PASSION FOR A LIFE OF INTEGRITY - A Closer Look at the Book of Proverbs
Wisdom in Israel meant living practically in the revelation and presence of God. The Israelites were concerned to live well what had been revealed to them by God. The Reformation called this living coram deo - before the face of God. Garrett writes that wisdom and covenant are twin pillars of the Old Testament and twin guides to life. In contrasting the two guides he writes, "Many wisdom precepts are also to be found in covenantal texts, and many wisdom texts relate to salvation history. Deuteronomy calls the reader to love God but along the way gives him or her a great deal of practical advice. Proverbs teaches the reader about the world but begins with the premise that the fear of the Lord is the highest wisdom. To put it another way, the one is God coming to humankind with covenant love and divine authority, but the other is the sage counseling the disciple to begin the quest for discernment by submitting to God." Therefore, Proverbs is God-centered; its focus is on not only what God wants in every circumstance or situation but what He wants of my entire life (Van Gemeren). It is living in the presence of God, under the authority of God and to the glory of God.
Many presume the Book of Proverbs is an ancient manual of good advice for better living. There is nothing wrong with that understanding as far as it goes. But there is something deeper, richer and organic at work in Proverbs than guidance for practical living. It offers a remarkable framework upon which everything hangs. The Book offers life itself. In 8:35 Lady Wisdom announces "life". Frequently used images of wisdom as fountains (13:14) and tree of life (10:11, 16:22, 3:18, 11:30, 13:12) point to God - the creator and sustainer and source of life. In 14:27 we read "the fear of the Lord is a fountain of life, turning man from the snares of death." It is the nature of a fountain to bring forth refreshment, to overflow with abundance and to give life. God is like that too. It is His nature to overflow with wisdom, the source and agent of our moral and spiritual understanding. Wisdom plants godly character and feeds spiritual growth. The most important thing about knowledge we are told in Proverbs is knowing God as He has chosen to reveal Himself. Wisdom is not a matter of intelligence but of the heart - the core of our being which expresses itself in our daily conduct. David Hubbard writes, "Although [fear] includes worship, it does not end there. It radiates out from our adoration and devotion to our everyday conduct that sees each moment as the Lord1s time, each relationship as the Lord's opportunity, each duty as the Lord's command, and each blessing as the Lord's gift. It is a new way of looking at life and seeing what it is meant to be when viewed from God's perspective." God's people are privileged to emulate and reflect His character in the world and to enjoy intimate fellowship with Him. Wisdom, therefore, is about the inclinations and affections of our hearts toward God and the things of God. Things that reflect the character of God are good and things that depart from His character are bad. Wisdom loves the things that God loves - goodness, truth, beauty, mercy, justice. It hates the things that God hates - evil, pride, arrogance, perversity (3:7-8). The heart of wise is positive, obedient, and willing to do God's will.
The key verse in Proverbs, or its "recurrent motto" as Kidner puts it, is 1:7, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline." (also 9:10, 14:2, 14:27, 14:16). There are some eighteen references to "fear of the Lord" in the Book. In context it is used more as a statement of fact rather than a command. Kidner says fear has the sense of "worshiping submission." Ross writes "fear of the Lord" ultimately expresses reverential submission to the Lord"s will and this characterizes a true worshiper." It carries a notion of child-like reverential obedience before a loving, trustworthy parent. In today's society, however, there is little if anything that is held in reverence whether it be institutions, people or life itself. Often it seems like we have lost the capacity for reverence.
The "fear of the Lord" or lack thereof will send us down one of two ways to live. The words "way" and "path" are found nearly 100 times in Proverbs. Chapters 2 - 4 speak of the enjoyment of the way of Wisdom which leads to life (19:23), while the way of folly leads to death. Its the difference between life and death but its also the contrast between good and evil, obedience and rebellion, prudence and presumption, industry and laziness, and the City of God and the city of man. Jesus drew extensively upon wisdom literature as it's short, pithy statements stuck with His hearers memories. He too sharply distinguished between two kinds of wisdom - true wisdom which is revealed by God (Luke 7:35) and false wisdom of the world (Luke 6:27-28).
