Proverb of the day - 3/27/2011

Today's proverb is Proverbs 27. It has a lot to say about close friends, lending (surety), keeping a good name, and shrewd management of your possessions. It's 27 verses long and takes about a minute and a half to read (if you read slowly enough to try to understand it).

Proverbs that stuck out to me today (and this will change every time you read it, based mostly on the context of what's going on in your life at the time, and sometimes on the Spirit's leading):

Proverbs 27:5

"Better is open rebuke than hidden love."

This one jumped out at me because it contrasts "open rebuke" and "hidden love". Open means obvious. Hidden means, well, hidden. The two are natural opposites. Rebuke and love are not necessarily opposites, however. In fact, there are many proverbs relating to this question. A wise man should be able to accept an honest rebuke and learn from it. Defensiveness is the territory of fools. It is saying that if you openly love someone, you will openly rebuke them. This is better than hiding your love from them or for them. Hidden rebukes are for hidden love. Open rebukes are for open love. True love (between spouses, friends, significant others, etc.) should be meted out with honesty. If you can't be honest about a person's shortcomings, tell them what they are doing that is wrecking their lives or the lives of others, then your love for that person may not be as honest as you think. It is no coincidence that married couples get in the worst arguments. Brutal, blatant, open honesty is a natural attribute of love.

Proverbs 27:6

"Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses."

This is very related to the previous verse. Wounds from a friend can be trusted. Open love produces constructive wounds. Wounds that will heal into scar tissue that is stronger than what was there before. Your friend will cut you a little to scrape out an infection that if left unchecked will turn into gangrene. Enemies, however, have no such higher motivation for their attacks. Enemies, the proverb says, multiply kisses. This is a direct allusion to flattery. Friends hurt you, sometimes badly, to get you to do something constructive or to stop doing something destructive. This is the core definition of discipline. Enemies will flatter you, and butter you up. They will tell you things you want to hear (interestingly, this is what Paul tells the church to watch out for in 2 Timothy 4:1-4, one of the very last verses he ever wrote). Whether or not they are true, they will tickle your ears to gain an advantage over you, possibly to make you trust them, or confide in them, so that later they can use your own words against you. This proverb lays out a good plumb line of how to tell your friends from your enemies. How do they talk to you?  

Proverbs 27:7

"He who is full loathes honey, but to the hungry even what is bitter tastes sweet."

This happened to me the other night. I took my wife out to dinner and after we had a ridiculously filling meal at one of our favorite restaurants, we drove through McDonald's for ice cream. I finished mine, and then my wife told me I could have the rest of hers because she was full. The last few bites of my own almost tasted disgusting because of how full I was, and when she said that, I actually became irritated at the audacity of her suggestion that I could eat more. And I love ice cream. But to the hungry person (like the 1/3 of the world's population that lives on rice and little else), anything that could be food looks amazing. I used to be in a band with a guy who was homeless for a while. I remember walking around downtown Pomona with him and being kind of disgusted while watching him pick half-smoked cigarette butts up off the ground to be smoked later by him. This proverb is a description of rich and poor, and it can apply to spiritual things as well. Take a look at Luke 18:10-14. This is one of many passages in the Bible where humility is required by God. In verse 14, Jesus says that the humble sinful tax collector's prayer will be heard, but not the highly exalted and pompous priest's who thinks he is better than everyone else. God listens to those who have their head screwed on straight about their positional relationship to him (created to Creator), and a right knowledge of who He is (Lord of Lords, King of Kings). He loves and helps those who seek Him, not those who think they are good enough on their own. The bottom line in spiritual things is, you are never as full as you think you are, and the honey of God's goodness is something that is never to be despised. Even a poor man who has nothing can see that. 

Proverbs 27:12

"The prudent see danger and take refuge, but the simple keep going and suffer for it."

Here is another indicator of who is "prudent" or wise, and who is "simple" or foolish. The wise plan ahead. They look for signs of danger and take appropriate action. The foolish run straight into danger and then suffer the consequences. Notice the big point though. The foolish don't run straight into the danger because they think that suffering is fun, or because they think danger is exciting (at least not necessarily). The big point is that the wise SEE DANGER. It does not say the simple see the danger and keep going. It just says they keep going. The idea here is that the simple do not see the danger because they do not look ahead. Their eyes are not on the road ahead of them, but on the road directly beneath their feet. They don't look to the future. They don't think in terms of strategies. They don't plan what they are going to do and how they will react in certain situations. They're not good at any of that. They just keep going. They are professionals at walking blind, and tripping over everything in their way, and then getting up and walking some more, and tripping again, never learning from their mistakes. That's what they're good at. They were never taught in public high school how to get ahead with money, how to hold together a marriage, what things in life to cling to and what things to avoid.   And they have every excuse not to learn now. They come up with aphorisms, such as, "The little man just can't get ahead" and concepts like "Murphy's Law". They are so tied into their way of life and they've been knocked down so many times that they just give up and live the status quo. Life happens to them, instead of them happening to life.

Proverbs 27:18

"He who tends a fig tree will eat it's fruit, and he who looks after his master will be honored."

