Pro Verbs 2:11-22

Here’s the rest of Chapter 2:

Discretion will protect you,
understanding will guard you,
to deliver you from the way of the wicked,
from those speaking perversity,
who leave the upright paths
to walk on the dark ways,
who delight in doing evil,
they rejoice in perverse evil;
whose paths are morally crooked,
and who are devious in their ways;
to deliver you from the adulteress,
from the sexually loose woman who speaks flattering words;
who leaves the husband from her younger days,
and forgets her marriage covenant made before God.
For her house sinks down to death,
and her paths lead to the place of the departed spirits.
None who go in to her will return,
nor will they reach the paths of life.
So you will walk in the way of good people,
and will keep on the paths of the righteous.
For the upright will reside in the land,
and those with integrity will remain in it,
but the wicked will be removed from the land,
and the treacherous will be torn away from it.

What do you see in this passage?

1. What happened in the text?
2. What do I learn about God?
3. What should I do about it?

Here’s what I saw:

1. What happened in the text?
   Understanding protects those who possess it from bad crowds, keeping them instead on the right paths and in the right places.
2. What do I learn about God?
   He gives people a way to avoid joining up with the perverse and morally crooked.
   He takes marriage covenants more seriously than most people do.
   He rewards integrity and uprightness.
   He doesn’t approve of treachery and wickedness.
3. What should I do about it?
   Stop running with that wicked crowd and hanging out with that adulteress?
   Ahem. I don’t think those are my particular problem. But since this part is not far removed from the “my son” intro, it does make me think about how to help my kids live out the instructions given here.
   There’s a non-Bible-study post this week that quotes Bull Durham. In that movie, a talented but dim-bulbed young pitcher assigned to an unimpressive minor league team is mentored by an experienced but reluctant catcher. Unfortunately, some of the crowd he ends up in (whatever the movie thinks of them), don’t do him much good. In the logic of the movie, that’s okay, because he starts off so empty-headed and hollow-hearted that any help he’s given is good. But he isn’t really transformed into a full-headed or full-hearted person; rather, he’s turned into a more effective baseball player. His father, who has no idea what’s going on, is a religious fool, duped by his son into thinking his son lives a different kind of life than he does.
   I’m not suggesting taking Bull Durham as some sort of anti-parenting advice. Just doing the opposite won’t help. But here are some things I need to consider:
   • While it’s possible, I want to help my children learn good values.
   • While I influence them, I cannot be satisfied with compliance.
   • When I’m evaluating how they’re doing, I need to be in relationship with them … or I might not have the right answer.
   • I need to listen as well as talk.
   • I want to help them understand their value in God’s eyes, so that they worry less about their value in human eyes, including mine.
   • I want to help them avoid the pain that comes from acting depraved.

   These are easier said than done. But they’re where I should be directing some of my parenting attention.