Political and social commentator Peggy Noonan in "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness" contrasts these two ways of wisdom in contemporary culture's pursuit of happiness and writes, "I think we have lost the old knowledge that happiness is overrated - that, in a way, life is overrated. We have lost somehow a sense of mystery - about us, our purpose, our meaning, our role. Our ancestors believed in two worlds, and understood this to be the solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short one. We are the first generation of man that actually expected to find happiness here on earth, and our search for it has caused such unhappiness. The reason: if you do not believe in another, higher world, if you believe only in the flat world around you, if you believe that this is your only chance at happiness - if that is what you believe, then you are more than disappointed when the world does not give you a good measure of its riches, you are in despair." A person born of the Holy Spirit, informed by God's wisdom and centered in Jesus Christ, pursues happiness, not as the worldly sensually, but as joy and delight in being a child of the Heavenly Father.
Kidner points out that people from all cultures have always revered wisdom thus demonstrating that even in man's fallen state he can still "think validly and talk wisely, within a limited field, without special revelation." This is no doubt , according to Kidner, because of God's common grace given in general, limited revelation through creation.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon, one of the great preachers of the modern era, explained that, "To know is not to be wise. Many men know a great deal, and are all the greater fools for it. There is no fool so great a fool as a knowing fool. But to know how to use knowledge is to have wisdom." The "knowing" fool has no solid guide for daily moral and spiritual decisions. As Paul explains in Romans "they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and served the creature rather than the Creator" and because "they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to depraved mind...." . Paul goes on to say that as if there was not enough evil in the world, fools are "inventors of evil...but also give hearty approval to those who practice them1[i.e. the improper things of a depraved mind]." The fool is depraved, or in other words, he's out of his mind.
The "wisdom" of the world through Satan beckons us, as Lady Folly does, to bow down and worship its idols such as wealth, success, power, celebrity, pleasure and "self-actualization". Even churches have become infected with such egocentric notions as self-esteem therapies. A. W. Tozer wrote an extremely simple yet helpful definition of idolatry: "The essence of idolatry is the entertainment of thoughts about God that are unworthy of Him." While we struggle to resist enticements of the flesh and deceit of the world1s counterfeit values, Wisdom calls us back to the right way saying "look, walk here!" (10:8a; 2:11-15). Wisdom from the Holy Spirit beckons us to ultimate meaning and purpose to life that only comes through total dependence on and relationship with the Sovereign God of the universe. Rather than preoccupation with self, we are to be preoccupied with God - to set our gaze upon His loveliness and excellency. This single-mindedness will produce purposeful consistency in what we do and say regardless of the circumstances. However, like Peter who stepped upon the waters to meet Jesus only to be distracted by his treacherous circumstances, those in Christ are also gifted with wisdom to cry out to the Lord in our sinking circumstances. The Book of Proverbs accomplishes precisely what it promises to do and that is "give wisdom" to the upright in heart, to "direct your paths", to teach "the way of wisdom" and to "provide strength for the upright".
The Bible is replete with teaching on the principle of cause and effect (11:18; 22:8). Blessings and curses or oracles of weal and woe are pronounced by Old Testament prophets as well as by Jesus. One of the things that troubled the Jew and we moderns too is why do the wicked prosper. Proverbs does not address the problem of evil per se but the Book never compromises the existence of good and evil. It leaves no ambiguity about there being real good and real evil. Proverbs has nothing to do with the idea that "everything is relative", which even the church has bought into. The first step to living the way we were designed to live, according to Proverbs, is recognizing the difference between good and evil and wickedness and righteousness. The standard to make such determinations is God's word, not a standard of self-righteousness. Proverbs enjoins us to be become intimately acquainted with God's wisdom (2:9; 4:27) and tells us our day-to-day decisions have consequences, some for better and some for worse. Some consequences we reap immediately, some later in our life or many times in the lives of our children. In any event, Proverbs reminds us that right now, this very moment in time, counts forever. What we do, what we say and what we think have eternal consequences. We become what we think about. "For as he thinks in his heart, so he is." (23:7) The care with which we guard what goes into our minds affects our ability to know God and to do his will. Garbage in, garbage out. But if we mediate on God's word and fill our mind with prayer we will bear good fruit.
There is order, symmetry and justice in God's design of the moral life. Ross notes that "God ensures that everyone's actions and their consequences correspond - certainly the wicked for the day of calamity. In God's order there is just retribution for every act, for every act includes its answer or consequence." No one ultimately gets away with anything. Fools are "flee-ers" from the holy scrutiny of God and are set upon the road of self-destruction. At any given time one is either moving toward the kingdom of God or away from it. And it all starts in one's heart: sow a thought, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character reap a destiny. One day everyone will be judged perfectly according to their character i. e. by the desires and affections of their hearts put on display in this life by their conduct and behavior. So in this sense, if we desire to make right decisions, to avoid foolishness day to day, and to live in the presence of God forever, then our only hope is seeking God's wisdom now .