This little gem right here sounds weird because a lot of us probably don't even know what figs are these days, and "master" talk is un-American. A fig is a fruit. It tastes kind of like a strawberry, but doesn't look quite as attractive. They were a big deal back in Solomon's day. The first part of the proverb is thus easy to understand. He who tends a fig tree will eat it's fruit. If you put in the work to water, weed, and fertilize your fig tree, when fig season comes, you will have plenty of them to eat. The negation of this, of course, would be "he who does not tend a fig tree will not eat it's fruit." That's a big lesson, right there. Don't expect more out of life than you're willing to put in to it. There are no get-rich quick schemes that actually work with no strings attached. Lazy people don't get ahead. If you tend your fig tree, you will eat it's fruit. If you tend to the affairs of your business (take care of your customers, pay your taxes on time, keep an eye out for better deals in the neighborhood and buy lower so you can sell at the same price and make more off of it, etc.), it will prosper. If you just do the work and forget about keeping the books and then inadvertently cheat on your taxes and then get ripped apart by the IRS, you won't prosper. It's as simple as that. Lazy people don't get ahead. Tend your fig tree, and you will eat its fruit. 

The second part is an equivalence. Just like if you tend your fig tree you will eat its fruit, if you look after your master, you will be honored. "Master" can be replaced with "boss" or "husband" or "wife" or really anything you desire honor from. Somebody who you do work for and who you desire honor from. Look after them well. The harder you work, the better your boss looks. The more you do for your boss, the better you look in his eyes. The better you look in your boss's eyes, the more money he's likely to give you when your next raise comes around, the more praise he's likely to bestow on you to his bosses at the next Christmas party or corporate meeting, and the better you will look in the running when it's time to promote. Look after your boss, and you will be honored. 

That's the practical application. Now, on a more spiritual level, this proverb is a Messianic prophecy. Messianic simply means that it speaks of Jesus, or the Messiah (transliteration of "savior" in Hebrew). Read Matthew 21:19-20. It's interesting that this passage is even in the Bible. It's a weird miracle, is it not? The Bible does not record many miracles of Jesus, and this one stands out because it does not make a lot of sense. It didn't help anyone. He could have used other means to teach his disciples to ask God for things. Maybe something constructive. But this particular off-kilter miracle may be directly related to this proverb, making it a prophecy disguised as a proverb. In Matthews account, Jesus tended to this particular fig tree. He killed it. It withered and died after He cursed it. What happened to Jesus? He ate the fruit of what he tended to the fig tree. He was crucified, and died at about 3:00 in the afternoon on what many people believe to have been a Friday (the first Good Friday). At the same time, however, He was taking care of His Master in heaven by sacrificing Himself to save us from our sins. Matthew 26:36-42 indicates that Jesus' death was indeed the Father's will. Ephesians 5:1-2 states that Jesus' death and sacrifice for sin were a "fragrant aroma" to God, because all of the sins and blackness of the world were being atoned for. After his death and burial and resurrection, Jesus was honored above all names (Philippians 2:8-11). Jesus is on every page of the Old and New Testaments if you look closely enough. This proverb turns out to be a prophecy that Christ fulfilled, although it has its practical application as well. Note that this proverb was written in about 1400 B.C. Jesus was not born until about 4 B.C. 

Proverbs 27:21

"The crucible for silver and the furnace for gold, but man is tested by the praise he receives."

The truism of this statement cannot be disputed. You are what others say you are. This is the concept of a "name" in the Old Testament. God did a lot of things for "His Name's sake". Not because His Name would talk and order Him to do things. But to uphold His reputation and his character. We are no different. Every decision we make and everything we do affects our "name". The praise we receive from others, whether good or bad, will affect our lives in extremely important ways, and affect our name either positively or adversely. Our "name" is like our credit score for life. When you fund the building of a hospital in Guyana, it skyrockets. When you murder someone during a petty theft, it plummets like you got foreclosed on. You can't finance a car at a lot of dealerships if you have bad credit. Your credit report is your debtor reputation. It is your financial "name". You won't get promoted if people are saying you are a lazy worker. You will get promoted if people are raving about the hard work that you do. The cumulative of all of the positives you have done minus all of the negatives equals your approximate reputation, or "name". It is not "karma", but the idea is similar. What goes around comes around because positive causes naturally have positive effects, and the natural laws governing such things were by God's design.

I am going through the background process right now for a few different law enforcement agencies, and this is more to the point than ever before. They make you give them the names, phone numbers, addresses, and email addresses of all of your family members, several friends and personal references, references at your previous jobs and schools, etc. They ask for so many that it's hard to work it so that all of the references you give them are good ones. But what they do after that is sneaky. They contact all of your references under the assumption that you gave them only the names of people who would sing your praises. They then ask those people to refer them to other people who know you. Their goal is to find just as many people who hate you as who love you so they can get a balanced picture of who you are. You are tested by the praise you receive. This is true in so many ways. Your "name" or your credit score for life is absolutely dependent on the decisions you make every day. And the decisions you make every day (even the small ones) should reflect the knowledge that they will affect your reputation. 

As a side note, I am working on a treatise about hell in response to some of the controversy going on right now because Pastor Rob Bell said it doesn't exist. I'll put it up as soon as it's done.


What's this Proverb Of The Day thing anyway?