Thoughts on Proverbs 1

Thoughts on Proverb 1

Outside Reading -5
12/9/16

“My son, if sinners entice you, do not consent.

If they say, ‘Come with us, let us lie in wait for blood; let us ambush the innocent without reason; like Sheol let us swallow them alive, and whole, like those who go down to the put; we shall find all precious goods, we shall fill our houses with plunder; throw in your lot among us; we will all have one purse.’” Proverbs 1:10-14

I was reading this today for the first time in a long time and when I did, my first reaction was, “No, I’ve never really felt very tempted to go among sinners and lie in wait for blood.” After re-reading this section though, it reminded me of gossip, and this is something in which I am much more tempted to take part. There’s not really a time when I feel like sitting down and gossiping about someone, but as I am a very justice-oriented person, I think it is something of which I need to be careful. It is mostly because I love justice and am very sensitive to unjust things that I end up gossiping. Whenever I witness or hear of a person treating someone I love poorly, I find myself judging that person extremely harshly. I have noticed that this is something that several other people in my life struggle with as well; what starts out as a natural and healthy desire to protect a friend becomes sinful.

I think it is important for me to realize that Satan often tries to take our strengths (such as being justice-oriented) and twist them into something that is sinful. Where does this healthy desire to defend a friend go wrong? I think for me, it goes wrong when I get into this mentality that it is solely up to me to defend the person being unjustly treated, because this just is not true. I am not the ultimate defender of the attacked---God is our defender and when I forget this, I think that I begin to behave in a rather ugly way. In the Bible it says that we are sons and daughters of God (2 Cor. 6:18) and in Exodus 14:14 it says that, “The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.” It is the Lord that is our defender and it is not only me that is there to defend those that our unjustly treated; when the Lord calls upon the believer to speak and protect others, this must be heeded BUT, this does not justify imposing my own personal sense of justice on the person who has acted unjustly.