Having said all this, it is important to emphasize that though we may live our lives in light of God's future grace, He does not suspend the principle of cause and effect for believers. If a believer aligns himself with bad company, flirts with alcohol, and yields to the allure of false gods, then he or she can expect consequences as does any other law breaker. Consequences follow a believers every thought, every decision and every action. Proverbs lays out both the positive and negative consequences to believer and non-believer alike. There is no doubt very well educated and intelligent people can be, and are in fact, successful in making a good living. But apart from God they can never succeed in making a good life i. e. a life that glorifies and enjoys God. After all, Satan is the most intelligent creature but he is not wise but a "paradigm of the fool" (Van Gemeren). In the world success is measured by possession, position, prominence and power. Success, for example, doesn't satisfy because after we get what we want, we want something more or something different. "The eyes of man are never satisfied." (2:20). On the other hand, success in the kingdom of God isn't necessary because God loves us for Christ's sake, not what we accomplish in the flesh. Success is being faithful to what God asks of us and leaving the results to Him.
Scripture often personifies wisdom. We see it most prominently in Proverbs as the imagery of Lady Wisdom. The literary personification of wisdom, however, literally came to life in the incarnation of Christ. Scripture says in Jesus is "hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (Col. 2:3) and He is the "wisdom of God" (1 Cor. 1:24). Jesus is said to be greater than Solomon in wisdom and wealth (Matt. 12:42). Jesus in Matt. 6 declared Himself to be the only way to God the Father. James says "wisdom comes from above". In other words, if we use the New Testament as a commentary to interpret the Old Testament, especially in the Book of Proverbs, we see that wisdom is not something abstract or theoretical but personal. Jesus is perfect "wisdom and knowledge" in physical form. Not only do the great themes of Proverbs - love, reverence, obedience, wonder, experience, morality - illuminate our understanding of Jesus, but the way of true wisdom by which we come to know God leads by the way of Christ. We can come to know what God is like through His personal Wisdom. We can see that the grounds of all things is personal. Ross is particularly helpful here writing on Chapter 8: "Many have equated wisdom in this chapter with Jesus Christ. This connection works only so far as Jesus reveals the nature of God the Father, including his wisdom, just as Proverbs presents personification of the attribute. Jesus' claims included wisdom (Matt 12:42) and a unique knowledge of God (Matt 11:25-27). He even personified wisdom in a way that was similar to Proverbs (Matt. 11:19, Lk. 11:49). Paul saw the fulfillment of wisdom in Christ (Col. 1:15-20; 2:3) and affirmed that Christ became our wisdom in the Crucifixion (1 Cor.. 1:24; 30). So the bold personification of wisdom in Proverbs certainly provides a solid foundation for the revelation of divine wisdom in Christ. But because wisdom appears to be a creation of God in 8:22-31, it is unlikely that wisdom here is Jesus Christ."
In 23:23 we are told to "get wisdom". So how do we do that? Even though wisdom is something to be pursued and acquired by individual effort, we are also told it is a gift from God (2:6). On the one hand, wisdom is acquired through discipline, diligence and discipleship. On the other hand, it has to be given to us. In chapters 1-9 Wisdom calls out to people but people must respond (chapter 10-13). How do we deal with this paradox (which is one of many we find in Scripture). Well, there are certainly many professing faith who pursue or promote various kinds of sure-fire techniques and ten-step or twelve-step programs, which if faithfully followed will produce wisdom (as well as faith, holiness and other things of God). Rather than pursuing techniques which often appear to have more in common with secular self-improvement advice or new age spirituality, Scripture tells us to seek true wisdom (actually we are seeking God Himself) in His Word (where He reveals His attributes and character and our fallenness) and in prayer (the principle means by which we work out what our sovereign God has already worked into our hearts).
Jonathan Edwards' description of how prayer works in his sermon "The Most High a Prayer-Hearing God" can be helpful here in understanding how we "get wisdom". Using the same line of thought Edwards uses in the sermon, we could say that God is pleased to constitute prayer to be the antecedent to his bestowing of wisdom. He is pleased to give us wisdom in consequence of prayer (and here is the critical point I believe) as though He were prevailed on by that prayer. When the believer is stirred up to pray for wisdom, it is the effect of God's intention to give wisdom. Therefore, by grace God causes us to pray for wisdom and graciously gives us a measure of wisdom as we are perfected in the righteousness of Christ Jesus. The flaw in our thinking about wisdom is that it is some innate quality or capability buried within everyone that only has to be uncovered by the right techniques and disciplines. If we can get some kind of leverage, we can pry it out of us and use it. Just as faith is understood and treated as a work by many in the church today, likewise getting wisdom has been turned into another self-effort.
