Well, we are the sum
of any numbers of things, including but not limited to what we think, what we
do, and — by far the most important — who we are in God’s eyes.
What do we really feel
in our hearts when we’re under intense emotional pressure, and how would we
react if everyone could see that on full display? What do we allow ourselves to
engage in for the sake of polity or social acceptance, and is that consistent
with what we claim to believe? How does God distinguish between us? What are
his metrics?
Three consecutive
proverbs contribute to the discussion.
The “Men of Hezekiah” Proverbs (Proverbs 29:10-18)
Unproductive Venting
“A fool gives full vent to his spirit,
but a wise man quietly holds it back.”
The Huffington Post says, “Keeping your emotions bottled up could kill you.” That’s the standard line of assertiveness trainers and psychologists these
days, but it’s too simplistic a view. If we assume our choices are limited to either
saying nothing or blowing our stack, we are conflating communication and
venting. The two are not synonyms.
What Solomon calls foolish is allowing one’s
emotions to fully express themselves. “I feel” is almost never a useful
statement in a business setting, where nobody cares about your feelings except
the Human Resources department, and nobody likes them anyway. It’s a different
story in the family, where the feelings of those we love ought to be an
important consideration, but even at home you are far more likely to succeed in
getting across your concerns about a situation or relationship if you stop well
short of having a meltdown. Silence and screaming are not the only possible
options. Solomon is not suggesting that a frustrated man or woman should say
nothing to resolve a problem, but that he should choose his words carefully and
avoid becoming emotional. “When words are many, sin is not lacking.”
In short, calm and orderly assertiveness is
not at all foolish, but dumping one’s emotional baggage all over other people
most certainly is. It will either get you studiously ignored or treated like a
child, which is what such behavior most calls to mind.
Hey, If It Works for Him …
“If a ruler listens to falsehood, all his officials will be wicked.”
It’s an oft-stated principle that if you
incentivize something, you get more of it. Outside of Christ, people often use every
tool available to them in order to get ahead. They decide which tools are acceptable
in any situation on the basis of what works, and what they can reasonably
expect to get away with based on their observations of how others in their
position have historically been dealt with.
There are plenty of reasons a ruler might become
accustomed to being lied to, or even prefer lies to truth: confirmation bias, convenience,
insecurity, ego, a poor grip on the facts — you name it. But the one thing
you can guarantee is that if a liar finds success bending the boss’s ear,
others will imitate his behavior. Before you know it, the only way to get ahead
in such an environment is telling the ruler whatever it is you think he wants
to hear.
This is not the practice of godly men in
scripture. They were unflinching with the facts, and it worked for them. But
even if it had not, as Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego put it,
“we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.” Others had a
little less at stake, but were equally blunt. Joseph was entirely candid in his
interpretation of the chief baker’s dream. Daniel, in a similarly awkward position of having to present very bad news to
the greatest men of the day, was gracious but entirely honest with
King Nebuchadnezzar, and courteous but quite ruthless with the weak and evil Belshazzar.
Things in Common
“The poor man and the oppressor meet together;
the Lord gives light to the eyes of both.”
This is an excessively literal rendering,
but the meaning is still apparent. To meet together is to find common ground,
as in “Steadfast love and faithfulness meet; righteousness and peace kiss each other.” In Christ, it is possible to be both
just and loving. The two need not be set in opposition. Likewise, to “meet
together” is to have something in common, as all men do.
The poor man and the oppressor do very
little meeting together in life in the literal sense — as little as the
oppressor can get away with while getting what he needs out of those he is
oppressing. But they do have certain things in common. Chapter 22 of
Proverbs expresses a similar truism: “The rich and the poor
meet together; the Lord is the
Maker of them all.” Or as Solomon puts it in Ecclesiastes just a little more morbidly, “All go to
one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all return.” When the light goes out of one’s eyes, it makes no
difference whether you have accumulated millions or nothing at all, as
the rich man discovered in Hades. All the differences we observe between the different
strata of society disappear in death.
As Christians, it is necessary to give
respect and honor in this life to those to whom it is owed, but we need to be careful not to
confuse appropriate deference with the notion that some men are greater in the
eyes of God than others merely by virtue of having being able to store up
wealth and power.
It is frequently quite the opposite.
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