Desire without knowledge is not good, and whoever makes haste with his feet misses his way. [Proverbs 19:2] The road to hell, they say, is paved with good intentions. It’s a dangerous thing to desire without knowing what we desire, a recipe for folly, destruction, and disaster. Yet we’re all too prone to the…
Better is a poor person who walks in his integrity than one who is crooked in speech and is a fool. [Proverbs 19:1] Integrity is the quality of holding together under pressure, in all circumstances, as a whole. A building’s integrity lies in its ability to stay upright and undeformed through wind and storm and…
A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. [Proverbs 18:24] In a world so rough and fractured as this we poor sons of Adam create, it is easy to despair of finding true relationship, to despise all search for it, to expect treachery…
The poor use entreaties, but the rich answer roughly. [Proverbs 18:23] Above all else, men desire to be rulers of themselves. This statement holds for the righteous and the wicked- except that these two understand rulership in very different ways. The righteous man would rule himself in stewardship, honoring and following God with all at…
The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him. [Proverbs 18:17 ESV] Getting both sides of the story is an absolutely essential part of argument and judgement; it’s also something we are heavily inclined to not do. We get a first impression, and we stick with it, for…
A man’s gift makes room for him and brings him before the great. [Proverbs 18:16 ESV] One principle of reading Proverbs is recognizing that recognition is not endorsement. The way things are is often not the way they should be. Proverbs deals with reality; Proverbs teaches us to deal with reality. Reality includes, thanks…
An intelligent heart acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge. [Proverbs 18:15 ESV] Fire does not burn without fuel; smoke does not rise without fire. Every result has a prerequisite and a cause, leading back to Him and His decree, the ultimate cause. Human wisdom, ingenuity, and achievement has as one of…
A man’s spirit will endure sickness, but a crushed spirit who can bear? [Proverbs 18:14 ESV] A heart attack can be triggered by shock, spiritual triggering physical. Anger or despair can be elicited by a long-running injury, physical triggering spiritual. In daily life, a ray of light, impacting the eye, can cause the spirit to…
If one gives an answer before he hears, it is his folly and shame. [Proverbs 18:13 ESV] The classic error in math, the one that plagues me at least, is swapping one sign for another. Subtraction becomes addition, addition becomes multiplication, a negative number becomes positive. On multiple choice tests, too, my constant bane is…
Before destruction a man’s heart is haughty, but humility comes before honor. [Proverbs 18:12 ESV] We all know that humility is good. The next question doesn’t have quite so clear an answer: what is humility? Often we equate it with self-debasement or self-effacement, the reduction of my own claim on the world. Such a definition,…