²¹ Fire tests the purity of silver and gold,
but a person is tested by being praised.

I can’t say that I’m praised or flattered a lot, but I feel that I’ve got a good share of nice things said about my work.  Being a preacher is sort of like a performance artist in that others critique you.  Just yesterday, while I was preaching my wife was giving me the “get on with it” sign.  Later, others said that the part where I received the sign was very entertaining.  We figured that my wife had just heard all of that story before.

I have to be very careful not to rely on praises or jeers too much.  There will always be evalution, but ultimately I have to preach the way I think I should.  So, being praised is a test.  If it is like a refiner’s fire, it prooves us, makes us better, makes us seem more valuable.   The image is a rich one, and should take some thinking through.

²¹ A quarrelsome person starts fights
as easily as hot embers light charcoal or fire lights wood.

I read recently that the word irritable is a word picture of someone “at a knife’s point.”  I don’t know the etymology of the word, but it is a good picture.  Someone who is irritable is “this close” to getting poked.  It doesn’t take much to push him or her a little closer.

This proverb reminds me of that word picture.  The writer says that the quarrelsome person is “this close” to flaring up.  This picture also makes us consider that the person is already “hot” and just about any breeze will do to set them off.

²⁹ Who has anguish? Who has sorrow?
Who is always fighting? Who is always complaining?
Who has unnecessary bruises? Who has bloodshot eyes?
³⁰ It is the one who spends long hours in the taverns,
trying out new drinks.
³¹ Don’t gaze at the wine, seeing how red it is,
how it sparkles in the cup, how smoothly it goes down.
³² For in the end it bites like a poisonous snake;
it stings like a viper.
³³ You will see hallucinations,
and you will say crazy things.
³⁴ You will stagger like a sailor tossed at sea,
clinging to a swaying mast.
³⁵ And you will say, “They hit me, but I didn’t feel it.
I didn’t even know it when they beat me up.
When will I wake up
so I can look for another drink?”

This is probably the longest passages I’ve ever posted.  It is so long because it all hangs together, demonstrating the dangers of alcohol abuse.  This proverb section is doing what I have been considering this week.  There is a truth that the writer wants to communicate, and it is not so much that alcohol is a danger as much as the writer wants to communicate motivation to stay away from the danger.  Most people don’t buy the lie that alcohol is perfectly safe.  Most believe it is dangerous.  But they choose to risk the danger.  They choose to go against their better judgement and attempt to come as close as possible to “the line” and then stop.

The message I’ll be preaching on has to do with a good habit to develop rather than a bad one to give up.  Still, it’s not that I have to sell one on the idea of these good habits, I just need them motivated enough to do them.

⁴ Haughty eyes, a proud heart,
and evil actions are all sin.

Sin is more than just acting on the evil things that we typically think about, such as murdering someone.  We too often forget that actions are only part of sinning.  Plus, James clarified in his New Testament book, that you don’t have to act on something to sin; you can also sin by neglecting to act on something.  But that is enough about actions.  We’re used to hearing about sinful acts.  The reason I picked this proverb is because it clearly says that sin is also having haughty eyes and a proud heart.  The one that gets me is a proud heart.  It would seem that every sin begins with pride.

²⁴ The Lord directs our steps,
so why try to understand everything along the way?

“I struggle with…”, “I don’t understand why…”  These are phrases that I have been guilty of overusing.  God says up front that His ways are not our ways, and that His thoughts are not our thoughts.  Yet, I still want to understand before I obey.  Well, I’m “struggling” with dropping these phrases from my vocabulary.  My job is not to understand but to release and be dependent.

¹⁷ If you help the poor, you are lending to the Lord—
and he will repay you!

I really like how this proverb is stated.  You would never think that the Lord would take a loan!  funny.  Many people are in a world of financial trouble because of all the lending going on in the world.  However, charity is something that rarely breaks a family. As it says in the New Testament, “Give, not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver.  ⁸And God is able to make all grace abound toward you.”

⁹ A lazy person is as bad as
someone who destroys things.

This proverb is like what I’ve been reading in a time organization book as well as what I just heard from our Home Team curriculum by Andy Stanley.  Stanley said something like there is a negative cumulative value when we neglect things.  The lazy person who continues to put off and put off actually damages that which is neglected.  It happens in our homes…trash builds up, dishes stack up, laundry piles up.  It happens with our health…fatness grows, arteries clog, muscles atrophy.  It happens in our spirits too, resolve diminishes, desires fade, communication is lost.

The wise person is not a workaholic in that he or she slaves day and night with no rest.  Rather the wise person works appropriately in increments of minutes a day or hours a week, and so on.  Stanley said there is cumulative value when we make small deposits.

The heart of the godly thinks carefully before speaking;
the mouth of the wicked overflows with evil words.

“I talk to hear what I’m thinking.”  That’s what I’ve said before to describe how I process and communicate ideas.  It’s almost as if I do both of those things simultaneously, and can’t do either separately.  But it is highly unwise to speak before thinking.  When speach overflows, wickedness isn’t reined in and has opportunity. My “think first” muscles are lethargic, but as I see this is a proverb commanding one to do so, I will depend on God to restore that ability in me, and work it out.

⁷ Some who are poor pretend to be rich;
others who are rich pretend to be poor.

This proverb caught me by surprise.  It makes me think of when Paul said, “those who think they’re something are really nothing.”  James also talked about “Goldfinger” in his epistle.  So much pretending.  I don’t set out to pretend to be something I’m not, but have been caught up in that behavior when I want to be something else.  For instance, I want to preach like so-and-so, but I preach best when I preach like me.  I want to be seen as a brain or scholar, but that again, is not me.  Worst of all, I want people to pat me on the back because of all my hardships, and reality is that I have no real hardship.  How can I rid my self of complaining???

Pro. 15:4 “A soothing tongue is a tree of life…”

Recently some friends and I were discussing The Five Love Languages.  The husband is “Words of Affirmation” and “Acts of Service.”  His wife, who does not have those as her primary language, both set the coffee maker the other morning for it to be ready for our early morning meeting, and left a very encouraging note for him to read.  Wow! that hit him on both languages.  I asked if he got it, and of course he did because it was love communicated by doing something for him and the words that said so.  The proverb today reminds us that words matter, and can be a tree of life.