Immediately before the promotion of Haman, Mordecai had saved the king’s life (2:21-23). Chapter 3 begins significantly “Now after these events the king, the Great King, promoted Haman….” Say what? Surely Mordecai should have been promoted. This aged Jew had served on the Supreme Court faithfully and had risked his life by turning in the plotters. But instead of promoting him, the (seemingly) ungrateful king had promoted Haman. This is why Mordecai was angry, and why he refused to honor the king’s man and rebelled against the Great King.

This was a sin on Mordecai’s part, of course, and not his first. He had told Esther to conceal her identity. And Esther herself sinned by refusing to leave and cleave, instead continuing to obey Mordecai and effectively despising her husband (2:20). All of these sins would have to be dealt with, and are in the course of the book of Esther.

Jesus tells us that we have no right to any rewards. When we have done all, we are still unprofitable servants. Blessings are gifts, not things earned, for there is no “merit theology” in Biblical religion. Mordecai should have bowed to providence, to the king, and to Haman, trusting in the Lord. He did not.

How often we ourselves become angry with God, our Great King, when things don’t happen the way we think they should. We should have received that promotion, not that inferior other guy! We should have been picked! We must learn from Mordecai to be patient and to take the lowest seat, waiting to be promoted in God’s good time.

Read it all: Why Mordecai Was Angry « Biblical Horizons.

From Luke 11:

45 One of the lawyers answered him, “Teacher, in saying these things you insult us also.” 46 And he said, “Woe to you lawyers also! For you load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers. 47 Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets whom your fathers killed. 48 So you are witnesses and you consent to the deeds of your fathers, for they killed them, and you build their tombs. 49 Therefore also the Wisdom of God said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute,’ 50 so that the blood of all the prophets, shed from the foundation of the world, may be charged against this generation, 51 from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be required of this generation. 52 Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering.”

As the Solomon said before:

20 Wisdom cries aloud in the street,
in the markets she raises her voice;
21 at the head of the noisy streets she cries out;
at the entrance of the city gates she speaks:
22 “How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple?
How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing
and fools hate knowledge?
23 If you turn at my reproof,
behold, I will pour out my spirit to you;
I will make my words known to you.
24 Because I have called and you refused to listen,
have stretched out my hand and no one has heeded,
25 because you have ignored all my counsel
and would have none of my reproof,
26 I also will laugh at your calamity;
I will mock when terror strikes you,
27 when terror strikes you like a storm
and your calamity comes like a whirlwind,
when distress and anguish come upon you.
28 Then they will call upon me, but I will not answer;
they will seek me diligently but will not find me.
29 Because they hated knowledge
and did not choose the fear of the Lord,
30 would have none of my counsel
and despised all my reproof,
31 therefore they shall eat the fruit of their way,
and have their fill of their own devices.
32 For the simple are killed by their turning away,
and the complacency of fools destroys them;
33 but whoever listens to me will dwell secure
and will be at ease, without dread of disaster.”

My son, do not forget my teaching,
but let your heart keep my commandments,
for length of days and years of life
and peace they will add to you.

Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you;
bind them around your neck;
write them on the tablet of your heart.
So you will find favor and good success
in the sight of God and man.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
and do not lean on your own understanding.
In all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make straight your paths.

Be not wise in your own eyes;
fear the Lord, and turn away from evil.
It will be healing to your flesh
and refreshment to your bones.

Honor the Lord with your wealth
and with the firstfruits of all your produce;
then your barns will be filled with plenty,
and your vats will be bursting with wine.

So wisdom brings long life, peace, favor, good success, straight paths, healing and refreshment, filled barns and bursting wine vats.

And yet the author of Hebrews invokes the very next words in Proverbs to tell his readers to be prepared to face martyrdom:

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? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

Proverbs starts with two major imperatives: To remain/remember, and to Quest

You find them both in Proverbs 2.1ff

My son,

Remain/Remember

if you receive my words
and treasure up my commandments with you,
making your ear attentive to wisdom
and inclining your heart to understanding;

Quest

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.

So is wisdom learned from childhood or discovered in maturity?

The answer lies, I think, in the very first verses of Proverbs:

To know wisdom and instruction,
to understand words of insight,
to receive instruction in wise dealing,
in righteousness, justice, and equity;
to give prudence to the simple,
knowledge and discretion to the youth—
Let the wise hear and increase in learning,
and the one who understands obtain guidance,
to understand a proverb and a saying,
the words of the wise and their riddles.

Proverbs is meant to be read, memorized, and meditated upon. You start with the words and you treasure them. But they are riddles. The repetitions, the alterations as you go through them (for instance) are meant for reflection. Wisdom is both initial gift and later gift.

In other words, while there are unambiguous principles that must be drawn from Proverbs, and which you violate only if you hate life and love death, Proverbs is not supposed to make sense on first reading. It is supposed to tease you, confuse you, and frustrate you. Anyone trying to figure out order and the reasons for the variations on a statement will experience this confusion and frustration. It is precisely wrestling with the text as you live your life that is supposed to teach you wisdom.

