Plymothian

¹⁵ A quarrelsome wife is like the dripping 
    of a leaky roof in a rainstorm;
¹⁶ restraining her is like restraining the wind
    or grasping oil with the hand.

Why Women Argue

Women argue for the same reason men do.  Most often we argue through fear.  Most often we argue for control.  The fall account is Genesis says that the woman’s desire shall be for her husband.  Later Cain is warned that sin and Satan has this same desire for him.  In the Hebrew, it is a desire to master and control.  When we argue, we must ask ourselves, “Of what are we afraid, anxious or nervous?”  An angry quarrel is a fight against fears that we have. It often has more to do with our history than our spouse.   Depression is when we bury the fears and corrode our own soul.  The solution is neither to attack others or ourselves.  The solution is faith.

Faith in God must be cultivated if we are to be free from destructive domestic argument.  Faith in God leads to a reasonable gentleness and a pervasive peace (Php 4).  It is forgetting God, and doubting someone else can take care of us, that causes us to control.  You see in the passage that it is expected that the man will control the woman, but she keeps giving him the slip.  She will not submit.  When a woman is overcome with fear and will not submit, our society praises her as a strong independent woman.  however, such a woman is destined to be isolated and lonely.  She will realise her own fears through her desire to control.  She may be in a relationship, but by controlling her partner she is not gaining the nourishment of intimacy.  A woman who allows herself to express disillusionment with her husband, and wins her arguments with him usually sees her husband withdraw.  There is initially an attack and defend cycle, but ultimately one person continues to argue and the other becomes beaten down and cowed.  Some say that the ‘winner’ enters the role of a false parent and the ‘loser’ enters the position of a child.  the relationship functions as tasks are carried out, but the heart relationship essentially dies.

Ideally, men and women are to engage in an enthusiastic and respectful mutual sharing of ideas.  They bring their fears of safety, compassion, and intimacy to God and come together with ever decreasing demands of the other.  The wife enters into the world of the husband and assigns value to his sports, friends and computer games because he values them.  The man finds time for her friends, her movies and her hobbies.  He sees they are of value because she is of value.  We can not demand that we receive this idyllic relationship, but we can unconditionally learn to find the strength to give our side of it.  Then when the husband shows initiative (true leadership), he makes decisions that have a clear view of who his wife is and what she needs.  When the wife submits to the husband, she surrenders to her husband those things he really desires.  In this way a marriage has sexual intimacy and harmony.  The man does not spend his time grasping and clawing at a woman who is fighting to get away.

Questions

• To what is living with a quarrelsome wife compared?
• How is drawing a quarrelsome wife into an intimate relationship described?
• What is the responsibility of the husband and the spouse here?
• How should God inform this relationship?
• When you argue, what fears might be present?  how does God want you to deal with those fears?

¹³ Take the garment of one who puts up security for a stranger;
    hold it in pledge if it is done for an outsider.

Charity

I remember a school master at Plympton Grammar School reading from the King James Version (KJV) Bible.  He read 1 Corinthians 13 and in the place of ‘love’ he read ‘charity’.  I have thought of charity along the lines of handouts that are given to the weak.  People I respected growing up would snarl, “I don’t need your charity!” when someone tried to help them.  The traditional view of ‘charity’, helping the weak is upheld in Proverbs 27:13.  However, many of my Christian friends in America are skeptical of helping the poor in America.  If we go beyond charity to welfare, you might anticipate the kind of discussions I have.  Charity from the church, or welfare from the state are seen as cushions that encourage laziness.  It is funny how charitable Americans are to those overseas, but often less charitable to a person on welfare in their own country.  It is argued that the church administrates more righteously than the government, and more efficiently too.  I have not seen data to back this up, I would like to see some evidence that the church is actually less wasteful than the government.  Also, who helps the agnostic and atheist to show charity to their neighbour?

When someone comes to us in dire straits and is in need of cash, the principle of the passage is that God would have us pawn their belongings for them.  We should help someone in their time of need.  Welfare and charities are often broken, but does that mean we should eliminate them?

Another side to this is the ability to accept charity.  It is easier for the proud to give magnanimously than it is to humble ourselves and accept that we need charity.  If we take charity back to 1 Corinthians 13.  We all need to give and receive charity.  It is the practical love of God that flows through the community of faith.

Questions

1. How does Proverbs 27:13 reflect charity?
2. How are the words charity and love connected?
3. How are religion and state separated in ancient Israel?  How does this relate to charity?
4. If the truth of God for the world is that we are socially responsible for our neighbour, how is this administrated for those who are not believers?
5. Why do so many believers want to eliminate state sponsored charity (welfare)?

¹² The prudent see danger and take refuge,
    but the simple keep going and pay the penalty.

Two Moves Ahead

I saw a lecture where it was hown that today’s society are ‘in the moment’.  Experientially that is good.  We should not worry about the future because it is in God’s hands.  However, we should be able to anticipate a little of what is around the next corner and make plans appropriately.  Whether, like a chess player, we can see many moves ahead in the game of life, or whether we just know how to make the best possible next move – wisdom does make plans for the future. 

