WISDOM INSIGHTS No. 4 – OVERVIEW OF THE BOOK OF PROVERBS

The critical role of parents

I have been thinking this week of the great story about an American tourist who was lost somewhere in the south of Ireland. The tourist asked a local for directions about how to get to Dublin. The unhelpful reply was:

“Well – I wouldn’t start from here”!

This is our problem as a society – we really can’t continue along a path, trying to find our way to “Dublin” from our current starting point. We need to go back to basics and understand that there is a world of cause and effect, where “facts don’t care about your feelings”, as Ben Shapiro says.

Each day we seem to face increasing evidence of a lack of general wisdom. Just a few things that have caught my attention recently:

• The Biden administration’s war against gender. How extraordinary that you would fight a war against basic biology! It’s a war that you are certain to lose.

• The UK Conservative Party trying to tax its way to prosperity, imposing the highest taxes since WWII.

• The UK, National Health Service, facing a backlog of 7 million patients and waiting times at Emergency Departments of hospitals extending beyond 24 hours, is spending £40 million per year on “diversity officers.

• In the face of impending mass disaster in the northern hemisphere from an energy crisis due to commitments to “net zero”, leaders double down on a collective suicide mission. Ideology is obviously more important than facts but facts can’t be ignored forever.

• The Biden administration announces release of fuel from the strategic petroleum reserves because of a “lack of supply”.  This is the administration that caused the lack of supply in the first place by imposing a moratorium on new oil and gas leases and cancelling the Keystone XL oil pipeline.

• US military commanders are more concerned about gender equity, LGBTQ+ issues and racism than military personnel being able to fight and win a war. This is the finding of a recent report by 2 Republican members of Congress -  who have reported that  “the Biden administration’s “woke” policies on race, gender, anti-extremism and LGBTQ issues have enfeebled the US military.”

We are living at a time when ideology outflanks all other issues and demonstrating that you are committed to the “progressive” ideology of the moment –  eg gender fluidity, a woman’s right to choose, the climate emergency, more government spending – provides social acceptability, even in a commercial environment. There are calls for diversity everywhere – except for diversity of thought!

There are rare individuals and groups who have made a stand and have been prepared to say that “the emperor has no clothes”. The team at the Daily Wire have been successful in identifying commercial opportunities in a sea of wokeness. I really loved their decision to produce their own razor, after woke razor companies refused to advertise with them because of “values misalignment”. Just in case you haven’t seen their ad, I have included a link to it:

The CEO of the Daily Wire, Jeremy Boreing, has just announced that they have sold 100,000 razor kits since launching just 6 months ago. There are commercial opportunities for those who hold conservative and biblical views. Even if the last Presidential election in the US was fair (and the evidence is strongly against this), President Trump’s policies and views were supported by almost half the US voting population. Yet, Joe Biden is attempting to marginalize 50% of the US population by calling them extremists. Remarkably, the influence of left wing indoctrination in schools and universities is so profound and complete that what were mainstream views have been hijacked by committed radicals. Views of a small minority have been able to overtake education, entertainment, news and media, religion and now even the Royal family!

We are in a battle for Western civilization and our Christian foundations have been appropriated by the Marxists, post-modernists and eco-terrorists. Even the logic of issues like energy – there are not sufficient renewable energy sources to meet our energy needs - are denied, because the commitment to a “sustainable future” is an item of faith. This faith is not shaken when all the forecasts of the climate change “experts” – rising sea levels, extinction of polar bears, no water for dams in major cities – are demonstrably false. Thus the energy policies that derive from these beliefs are likely to give rise to dire consequences – famine and death from the cold during the coming northern hemisphere winter. These consequences seem less important that a commitment to the “net zero” ideology.

So, in this series of posts, I am trying to get back to basics – the critical aspects of wisdom, derived from God Himself in the Bible. I have touched on elements of the Book of Proverbs in the last 3 newsletters and will use the foundations of this book to discuss areas of wisdom that I believe are important and relevant today.

