It is a lot easier to read the Apostle Paul tell you from his jail cell to submit to tyrants than it is to hear a politico quote the Apostle Paul to use pious lingo that effectively means “Get back in line!”

(As the grasshopper said to the ant, which has always made me wonder if Pixar had someone who brought up the fable at a planning meeting… but I digress).

But whether it comes from the Apostle or the authoritarian, it is still true. Just because a tyrant, in his unbelief, is pushing a deadly weapon into your hands, doesn’t mean you should share his lack of faith and refuse to grab the handle.

Faith and patience win out in the end.

It is not just the public sector. All your life you will hear authority figures endorse ethics and values that make you more compliant to the ones enjoying authority over you–ethics and values you don’t see them practicing when it is to their hurt. But do as they say not as they do. God is slow to anger but not asleep. And when it is time for the changing of the guard, he will see you are ready for authority precisely because you served well.

If you have to spend time in a jail cell, you don’t want to waste the preparation that it can provide you!

A Great Mystery: Fourteen Wedding … – Google Books.

I was reading on page 55 and something Peter wrote hit me.

In Genes 3, Adam faced a choice. No I mean after he had already decided to use his wife as an experiment to see if the fruit would kill her. When confronted by God Adam faced a choice.

Would Adam intercede for his wife or would he blame her?

He blamed her. Not surprising. If he was willing to throw the woman in the path of the serpent, he wasn’t going to suddenly act like a man in God’s presence.

So what does that teach us?

Eve had really done wrong. Adam couldn’t exactly be accused of lying about Eve when he blamed her. On the other hand, he had been there with her and had kept silent to see what would happen. He let her go first and then he ate. He was more to blame than she was.

But even if he wasn’t, would it really have been right for him to point at her before God?

We”re supposed to intercede for our wives. We’re supposed to protect them from accusations as best we can. Yes sin should be dealt with, but in most situations, sin in others is an opportunity for exploitation, not justice and certainly not mercy. Husbands should protect their wives from that.

And also from the accuser in her head. Is a husband’s job to point out a wife’s faults or to build her up?

Did it ever occur to you that when Solomon wrote, “House and wealth are inherited from fathers, but a prudent wife is from the LORD,” that he was trying to get you to be thankful for the wife you have?

The heart of her husband trusts in her,
and he will have no lack of gain.

Adam didn’t trust Eve, and he ended up with a great deal of lack. Regard your wife as faithful, before others and before your own heart. You are called to be her Advocate, not her Satan–her Prosecuter.

Humanly speaking, it is complete coincidence that this is scheduled to publish the same day as this.

Romans 6.13

Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.

And then Romans 6.19b:

For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.

Does this see an odd way to write? But it is right out of Proverbs wherein we are warned about wicked or foolish eyes, ears, hands, feet, and hearts, etc.  Just one example among many:

There are six things that the Lord hates,
seven that are an abomination to him:
haughty eyes, a lying tongue,
and hands that shed innocent blood,
a heart that devises wicked plans,
feet that make haste to run to evil,
a false witness who breathes out lies,
and one who sows discord among brothers.

The book of Hebrews does not contain the words “wise” or “wisdom” even one time.

Yet wisdom is nevertheless a major theme in Hebrews. Jesus learned obedience, we should have discernment of good and evil, and then there is the quoting of Proverbs 3:

Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?

“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
nor be weary when reproved by him.
For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
and chastises every son whom he receives.”

It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?

But to think that Proverbs just shows up here is to miss the point. Proverbs is not quoted as a new thing. It is quoted to reveal what has already been going on. Consider the beginning of this section to which Proverbs 3 is quoted as a closing:

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the people of old received their commendation. By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible. By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks. By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found, because God had taken him. Now before he was taken he was commended as having pleased God. And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.

The statement about faith and creation hearkens back to Hebrews 1.2: “in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.”

Proverbs has a lot to say about this:

The Lord possessed me at the beginning of his work,
the first of his acts of old.
Ages ago I was set up,
at the first, before the beginning of the earth.
When there were no depths I was brought forth,
when there were no springs abounding with water.
Before the mountains had been shaped,
before the hills, I was brought forth,
before he had made the earth with its fields,
or the first of the dust of the world.
When he established the heavens, I was there;
when he drew a circle on the face of the deep,
when he made firm the skies above,
when he established the fountains of the deep,
when he assigned to the sea its limit,
so that the waters might not transgress his command,
when he marked out the foundations of the earth,
then I was beside him, like a master workman,
and I was daily his delight,
rejoicing before him always,
rejoicing in his inhabited world
and delighting in the children of man.

And this also is the key to why the author of Hebrews speaks of how faith must believe God “rewards those who seek him.”

Again, the key is Proverbs:

My son, if you receive my words
and treasure up my commandments with you,
making your ear attentive to wisdom
and inclining your heart to understanding;
yes, if you call out for insight
and raise your voice for understanding,
if you seek it like silver
and search for it as for hidden treasures,
then you will understand the fear of the Lord
and find the knowledge of God.
For the Lord gives wisdom;
from his mouth come knowledge and understanding;
he stores up sound wisdom for the upright;
he is a shield to those who walk in integrity,
guarding the paths of justice
and watching over the way of his saints.

And again:

I love those who love me,
and those who seek me diligently find me.

So faith seeks God and finds him not in obvious blessings but in trials that bring wisdom.

Finally, the issue of whether or not one will seek God is whether one trusts that God is worth it. The point of faith is to value the faithfulness of the one who promises. “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful” (Hebrews 10.23). It is about how one value’s God: “By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised.”

So in Proverbs the question is whether or not you value wisdom as highly as you should.

Blessed is the one who finds wisdom,
and the one who gets understanding,
for the gain from her is better than gain from silver
and her profit better than gold.
She is more precious than jewels,
and nothing you desire can compare with her.

Proverbs 25.27: It is not good to eat much honey, nor is it glorious to seek one’s own glory.

The one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory; but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and in him there is no falsehood (John 7.18)

I do not receive glory from people. But I know that you do not have the love of God within you. I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not receive me. If another comes in his own name, you will receive him. How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God? (John 5.41-44)

Proverbs 17.6: Grandchildren are the crown of the aged, and the glory of children is their fathers.