The connection is to experience the present and be fully aware of our surroundings whilst also seeing that godly patterns of thinking make prudent plans for the future.  Do you have the balance?

Questions

1. How should one adapt to the future?
2. Why do you think the simple are unaware?
3. My son, who is 4, often seems in a world of his own.  When he is not concentrating on walking, what he is saying, or where his hands and feet go – he hurts himself and others.  Why don’t some people grow out of this?
4. How do we educate a child to make more aware choices?
5. Watch Sherlock, the BBC series.  How does Sherlock’s awareness make him brilliant?  Of what is he unaware?

11 Be wise, my son, and bring joy to my heart;
    then I can answer anyone who treats me with contempt.

Boundaries

A healthy person sees themselves as distinct from others in appropriate ways.  However, there is a sense in which we are connected with each other.  Parents have a connection with their children and realise that children are reflection of their parenting.  Some of the reflection is earned, but children are, of course, individuals.  If a child does well, people assume good things about the parents.  If a child does badly, people assume bad things.  Poor character in a child often causes a parent to doubt themselves.  Such a parent can not go about public life without thinking of the public reputation their child also brings upon them.

Questions

1. What does the parent ask of the child?
2. How does the reputation of a child reflect on the reputation of the parent?
3. How does God factor in the relationship betwen a parent and their child’s public actions?
4. Prince Harry was caught naked in Las Vegas while playing strip pool.  How does that reflect on his parents and the Windsor family?
5. How have you honoured or disgraced your family?  How do your children behave in public?  How do you think that changes your reputation?

¹⁰ Do not forsake your friend or a friend of your family,
    and do not go to your relative’s house when disaster   strikes you—
    better a neighbor nearby than a relative far away.

Keep Your Friends Close

So often these days we move from one place to another and it is difficult to form lasting relationships.  In this industrial age, what we do and how we produce is more important than who we are.  The Bible puts relationships before everything else, especially our relatioship with God.  To have no friends is not to be free from ties, but it is to be a hollow human being.  Simon and Garfunkel’s song, “I am a Rock” is actually a song about the tragic irony of a person who thinks they are strong but whose heart is cold and alone.

To this end, unless God tells us to move, we need to cultivate relationships in a community.  Go and have yogurt with a neighbour and get to know them.  Arrange to go to the zoo together.  Ask them questions about themselves and look for points of connection.  In times of trouble you will find that you do not have to go great distances to find comfort and solace.  Your friends will be right there.

Questions

1. Whom should you not forsake?
2. Where should you not go in disaster?
3. Is this verse advocating local relationships in your opinion?
4. What local relationships have you cultivated?
5. How could you develop friendships with local people this week?

³ Stone is heavy and sand  a burden,     but a fool’s provocation is heavier than both.

⁹ Perfume   and incense bring joy to the heart,     and the pleasantness of a friend     springs from their heartfelt advice.

Illustrations From Nature

The writer of Proverbs has obviously spent a lot of time observing the natural world.  By way of analogy and illustration there is a lot that can be learned from the natural world.  Wisdom is rooted in reality because it is, in truth, God’s reality.  When we look at the real world around us we learn how principles are embedded in the way things are.  Maybe take some time to spend a while in your back yard and observe the birds and the flowers.  What does what you see illustrate or teach you?

Questions

1. What things does the writer observe in nature?
2. To what does the writer compare the things that he sees in nature?
3. How does the fact that the natural world is imperfect or fallen play into the writer’s worldview?
4. What do you learn from nature?
5. How do you illustrate the truths you communicate with friends and family?

Let someone else praise you, and not your own mouth;
    an outsider, and not your own lips.

Blowing Your Own Trumpet

It takes a lot to not blow your own trumpet.  It takes a lot to overcome the fears that have us blow it.  What if I am overlooked?  What if I am forgotten?  If I don’t tell people how well I did things, they might think I can not do things well.  These perspectives are even more understandable if there is no God.  However, to live as if there is no God is the way of the fool.  The truly strong person has a good idea of what God knows about them.  They neither need to create a facade nor do they take too much pride in the things they have done.  They glory in what God is doing in them and give the praise to God.  God then gives opportunities for others to see what we have done in His strength so that He is glorified.

Try to go through the day without defending yourself or building yourself up in the eyes of others. 

Questions

1. From what should a wise person refrain?
2. Who exactly should give us praise?
3. How would you describe an ‘outsider’ of Jewish culture?
4. Are you looking for praise?  Why?  Why not?
5. Which outsiders might praise you and why?

Do not boast about tomorrow,
    for you do not know what a day may bring.

Don’t Count Your Chickens In Business

Business people tend to look at the future.  We have venture capital, speculation, and yearly forecasts.  The Bible dictates the Christian’s attitude to these attempts by bringing the whole matter to God.  James interprets this verse with aplomb in James 4:

13 Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” 14 Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15 Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. 17 If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.

Questions

1. What should people refrain from boasting about?
2. Why should they refrain?
3. How does James help us to understand Proverbs?
4. How do you feel about your financial future?
5. How would God have you think about your financial future?

¹⁷ Like one who grabs a stray dog by the ears
    is someone who rushes into a quarrel not their own.