Daily Bible Reading: Proverbs 13; Ephesians 6March 26, 2012
From For the Love of God by D.A. Carson
Daily Bible Reading: Proverbs 13; Ephesians 6
THE PARALLELISM IN THE Bible’s Wisdom Literature is diverse. Understanding this helps us to reflect more accurately on Scripture. It is easy to illustrate the point with two or three kinds of parallelism drawn from Proverbs 13.
Some instances of parallelism are simple opposites. “He who walks with the wise grows wise, / but a companion of fools suffers harm” (Prov. 13:20). The second line is almost the opposite of the first, and the two lines together remind readers that they will be shaped by the company they keep and by the advice they listen to. “He who spares the rod hates his son, / but he who loves him is careful to discipline him” (Prov. 13:24). The first line may employ a touch of hyperbole, but the contrast between the two lines makes the lesson of the whole verse clear enough.
In some cases the second line is not the opposite of the first line, but an extension of it. “The teaching of the wise is a fountain of life, / turning a man from the snares of death” (Prov. 13:14). Of course, there is a contrast between “life” and “death,” nevertheless the thought of the second line is not the opposite to what is expressed in the first line, but a further exposition of it. This is sometimes called “step parallelism.”
Perhaps the proverbs that demand the most focused reflection are those in which the two lines are obviously meant to be opposites, and yet the categories do not, on first reading, quite line up. Such proverbs are gently provocative. Each of the two lines is subtly shaped by the other.
Here are two examples. “Pride only breeds quarrels, / but wisdom is found in those who take advice” (Prov. 13:10). Merely formal parallelism might have preferred, “Pride only breeds quarrels, / but humility generates peace.” But the text of Scripture invites more profound analysis. “Wisdom” is contrasted with “pride”—which gently discloses what wisdom is, while implicitly saying that pride is folly. The quarrels of the first line are generated by the arrogant refusal to listen to another point of view, to take advice.
Or again, “Every prudent man acts out of knowledge, but a fool exposes his folly” (Prov. 13:16). A simple contrast would have preferred: “Every prudent man acts out of knowledge, / but a fool acts out of ignorance [or folly].” But the second line says that the fool exposes his folly. The two lines become mutually clarifying. The prudent man who acts out of knowledge (line 1) thereby displays his wisdom; the fool acts out of folly, and thereby exposes it for all to see. In this light, reflect on Psalm 14:1!
Daily Bible Reading: Proverbs 12; Ephesians 5March 25, 2012
From For the Love of God by D.A. Carson
Daily Bible Reading: Proverbs 12; Ephesians 5
IN THE CONTEMPORARY CLIMATE, a straightforward reading of Ephesians 5:21–33 is increasingly unpopular. Without descending to details, I shall venture my understanding of the flow of the passage.
(1) Oddly, the NIV prints Ephesians 5:21 (“Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.”) as a separate paragraph. In the original, this is the last of a string of participial expressions that fill out what it means to be filled with the Spirit (Eph. 5:18): functionally, being filled with the Spirit means everything in 5:19–21. Moreover, the words “submit to one another” should not be taken in a mutually reciprocal way, as if exhorting all Christians to submit to one another reciprocally. For: (a) the verb “to submit” in Greek always refers to submission in some sort of ordered array, never to mutual deference; (b) the idea is then picked up in the following “household table” of duties: wives submit to husbands, children to parents, and slaves to masters (5:22–6:4); (c) the same vision of submission is repeated in the New Testament (Col. 3:18–19; Titus 2:4–5; 1 Pet. 3:1–6); (d) the Greek pronoun rendered “one another” is often not reciprocal (e.g., Rev. 6:4).
(2) Nevertheless, certain things must be said about the wife’s submission to her husband (5:22–24). (a) It is not to be confused with certain pathetic stereotypes—groveling, self-pity, unequal pay for equal work (as if God were the God of injustice), and the like. (b) This submission is modeled on the church’s responsibility to submit to Christ. This brings up large issues of typology that cannot be explored here. But practically, it ought to reduce nagging, belittling one’s husband, browbeating manipulation, and the like. (c) This submission does not deny equal worth (both are made in the image of God) or perfect functional equality in many domains (e.g., sexual rights, in 1 Cor. 7).
