GOD’S WISDOM FOR YOU
PROVERBS 22:10-12
10 Drive out the mocker,
and strife goes out as well.
Quarrels and insults will end.
Other proverbs describe the mocker or scoffer who stirs up trouble (11:2; 18:3; 30:33). This time Solomon urges the Christian to drive the mocker out. This is especially urgent in two arenas: in the home, and in the church.
In the home, when a third party (a friend, or even a brother or sister) begin to drive a wedge between husband and wife, it’s time for that couple to revisit what marriage is, and to cling to one another and not listen to the strife and backbiting that can too often cripple a marriage. God said, “A man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24), and that applies to more than just mothers and fathers. If someone is trying to damage a marriage, they are breaking the Sixth Commandment no matter who they are or whatever their reason. They need to be lovingly but firmly told that cannot continue to say and do—or even to think—whatever damaging things have been said or done. And they need to be warned that if they won’t stop, they will be excluded from the married couple’s circle of family and friends. After that, with God’s grace and healing, strife will go out, and quarrels and insults will end.
In the church, when there is someone stirring up trouble, “Warn a divisive person once, and then warn him a second time. After that, have nothing to do with him” (Titus 3:10). Paul told the Corinthians, “God has called us to live in peace” (1 Corinthians 7:15). When someone continually disturbs or disrupts that peace (and we’re not at all talking about a baby crying in church) that person needs to be spoken to directly, and probably by the elders of the congregation. They must be made to understand that we need to do things “in a fitting and orderly way” (1 Cor. 14:40), and if they cannot abide by that, they need to examine their own faith and the reason the church exists.
11 He who loves a pure heart
and whose speech is gracious
will have the king as his friend.
The “king’s friend” is a title in the Old Testament. King’s David’s “friend” was Hushai the Arkite (1 Chronicles 27:33). The king’s friends of Ahab were put to death when the king’s household fell (2 Kings 10:11). Rehoboam’s friends and their rash advice were the ruin of the united kingdom when he listened to their advice over the advice of Solomon’s men (1 Kings 12:8).
Most of us read this maxim from the viewpoint of a courtier or a peasant. Consider it from the throne! A king has too many people who surround him who cannot be trusted. Some think he does too much of this, others think he does too little of that. Some advise him to go to war; others insist he should sue for peace. And every one of them is sure they could do a better job than he does. But a man who is honest, and who doesn’t cut everybody else down!? That would be a true advisor. A true servant to be trusted.
This is what God our King wants from us. Be true everywhere, from your secret thoughts as you lie awake in your bed at night to the things you say in public for everyone to hear. This includes the things you say about your wife when she’s not there, the things you say about her sisters, the things you say in your prayers, and the things you think when your enemy walks away. Be the Christian that God wants you to be, and know that the King, Jesus Christ, is your friend indeed. Live like it.
12 The eyes of the LORD keep watch over knowledge,
and he overturns the words of the unfaithful.
God sees everything. When his eyes are mentioned (Gen. 6:8; Deut. 4:25; Judges 3:7; 1 Kg 11:6) we are given example after example of his omniscience. Here, the knowledge the Lord watches over could be any knowledge, but since the second line of the verse focuses on the words of those without faith, the knowledge in its antithesis must, in fact, be the true words of either those with faith, or the true knowledge which leads to faith—in other words, the Bible itself. This is what the Lord watches over. He will overturn every word that is untrue in the end. We put our trust in him, and in his word. “Lord, you have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68).
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Archives by Wisconsin Lutheran Chapel: http://www.wlchapel.org/worship/daily-devotion/
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota