Pondering Proverbs – Discipline (15)

 

Continuing with Proverbs 15:31 – 33…

 

“The fear of Yahweh is the instruction for wisdom, and before honor comes humility.” Proverbs 15:33.

 

We have pondered five verses regarding discipline in Proverbs Chapter 15 (5, 10, 12, 31, 32), this concluding verse in the chapter informs them all – as it does the entire chapter – for to live in the fear and reverence of God is to live with an awareness that how we live matters, how we treat others matters, whether we are foolish or wise matters.

 

In his introduction to Proverbs (1:7), Solomon writes, “The fear of Yahweh is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction,” setting the stage for all that follows.

 

 If we choose to live as a law unto ourselves, rejecting the discipline and teaching of God, we will die (15:10).  On the other hand, if we recognize that our lives are not our own to do with as we please, if we realize that we have a Creator, who is our Father, and to whom we are accountable, then we will pay attention to His Word and to the lessons He is teaching us, then we will acknowledge His wisdom and our ignorance – we live in a hostile world, we need the instruction and discipline of our heavenly Father.

 

Consider Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 5:9 – 11:

 

“Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad. Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men, but we are made manifest to God; and I hope that we are made manifest also in your consciences.”

 

Is our ambition to be pleasing to God? If it is, then we will honor His discipline and instruction - no matter how painful it may be in the moment. We see in Proverbs 15:33 that “before honor comes humility,” the way of instruction and discipline is the way of humility – if we will honor our Father and His discipline then He will honor us.

 

Are we living in the awareness that “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed”? Are we living as those who know that they will be held accountable for their lives? Many of us know the Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25:14 – 30 (the talents are money, not gifts and abilities, but we can transfer the idea of money to our gifts and abilities and opportunities). In addition to other things God has given us to use in this life, whether money or gifts and abilities or positions of influence; God has also given each of us what should be the most obvious thing – our lives. We each have a life to live, what shall we do with the life that God has given us?

 

I am not thinking right now of vocation, I am thinking of the basic fundamental life that each one of us have been given – how shall we live it? Paul teaches that each of us will be held accountable for what we have done, “whether good or bad.”

 

Paul writes these things “knowing the fear of the Lord.”

 

Paul begins his letter to the Corinthians (which we call 2 Corinthians) by sharing about an excruciating time in his life and in that of his companions (2 Cor. 1:1 – 11). He talks about a time when they “despaired even of life.” He writes that “we had the sentence of death within ourselves.” Yet Paul also writes about the lessons they learned during this time, such as learning not to trust in themselves but in God who raises the dead. Indeed, one of the themes of 2 Corinthians is transformation in Christ through suffering – Paul and his fellow workers submitted to the instruction and discipline of God, and by doing so were able not only to grow in Christ, from glory to glory (2 Cor. 3:17 – 18), but they were also able to serve the People of God (2 Cor. 4:12).

 

This is the context of, “Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men, but we are made manifest to God…”

 

O dear friends, we are a society out of control, bent on our mutual destruction. We are fools to think that our lives are our own to do with as we please, and “Christians” who believe and propagate this are doubly foolish.

 

Those of us in Christ are not our own, we have been bought with a price (1 Cor. 6:19 – 20); why then, O why, do we live as we please? A fundamental truth of the Gospel is that Jesus Christ is Lord, and if He is Lord then we are under His lordship. Let us have none of the nonsense that Jesus is our Savior but He isn’t our Lord yet – that is crazy, that is simply not Biblical. When we come to Jesus Christ, we come to Him declaring Him to be our Lord, declaring our resolve (by His grace) to follow Him (Mark 8:34ff). The very word “repent” has within it the turning away of our own direction and a turning toward Jesus Christ, to follow Him as our Lord. To be a Biblical Christian is to be under New Ownership, the Ownership of Jesus Christ.

 

Am I living my life as a man owned by Another, whose life does not belong to himself?

 

What about you?