Proverbs 8 by Doug

Proverbs 8 is similar in style to the previous chapters.  It's not quite the individual sayings that I think of when I think of Proverbs.

 

This is instead Wisdom's invitation.  Chapter 7 saw the warning about the wandering woman, and used adultery as a symbol for foolish behavior. (Adultery, of course, qualifies as foolish behavior.)

 

While I like the daily reading of a chapter of Proverbs, you should still read chapter 8 as a continuation of chapter 7.  Look at the prologue-type opening of chapter 7 where the father is talking about observing  the city streets.  Now, the first thing he sees is Folly and her victim.

 

Chapter 8 is the other woman he sees, and her presence intensifies the tragedy of those that turned to Folly.  It wasn't that there was no alternative.  It wasn't even that the alternative was hard to find or unattractive.  Wisdom was crying out in the streets as well.

 

The warning here is that life's results most often come from the choices we make, not from anything else.  Choose wisdom!

Legalism

This post may be a little longer than blog experts suggest, but, you'll live.  I think it's worth it.

One of the things that I have been studying through as I'm preaching Philippians is legalism.  Philippians is similar to Galatians and Colossians in content, and all three address, at least once or twice, the concept of legalism in the Christian life. 

Meanwhile, I'm also reading through the book of Romans, which is going well.  Slowly, but well.  There's much in Romans about law and grace and following God.

Add to that the pastoral role I hold, where I am frequently striving to help people find and follow God's will as well as guide a whole church in that direction, and I've been pondering pathways and staying on them recently.

So, let's push through the concepts here, and I'll try and tie this up before it's all over with.

I've long tried to explain legalism in terms of playing in the street.  As a parent, I understand this.  I find it acceptable, for the most part, for my kids to play in the yard, but I don't want them to play in the street.  The street is dangerous, bad things happen in the street.  Can bad things come into the yard? Certainly.  Bad things can happen in the house.  We've had some knuckleheads in Monticello celebrating the New Year by firing guns in the air.  Loaded guns.  Those bullets have to come down somewhere, and at least one came down in a child's bed.  However, you're still much safer in the yard or in the house than in the street.

Now, imagine the explicit commands of Scripture are all, basically, telling you not to play in the street.  This is, by the way, true.  We break down sin into groups and categories.  Sin is failing to be perfect as God is perfect.  Does it matter that much how we each miss it as much as that we all do?  Anyway, God gives commands in Scripture that are there to keep us from playing in the street. 

In the past, I've explained legalism as being the fences we put up that push the boundaries back from the street.  For example, an expression of sin is adultery.  So, don't have sex with someone you're not married to.  The Lord Himself expressed that unfaithful thoughts are also forbidden.  That's the commands to stay out of the street.  Now, we put up a fence: we don't listen to certain types of music or watch certain TV shows to make sure we don't accidentally slip into this.  Now, certainly, the music we listen to and the shows we watch impact our hearts and minds, and we ought to be careful.  But Janet Jackson's infamous 'wardrobe malfunction' didn't cause people to lust that weren't doing so already at the rest of the performance.  The main version of this I've seen is the "We don't watch rated R movies" fence.  Except that movies aren't rated strictly on their conformity to Biblical standard.  Else, Titanic is fine and the Passion of the Christ isn't.  Really?

But by erecting a fence to back us up from the street, while we might be safer, we are also missing a portion of what God has given us the freedom to choose from.  The more legalistic we are, the farther back we build the fence, the more we miss.  Is the protectionism warranted? Sometimes yes, sometimes no.  Is it done from a heart of meanness? Not always.  I don't let my 3-year-0ld play outside without a fence because I love him.  Some of the fences we build are to show our love and our understanding of human weakness.  However, there are times we need to tear down the fences and examine the freedom we have.

That's long been my definition of legalism.  I think it's a mostly accurate analogy, although all analogies do break down.

In fact, it's the breakdown of that analogy that I've been thinking about it.  Christianity is not just a matter of playing the yard.  It's the act of living life in obedience to Christ and becoming more like who God created you to be every day.  Just staying and playing in the yard, really, becomes sinful.

So I'm thinking the analogy is reversed.  Rather than the commands of Scripture and the guidance of the Holy Spirit being a matter of keeping us out of the street, these things keep us on the path.  And the path that comes to mind is the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway.

