I heard from a pastor online an advice I thought was worth following: read one chapter from the book of Proverbs each day for a month. Since there are 31 chapters, I could read a chapter a day. I took the advice with excitement and eagerness (like a man hearing his first exercise tips from his gym master on day 1 of his expensive gym membership). Here’s what I learned:
- There are only two ways to live in this life, the way of life and the way of death. Proverbs is filled with contrasts. Wise and fools. Hardworking and lazy. Righteous and wicked. Humble and proud. One leads to life, and the other leads to death. Those who are wise, hardworking, righteous, and humble – though they feel much hardship because of these – are the ones walking in the way of life. Those who are fools, lazy, wicked, and proud – though they feel ease in these – are walking towards their own destruction.
- It’s good to have parents. It’s better to listen to them. We live in a culture that Carl Trueman calls the privileging of the youth. That is, we live in a time where the youth are portrayed as wiser, smarter, and better than their parents. Young men and women will often disdain the archaic advice that their parents give – thinking that their advices on dating, working, choosing friends, and so on are stuck in the 1970s. This happens so much to the point that parents have given up on advising their children. Yet, children, hear God’s word in the book of Proverbs. It is replete with admonition: give ear, pay attention to the instruction of your father and mother. An example:Hear, O sons, a father’s instruction,and be attentive, that you may gain insight,for I give you good precepts;do not forsake my teaching.Proverbs 4:1-2
- Faithful men can stand up to unfaithful men, but faithful men cannot stand up to unfaithful women. I heard Joe Rigney mention this phrase in a preaching on YouTube. He is describing how many faithful men compromise when women emotionally manipulate them. He’s right. Proverbs gives plenty a warning to godly men to avoid the unfaithful woman.Keep your way far from her,and do not go near the door of her house,Proverbs 5:8Why avoid? Because behind her are bones of men who entered Sheol, or in today’s terms, dead meat. We live in a time where the enemy will try to subdue the strength of men the same way he did with Israel through Moabite women – women who will seduce and emotionally manipulate men into becoming white knights instead of men of God. Beware of them.
- Productivity leads to fruitfulness. We live in a time where many try to do as less as possible in order to earn much. Online sabong, gambling, proliferate the smart phones of men. Some are willing to work but only for a limited time and effort. They may say, “any other work beyond the 8-hour requirement, yes I will do, but I will do so with mumbling and complaining, for it robs me of my me time and from finishing the 16th episode of Queen Tears.” Yet, there are those who are working hard, finding themselves discouraged because they earn so little in comparison to the hours of work they do. The book of Proverbs gives much encouragement to those who do their best to work as hard as a badger in building a dam:The hand of the diligent will rule,while the slothful will be put to forced labor.Proverbs 12:24Wealth gained hastily will dwindle,but whoever gathers little by little will increase it.Proverbs 13:11In all toil there is profit,but mere talk tends only to poverty.Proverbs 14:23Do you see a man skillful in his work?He will stand before kings;he will not stand before obscure men.Proverbs 22:29All these verses sing in unison: God blesses our productivity with fruitfulness – sometimes little by little, sometimes in the presence of kings (or famous people). This means, working hard 8-hours a day, 5 days a week will bring fruitfulness, even if the salary is low at the moment. It also means that we don’t have to be limited with having one 8-hour job daily for 5 days a week. You can explore a way to earn a side income. Better yet, you can involve your family in the side business.
- Being disciplined early leads to wisdom later. There are many verses in Proverbs that admonish parents to discipline their child in wisdom. A popular example:Train up a child in the way he should go;even when he is old he will not depart from it.Proverbs 22:6Yet, in this day and age, parents are encouraged not to discipline their children but rather give positive reinforcement messages to them. They are told not to spank them. After all, the child that we have today is supposedly different from children in the past. Furthermore, we now supposedly know more about effective parenting strategies due to the scientific progress we have purportedly made. Yet, according to research, these therapeutic parenting style has done more harm than good.1 Reading Proverbs and the instructions to the parents to discipline their children brought back to my mind fond memories of how my parents’ painful, stern, yet loving discipline, kept me wise enough to avoid pitfalls that I could have fallen into had I not been disciplined.
- Find a wife, a godly wife, not a perfect one. Proverbs starts with a warning of the unfaithful woman, and ends with a chapter on the faithful woman. Proverbs 31, the final chapter describes what is popularly known in Mother’s day church events as the Proverbs 31 woman. Women and wives are exhorted yearly to be this kind of women, with first-time listeners listening with eagerness and 10th-time listeners feeling apathetic. Yet this verse is given to a man. It’s a man’s duty to find one (if single), and shape one (if married). For young men, it means praying and being a kind of leader who will be able to find and lead a woman in her faithfulness. Many men foolishly pursue unfaithful women. Some men foolishly turn faithful women into unfaithful ones. Proverbs exhorts us men to nurture our wives to be faithful in the Lord, in the family, and in productivity and fruitfulness.
- If you want to be wise, humbly fear the Lord. The greatest lesson in the book of Proverbs is that it is God’s will for you to be wise. However, that means that you must fearfully submit to God’s will for you to have wisdom. Wisdom is therefore not knowing everything you can possibly do all the time, it is rather knowing the right thing to do at the right time. It means trusting the Lord and not your understanding when you are tempted to rely on your own thoughts and not His promises. It means going to the ant and learning what it means to work hard in your seemingly thankless job checking papers. It means avoiding flattery and taking courage in rebuking a brother in the Lord who has committed sexual sin. It means running away from seductive visuals of women in order not to fall into pornography. All of these mentioned are considered wisdom, because they are God’s will revealed to you. If you are wise, you will take heed of them and not ignore them.
How about you? Have you read the book of Proverbs? What lessons have you gleaned?
1 Abigail Shrier’s masterful book “Bad Therapy’ exposes the harm of therapeutic parenting styles of this day and age.