Structure of the Book of Proverbs

Proverbs is quite a challenging book to read through as it is information dense and covers a huge range of topics in its 31 Chapters. It is written as a form of Hebrew poetry – a form that often uses parallelism. Parallelism -  is where in a couple of lines, the same idea is used either in similar or different ways. For example in Proverbs 3:11 we are told:

“My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord,
Nor detest His correction”.

Proverbs 3:19 says:

“The LORD by wisdom founded the earth;
By understanding He established the heavens”

This is a design used through the Book of Proverbs and it is fascinating to see how it aids understanding of sometimes complex and abstract ideas.

The writings are said to be: “The proverbs of Solomon, son of David, King of Israel” at the start of the Book (Proverbs 1:1), although there are later sections attributed to King Hezekiah, who lived several hundred years after Solomon. Hezekiah’s rule came immediately after the wicked leadership of his father, King Ahaz. Hezekiah returned Israel to the worship of the true God. In the last two chapters of Proverbs, Agur is mentioned as the author (Proverbs 30:1) but nothing is known about who he was. Finally, in Chapter 31, the words of King Lemuel are written and interestingly, they are “the utterance of which his mother taught him”. King Lemuel is not listed with any of the kings of Israel and Judah. Lemuel’s name in Hebrew  (לְמוּאֵל lemû’êl ) means: “belonging to God”.

Proverbs has several key sections:

Chapters 1-9 are focused on a father’s extolling of the virtues of wisdom

Chapters 10:1-15:29 – Comparison of the righteous and the wicked

Chapters 15:30-22:22 – The Lord and His king

Chapters 22:17-24:22 – the 30 sayings of the wise

Chapters 25:1-29:17 – friends, friendship, wealth and poverty, wisdom in raising children

Chapter 30 – the wisdom of Agur

Chapter 31:10 – reflections on an excellent wife

I will cover most of these areas in the coming weeks, or possibly months!

The Fear of the Lord

The foundational idea of the book, emphasized many times, is the importance of “the fear of the Lord” (Proverbs 1:7; 1:29; 2:5; 8:13; 9:10; 10:27; 14:26; 14:27; 15:16;  15:33; 16:6; 19:23; 22:4; 23:17 and 29:25). I have written about this in previous newsletters but will provide more detail as it is the bedrock of wisdom. The benefits that the writer ascribes to the “fear of the Lord” include:

• It is the beginning or foundation of knowledge

• It results in hatred of evil, pride and arrogance

• Life is likely to be prolonged

• Strong confidence is possible (in the Lord)

• It is a “fountain of life” and can turn you away from “the snares of death”

• Being content with a little

• It enables you to live in satisfaction

• Combined with humility, it is the road to “riches, honour and life”

• In contrast to the fear of man (which we all have to a certain degree and can be a snare or trap), the fear of the Lord brings safety

• It brings hope that there is a life to come and so we need not be envious

It is difficult to get to the heart of the idea of “the fear of the Lord”, which, according to Proverbs, is central to wisdom. US Founding Father, ,John Adams recognized the “fear of the Lord” as an underpinning of the fledgling US state when he said:

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

The fear of the Lord is the recognition that there is a higher authority, a Creator of heaven and earth and One to whom we are ultimately accountable (Romans 14:12). It is a shorthand expression for the recognition of God’s eternal law and His truth rather than the popular modern concept of “my truth” or “your truth”, promoted by gurus like Oprah Winfrey and Meghan Markle. Of course, if there is no objective truth but only “my truth” or “your truth”, then there is no truth at all.

Western society has sought to undermine its foundations based on God’s law and to do this God has to be seen as outdated and irrelevant. Books by Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and others have provide intellectual support for atheism and relegation of God’s laws to the trash can of time. There has been great success in the quest to outlaw God, as laws are enacted in direct opposition to His laws. The “fear of the Lord” has been supplanted even by theologians who preach a loving God – a God who surely would not judge us, if He exists at all! Western society has embraced the ridicule of the Lord as people who believe in His law are pushed to the fringes of polite society and removed from their positions in various organizations, for their outdated beliefs. While there is no “fear of the Lord” in Western society there is certainly a “fear of Mohammed” as even the most extreme left-wingers will not say anything that could be construed as offending Islam.