(3) Husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the church (5:25–33)—which at the very least means loving their wives self-sacrificially and for their good. More explicitly, the husband’s love for his wife must mirror Christ’s love for his church (a) in its self-sacrifice (5:25); (b) in its goal (5:26–28a), seeking her good and her holiness; (c) in its self-interest (5:28b–30)—for there is a kind of identification that the husband makes with his wife, as Christ identifies himself with his church; (d) in its typological fulfillment (5:31–33)—which again introduces huge typological structures that run right through the Bible.
The responsibilities of both husband and wife are dramatically opposed to self-interest.
Daily Bible Reading: Proverbs 11; Ephesians 4March 24, 2012
From For the Love of God by D.A. Carson
Daily Bible Reading: Proverbs 11; Ephesians 4
I WISH TO DRAW ATTENTION TO three proverbs, or kinds of proverbs, in Proverbs 11:
(1) Like Proverbs 10, this chapter includes several proverbs that focus on the tongue, on human speech. The entire section Proverbs 11:9–14 deals with one aspect or another of how the mouth may prove to be either a blessing or a curse. Among the more interesting elements is the twin mention of the fact that sometimes the most godly thing a mouth may do is keep silent: “a man of understanding holds his tongue.… a trustworthy man keeps a secret” (Prov. 11:12, 13). Another striking feature of this section is its insistence that the mouth can either bless an entire city (and, in principle, a nation), or destroy it (Prov. 11:10, 11, 14). The one tongue offers sage counsel, prophetic rebuke, strategic planning, utter integrity in matters of government and jurisprudence, a respectful humility in dealing with others, and transparent encouragement to walk in the fear of the Lord. The other tongue is pretentious, deceitful, happy to corrupt both legislative and judicial processes, self-serving, and manipulative.
(2) “Like a gold ring in a pig’s snout is a beautiful woman who shows no discretion” (Prov. 11:22). Structurally, the Hebrew is simple parallelism without predication: “A ring of gold in the snout of a pig / A beautiful woman without discretion.” To make the Hebrew’s subtle comparison explicit (since English poetry is not as dependent on parallelism as Hebrew poetry is), the NIV has constructed a simile. But the point is the same, and the imagery wonderfully evocative. The large, half-wild pigs of the ancient world had rings in their noses to control them. Never were those rings made of gold! The obvious silliness of the image would for the Jew carry a touch of repulsiveness, since pigs were unclean animals. On the same scale, but in a different dimension, the excellence of beauty in a woman is demeaned, debased to the level of a repulsive joke, when the woman herself shows no discretion. There is a great deal in our culture, and not just in Hollywood, that could profit from this proverb.
(3) “One man gives freely, yet gains even more; another withholds unduly, but comes to poverty” (Prov. 11:24). Paradox is another feature of many proverbs. This sort of utterance is far more powerful than a simple exhortation, “We ought to be generous,” or a simple slogan, “Generosity pays,” or the like. The way our providential God has ordered the universe, the generous hand, as a rule, has much to give. Very often the selfish miser ends up in bitter penury. Can you think of examples?
Daily Bible Reading: Proverbs 10; Ephesians 3March 23, 2012
From For the Love of God by D.A. Carson
Daily Bible Reading: Proverbs 10; Ephesians 3
PROVERBS 10 OPENS A NEW SECTION of the book of Proverbs, titled “Proverbs of Solomon” in most of our English Bibles (compare the sectional headings before chapters 25, 30, and 31). People who study these chapters debate over the extent to which each of these sections is organized, as opposed to preserving loose collections of proverbs. Almost all agree, however, that very frequently certain themes dominate a section. For instance, it is worth reading through chapter 10 and highlighting every word related to human speech: mouth, lips, chattering fool, tongue, and so forth. Proverbs 10:19 is choice: “When words are many, sin is not absent, but he who holds his tongue is wise.”
