Understanding Proverbs: Unveiling God's Wisdom for All

~ Uncommon ~ The Common Sense of God Wisdom for Beginners Proverbs 11:16-31 Bad Men! 1

~There is one thing that I want to make clear in our study on the book of Proverbs. I should have clarified it at the beginning, but I think that I assumed that I didn t need to that people understood this intuitively. But as I was reading this week, it dawned on me that in our culture we tend to take things very literally, so it is very possible that we could get the wrong impression. The book is written mostly in the masculine tense. It was written during a time when the vast majority of the world dominated by males. So, all societies were what we call patriarchal . The men were in charge of government, and the men built things infrastructure, like buildings, roads and bridges, furniture and, generally, men protected the herds and flocks from predators and from thieves, and men were the warriors that went raiding into other regions, or protected their own lands from male warriors from other lands. A formal education like learning to read and write was rare, but when it did happen, it happened mainly to boys, and not girls. The women had their hands full taking care of the children and the home. Most tasks that needed doing in the home had to be done from scratch. You couldn t go to the store and pick up a 10 lb. bag of finely ground flour, so for most people, the wheat or oats had to be ground into flour before bread could be made. Sometimes, in some of the bigger towns and cities, you could buy cloth at an open market, but that cloth had been hand woven on a loom, and so, it was terribly expensive! So, after the men of the family had sheared the sheep, most wives, grandmothers, and daughters had to spin it into a rough wool thread, weave their own cloth on a hand-made loom, and then cut it and sew into clothes with which to clothe their families. There was the washing of those clothes by hand, with well water, or in a nearby stream. Speaking of water, it had to be drawn up in heavy earthen pots, hand over hand, or fetched from a river or stream. On top of guarding and caring for the children, who, as you know, have for all time been relentless in trying to hurt or kill themselves, these women didn t have time for anything else! It was a constant dawn to dusk routine! The wealthy families had hired-servants or purchased-slaves to do that work for them, and then, maybe, a girl could be indulged with an education. But even then it was not considered necessary. ~Anyway, when you read a document like a book in the Bible, and in particular, a book like Proverbs, the writers who were men, would most frequently use the pronoun, he . But, that does not mean it was only referring to men. It was directed toward males, but included females as well! So when it refers to husbands or wives in regard to ethics, morals, character, behavior, attitude, it was also meant interchangeably. You see, men and women are the same in that they possess a fallen nature. One unwise myth that has found a home in our current culture, is that if women were in charge and running things, we wouldn t have all the problems that men have caused. It is simply not true! People are people, and girls and women can easily be as deceptive and false, mean and even brutal, as men! *Back when there was open warfare between the European settlers of the American continents and the native Americans who occupied it, when captives were brought back to the tribal encampment by the male warriors, they were frequently handed over to the women of the camp for exceptionally cruel tortures. They were exacting vengeance for the loved ones they had lost, and, I mean, the tortures they exacted upon their bound and helpless captives are unthinkable today! What I am meaning to say is that history demonstrates that men and women are both different in nature, and the same. When it comes to bad attitudes and bad behavior, women have proven to be the equals of men. They can no longer fix this world (as they boast) than men can, for we share the inherent ethnocentrism and selfishness of our species! Women have indeed proven themselves to be equally as intelligent as men, but they most often process the human experience quite differently. *That is why marriage, for instance, is so beneficial. What one sex lacks, the other can provide. Therefore they are stronger together than they are separately! The Creator intended that a wife and husband comprise a team of two therefore they must listen to and consider carefully each other s different perspectives! Then, and only then, can they be strong! 2