It is hard to describe what the “fear of the Lord” is because our modern society has sought to remove any elements of this that existed and enabled children to grow up and be taught the centrality of this concept. A worldview of “the fear of the Lord” as a bedrock for our society, has been replaced a fear of the Twitterati or a fear of being out of step with “modern” thinking. A “fear of the Lord” though, means that we need a “renewal of our minds” (Romans 12:2) – to put aside concepts in our education that have deliberately sought to sideline God and His law. So to try to help readers understand “the fear of the Lord”– some synonyms for this Hebraic idea include:
respect, honour, esteem, deference, confidence, trust, be in awe, reverence and faith in God.

Ultimately the “fear of the Lord” indicates faith in who God is and as the Bible says: “the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting – On those who fear Him…” (Psalm 103:17). Somehow, if we are to “fear the Lord” we need to renew our mind and change our thinking because in our society, we have been indoctrinated against this very concept.

I have written such an extended introduction to the first section of the Book of Proverbs because some of the proverbs don’t sit well with the modern mind but they are eternal truths and are wisdom based on “the fear of the Lord”.

The Critical Role of Parents

Nothing will create more trouble within families than ideas about parenting. Grandparents often come to “blows” with their children when they take responsibility for their grandchildren when the grandchildren come to stay. This can end in family division and so we need to recognize that we are entering challenging territory as often we can be blindsided by trouble we were not anticipating.

Amazingly, before we even have children, and without any real instruction, we can think of ourselves as “experts”. At least – this is what I thought – and I have discovered that most of us think the same way. I remember speaking to a prominent Archbishop of the Anglican Church who said that after his first two children, he and his wife were so impressed with their parenting that they thought about writing a book. However they then had twins and everything they thought they knew about parenting was thrown out the door as they realized that they were failures and had been beaten by the clever twins.

Being a parent is a great leveler and after more than 40 years of being a parent, I can claim that I know nothing but I can see my mistakes more clearly. The problem is that our instincts are often wrong and we forget that we often enter negotiations with children on the basis that they love us and want to do what we suggest. However, it would often be wiser to imagine that we are negotiating with terrorists, who have a take no prisoners approach!

Here are some important ideas from Proverbs about parenting :

1.     Parenting is More About Teaching Right Relationships than Just Teaching Right Behaviour

Children quickly see themselves as equals in a struggle for supremacy. You can see this struggle first hand at any supermarket checkout and it is quickly evident that the child has the upper hand in any “negotiation”. Mostly, we are unprepared for this battle and the combination of weariness and previous capitulation make us ripe for becoming a victim of “Stockholm Syndrome”. I often ask my Sunday School class – “did anyone have to teach you to be naughty?”. They all say – no – and it is a good way of understanding that we are born sinful and need to learn correction. This foundation is a good way to introduce the idea that God is the boss of everything and that He has instituted order in the family, with a foundation of “the fear of the Lord” (Proverbs 1:7).

Parents are responsible under God to raise their children in the fear of the Lord. Just as we all need to fear God, we need to have respect for His delegated authority to parents. Parents, responsible to God for their parenting, need to act wisely but consistently in carrying out their God-given role. The fifth of the 10 commandments says “Honour your father and mother, and you will live a long life in the land that the Lord your God has given you.” Dishonour to parents needs to be addressed quickly and decisively as at its heart, it is dishonour of God.

It is critical that children understand that there is a hierarchy of order in the family and that they are not living in a socialist utopia where everyone is equal. Most of us make the mistake of reasoning with our children as though we could persuade them that our view is right. If we get into the battle of ideas with our children, we have already lost! The central idea we need to make known to our children is something along the lines:

I am responsible to God for teaching you His ways. I love you and even if you don’t understand when I tell you now, you must accept it, because if you don’t, you are not just rebelling against me but against God.

Even as I write this, it sounds crazy to modern ears. Nonetheless, it is true and is a pathway to life and freedom rather than death and enslavement.

2.     Teach and Promote the Word of God

If we can teach right relationships to children, as I’ve written in point 1 then children need to understand the basics of God’s Word in the Bible from an early age. Proverbs teaches us that

“For the LORD gives wisdom;
From His mouth come knowledge and understanding;” (Proverbs 2:6) and

“Whoever despises the word brings destruction on himself,
but he who reveres the commandment will be rewarded” (Proverbs 13:13).