The problem with the fool is not his IQ but his heart. He enjoys his folly and thinks he is really living. "Folly is a joy to him who is destitute of discernment." The fool will not acknowledge or submit to Christ because he has no desire for Christ. 3 "There is no fear of God before their eyes." (Rom. 3:18). Just as Scripture tells us that faith is God's gracious gift so is wisdom. Kidner writes, "for everything is of grace, from the power to know to the power to obey 'the hearing ear and seeing eye, the Lord has made them both'(20:12)." When God softens a person's heart, He also renews the person's mind (Rom. 12:2) and enables him to think wisely and enjoy divine blessing. God in his providence prepares and directs the way of Wisdom for us. In every circumstance and situation of our lives God is already wisely at work before we get there. He is working creatively, strategically and redemptively for His glory and our good. Augustine wrote, "Trust the past to the mercy of God, the present to His love, and the future to His providence". David, a man after God's heart, said "You will show me the path of life; in Your presence is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore." Yet just as faith in the believer is not alone but produces fruit so also wisdom given us brings forth desire and ability to live out more fully the new life in us. N. T. Wright in The New Testament and the People of God writes "...if 'wisdom' is thus the means by which Yahweh acts, and if human beings are then to become the means through which He acts, it is clear that wisdom is also precisely that which...they need to be his agents, acting wisely under obedience to the creator and in authority over the world. And in obtaining wisdom, they will thereby become truly human."
God's word must first work in our hearts and transform our character before we can become the kind of people He will guide and bless. We must remember that God who decrees the end - His purposes - also decrees the means to the end. By his providence God makes all the things that happen in the physical and moral universe fulfill the original design for which they were created. A.W. Tozer observed, "With the goodness of God to desire our highest welfare, the wisdom of God to plan it and the power of God to achieve it, what do we lack? Surely we are the most favored of all creatures."
In the final analysis, the paradox of God's gift of wisdom and our seeking it is akin to the issue of God1s sovereignty and man's "free will". Humans are responsible for their actions and God controls everything, both good and evil. While there are helpful ways to approach these paradoxes, ultimately we must hold them both together as true and concede rest to the mystery to God.
Stephen Carter, author of the best seller Culture of Unbelief writes, "Integrity is like the weather everybody talks about it but nobody knows what to do about it. Integrity is that stuff we always say we want more of." Today there is a gnawing hunger for integrity among many people, especially the young, who seek authenticity in relationships and their experiences. But what is integrity? It comes from the same Latin root integras which means sound, coherent, complete or whole, as in a whole number that is undivided. Proverbs 11:13 says "The integrity of the righteous guides them, but the unfaithful are destroyed by their duplicity". In 13:6 we are told "Righteousness guards the man of integrity, but wickedness pours out lies." The word translated here as integrity occurs some fifty times in the Hebrew Bible and is also translated as perfection, simplicity or uprightness. Thus, often when people refer to someone as a person of integrity they have in mind a person of completeness, serenity, purity and of a well-lived, undivided life. That person is genuine and trustworthy. The modern expression "he or she has it all together" is a recognition of the desirability of coherence in our lives. Scripture tells us that when one's inner core is centered in Christ, wisdom guides him in the myriad of relationships in the world. Proverbs hints that relationships stand at the back of everything because relationship is what gives meaning, purpose and significance to life. Jesus said "Peace (shalom) I leave with; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives." (Jn. 14:27) Shalom is about the enjoyment and blessings of right relationships with God, others, self and the created order.
True integrity is maturity of character and should not to be confused with the conditional variety which gives expression to laudable qualities, such as being honest, when it1s convenient and doesn1t cost personally. A person of true integrity will risk everything, even his life, in doing right. Kidner holds up Joseph as a "spectacular illustration" of integrity. Warren Wiersbe in his book The Integrity Crisis writes, "Jesus made it clear that integrity involves the whole of the inner person: the heart, the mind, and the will. The person with integrity has a single heart. He doesn't try to love God and the world at the same time...The person with integrity also has a single mind and single outlook ("eye") that keeps life going in the right direction...Jesus also said that the person with integrity has a single will; he seeks to serve but one master."
