Evil woman:

For the commandment is a lamp and the teaching a light,
and the reproofs of discipline are the way of life,
to preserve you from the evil woman,
from the smooth tongue of the adulteress.
Do not desire her beauty in your heart,
and do not let her capture you with her eyelashes (Proverbs 6)

Evil woman who is not your wife; also known as Folly:

Let your fountain be blessed,
and rejoice in the wife of your youth,
a lovely deer, a graceful doe.
Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight;
be led astray always in her love.
Why should you be led astray, my son, with a forbidden woman
and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?
For a man’s ways are before the eyes of the Lord,
and he ponders all his paths.
The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him,
and he is held fast in the cords of his sin.
He dies for lack of discipline,
and because of his great folly he is led astray (Proverbs 5)

Alcohol

Wine is a mocker, strong drink a brawler,
and whoever is led astray by it is not wise (Proverbs 20)

Desire to not work

The desire of the sluggard kills him,
for his hands refuse to labor. (Proverbs 21)

Lusts

The righteousness of the upright delivers them,
but the treacherous are taken captive by their lust. (Proverbs 21)

In this world, therefore, the dominion of good men is profitable, not so much for themselves as for human affairs. But the dominion of bad men is hurtful chiefly to themselves who rule, for they destroy their own souls by greater license in wickedness; while those who are put under them in service are not hurt except by their own iniquity. For to the just all the evils imposed on them by unjust rulers are not the punishment of crime, but the test of virtue. Therefore the good man, although he is a slave, is free; but the bad man, even if he reigns, is a slave, and that not of one man, but, what is far more grievous, of as many masters as he has vices; of which vices when the divine Scripture treats, it says, “For of whom any man is overcome, to the same he is also the bond-slave.” 2 Peter 2:19

via CHURCH FATHERS: City of God, Book IV (St. Augustine).

To understand what’s on my mind, see my previous post and follow the links.

1. If we take the -nomos suffix as “law” then theonomy is good and autonomy is evil, because one should submit to God’s law rather than be a law to oneself.
2. But being “autonomous” does not typically mean being a law unto oneself in all contexts. It can means simply being self-governed. A child becomes “autonomous” to a degree at the age of eighteen because the child becomes an adult and is permitted to make choices for him- or herself. One becomes “autonomous” when one is given space and time to make one’s own decisions without immediate supervision.
3. In other words, you are autonomous when you are expected to supervise yourself rather than be supervised by someone else.
4. Autonomy can be a matter of degree: you can be told to report back in two weeks or six months on a project. You are autonomous in that you are “on your own” until the appointed time of review. Or you can be given a mission without being given minute instructions on how to succeed at the mission. Determining your best strategy to complete the mission is part of the mission itself. So in both cases you have a lesser or greater degree of autonomy without denying a higher authority.
5. So God has left us largely autonomous, or rather, with the charge to become autonomous and thus complete his mission for us.
6. In other words, God wants us to grow up. We have to learn to supervise ourselves rather than come under someone elses’ perpetual supervision.
7. And if we are supposed to supervise ourselves, then each one of us must be obligated to bring one’s self under one’s control as a unified person in order to be a fit instrument and weapon for for an end.
8. But to what end? If we don’t have at least an overarching plan for human beings in mind, then how can we unify our desires, perceptions, and impulses toward an intelligible goal? With no goal, we become slaves to vices. With a false goal, we will eventually find that our “autonomy” is actually slavery to some principle that doesn’t truly suit us.
9. If God is truly the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit revealed in the Bible and in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, then only by governing ourselves to serve him and model ourselves on him can we be truly self-integrated and self-governing.
10. So, this is the conclusion of the matter: The only real autonomy is found in theonomy.

When a land transgresses, it has many rulers,
but with a man of understanding and knowledge,
its stability will long continue.

via Passage: Proverbs 28:2 (ESV Bible Online).

But not just a land. A person.

A person is not just enslaved by eyelashes or strong drink….

Do not desire her beauty in your heart,
and do not let her capture you with her eyelashes; (Proverbs 6.25)

Wine is a mocker, strong drink a brawler,
and whoever is led astray by it is not wise. (Proverbs 20.1)

But his lips trap him in a fight, his hands refuse to follow orders and work, his spirit is given free reign to lead him anywhere, and his drives take him prisoner.

A fool’s lips walk into a fight,
and his mouth invites a beating.
A fool’s mouth is his ruin,
and his lips are a snare to his soul. (Proverbs 18.6-7)

The desire of the sluggard kills him,
for his hands refuse to labor. (Proverbs 21.25)

A fool gives full vent to his spirit,
but a wise man quietly holds it back. (Proverbs 29.11)

The righteousness of the upright delivers them,
but the treacherous are taken captive by their lust. (Proverbs 11.6)

A wise man, however, guards his mouth and eyes and heart and is a stable, unified person.

