Proverbs 14:17 ESV
A man of quick temper acts foolishly, and a man of evil devices is hated.
[https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=proverbs+14%3A17&version=ESV]
‘Evil devices’ may, if you’re of a particularly fanciful bent, conjure up images of techno-contraptions, Bond villain death traps, and printers that never work right. That’s not really what it means, though, as a quick comparison to the semi-parallel first half of the verse will assure us. A man of a quick temper and a man of evil devices are alike men whose actions are motivated by unjust, ungodly desires. The first is angry, and not with righteous anger; he acts on behalf of his anger, without reining it in, to the harm of himself and all around him. The second is a devious man, who seeks evil ends through duplicitous means; for this, all his neighbors, as they recognize his character, despise him. Evil, it turns out, doesn’t match with reality, not really; it can pretend for a time, but eventually the cracks show. Eventually, judgement comes. In this world, perhaps the judgement is bearable; save the grace of God intervene, it will not be so in the next.
Anger is an easy emotion to succumb to. It comes to us cloaked in right, in justice, in fairness, in ‘he had no right’ or ‘but I wanted that’, and we listen. We listen, we grow wroth, and we act. Anger leads us forward where we should not, makes us stand aside when we should interfere, lets us think the worst of men we dislike when we, in clearer minds, would acknowledge that as much as we don’t like them, the rumors aren’t all true. In anger we attack the people we love- with words, at least, if not always. In anger we neglect our duties just to spite the object of our anger, making trouble for ourselves as well as those who rely on us. Anger too helps other sins grow. Laziness, perhaps, is fostered by our anger-driven bouts of passivity; greed is fostered by a vengeful attack on another’s reputation; selfishness is fostered by a submission to ‘well I wanted it’ as a rationale for action.
‘Evil devices’ are both more impressive sounding and less clear than a ‘quick temper’. The word translated here, however, is fairly simple: plots. A man of evil devices is a man who through guile and trickery seeks to accomplish evil ends. Such men, of course, can have great success, with a little bit of competence and corruption. Look at the average politician or big company. Look at the government, with its impressive array of plots and plans, virtually none of them good. So, success can grace these efforts (though, if you really think about it, a lot of less-than-competent schemers fly under the radar just by failing too miserably to come to anybody’s attention). The success, though, is temporary. God’s world is made to work in accordance with His character; though sin has perverted it, has twisted elements of the world into broken facsimiles of themselves (made orcs out of elves, to reference classic literature), evil devices still don’t fit into the warp and woof of the fabric quite right. As the saying goes, ‘the truth will out’.
Men of evil devices have a particular punishment granted to them in this verse: to be hated by their fellow man. If we think about the practicalities of life, this rings true. If you hear that a particular business man is known for scummy tricks with the small print in his contracts, you’ll probably ‘contract’ a bit of a dislike for him- more, if you’ve been caught in that sort of thing before. If you hear that a politician made some shady back-alley deals, the sort of thing that would be illegal if you or I did it but is perfectly legal for him to do, well, let’s be honest, you’d probably just chalk it up to business as usual for politicians, but it wouldn’t make you like the guy. We don’t like or trust people who we know are deceivers, backstabbers, and conspirators-to-do-ill.
The sum of this verse, honestly, is pretty simple. Letting anger rule you is a very bad idea and plotting to do evil is just going to bite your rear end. Of course, sometimes these things do seem to work out. Evil men prosper all the time; many seemingly live their entire lives in the pursuit of evil schemes or (more rarely, due to its more immediately self-destructive nature) in the thrall of anger. They lie, they cheat, they steal, and they go down to the grave in peace. Yet this view forgets what waits for them thereafter. For the man of evil, only hell waits; he who lives his whole life in evil will spend eternity with the consequences of those choices. For the man whom God has redeemed, though, death is not a portal to death everlasting. Instead, it is merely the final step he takes upon this earth, broken as it is, before he is freed of the sin of his fallen birth, before he is made whole by God to worship Him evermore, nevermore the thrall of anger or a plotter of evil (Rom. 6:4).
God bless.
Written by Colson Potter
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.