You know, the 24 mile-long bridge over Lake Pontchartrain at New Orleans?  It's quite the bridge.  I've been on it.  Then I followed it by driving I-10 across south Louisiana.  It's basically a long bridge through a swamp.  I could hear the gators….

Anyway, conceive of the Christian life as following across the Causeway.  Sometimes it's clear and you can see a long way down the road.  Sometimes it's foggy and you can't see anything.  There are other travelers, moving at different speeds.  Sometimes they're even in different vehicles and different lanes!  Those things represent the freedom we have in Christ.  We are free to choose, but obedience will expect us to choose from a limited scope of options.  It's not much different than the freedom a ball player has.  A running back is free to run wherever he wants, within certain boundaries.  He's also not free to bring a hockey stick or baseball bat.  So, there is freedom, but obedience keeps you from selecting many of the options.

Obedience keeps you out of the water.  Which is a good plan on the Causeway.  It's a great plan on I-10, because it keeps you away from the gators!  So, you have freedom to choose aspects of the path.  You have consequences for straying from it.

How does legalism fit?  Legalism restricts you to one lane.  Perhaps legalism restricts you to walking along the shoulder.  Maybe legalism binds you into the fast lane in a high-performance car.  Either one is not the only way across.  There will be times for walking and times for driving.  Legalism sticks you in a spot and then claims that all these people passing you, driving around you, maybe even walking alongside of you aren't really going the same way you are.

Whichever picture works for you, I hope that brings some understanding.  I also hope we'll realize the need to back away from some of our legalistic tendencies, including our legalistic judging of other people we think are legalistic…

 

What do you think?

 

Doug

Proverbs 7 by Doug

I read this, and I can't help but wonder just how many people the father had seen fall to adultery.  You can hear the pain in his voice, the pleading.  "DON'T DO THIS!" is so blatantly spelled out here, can you imagine the son falling?  Yet he might have.  Why?  Why do we fall into sin when we know its dangers? 

It's time.  That we have to see things in the scope of time weighs us down and keeps us  from really seeing things.  We see the immediate consequences so clearly, and the long-term ones get fuzzy.  The eternal scope is often completely lost on us. 

Take adultery for an example.  Rod Loy, pastor of First Assembly of God in North Little Rock, Arkansas, used the acronym HALT in reference to fighting temptation.  He pointed out that temptation comes when we are:

Hungry

Angry

Lonely

Tired

When those feelings are affecting us, we tend to look for the immediate solution to them.  We choose to eat wherever, we do what we need to given with the cause of our anger.  We want to alleviate loneliness.  We just don't want to feel tired, and the tiredness clouds our judgment.

How to fight it?  First of all, like the speaker here is trying to help his son fight it.  We fight by considering the consequences before the decisions present themselves.  We move our decision process back from the immediate, and consider the long-term consequences.  Honestly list out for yourself what would happen if you chose a certain path.

Second, and this is also important, look at Proverbs 7:25 (NLT) : the warning is here to avoid putting yourself in the position that the temptation comes.  If you're an alcoholic striving to recover, avoid hanging out in bars, where the temptation is stronger.  If you're tempted to be unfaithful to your spouse, avoid traveling alone as much as possible (and avoid traveling with someone you're tempted by!).  If money is a temptation, establish controls.

This is what the writer of Proverbs 7 is calling out for his son to watch for, to avoid.  Don't let it happen to you, he pleads.  May we all heed his warning.

Proverbs 6 by Doug

Proverbs 6:1-5 (NLT) –>This one is obvious on the surface.  And it's obvious to bankers, because they've nearly gotten to where they won't approve a loan with a co-signer because the co-signer gets stuck with it.  Let's dig a little to the side here, and think about some less obvious implications.

 

It what ways have you ever made your reputation beholden to someone else's actions?  Sometimes this is necessary, but think about it.  Are you stuck, waiting on other people's work to keep your reputation, maybe even your job?  BUG THEM TO DELIVER! At the very least, make certain that every aspect you can control, you are taking care of and doing the work with excellence.  You cannot, ultimately, control what the other person will do, but you can control yourself.  Avoid being stuck if possible, and strive not to get buried if you are stuck with it.

 

Proverbs 6:6 (NLT) –>Take also this lesson from the ants: keep popping up in my kitchen only to eat, and I will squish you.

