# 414 The Proverbs – ‘A manual for living’ (MSG). Proverbs 5:1-6. ‘When the rubber meets the road!’

In my last post I quoted from Gordon MacDonald’s book, ‘Ordering your Private World.’ (Dar El Kalema Publishing House, 2010). Amongst other things he quoted from Oscar Wilde ‘who paid scant attention to his private world’. He confessed, ‘…I let myself be lured into long spells of senseless and sensual ease…I grew careless of the lives of others. I took pleasure where it pleased me, and passed on. I forgot that every little action of the common day makes or unmakes character…I allowed pleasure to dominate me…I ended in horrible disgrace.’

I guess, if Wilde ever read the Proverbs, he obviously took no time or effort to live out the teachings of this book. And this is the point of not only the teaching of Proverbs but the whole Bible. Even if, possibly unlike Wilde, we are ‘religious’, unless we actually do what the Bible teaches, then our lives may end up like Wilde’s – in horrible disgrace!

As James puts it, “Isn’t it obvious that God-talk without God-acts is outrageous nonsense? (James 1:27 The Message).

So, Proverb’s author continues:

5 My son, pay attention to my wisdom,
    turn your ear to my words of insight,

I like the way the father here does not just say, ‘do this because I say so’! Rather he gives sound reasons why his advice is well worth taking and then putting into action in daily life. He continues, so ² that you may maintain discretion and your lips may preserve knowledge.

Or as the Amplified Bible puts it:

² That you may exercise proper discrimination and discretion and your lips may guard and keep knowledge and the wise answer [to temptation]. (AMPC)

And then, as the saying goes, “here the rubber meets the road” (meaning, “The point at which a theory or idea is put to a practical test. When things become serious.”) And the “practical test” involves a very relevant topic to both men and women, i.e., our sexuality and how we handle it, particularly when we are tempted to “mess with God’s order in this area [which] is to mess up the foundation of our Creator’s plan for human life that reflects and glorifies him.”  (# 55)  

And so, the warning comes against “Adultery [which] is a contradiction of the most intimate human relationship and is especially damaging to life (see also 6:20-29, 7:1-27).” (# 53)

Earlier in Proverbs, the author, teaching how important it is to gain wisdom, mentions this issue when he says to his son,

Wisdom will save you also from the adulterous woman,
    from the wayward woman with her seductive words,
¹⁷ who has left the partner of her youth
    and ignored the covenant she made before God.  (2:16-17)

He then continues the description here in chapter 5:

³ For the lips of the adulterous woman drip honey,
    and her speech is smoother than oil;

Have you noticed something about temptation? It is appealing, it appears to be something very satisfying. Anything less would not even be a temptation to us. The problem is that all is not what it appears, as the author continues:

⁴ but in the end she is bitter as gall,
    sharp as a double-edged sword.
⁵ Her feet go down to death;
    her steps lead straight to the grave.
⁶ She gives no thought to the way of life;
    her paths wander aimlessly, but she does not know it.

And so to give in to her lies and deception is to go along with her to eventual bitterness, death and regret. Or as Wilde described it, “horrible disgrace.”

Although the teaching here is a “call for men to keep the marriage bed pure. Many have suggested that women can apply the same principle in reverse, so to speak, rejecting adulterous men… But the specific focus [and we will see this as we look at the verses that follow] on the context of marriage (as opposed to other contexts of sexual sin) must lead us to consider what is at stake here: that is the relationship between husband and wife, which throughout scripture is used to picture the relationship between God and his people…” (# 55)

The reality is that all this, sadly, is counter cultural to much thinking in our society today, and many have fallen into the lies and deception only to end up empty and lonely. And so, whether we like it or not, Goldsworthy sums it up as follows:

“Sexual immorality is destructive of life, and sexual satisfaction should be found within the bond of marriage.” (# 53)

Or as the author of Hebrews exhorts:

⁴ Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.  (Hebrews 13:4)