If we as parents are responsible to God, then His Word stands as the ultimate authority. We need to teach His commandments and His ways, which increasingly are at odds with society’s ways. If we have the right foundations in God’s laws then when we make a decision, we need to do as Jesus said:

“But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ For whatever is more than these is from the evil one” (Matthew 5:37).

Unfortunately, most of us do very poorly in saying no. Our no often sounds like “maybe”! Almost every parent has been caught in a pincer movement by a cunning child, who having obtained a “no” from one parent, goes to the other parent to try a new angle and turn the decision around. The two foundational rules for parents are: consistency and solidarity. No matter what, parents need to act in unity and consistently. Often this is difficult and increasingly so in split households.

One of the things I’ve discovered is that the two parents often come from families with very different norms, which remain unknown to them until there is a sudden crisis, such as the arrival of a child. It is critical before the crisis, for the two parents to discuss and come to agreement on what is foundational to family life and what will be their “family norms” together. This enables parents to act with consistency and not to be divided. Unwittingly, we often enter into a “negotiation” where we are sure to lose, rather than just stating the agreed rule and not deviating from it.

3.     Be Thankful For and Appreciate Correction

Correction or chastening is always challenging in parenting. Something in our inner being rejects correction and yet it is a foundational idea in the Book of Proverbs. Proverbs 3:11-12 tells us

“My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord,
Nor detest His correction;
For whom the Lord loves He corrects,
Just as a father the son in whom he delights.”

It is important that children understand that correction is a sign of love and that this is how God demonstrates His love for us. Most of us hate correction and the normal response of children is to sulk and show a bad attitude. This is something that cannot be tolerated as it is a quality that will pursue us all our lives. An old saying that I like is that “your attitude determines your altitude”. In families, in workplaces, with friends – openness to correction is a sign of maturity and Godly wisdom. Another favourite saying of mine that I heard somewhere is: “feedback is the breakfast of champions – but you have to be prepared to eat the breakfast”!

Proverbs 12:1 tells us:
“Whoever loves instruction loves knowledge,
But he who hates correction is stupid.”

Somehow, we need to love instruction and correction and this quality can be formed by instructing and correcting our children from an early age.

This brings me to the important role of how to discipline. The Book of Proverbs 13:24 tells us:

“He who spares his rod hates his son,
But he who loves him disciplines him promptly.”

This idea is reiterated in Proverbs 22:15 –

“Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child;
The rod of correction will drive it far from him.”

Proverbs 23:13 – 14

“Do not withhold correction from a child,
For if you beat him with a rod, he will not die.
You shall beat him with a rod,
And deliver his soul from hell.”

And also Proverbs 29:15

“The rod and rebuke give wisdom,
But a child left to himself brings shame to his mother.”

Now, I am not suggesting that Proverbs is just a simple child raising handbook but there is the counsel that “sparing the rod” is not a sign of love for the child but of hatred. According to the verses above, it seems that judiciously and appropriately applying “the rod” may set a child on a path away from foolishness, shame and even hell.

There was a time (certainly when I was growing up) when the “rod of correction” was widely used by parents – probably some parents applying this technique well and others injudiciously. What I do know is that “modern wisdom” which eschews “applying the rod” is not giving outstanding results in child raising but a generation glued to electronic devices and who are antisocial and sometimes aggressive.

One of my memories from my 20s was living in an apartment next to a house where there were many children, often screaming and arguing in the backyard. I was an only child who grew up in the country without experience of child discipline, apart from my own mother - the Ayatollah! With the family next door to my apartment, I would hear the mother come out intermittently and scream above the noise:

“Youse kids shut up or I’ll kill youse all”!

Even at that stage of my life, without any experience with children, I could discern that when your top discipline technique is to threaten death but never carry it out, results are going to be poor. Also I realized that there had to be something more appropriate and intermediate between screaming and threatening death!

