Month: March 2024

27
Mar
2024

Who Will win in Round 11?

“Answer not a fool according to his folly,

Lest you be like him yourself.

Answer a fool according to his folly,

Lest he be wise in his own eyes.”

Proverbs 26:4, 5

 

Sometimes conversation with others can be frustrating. Have you had those conversations? Your point of view and the other person’s point of view are opposite. It is important to you to come to a resolution with the other person, and yet that resolution seems like a farfetched dream. Your ideas are so opposed to each other.

It is important in these situations to be evaluating what you are saying against the truth of Scripture. These conversations can be about various things. In a marriage it could be about what car to buy. In a friendship it could be where to meet for supper. In a church it could be what color to paint a classroom. These do not seem like difficult conversations, nor do these decisions seem to go with our verse and yet if we look at these situations more closely they do.

Every relationship has challenges and difficulties. We must decide to approach every relationship and every conversation with humility, grace, and truth. If we come into each relationship with pride, we will think the only one with the right opinion is yourself. We will not be open to the opinions of others. If we are listening to the opinions of others and they are contradictory to the truth especially the truth from God’s Word, then we must not answer “the fool according to his folly.” (Prov. 26:4).

  1. Answer not a fool according to his folly

When a conversation becomes a sword fight, we are answering the fool according to his folly. We are trying to get the win in the verbal battle rather than be on the lookout as to how you can help the other person grow in faith in Christ or come to know the Lord as their personal Savior. If a person is not willing to listen to what you have to say when you are speaking in love and gentleness and only wants to have their own way, we must be willing to let the conversation die and “leave the presence of the fool.” (Prov. 14:7).

  1. Lest you be like him yourself.

We become like the fool when we willingly enter into the verbal sparring match because we are so determined to make sure the other person knows how wrong they are and how right we are. If we are so determined to make sure the other person knows how right we are so we enter the verbal “boxing ring” and are willing to go 11 rounds just so we can be determined the verbal winner, we have “become like the fool.”

  1. Answer a fool according to his folly

This is like the “tit for tat.” If you hit me, I’ll hit you back. This is revenge with words. If you said unkind things to me, I will say them back. When we say words that would only come from a fool, then we would also be considered a fool. When we get caught in a verbal sparring match with another and the words or tone of voice that come from our mouth sound no different than the words or tone of voice that are coming from the fool, what would that make us?

  1. Lest he be wise in his own eyes

The fool that is listening to you utter the same words that he is using will think to himself that he is the wise one. He is listening to his own press and thinking how wise he is. “Even a fool who keeps silent is considered wise; when he closes his lips, he is deemed intelligent.”  (Prov. 17:28). We so often think that we must return word for word in what we consider to be wise words to the other person’s foolish words. Rather, we must keep a guard on our mouths and refuse to enter into the sparring match that the other person so urgently wants to begin.

We must be so concerned about the soul of the other person that we need to not be worried about defending our honor or making sure that our point is heard. What matters is understanding and seeking to help the other person become more like Christ. Sometimes, our honor may be tarnished, but God who knows all is the One that will help to make things right. What we must be concerned about above all is representing Christ well. Sometimes, we must let Christ be the One who makes things right, and we must keep our mouths closed so that He can be the One to do that.

 

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20
Mar
2024

Burning Coals

“If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat,

and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink,

for you will heap burning coals on his head

and the LORD will reward you.”

Proverbs 25:21, 22

I have not seen the play Les Misérables, but Dave and I watched the movie a few weeks ago. The main character Jean Valjean is an ex-convict. As he is trying to figure out what he is going to do with his life now that he has been released from prison, he stumbles onto a nice couple that take him in for the night. The man is a priest. During the night, Jean Valjean decides to steal the silver candlesticks and leave before he is found out. However, he is caught and the police bring him back to the priest. The priest when asked if the candlesticks were his tells the police that he gave Jean Valjean the candlesticks and asks his wife to also give him the silverware as he had meant to give him the silverware as well.

The priest was practically putting this verse into practice. He knew that Jean Valjean had stolen the silver candlesticks, but instead of berating him and putting him into jail he said to him, “Jean Valjean, my brother, you no longer belong to evil, but to good. It is your soul that I buy from you; I withdraw it from black thoughts and the spirit of perdition, and I give it to God.”

