Listen to advice and accept instruction, that you may gain wisdom in the future.
Advice comes in all stripes. Some is good. Some is bad. Some is really, really bad. Good councilors can make a leader, and bad councilors can break him just as thoroughly, when he keeps and heeds them. Among wisdom’s deepest foes is pride, the pride which refuses good advice and accepts bad advice. Pride is idolatry of the self, the choice to prefer my own temptations to God and His law and His counsel. So we must learn to abhor it; we must learn the humility of taking advice—and the humility too of measuring its worth, no matter how tempting it may be, no matter how high, below God, the giver may stand in our eyes.
The simplest form of pride is the man who will not take any advice at all. He determines to be guided by nothing but himself, and quickly that becomes a determination to be guided by nothing but his own desires. He has refused all authority save himself and thus declared that he is the highest authority. He has, in other words, proclaimed himself by action at least to be a god (1 Sam. 15:23). This sin is the genesis of his destruction, for he makes himself in its image and thereby comes to nothing.
So we ought to take advice. But what advice do we take? Food is necessary, but if we eat everything presented, we will eventually eat poison. Worse, many people give bad advice in earnest or out of malice, many more than are willing to deliberately poison another and for far smaller reasons. And some of the advice may even be good from their perspective, rendered harmful only by circumstances in our lives which they are unaware of. So, once we start taking advice, we need to filter it.
The first and foremost standard against which we ought to measure advice is Scripture. Scripture suffices to all moral problems we will ever have (2 Tim. 3:16-17), and by the Spirit’s power we can find that wisdom (John 14:26), the wisdom which comes by fear of Him (Ps. 111:10). The book of Proverbs is particularly useful here, being dedicated to practical advice, to understanding how the world actually works and how we ought to respond to that. In this pursuit, in imitating the Bereans that we may receive a like commendation (Acts 17:11), a thorough understanding of Scripture is our best tool. By studying His word and building up a vast store of understanding, both of the Law and of the Gospel, of sanctification’s goal and salvation’s nature, by building this storehouse we prepare ourselves to test advice by it, by His word, when the moment of decision comes.
(Not to mention that the faculties sharpened in striving to understand Scripture will be of greater use in assessing advice.)
While Scripture’s word binds us, commanding our obedience, we have other sources of knowledge and wisdom—our elders in a pursuit. Other men are worthwhile sources of advice and counsel, as this proverb reminds us. They are fallible, and they are sinful, but we benefit when we listen to those with greater reason to know wisdom. Still, whereas with Scripture we must give obedience absolute and unequivocal, with other men we properly exercise discretion. The standards by which we weigh this advice include the particular vantagepoint of the speaker (whether he has reason to know the topic he advises on) and his character (particularly in that area, but elsewhere as well—an adulterer’s moral advice is dubious across the board, though his advice on automotive mechanics may be useful).
Always we must be wary of a danger from within. Advice very easily starts to look good when it comports with our desires. It tickles our fancy, and we start finding reasons to listen. Sometimes this advice is even good—but we accept it for the wrong reasons, tainting the results and our future analysis (Job 14:4). Each of us has a weakness. A salesman might enjoy being sold to, and so will tolerate or even enjoy manipulative advice. A father might want to think well of his children, and so he accepts excuses rather than giving discipline. A parent might be fearful that His children run astray, forgetting the Lord’s promise, and so be too eager to condemn, taking excuses in the other direction. One of the sneakier desires is that for self-abasement, where we take advice calculated to denigrate us because we desire to judge ourselves by our own standard, one self-righteously harsher than God’s (and yet missing many real sins in its parody of humility).
The Lord equips His people to triumph against such temptations. We are tempted, yet, but by His grace we can come out the other side perhaps chastened but always His, strengthened in Him, made holy by His blood and becoming holy by His power (Is. 26:12). He gives us His Word and His Spirit to guide us in sifting the good and advice from the bad, to guide us to take that good advice and set aside the bad, rather than letting our lingering evil desires (1 John 1:10) draw us from Him. Though we sin, He calls us back, making that sin eventually intolerable to our hearts. And at last He shall triumph even over death (1 Cor. 15:26), to the glory of God the Father.
God bless.
Sanctuary Functional Medicine, under the direction of Dr Eric Potter, IFMCP MD, provides functional medicine services to Nashville, Middle Tennessee and beyond. We frequently treat patients from Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Ohio, Indiana, and more... offering the hope of healthier more abundant lives to those with chronic illness.
Colson Potter writes copious fiction and nonfiction, including a weekly Proverbs post and his blog at Creational Story.