Instead of pursuing this theme, today I want to reflect on what a proverb is. A proverb is not case law, i.e., a piece of legislation that covers a particular case. Nor is it unbridled promise. This affects how one interprets proverbs. Consider, for instance, Proverbs 10:27: “The fear of the LORD adds length to life, but the years of the wicked are cut short.” If this is unqualified promise, it follows that righteous people will invariably live longer than unrighteous people. Find someone who dies relatively young, and you know you are dealing with a wicked person. Someone who lives to the age of one hundred must be a righteous person.
But we know perfectly well that the world is not like that. Godly young people sometimes die of cancer. Having worked our way through Job, we are painfully aware that sometimes reprobates live to a ripe old age. And what shall we say of people who die unexpectedly in accidents, or in storms and other “acts of God,” or in persecution?
Does this mean, then, that Proverbs 10:27 is robbed of all meaning? No, of course not. But it is a proverb, not an unqualified promise. A proverb is a wise saying, an aphorism. Most of the proverbs in this book provide wise, generalizing conclusions about how the world works under God’s providential rule. The fear of the Lord really does add years to one’s life: on the whole, a life lived in this way will adopt fewer bad habits, will learn to trust and therefore reduce stress, will honor hard work offered up to the Lord, will cherish family and friends, and so forth—and in God’s universe all of these things have effects. None of this means that a godly person cannot die younger than an ungodly person. It does mean that, in a particular group of people, on the whole those who fear the Lord will live longer than those who do not. This is the blessing of God; the Lord has constructed the universe this way and continues his providential rule over it.
Daily Bible Reading: Proverbs 9; Ephesians 2March 22, 2012
From For the Love of God by D.A. Carson
Daily Bible Reading: Proverbs 9; Ephesians 2
IN REAL LIFE, MOST OF US ARE A MIX of wise and foolish, prudent and silly, thoughtful and impulsive. Nevertheless it helps us to see what the issues are by setting out the alternatives as a simple choice. That is what Proverbs 9 does for us. It pictures two women, Wisdom and Folly, calling out to people. In some ways, this drive toward a simple choice—wisdom or folly, good or evil, the Lord or rebellion—is typical of Wisdom Literature. It is a powerful, evocative way of getting across the fundamental issues in the choices we make.
Let us begin with Folly (Prov. 9:13–18). The way Folly sits in the door of her house reminds the reader of a prostitute. She calls out to those who pass by, to those who otherwise “go straight on their way” (Prov. 9:15). She is “undisciplined and without knowledge” (Prov. 9:13). What she offers is never fresh: it is warmed over, stolen stuff, garnished with promises of esoteric enjoyment—not unlike the promise of illicit sex (Prov. 9:17). Those who are snookered by her do not reflect on the fact that her seductions lead to death (Prov. 9:17).
Wisdom, too, builds a house and calls people in (Prov. 9:1–6). But her house is stable and well-built (Prov. 9:1). Like Folly, Wisdom calls “from the highest point of the city,” where she can be heard (Prov. 9:3, 14); but unlike Folly, Wisdom has prepared a delicious and nourishing meal (Prov. 9:2, 5). The “simple,” i.e., those who do not yet have wisdom but are willing to acquire it, may come and feast, and learn to “walk in the way of understanding” (Prov. 9:6).
Of course, to speak of informing or correcting the simple immediately draws attention to how the counsel of Wisdom will be received. There is a sense in which someone who accepts wisdom is already proving wise; the person who rejects wisdom is a mocker or wicked. Hence the powerful contrast of the next verses (Prov. 9:7–9): “Do not rebuke a mocker or he will hate you; rebuke a wise man and he will love you” (Prov. 9:8)—with the two alternatives fleshed out in the verses on either side of this one (Prov. 9:7, 9).