But that is not my point. The principles here may look like they are mainly addressed to bad men. But no. Most of these are actually gender neutral. It may say he in the text, but it means she too. It may say, on occasion, she , but it generally applies to the men as well! These bits and pieces of ageless common-sense wisdom are for people men, women, children, young and old! This chapter has many verses that have to do with men in what are known more generally as male tendencies. [Vs 16] speaks to the ruthless man who will do anything, climb over anyone to get ahead, even if it leaves their victim bleeding on the ground! But it is not uncommon for women do this too. Women will testify that, starting in middle school, following them into high school, and into college, women can be ruthless! Women are incredibly competitive. Some, quite a few actually, don t get better with age. They just get better as disguising their ruthlessness! Men too, learn to exact their will on other men - and upon women, to manipulate, dominate, even subjugate other people! By ruthless, it means they may get money and power over others, but they don t get anything of real value! The ruthless have hardened their soul until it has no ability to be honest, and retains no ability to love. It is a life of cynicism that has gone septic a complete waste of the quality of life they could have experienced if they had been kind, and considerate! Unfortunately ruthlessness is how most people get ahead. Ruthless ambition is a terrible trade-off of the best things for the less things! ~The only way, then, for those successful by the world s standards to avoid such a soul-draining process as rising to prominence or getting rich is to bring others along with you to be generous, kind, and encouraging - to help those less fortunate than you to rise with you! Wealth and power with no one to share it, is no compensation for losing one s humanity and for the loneliness that comes with ! When one gets to that pinnacle, the reward they were counting on simply isn t there! But here is respect , or loyalty, to be gained through kindness, and one soul stays intact! ~the next verse, [17],speaks to the cruel man. A cruel person likes to cause the suffering of others. He or she causes pain and suffering, and then enjoys observing it the hurt, the pain, the suffering! These are the cruel people! Most people are born cruel, but from our parent s correcting us, and the siblings or friends reaction/rejection from cruel behavior - most people also learn to curb and then despise that kind of cruelty in themselves. It is not that they become kind, necessarily, but just that they don t enjoy inflicting pain. A cruel person is usually grown into a cruel person by early and extended contact with a cruel person! It could be a mother or step mother, a father or step father, siblings, or friends. Fathers are particularly notorious for being cruel to their children, and the children are then raised up to be cruel also! This is perpetuated from father-to-father generationally, and in time, a family becomes known for its cruelty like bullying in the neighborhood or the school, or like the bullying of the mean girls of the public schools just about everywhere! Most of us have encountered a cruel supervisor who thinks it is their job to make sure you fail! *Almost all of these school shooters are people that have been bullied relentlessly and constantly put down by other students! Now, this cruel streak from kids in school are generally caused by children not being loved, payed attention to, or affirmed in their homes, as they should be. But sometimes the home is fine and it is the child that has simply been born with a unique mental problem of cruelty! But that is really quite unusual. It is usually cruel people make more cruel people! This principle is true the world over! But,.. the cruel should not be surprised when people are cruel toward them in return! Jesus said, Don t judge, or you will be judged . People usually give back what they get from you, so if you like when people are respectful, you treat them with respect so that they might be respectful in return. Christ-followers are not to follow that convention but to give respect even to the disrespectful to turn the other cheek . But Christ-followers are an anomaly. We don t fit in here, and neither should we. We follow Christ in whom is invested all the wisdom of God. We WILL be different! [Ph p. 2:17] 3

The next 3 verses speak to the wicked man, the evil man, and the perverse man. Listen - bad people exist! I have said this before. People rarely think that they do evil. No they rationalize and self-justify an evil act, so that they can say to themselves that when they have done and evil thing, they have actually been doing good! In this way they sleep like a baby at night They are not wracked by guilt or shame. No! They have convinced themselves that they did what needed to be done! They are the hero of their story, even when they are clearly the villain! *When Judas betrayed Jesus, the gospel accounts don t try to get into his head to explain him. But I can guarantee you that Judas had lost faith in Jesus for some reason probably a money thing. And Jesus was not concerned with it at all! And therefore, in Judas s mind, it was good and right to betray this irresponsible man, and accept 30 silver coins for good measure! The way that Judas had it figured after three years of getting no closer to a seat of power than when He began Jesus must be an imposter, he thought a wannabe who would never achieve the disciple s dreams for Him, nor aid them in gaining the world class power they were hoping for! I mean, like the other 12 disciples, Thomas had given up everything to follow Jesus, but nothing was turning out as any of them had envisioned! So Judas betrayed Jesus to the religious authorities, got back into their good graces, and took the money they offered. But Judas and all those who are wired for success like him, and all those who do evil things in the pursuit of selfish and unscrupulous ambition and selfish gain, fit the definition of an evil-doer! Behavior that hurts other people is evil, unless a person is acting criminally, or very badly then they must be stopped even if it hurts them. That is what our justice system does to those who do criminal behavior. It incarcerates them. It hurts them, of course, but it is just, and right! These hurtful/destructive acts of the wicked, the evil, the perverse, the cruel, and the ruthless, are the works of the evil-doer works that define them as evil! Not as good- hearted people that occasionally do bad things mind you - but just as bad people plain and simple There is just no getting around it! There is no self-justification that works! *Put lipstick and pearls on a sown, and you still have a pig! There is no way to turn bad behavior into good unless, maybe, you can twist words and logic like a first class lawyer! But even with that, when the torrent of twisted words of rationalization are over, evil acts are still just evil, and the evil-doer is guilty of being evil! That is the kind of clarity that God sees things with, and He will not care about our reasons, and He certainly will not be deceived by our justifications ~But this is exactly why we need Jesus! First, we need forgiveness and a new start. Jesus gives that to us and only He can deliver a new start! Admittedly, we all have a bit of the evil-doer in us, and we are all capable of having a lot of it in us! Make the wrong choice and we have done evil. From there it is just so easy to slide into a downhill pattern! And it all begins where that first self-justified act of sin assists in giving birth to an attitude (that probably didn t even exist before). A bad attitude assists in bringing about more acts of wrong- doing and thus, a vicious and ungodly cycle - and a descent into both self destruction, and the hurt and destruction of others! This chain of unfortunate events is actually much more common than you might think! So beware! It is Satan s ploy to drag us down! But it is possible to be stopped at the start, and a lot easier then, than later! Jesus has always been in a war with The Spoiler , The Evil One, where He is trying to make all things new [Rev. 21:4,5]. ~Jesus has always been involved in trying to restore the glory of creation! For now, He is restoring the beauty of original creation in us! That is a hard task. Leading us is sometimes like leading a herd of barn cats! Later, when He rules the world He will make all things new globally! That is His plan, and you can be certain that He will see it through. But until then, let Him begin in me! Cooperate with His plan to fundamentally change us from the inside to the outside! And we will be a productive part of His new design. And where does He do this? In the church, of course the proving ground where He perfects His own kindness and love in us - together! ! 4