Where did we get this ideal of integrity as an admirable, ennobling quality even though we lack the capacity to possess and exercise it completely and consistently? Who set the integrity standard? Where did this notion that life is supposed to be wholeness come from? How do we somehow sense important things are missing in the way we live and then go about filling the voids? The search for integral life permeates all ages and all cultures as though it innately lurks within the human soul longing for real expression. Indeed, the ideal has been approximated over the centuries by real people who live exemplary lives. Yet if there is a maxim most every one would accept, its "no one's perfect." We seem to recognize that integrity in all facets of one's life is consistently lacking even in the "best" among us. However, at one point in time mankind enjoyed wholeness in the Garden but it disintegrated in the Fall. Ross in commenting on 16:18 says, "Pride inevitably led to a downfall. In fact pride is the first step down...disintegration suggests a contrast with the man who has wholeness (salom) by submitting to musar and learning wisdom...". Post-fall mankind suppresses God's truth in unrighteousness (Rom 1:18) yet integrity remains a faint echo in our conscience left there by God as a pointer to Him (Rom 2:15). Therefore, at the deepest level of our being there is a longing for completeness and fulfillment. Without this desire's proper satisfaction, we live divided, perturbed and vacuous lives; we try to satisfy the desire with god-substitutes. As Saint Augustine wrote, "O Lord, you have made us for Thyself and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee."
This innate unquenchable desire for wholeness does however signify there is a real corresponding object that can indeed satisfy the desire which cannot be had in this world. C. S. Lewis, an obvious student of the Book of Proverbs, makes these wise observations in Mere Christianity, "There are all sorts of things in this world that offers to give to you, but they never quite keep their promise...Now there are two wrong ways of dealing with this fact, and one right way. (1) The Fool's Way. He puts blame on the things themselves. He goes on all his life thinking that if only he tried another woman, or holiday, or whatever, then this time he would really catch the mysterious something... (2) The Way of the Disillusioned "Sensible Man." He soon decides that the whole thing was moonshine. And so he represses the part of himself which used to cry for the moon... (3) The Christian Way. The Christian says: Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for these desires exists. A baby feels hunger; well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim; well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire; well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world."
I believe Proverbs goes to the core of our deepest longings. Proverbs, which tells us that "the integrity of the upright guides them..." (11:3) presupposes Integrity in order for us to desire and to seek wisdom. In other words, God has already performed a work in us to deal with the radical corruption of our souls and to bring us to saving knowledge of Christ. When we are placed in union with Jesus Christ, our position is one of integrity i.e. being whole and complete in Christ. God gives us wisdom He uses it to drive us to Him. He continues to give wisdom that we might know how we are to practically live in Christlikeness. In this sense integrity is prior to everything else we are and prior to everything we do. Proverbs presents life not divided into secular and sacred but as a single, rich tapestry which is woven together with colored threads of morality, religious affections, and righteous conduct in the daily affairs of life. Character and conduct are inextricably linked in the Book. Kidner writes, "You have to be godly to be wise; and this is not because godliness pays, but because the only wisdom by which you can handle everyday things in conformity with their nature is the wisdom by which they were divinely made and ordered." Thus, our redemption accomplished on the cross and applied by the Holy Spirit makes us people of integrity and in our sanctification therefore we are becoming practically what we already are positionally in Christ. Thus, Proverbs for the believer is about God's wisdom for practical living in the outworking of restored integrity. "Its function is to put godliness in working clothes", says Kidner. Wisdom's guidance satisfies the dictates of our conscience which is borne not out sense of allegiance or duty but a desire to please the One we love. The difference with the Fool is who he is pleasing with his "wisdom". Thus, people of integrity are the upright who seek wisdom and have the capacity to discern God's will in life.
Living a life of integrity is not about doing but being, i.e. character. Doing flows out of our being. This is also the distinction between reputation which is what people perceive us to be and character which is really what we are. Stephen Covey writes in his popular best-seller, "The most important ingredient we put into relationships is not what we say or what we do, but what we are. And if our words and our actions come from superficial human relations techniques rather than from our inner core, others will sense that duplicity. We simply won't be able to create and sustain the foundation necessary for effective interdependence [with other people]. So, the place to begin building any relationship is inside ourselves, our own character." Proverbs 2-4 says that the way of wisdom is like a pilgrim walking a path that God prepares, protects, and perfects. God wants us to resist the enticement of the Lady Folly whose "house leads down to death, and her paths to the dead"(3:18) and not to listen to those in the world "who leave the path of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness." (2:13). He intends for us to "walk in the way of goodness and keep to the paths of righteousness" (2:20). In this world we strive to live out the desire God has placed in our hearts for the good, the true and the beautiful. If our heart is sound, then the wisdom of God will carry us home.