The high point in the chapter comes with Proverbs 9:10–12: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding” (Prov. 9:10). Normally, there are blessings even in this life for those with such priorities and commitments (Prov. 9:11–12). Above all, this definition of “the beginning of wisdom” powerfully shows that the wisdom held up in Proverbs is neither esoteric insight nor secular intellectual prowess; rather, it is devotion to God and all that flows from such devotion in thought and life.
Daily Bible Reading: Proverbs 8; Ephesians 1March 21, 2012
From For the Love of God by D.A. Carson
Daily Bible Reading: Proverbs 8; Ephesians 1
IN GREEK, EPHESIANS 1:3–14 is one long sentence. Perhaps that is one of the reasons why even the best English translations are a little condensed and not simple to unpack. Here I shall focus on the first part, Ephesians 1:3–10, and reflect on how three themes come together: God’s predestining sovereignty, God’s unqualified grace, and God’s glorious purposes.
The passage is a doxology, a word of praise, “to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ”—and the following verses provide the reasons why we should praise this God and why his Son Jesus Christ is integral to his praiseworthy deeds. This God, Paul immediately says, is the One “who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ” (Eph. 1:3). The “us” refers to Christians; the blessings we have received are “in Christ”; and the sphere of these spiritual blessings is “the heavenly realms.” In Ephesians, “the heavenly realms” or “the heavenlies” refers to the heavenly dimension of our ultimate existence, experienced in some measure right now. So already we are being introduced to the third theme, God’s glorious purpose.
If the description of God in Ephesians 1:3 already exposes the reader to at least some of the reason why God is to be praised, the “for” at the beginning of verse 4 introduces the formal reason: even before the world was created, God chose us in Christ (God’s predestining sovereignty) “to be holy and blameless in his sight” (God’s glorious purpose). Indeed, “In love he predestined us” (God’s unqualified grace and his predestining sovereignty) “to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ” (God’s glorious purpose), “in accordance with his pleasure and will” (God’s predestining sovereignty)—all of this “to the praise of his glorious grace” (both God’s glorious purpose and his unqualified grace), “which he has freely given us in the One he loves” (God’s unqualified grace). “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins” (God’s glorious purpose), “in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding” (God’s unqualified grace) (Eph. 1:4–8).
Read through the rest of this passage and work out these themes (and there are others) for yourself.
The themes hang together in important ways. The more clearly one sees how sovereign is God’s choice, the more clearly does his unmerited grace stand out. But sovereign “predestination” is irrational without a “destination”: God’s purposes in his sovereign sway are thus inescapably tied to his sovereignty and his grace. The more we glimpse God’s wonderfully good purposes, the more we shall be grateful for his sovereign sway in bringing them to pass.
Daily Bible Reading: Proverbs 7; Galatians 6March 20, 2012
From For the Love of God by D.A. Carson
Daily Bible Reading: Proverbs 7; Galatians 6
IN AN EARLIER MEDITATION (vol. 1, September 30), I reflected on the flow of thought in Galatians 6. Here I want to focus on elements of Galatians 6:1–5.
On the face of it, there is a formal contradiction between Galatians 6:2, “Carry each other’s burdens,” and Galatians 6:5, “for each one should carry his own load.” One could guess at a pastoral resolution. Christians should be concerned to help others; at the same time, they should not invert this concern and so depend on the help of others that they become nothing but freeloaders. In other words, Galatians 6:2 makes abundant sense when it is understood to forbid isolationism and to mandate compassion; Galatians 6:5 makes abundant sense when it is understood to forbid sponging and to mandate personal responsibility.
But the context of the paragraph in which both sayings are embedded enables us to go a little farther. The passage begins by exhorting Christians to restore, gently, a brother or sister who is caught in a sin (Gal. 6:1). More specifically, Paul says that “you who are spiritual” ought to undertake this task. In light of the preceding verses (see yesterday’s meditation), those who are “spiritual” are Christians who manifestly “keep in step with the Spirit” (Gal. 5:25) and thus produce the fruit of the Spirit. This responsibility is laid on all Christians, but obviously some Christians are a little farther along in their fruit-bearing than others. So Christians who produce the fruit of the Spirit, as mandated of all Christians, should take primary responsibility for gently restoring a believer caught in a sin.