Keep your heart with all vigilance,
for from it flow the springs of life. (Proverbs 4.23)

Whoever guards his mouth preserves his life;
he who opens wide his lips comes to ruin. (Proverbs 13.3)

Whoever restrains his words has knowledge,
and he who has a cool spirit is a man of understanding. (Proverbs 17.27)

Let your eyes look directly forward,
and your gaze be straight before you. (Proverbs 4.25)

You are your own land. If you give in to sin, you will become at war with yourself. You will be a person of insurrection. But if you follow God’s ways, and depend on Him, you will be given dominion over yourself.

Joseph didn’t waste his slavery. He embraced it. We see it especially when he refused a chance to wage class warfare on Potiphar.

Now Joseph was handsome in form and appearance. And after a time his master’s wife cast her eyes on Joseph and said, “Lie with me.” But he refused and said to his master’s wife, “Behold, because of me my master has no concern about anything in the house, and he has put everything that he has in my charge. He is not greater in this house than I am, nor has he kept back anything from me except yourself, because you are his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?” And as she spoke to Joseph day after day, he would not listen to her, to lie beside her or to be with her.

Did you catch that bold proclamation that adultery is wrong? No. It was barely there. What Joseph emphasizes is how gracious Potiphar has been to him and how much he has trusted him. He also mentions that God is watching his behavior.

Joseph was criminally kidnapped yet he treats Potiphar as his legitimate owner. Only when he appeals to a higher civil authority does he mention the injustice of his circumstances (“Only remember me, when it is well with you, and please do me the kindness to mention me to Pharaoh, and so get me out of this house. For I was indeed stolen out of the land of the Hebrews, and here also I have done nothing that they should put me into the pit.”). In every other case he serves as a faithful servant.

And then he rules the world and saves it by his bread and cup.

Related: more about Joseph and Wisdom

My son, if your heart is wise,
my heart too will be glad.
My inmost being will exult
when your lips speak what is right….

The father of the righteous will greatly rejoice;
he who fathers a wise son will be glad in him.
Let your father and mother be glad;
let her who bore you rejoice.

via Passage: Proverbs 23 (ESV Bible Online).

Why does God give so many rules?

Many unbelieving portrayals of God and his Law make him look like a mad scientist who is creating an army of robots. And if we don’t obey he is not happy because he wants submission to all his whims.

Proverbs (in the context of the whole Bible) addresses this portrayal in two ways.

In the first place, it back’s up Paul’s point that the Law is for childhood. While the moral commands are always binding, learning and memorizing such commands is only the “beginning of wisdom.” The point is that, once internalized, a person can grow to become something altogether greater than he was.

A glorious Temple sits on a concealed foundation.

So we mature from merely hearing an obeying orders to a confirmed character that can create harmony and beauty in the world.

This leads to the second point. God loves seeing us transformed. He doesn’t want robots. He doesn’t want perpetual children. He wants a company of gods.

Yes we will always be finite and God isn’t. There will always be a difference between God and humanity. But the point of being made in God’s image is to grow to more closely match God’s image. We are meant to be transformed and glorified. And God loves to see that happen. He exults in our exaltation. He rejoices as we come into our inheritance.

Hebrews 12 makes it clear that, when the Proverbs refer to “my son” that is God talking to us. God is waiting to rejoice as he sees us become wise. His inmost being will revel in our attainment.

There is a not so pleasant side to this fact. Again, as Hebrews 12 indicates, this means that God might think tribulations and afflictions are worth the result. And we may not agree.

But we have to trust God.

He is cheering for us.

I’ve been posting a bit on Proverbs and the practice and understanding of life that it presupposes and teaches in the context of the Bible. I’ve said a fair bit about freedom (or maybe better, kingship) and slavery. I’m worried I’ve distorted the picture a bit by making slavery bad and freedom good.

It is not good to be a slave in the same way that it was not good for Adam to be alone. He was meant for a wife and we are meant for dominion. But that doesn’t mean all Adam’s time spent alone was wasted.

Paul says that a child is just like a slave, so all the Proverbs begging the son to listen and memorize what his parents tell him are, in a sense, exhortations to be a diligent slave.

The constant temptation in Proverbs is to try to escape slavery by violence or sexual fantasy, or to use one’s mouth to wreak vengeance on rulers who have what you don’t yet. Solomon says that the plan for escaping slavery is diligent slavery. Work and give and save.

I don’t always agree with Dave Ramsey but this principle may lie behind his point that looking for a “fix” for debts, like a con-solidation loan will not work. The person’s perceived shortcut will leave them with the same habits that got him into debt in the first place. You have to change your way of living to change your life.

So you have to learn to be an efficient and cheerful slave in order to be raised from slavery. Otherwise, you will fall back into it. There is no shame in being born in slavery and being freed. There is a great deal of shame in being free and selling yourself into slavery because one is ruled by bad habits and appetites.

So your slavery is there to teach you how to be a free man–or rather, a king.