defensiveness.  He sat me down and talked with me about it, showed me why it was wrong, and helped me understand how I could overcome the problem.  It was uncomfortable at the time; in hindsight, I wish it had happened years earlier.  I would have been foolish to ignore his loving correction.

You and I are better for having people who love us enough to correct us when they see us straying from the right way.  Let’s thank God for them and benefit from them.  Let’s make sure we don’t ignore them or resist them.

Proverbs 12:25

We all know the old saying, Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.  We also know it’s a lie.  I’ve never had a stick or a stone break a bone, but I’ve experienced my share of hurtful words through the years.  We all have, and sometimes they stick in our minds like thorns that can’t be removed.

The wisdom writers knew the power of words.  In this particular proverb, he reminds  us of their positive power.  He pictures a man filled with anxiety.  We don’t know the cause of the man’s anxiety, but we know it weighs him down.  His heart is heavy, and his way is hard.  Something troubles him deeply.  We can see it in his countenance and in his posture.  What’s to be done!

The writer tells us in the simplest terms: but a good word makes him glad.  Money isn’t needed.  Professional training isn’t needed.  One doesn’t even need to be good with words.  Any one of us can make the anxious glad with nothing more than a good word.

Do you remember Barnabas, Paul’s friend?  He was an encourager.  It seems that he looked for ways to encourage those around him.  His name even means, Son of encouragement!  I don’t know whether he was particularly gifted at encouragement or not.  He may have made a conscious choice to make anxious people glad.  Gifted or not, we can all choose to be good-word-people.

Choice isn’t the only key, though.  Obedience also comes into play.  Paul taught the Ephesian church to Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. (Eph. 4:29, ESV)  Our marching orders as Jesus-followers include speaking good words that make glad the anxious man or woman.

All of us live in the same world.  We all know occasional anxiety brought on by one situation or another.  None of us is immune, and all of us need a good word when the anxious moments invade our lives.  If I’m getting this right, we’ll all be on both ends of this verse.  We’re either going to need the good words that make us glad, or we’ll need to speak the good words that make another glad.

If you’re in need of a good word today, I pray God will put the right person in your way to say just the right word.  If God wants you to be a good-word-person today or in the new week, I pray you will listen to His prompt when it comes.  He’ll give you the right words at the right time to make someone’s heart glad.

God didn’t design us for isolation.  Those who journey with Jesus ought always to travel with others; it’s a shared journey.  When we travel alone, we’re in danger.  When we travel with others, we walk in safety.  That’s pretty simple.  Solomon made in pretty clear for us in this verse.

I’ve discovered that simple instructions aren’t always simply followed.  How many of us know someone who has tried to travel part of the journey without companions, thinking I have to do this alone.  In more than forty years of ministry, I’ve been closed out more than once when offering to walk through a difficult place with someone.  And often, that person, who wouldn’t accept a companion, winds up in one ditch or another because he or she wanted to travel alone.

For the last several years, I’ve met monthly with a spiritual director.  I discovered the concept of  spiritual direction through some reading I was doing in spiritual formation.  Something in my spirit told me that I could benefit from someone who would sit with me and help me listen for God’s voice, someone who could help me see how and where God was at work in my life.  When I found that person, I knew I had stepped out of danger into safety.  He didn’t tell me what to do.  He asked a lot of questions.  He helped me see things I would most certainly have missed had I chosen to travel the journey alone.

I discovered the safety of having a trustworthy counselor for the journey.  Sitting with him once a month brought fresh perspective and helped me gain clarity I don’t think I would have received had I not met with him.  About a year after beginning monthly meetings with my director, I went through the most difficult time I’ve ever experienced in ministry.  Those monthly meetings with my director sustained me through those hard months and helped me walk through them safely.  I discovered up close and personal the veracity of this simple proverb!

We live in a world where people isolate themselves for all kinds of reasons; it would have been easy for me to go into isolation during that hard season.  The wisdom writer assures us that isolation is dangerous; it’s never our friend.  Instead of isolation, we need wise and godly people in our lives that can help us hear God’s voice and help us discern His direction for our lives.  I hope those who read this will choose a shared journey over isolation.

Proverbs takes a different direction in chapter 10.  The first nine chapters each have a traceable theme.  Beginning in chapter 10, the writers move to a thought to thought (proverb to proverb) format, often without any connection to what went before or comes after.

As you read chapter 10, you’ll notice that the writer contrasts the righteous and the wicked twelve times.  Verse nine defines the difference between the righteous and the wicked, and that difference is integrity.

To have integrity is to have wholeness, to be undivided.  Those who follow Jesus seek that wholeness, wanting to live from an undivided heart that honors God.  When we do that consistently, we can walk securely through our world.  We begin to live with confidence in God’s work in our lives since we see growing wholeness.  A professor I had at Wheaton College Graduate School used the terms “congruent” and “dissonance” to help us understand integrity.  If our walk and our talk match, we’re living congruently.  When our walk and talk don’t match, our lives are dissonant—out of harmony.

To contrast the man or woman who walks with integrity, the writer tells us of those who make their way crooked.  The man or woman of whom he speaks in verse nine chooses to turn away from the right way; he walks in ways that creates dissonance in his life, not congruence, not integrity.  He or she says one thing but does another.  Many of us have tried that way of living, and many of us have seen our crooked ways made known.  We know the heartache that dissonant living can bring.

None of us want to live crooked lives that rob us of integrity.  None of us have to live that way.  For those who genuinely follow Jesus, two complimentary truths sustain us.  First, we have the freedom to choose integrity over crooked ways.  We also have God at home in us through His Holy Spirit, and He empowers us to choose and live out integrity instead of crooked ways.

Even if we lived yesterday without integrity, dissonance doesn’t have to be our choice for today. It’s a new day, and we can make better choices with Spirit-driven power and the encouragement of good friends.