I’m pleased to report that I did learn something – as far as I can remember I never threatened death to my own children. Probably being afflicted with the mood of the age, I think that I may have spared the rod a bit too much. Clearly this is a difficult balance to get right but I know that the Biblical wisdom of King Solomon in relation to “the rod” has stood the test of time.

This post already has become a bit too long and I will write more next week on this critical aspect of wisdom.

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ARTICLES THAT CAUGHT MY ATTENTION THIS WEEK

The United Kingdom Rushes Over the Financial Cliff

The United Kingdom is a great case study of what happens when you go down the path of socialism to “free” health care. The National Health Service (NHS) started as a socialist dream after WWII and has become a sacred cow in the UK so that more and more money is fed and the health results become worse and worse. The NHS has become a giant bureaucracy and the result is the UK has the worst health outcomes in Europe. Patients presenting to accident and emergency centres of hospitals often wait more than 24 hours, many patients with strokes and heart attacks die waiting for ambulances to arrive and there are more than 7 million patients (over 10% of the UK population) on waiting lists to commence treatment. The NHS has more than 1.2 million full-time staff and the latest data indicate that almost half the doctors will leave the NHS in the next 12 months. Additionally there is a cap on training places for doctors in medical schools to 7,500. All these demonstrate the folly of central planning and large bureaucracies. It is interesting that the BBC series “Yes Prime Minister” highlighted some of the NHS challenges more than 30 years ago in the famous scene of the “hospital without patients”  

This last week saw the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer (the UK Treasurer) announce a new budget, which will see the highest taxation rate since WWII. Although the government claims to be conservative, it acts like a socialist one with high spending, high taxes and now “windfall” taxes on energy companies, sure to stifle investment in energy. The Chancellor will provide an extra £3.3 billion in funds for the NHS as part of this high spending, high taxation budget. It seems an extraordinary strategy in a failing system like the NHS, to continue to throw money at the problem and anticipate a better outcome. The NHS is completely out of control but no one has any idea how to fix it.

In the meantime, illegal migrants continue to arrive by dinghy in their thousands and the government has contracted with Serco to house the illegal migrants in 90 hotels (some 4 star) at a cost of more than £1.9 billion. Support for Ukraine still dominates UK government thinking and it is interesting that Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, has just announced further £50 million funding for Ukraine and said in a meeting with the Ukrainian President that “We are with you all the way”.

It seems to me that the UK, beset with insoluble problems on every side, is a metaphor for government failure when pursuing central planning, high taxation and high regulation strategies. Double digit inflation has made living costs soar, strikes are being threatened by transport and health care unions, and the UK finances are in a worse state than any time since WII, according to Lord Sumption. He estimates that a large proportion of the government deficit was caused by government expenditure during the lockdown which was £376 billion or almost £5,500 for every man, woman and child in the UK. It seems likely that the new UK administration will continue to tax more and spend more but hopefully the certain failure of these policies may serve as a warning to other countries, although we shouldn’t hold our breath. What is certain, is that soon the UK government will run out of other people’s money and so the conditions may eventually be right for another Margaret Thatcher like figure to arise. Either that or further government control and regulation. It does seem as though the UK increasingly is being pulled into the globalist agenda. A recent article by Simon Marcus -  provided this analysis:

“Hunt and Sunak don’t see globalism as the scorched-earth policy that it is. They see it as the answer to the everything-crisis. They are surrounded by indoctrinated civil servants, academics, advisers, think tanks who drown them in a never-ending flow of (modelled) doomsday research and technocratic people-management and processing solutions to these spurious crises. It’s all part of the Westminster/global echo chamber. The PM and Chancellor are group thinkers by nature and don’t want to go down in history as the team who destroyed the planet. So a central bank cryptocurrency, universal basic income and technocratic eco-tyranny makes perfect sense.”

It is worthwhile keeping a close eye on what is happening in the UK because where they are going, we in the West will certainly follow.

Thanksgiving – A Time for Reflection and Re-evalution     

The first time I was in the US at the time of Thanksgiving, I realized what a significant event this was and one that is difficult for those outside the US to fully comprehend. It is the most important national holiday and a time for families to gather, eat excessively, watch football and give thanks for God’s goodness. This year Thanksgiving took place on 24th November and there probably never has been such a period of polarization within the US since the time of the American Civil War. Here are a few details about Thanksgiving that provide some context for the most important US national holiday.