 

Proverbs 6:7 (NLT) –>How often does it take having someone pushing me to work harder?  How I need to change that!

 

Proverbs 6:12 (NLT) –>Constant liars.  People that are almost incapable of speaking and holding truth.  These are to be considered as "worthless people."  Apart from seeing redemption and change, we shouldn't entrust these types of people with anything.  So let's stop re-electing them, ok?  Not that politicians are the only constant liars, but we've allowed the typical political lying to become the normal behavior of America, and it's killing us.  Time to clean it all out, from our homes upward through the Capitol.

Book Review The Sweet By and By

Book Review: The Sweet By and By from Sara Evans with Rachel Hauck

Every now and then, when I'm looking through available books from Thomas Nelson's Book Review Bloggers program, I pick something a little out of character for me. Why? So it can sit on a shelf until I'm right up to the deadline, then I read it in a short time span.

This time, I picked up The Sweet By and By . I've been a fan of Sara Evans' music for some time, and was curious to see how she did as a novelist. And yes, it's not really a novel geared at the male audience. Most novels with nice romance aren't.

I was pleasantly surprised, though, to read this book. It was, first of all, not a fluff novel. The characters have real issues, they have frailties, and not everything is straightened out by the end.

So how is it? Well, the book develops well. The characters are not the stereotypical Christian novel characters that have everything together or whose problems are really molehills made into mountains. (Although, to be honest, I've only read a few that fit the stereotype.) The center character is a young woman named Jade and the plot revolves mainly around the path to her wedding. It consists of current occasions mingled with flashbacks that establish what all is happening.

In all, this is not a bad novel for a first attempt. It's not even bad for a second or third attempt. True, from the masculine perspective, there are no car chases, explosions, or dramatic showdowns. It's a soft, easy read. It can be thought-provoking, it can also be read a little closer to the surface as a light weekend novel.

Would I recommend this? Certainly. It's probably a good read for the anyone 13 or up. I'd give this one 4 out of 5 stars.

Doug

Proverbs 5 by Doug

Proverbs 5 is, at first glance, a warning to avoid immorality.  It's especially worded to avoid immoral women, given that this is written as advice to a future king.

The warnings are very pointed, about the fact that adultery is the way to death and hell, that it will destroy all who follow in that path.

Yet that's not the only focus of this chapter.  Look through Proverbs 5:15-20 (NLT). What do you see?  It's a celebration of married life and love. 

It's a good example of the right method of teaching wisdom and morality.  It's not enough to always only point out what to avoid, but it's good to point out what should be embraced.  A loving, passionate, and even physically exciting marriage is a good thing to have.  If you aren't married, it's not bad to seek it.  If you are married, work your marriage in that direction!

Doug

Proverbs 4 by Doug

Proverbs 4:14 (NLT) –> "Do not do as the wicked do."  And if we would get that one thing down, we'd be in good shape.  How often, though, do we copy the actions of the wicked?  Realize here that the author of Proverbs sees "the wicked" as those people living a life not centered on God.  It's not just "don't copy wicked actions" but rather "do not copy anything from those whose hearts are wicked."  We're fairly decent at the former, but so easily fall into the latter.  Otherwise, why do we have Survivor-themed church events?

Proverbs 4:14 (NLT) –>That first gleam of dawn is glorious even today, but imagine the darkness of no artificial lighting. The realization that there are things to be done, but they cannot be started without the light.  Then it begins… Another thing we don't realize is how cold the desert and wilderness can be at night.  Sure, it's screaming hot in the day, but dry air and no clouds allow for chilly nights.  You've passed into the chilly night, your fire has burned low.  It's cold and dark.  Then the first gleams break over the horizon and you recognize you've survived for another day.  Good stuff.  Then we should get brighter!!

Proverbs 4:24 (NLT) –>Generally, what we talk about becomes what we do, and what we do becomes who we are.  If we make racy jokes, we desensitize ourselves to the innuendoes and then slide into the trap…if we joke about others, we slide towards meanness.  The words of our mouths become the meditations of our hearts.

Proverbs 4:25 (NLT) –>Look straight ahead…not to the sides or behind you.  Fix your eyes on the goal, on where God is taking you.  Not the side, where other goals may be.  They are not your own.  Not behind you, you can do precious little to change the path you have taken.  Fix your eyes straight ahead.  What is it to you that another's goal is different?