This should be a gentle restoration, not least because thoughtful Christians will recognize how they too may be tempted by this or some other evil (Gal. 6:1b). By helping one another in this way—with encouragement, prayer, moral support, companionship, accountability, whatever—we thereby “carry each other’s burdens” (Gal. 6:2). This, of course, is equivalent to fulfilling the law of Christ, who not only taught that the greatest commandments are to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself, but gave us his “new commandment”—to love one another as Jesus himself loved them (John 13:34–35).
In such a regime, self-promotion is ugly, futile, and self-deceiving (Gal. 6:3). Pride goes before a fall. It vitiates the quiet self-examination that is ruthlessly and patiently honest (Gal. 6:4). Community-destroying, soul-deceiving pride is displayed when Christians compare their service records in order to put the other person down. Honest self-evaluation engenders a godly thankfulness and a legitimate pride that never puts another person down, for “each one should carry his own load” (Gal. 6:5).
Daily Bible Reading: Proverbs 6; Galatians 5March 19, 2012
From For the Love of God by D.A. Carson
Daily Bible Reading: Proverbs 6; Galatians 5
THE BEGINNING AND THE ENDING OF Galatians 5, taken together, tell us a great deal about the Gospel that Paul preaches.
In the first part, Paul is still trying to persuade his Gentile Christian readers in Galatia that adding Jewish heritage and ritual to their Christian faith does not add something to it, but subtracts something from it. In particular, if they submit to circumcision, then “Christ will be of no value” to them at all (Gal. 5:2). Why not? What harm could arise from being circumcised? Paul explains that the Gentile who allows himself to be circumcised “is obligated to obey the whole law” (Gal. 5:3). That was the symbol-significance of circumcision: it was the mark of submission to the law-covenant. But to take that step betrays a massive failure to understand the true relationship between the law-covenant and the new covenant that the Lord Jesus Christ introduced. The former prepares for the latter, announces the latter, anticipates the latter. But to commit oneself to obeying the terms of the law-covenant is to announce that the new covenant Jesus secured by his death is somehow inadequate. These Galatians, who have in the past clearly understood that men and women are justified by grace through faith, are now “trying to be justified by law,” and in so doing “have been alienated from Christ”; it means nothing less than falling away from grace (Gal. 5:4). The ultimate righteousness will be ours at the end, when Jesus returns. Meanwhile, “by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope” (Gal. 5:5). To understand the crucial significance of Christ this way means that those who believe in Christ Jesus—what he has accomplished for us in his central place in redemptive history—know full well that circumcision itself is neither here nor there (Gal. 5:6). But circumcision actually subtracts from Christ if one undergoes it out of a desire to submit to a covenant that in certain respects Christ has made passé.
While in the first part of the chapter Paul talks about the work of Christ, he slips in a brief mention of the Spirit: “By faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope” (Gal. 5:5, italics added). Already the Spirit is given to believers, consequent upon Christ’s work. Christians, then, are those who “keep in step with the Spirit” (Gal. 5:25), who display the lovely fruit of the Spirit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Gal. 5:22–23). Pursue those things; there is no law against them, and they stand over against the wretched acts of our sinful nature (Gal. 5:19–21; cf. Prov. 6:16–19) against which the Law pronounced but which it could not overcome.
Daily Bible Reading: Proverbs 5; Galatians 4March 18, 2012
From For the Love of God by D.A. Carson
Daily Bible Reading: Proverbs 5; Galatians 4
ALL OF PROVERBS 5 IS A WARNING, in wisdom categories, against succumbing to an adulteress—a warning that keeps returning in the opening chapters of this book (e.g., Prov. 6:20–35; 7:1–27). Sometimes it appears that prostitution is in view; sometimes it is simple adultery.
In an age of heightened sensibilities about stereotypes, some have taken umbrage that the person doing the tempting is invariably an adulteress. In the real world, isn’t the tempter at least as often the male, an adulterer?