The priest had the end in mind. He knew that the best chance that Jean Valjean had for changing his life was to show him what kindness, goodness, and selflessness looked like. Too often when we are so self-involved we have no idea what true selflessness looks like. All a selfish person knows is how to look out for is themselves. They look at what their needs and wants are and do everything they can to satisfy those.

This verse tells us to demonstrate what kindness, goodness, and selflessness look like. The “enemy” will not have any idea how to change his ways if he is not shown what selflessness looks like. There is no better way to demonstrate kindness than to look at what the needs of the “enemy” is and seek to meet those needs.

So many times in relationships where we are being taken advantage of by another person or being mistreated by another person, we think that we need to flee or that we need to fight back. When we look at Jesus and how He lived His life we see that so many times what He did was demonstrate love. He chose to teach truth and demonstrate love. When our kindness is given to others, it is a stark contrast to the evil that the other person is demonstrating.

I am thankful that our society has become more aware of abuse and impact that it has on the abused. Dealing with abuse is not my intention in this short blog.

What I want us to consider is how we treat those around us. Do we think of their needs or do we think of our own? Do we seek to share the love of Christ by showering someone with kindness or trying to get our own way? The best way to show our “enemies” kindness, goodness, and selflessness is to return their evil deeds just like the priest did in Les Misérables to Jean Valjean. Jean would not have known what these traits looked like if he had not seen them demonstrated. Sometimes, it takes repeated efforts of kindness before our “enemy” changes his ways.

After all that Jesus did for me and what I do deserve, the least I can do is shower another person with kindness, goodness, and selflessness.

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13
Mar
2024

A Word Fitly Spoken

“A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver.”

Proverbs 25:11

Apples. I love apples. My favorite apple is a nice cold crisp honeycrisp. They are the so delicious to me and absolutely the sweetest apple. I could eat an apple pie, cooked apples, baked apples, applesauce, apple crisp, apple turnover, etc. If there are additional ways to eat an apple, I want to know what it is. I love to drink apple cider, especially if it is from Yates Cider Mill in Rochester, MI. The have the best apple cider. It is delicious cold, warm, or as a slushy. Needless to say, I love apples.

What about when an apple is rotten? I don’t love it as much. Almost every night (at least right now because I tend to go in streaks) I love to cut up a honeycrisp apple (maybe two) and cut it into sections and then savor each section. If there is a bad spot, or a mushy part, or a brown spot I cut that part out. I don’t want a brown or mushy apple. If the apple doesn’t taste quite right, I will throw the whole thing away and get a new one. I know that sounds wasteful, but I want my apple to taste delicious not rotten. This happens very rarely.

So our verse for today from Proverbs equates a word from our mouth not just to an apple, but to an apple of gold in a setting of silver.

We can deduce that our words are very powerful.

Our words that are fitly spoken are powerful. The word “fitly” in the original Hebrew literally means “wheels.”  Our words like a wheel that “runs well.” The word fitly spoken can also mean “well-placed” or “suitable.”

A well-placed or suitable word has great power and brings beauty to the hearer. Take for instance when you have eaten lunch right before a big presentation and you have a big blob of mustard or ketchup on your face, shirt, or dress. A word well placed and fitly spoken would let you know about this ill-placed glob of condiment on your person. No one would get upset with the deliverer of such news. They would forever be grateful that they did not go before a large audience with said condiment drawing attention away from the speech and onto what you ate for lunch.

A well-placed or suitable word of encouragement will also bring beauty to its hearer. That word of encouragement would be like an apple of gold. It would not be something that you discarded like a napkin used to wipe your face after lunch, but rather you would look at that word of encouragement just like you looked at that golden apple. It would be so valuable that you would display it in a setting of silver to remind you when you were feeling discouraged of the encouraging word shared with you from another person.

What about a well-placed or suitable word of constructive criticism? Would we feel so grateful if someone confronted us about something that disfigured our character like the condiment in the previous example? If someone said that they noticed that you didn’t always tell the truth, or you were easily angered, or you were self-serving in your efforts? Would that well-placed constructive criticism seem more like a rotten apple than an apple of gold?

Our words have great power, and the words we choose to speak come from the storehouse of our hearts.

Are the words you say and the way that you deliver them like a sweet golden apple in a setting of silver because it is fitly spoken? Or are the words you say like the rotten apple that is thrown away because the taste is so rotten?

Let’s purpose to have words that are fitly spoken so that they land in a setting of silver rather than the garbage can.

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