The first Thanksgiving was famously celebrated by the Pilgrims in 1621 in New England when Native American neighbours were invited to a celebration feast. The purpose of the feast was to thank God for the first harvest and the Wampanoag Indian tribe was invited to participate. It seems that the feast took place over several days and was a period of thankfulness for survival in the first year in the Pilgrim’s new country. George Washington - issued the first proclamation of national Thanksgiving in 1789 and Washington’s purpose was clear – to put God at the centre of a day of national reflection. Washington recommended a day

“of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God”. The day was to be….”devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of the good that was, that is, or that will be- That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks.”

A national day of thanksgiving as a holiday was not proclaimed until 1863 by Abraham Lincoln. This proclamation was in response to decades of lobbying by Sarah Hale (the author of “Mary Had a Little Lamb”). However Thanksgiving was not finally announced as an official holiday with a fixed date until 1941 when Congress declared the fourth Thursday in November as a national day of thanks. Since that time, Thanksgiving has become an occasion for elaborate family gatherings, featuring lunch with roast turkey and dessert of pumpkin pie. It is the busiest travel period in the US.

The origins of Thanksgiving now are lost in the mists of time but it must be remembered that the event is tied to the journey of the Pilgrims, who fled religious persecution in 1620 to go to the New World. The Pilgrims set sail from the Netherlands, having been forced to escape religious oppression in the United Kingdom. The key purpose for this hazardous trip was obtaining the freedom to worship God according to the dictates of conscience rather than the requirements of the UK Crown.

I read a fascinating article in The New American magazine that outlined the sermon preached by pastor John Robinson to the Pilgrims before they set sail. The sermon lasted “a good part of the day” after which the Pilgrims boarded the ship the Speedwell in Delfshaven, Holland to join the famous Mayfllower in England and sail across the Atlantic. Robinson clearly understood that the biggest problem facing the new colony was not the physical dangers but internal divisions. It is worthwhile reading some of the details of his address in the New American article. His advice is every bit as relevant for all of us today. Robinson said:

“Now next after this heavenly peace with God and our own consciences, we are carefully to provide, with all that lies in us, for peace with all men, especially with our associates, and for that, we must be very watchful that we neither give offense ourselves at all, nor easily take offense given by others.” He noted that a danger for the group was taking offence and he said: “And it is not sufficient that we keep ourselves, by the grace of God, from giving offense, but we must also arm ourselves against the taking of offense when it is given by others.” From his own experience Robinson stated: “In fact….few or none have been found which, if they easily give offense, aren’t easily offended, as well. Such people which have nourished such a sensitive personality have never proved sound or profitable members of society“.

John Robinson’s sermon focus is relevant for all communities today and he also touched on the challenge of offense towards God Himself. He said:

“Next, your intended course of being united in one community will create continual occasion of giving and taking offense and that will be as fuel for the fire of anger at being offended, unless you diligently quench it with brotherly forbearance. 

And if taking offense easily or where none is intended must be so carefully avoided, how much more heed is to be taken that we take not offense at God himself, which we certainly do so often by murmuring about the crosses He asks us to bear, or when we impatiently endure the afflictions He allows us to suffer. Therefore, store up patience against that evil day, without which we would take offense at the Lord himself, in his holy and just works”.

We are all living at a time where taking offense is a daily challenge and has supplanted  freedom of speech. Freedom to worship God according to your conscience has been replaced by the requirement to bow down to the gods of our time. The rise of social media has given rise to widespread individual and group offense and of course the new phenomenon of “cancel culture”.

Thanksgiving is a period to reflect on God’s provisions and the dedication to Him by the Pilgrims and the Founding Fathers. Freedom of religion is the foundation of American civilization and needs to be protected and fought for. However, even we who live outside the US need to reflect during this Thanksgiving period on the many things for which we should be thankful. Robinson’s admonition neither to take offense nor give offense is highly relevant and important when there are so many matters that can divide us.