Many things could be said, but four brief comments will suffice. (a) In part the warning is against an adulteress because it is offered to “my son” (Prov. 5:1), following up on the fundamental structure of the genre (Prov. 1:8; see meditation for March 15). (b) Even so, the “son” who goes off with an adulteress is certainly not shielded from blame. The errant son in this chapter is portrayed as more than a victim. This is the son who “hated discipline” and whose heart “spurned correction” (Prov. 5:12). It is said of him, “The evil deeds of a wicked man ensnare him; the cords of his sin hold him fast” (Prov. 5:22). He is guilty of “great folly” (Prov. 5:23). (c) In this book, both wisdom and folly will later be personified as women (Prov. 9; see meditation for March 22). In other words, there is no univocal connection between women and evil. Men are often evil, and so are women. Both are called to pursue “Lady Wisdom.” (d) In any case, in the larger canon there are many places where the primary blame for sexual misconduct is clearly laid at the man’s door. That is true, for instance, of Judah’s affair with Tamar, of Amnon’s rape of his half-sister, of David’s seduction of Bathsheba.
Adultery itself is wrong, or foolish, or sinful, or short-term, or undisciplined—whatever the category Proverbs deploys—and not just the adulteress. The chapter not only articulates warnings, but offers an alternative: a marriage that is cherished, developed, nurtured, not least in the sexual arena (Prov. 5:18–19). But beyond all the immediate and cultural reasons for sexual fidelity in marriage is one of transcendent importance: “For a man’s ways are in full view of the LORD, and he examines all his paths” (Prov. 5:21). There are, of course, several similar verses in Scripture—e.g., “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account” (Heb. 4:13). But in the context of Wisdom Literature, there is an additional overtone. Not only does God see everything, including any sexual misconduct, but it is the part of wisdom, the wisdom of living out life in God’s universe in God’s way, to please our Maker.
Daily Bible Reading: Proverbs 4; Galatians 3March 17, 2012
From For the Love of God by D.A. Carson
Daily Bible Reading: Proverbs 4; Galatians 3
“ABOVE ALL ELSE, GUARD YOUR HEART, for it is the wellspring of life” (Proverbs 4:23).
(1) In contemporary Western symbolism, the heart is the seat of emotions: e.g., “I love you with all my heart.” But in the symbol-world of Scripture, the heart is the seat of the whole person. It is closer to what we mean by “mind,” though in English “mind” is perhaps a little too restrictively cerebral.
(2) So “guard your heart” means more than “be careful what, or whom, you love”—though it cannot easily mean less than that. It means something like, “Be careful what you treasure; be careful what you set your affections and thoughts on.”
(3) For the “heart,” in this usage, “is the wellspring of life.” It directs the rest of life. What you set your mind and emotions on determines where you go and what you do. It may easily pollute all of life. The imagery is perhaps all the clearer in this section of Proverbs because the ensuing verses mention other organs: “Put away perversity from your mouth; keep corrupt talk far from your lips. Let your eyes look straight ahead.… Make level paths for your feet” (Prov. 4:24–26, italics added). But above all, guard your heart, “for it is the wellspring of life.” It is the source of everything in a way that, say, the feet are not. Jesus picks up much the same imagery. “You brood of vipers,” he says to one group, “how can you who are evil say anything good? For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him” (Matt. 12:34–35, italics added). So guard your heart.
(4) Make this duty of paramount importance: “Above all else, guard your heart.” One can see why. If the heart is nothing other than the center of your entire personality, that is what must be preserved. If your religion is merely external, while your “heart” is a seething mass of self-interest, what good is the religion? If your heart is ardently pursuing peripheral things (not necessarily prurient things), then from a Christian perspective you soon come to be occupied with the merely peripheral. If what you dream of is possessing a certain thing, if what you pant for is a certain salary or reputation, that shapes your life. But if above all else you see it to be your duty to guard your heart, that resolve will translate itself into choices of what you read, how you pray, what you linger over. It will prompt self-examination and confession, repentance, and faith, and will transform the rest of your life.
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