In other words, Proverbs teaches by training. God did this for Israel with manna. Later he commanded them to keep the Sabbath Holy but only after he had trained them with manna to gather food on six days and have leftovers on the Seventh. Likewise, in Ephesians 1.3ff, Paul teaches readers to pray and worship by involving them in his prayer and worship. Reading the Epistle out loud in a worship service is not simply the transmission of a message but the beginning of a practice.

So Proverbs is supposed to be read, memorized, and spoken aloud. It is not exhausted by the meaning of its statements. Those statements could be made much more succinctly without all the repetition. Nor would the point of Proverbs be exhausted if one was able to figure out the patterns and see a theological rationale. The Proverbs are the tools God uses to raise wise children. They are puzzles that one should play with. (I’m tempted to point out that they are God’s version of the computer program in the book, Ender’s Game, but I’m not sure how many of you would get it. And I haven’t finished the book yet so something might happen that spoils the analogy).

When will you be able to say you understand Proverbs? I don’t know. But I do know that you would be better served to think of using the book as your primary goal.

The fallow ground of the poor would yield much food,
but it is swept away through injustice.

via Passage: Proverbs 13:23 (ESV Bible Online).

We can find stuff in Proverbs and divide it up into “deserving” and “undeserving” poor.  But whose to say that the sluggard might not still be able to make a living for awhile except for injustice exploiting him? The proverbs are full of wisdom about how to deal with people, including tyrants. In fact, Solomon never says that his wisdom only works in a free market. He tells you to live wisely and expect blessing. In any case, Wisdom exhorts you to both work hard and trust in Yahweh; implying that both directives are not dependent on circumstances.

This seems to jive with Israel’s own history. They were sent into exile by God’s just judgment. Yet God did not think that the slave-drivers were therefore justified in enslaving them. Zechariah 2, for example:

Up! Up! Flee from the land of the north, declares the Lord. For I have spread you abroad as the four winds of the heavens, declares the Lord. Up! Escape to Zion, you who dwell with the daughter of Babylon. For thus said the Lord of hosts, after his glory sent me to the nations who plundered you, for he who touches you touches the apple of his eye: “Behold, I will shake my hand over them, and they shall become plunder for those who served them.”

The point here is that people who need to learn wisdom will often also be victimized by injustice. Sometimes wisdom will easily release them from tyranny (i.e. teaching people to hate and resist the state’s fraudulent and exploitative lottery system). Other times it will not be so simple. We have to deal with both issues and not let one keep us from facing the other.

An example:

A fool’s lips walk into a fight,
and his mouth invites a beating (Proverbs 18.6).

Does this mean that everyone who beats a fool who runs his mouth is justified? Don’t think so. He may just be a more powerful fool who can’t control his temper. But we would be doing the beaten fool a disservice if we only treated what happened as a “justice issue” and didn’t ask him if he might not want to keep silent and appear even wiser than he yet is (Proverbs 17.28).

Just saw a blog pass on the opinion that Job’s friends were wrong because they used the truth wrongly.

I am not prepared to take apart every statement by Job’s three friends and analyze each one in context. So maybe they did use the truth wrongly. But I am sure that they did use falsehood wrongly too, and that far from being of any use in positive preaching, they are examples only of sin and error. For example:

Dominion and fear are with God;
he makes peace in his high heaven.
Is there any number to his armies?
Upon whom does his light not arise?
How then can man be in the right before God?
How can he who is born of woman be pure?
Behold, even the moon is not bright,
and the stars are not pure in his eyes;
how much less man, who is a maggot,
and the son of man, who is a worm!

This is false theology–though it is great material for understanding the philosopher Hobbes.  Our reason to fear God is not based on his sheer power; and the fact that he is so powerful does not mean that we must all believe he finds fault with us. When God created the stars, he did not say that they were impure. When he made man he did not claim he was a maggot or worm.

Yet I have heard a famous Reformed preacher actually use the words of Bildad the Shuite (Job 25) in addressing God in prayer as if they were describing his great majesty.

No. Bildad was constructing a false god. It wasn’t just a truth wrongly applied in Job’s case. It was a falsehood that can never rightly be applied to anyone.

Again, this doesn’t rule out that, in other speeches, maybe the truth was wrongly applied. But the above passage leads me to a hermeneutic of suspicion with the rest of them.

If you listen to Proverbs over and over I think it will make you less interested in talk radio, internet political chats, etc. It just doesn’t seem to matter. Solomon says stuff about righteousness, wisdom, and kingship, but it doesn’t really fit much into our ideological fixations.

Kings just are. Deal with them in a way that doesn’t get you into trouble. Work hard. Keep your mouth shut. You might get elevated. But even so be careful of a ruler’s generosity.

If you are a king (and most people are in some way or other) know that righteousness is the only thing that will secure you. You will find out you are wrong when it is too late if you don’t believe Solomon about this.

But mostly, you are on your own. If you can find a true friend to help you, that is great. If you can get wise counsel from multiple sources, that is helpful. You do need to listen carefully. But rich men will have their own concerns and if you are foolish there is nothing that will protect you from your foolishness. You can’t count on the state or anyone else to help you out.

So keep your eyes open. Keep working. Don’t expect rescue. If you want to see help available in the world, you need to work on becoming that help for others yourself. You are the only person you can be responsible for–except perhaps your family.

And what time is left for worrying about the “right” politicians, or spreading free market economics? Not that much as far as I can tell.