Wisdom From Proverbs Part 5 - Justice
Wilderness of Zin, 1999
Wisdom From Proverbs Part 5: The Wisdom of Justice
“Wisdom is competence with regard to the realities of life.”
Gerhard von Rad ‘The Wisdom of Israel’
Wisdom is proficiency in understanding how life really works.
It’s navigating the realities of life that often fall outside the rules.
“Wisdom is knowing what the right thing is to do in the 80% of life situations which the moral rules don’t directly apply.” Tim Keller
The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel:
To know wisdom and instruction,
To discern the sayings of understanding,
To receive instruction in wise behavior,
Righteousness, justice and equity; Proverbs 1:1-3
For the LORD gives wisdom;
From His mouth come knowledge and understanding.
7 He stores up sound wisdom for the upright;
He is a shield to those who walk in integrity,
8 Guarding the paths of justice,
And He preserves the way of His godly ones.
9 Then you will discern righteousness and justice
And equity and every good course. Proverbs 2:6-9
Mispat: a judgment, a legal decision, a legal case, a manner of life.
By me (Wisdom) kings reign, and rulers decree justice. By me princes rule, and nobles, all who judge rightly. Proverbs 8:15-16
Sedeq: righteousness, blameless conduct, and integrity. The noun describes justice, right actions, and right attitudes, as expected from both God and people when they judge.
The righteous care about justice for the poor,
but the wicked have no such concern. Proverbs 29:7 NIV
The Heart of Proverbs wisdom is caring for justice
Care Yada: to know, to learn, to discern, to experience, to consider, to know people relationally. Deep passionate intimate knowledge
“You are not wise unless you are living an intensely passionate life committed to Justice”
17 Her (Wisdom’s) ways are pleasant ways,
and all her paths are peace.
18 She is a tree of life to those who embrace her;
those who lay hold of her will be blessed.
19 By wisdom the LORD laid the earth’s foundations,
by understanding he set the heavens in place;
20 by his knowledge the deeps were divided,
and the clouds let drop the dew. Proverbs 3:17-20 NIV
The world was made in wisdom for Shalom
Shalom
1. peace, prosperity, i.e., an intact state of favorable circumstance
2. completeness, i.e., the state of a totality of a collection;
3. safeness, salvation, i.e., a state of being free from danger;
4. health, i.e., a state of lack of disease and a wholeness or well-being;
5. satisfaction, contentment, i.e., the state of having one’s basic needs or more being met and so being content.
There is a design to the world. There is an order, a pattern a fabric to this universe.
In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth,
and the heavens are the work of your hands.
They will perish, but you remain;
they will all wear out like a garment. Psalms 102:25-26 NIV
beged; a garment, covering, cloth, fabric- thread interwoven. Like your clothes.
Creation is interwoven with millions of entities to be beautifully interdependent, and harmoniously knit together
“The LORD possessed me (Wisdom) at the beginning of His way,
Before His works of old.
“From everlasting I was established,
From the beginning, from the earliest times of the earth.
“When He established the heavens, I was there,
When He marked out the foundations of the earth;
Then I was beside Him, as a master workman;
And I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him,
Rejoicing in the world, His earth,
And having my delight in the sons of men. Proverbs 8:22-23, 27, 29-31
This is one of the concepts of Shalom
God’s Balance. True Shalom exists when everything is in God’s harmonious balance.
The Shalom offering in Levticus 3:
“If you present an animal from the herd as a peace offering to the LORD, it may be a male or a female, but it must have no defects. 2 Lay your hand on the animal’s head, and slaughter it at the entrance of the Tabernacle. Leviticus 3:1-2
This was an acknowledgement of something good that God had done for you.
It was a “thank you” offering, that means the receiver understood that what they had received was from God, and that required a response on the part of the beneficiary.
It allowed the relationship with God to remain in balance.
Another meaning of Shalom is found in Judges 3
11 Then the angel of the LORD came and sat beneath the great tree at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash of the clan of Abiezer. Gideon son of Joash was threshing wheat at the bottom of a winepress to hide the grain from the Midianites.
12 The angel of the LORD appeared to him and said, “Mighty hero, the LORD is with you!”
13 “Sir,” Gideon replied, “if the LORD is with us, why has all this happened to us? And where are all the miracles our ancestors told us about? Didn’t they say, ‘The LORD brought us up out of Egypt’? But now the LORD has abandoned us and handed us over to the Midianites.”
14 Then the LORD turned to him and said, “Go with the strength you have, and rescue Israel from the Midianites. I am sending you!”
15 “But Lord,” Gideon replied, “how can I rescue Israel? My clan is the weakest in the whole tribe of Manasseh, and I am the least in my entire family!”
16 The LORD said to him, “I will be with you. And you will destroy the Midianites as if you were fighting against one man.”
17 Gideon replied, “If you are truly going to help me, show me a sign to prove that it is really the LORD speaking to me. 18 Don’t go away until I come back and bring my offering to you.”
He answered, “I will stay here until you return.” Judges 6:11-18 NLT
His offering then disappears in a puff of smoke
And Gideon built an altar to the LORD there and named it Yahweh-Shalom (which means “the LORD is peace”). Judges 6:24
The evil of the Midianites of 200 years earlier what going to be balanced out by Gideon’s military action- Justice leading to Shalom
Physically Your Body works harmonious- disease injury and aging destroy Shalom
Internally – emotions conscious reason when balanced altogether you experience Shalom
But what when your emotions tell you that you want somethings but your conscious tells you that you shouldn’t have, its not right, Shalom unravels
Social Shalom: Be part of a neighborhood where everybody cares about everybody else.
If you have a need of any sort, everyone was there for you - moving, health, financial,
eighborhoods that are interwoven physical, socially, financially, are healthy
Example: Amish Communities
When people live for themselves, you have a loss of Shalom,
Poverty, racial tension, war, crime
God made the world for Shalom.
“Shalom: the webbing together of God, Human and all creation in equity, fulfillment and delight.
It more that just peace of the absence of conflict; Universal flourishing, wholeness and delight; a rich state of affairs in which natural needs are satisfied and natural gifts are fruitfully employed all under the arch of God’s love.
Shalom is the way the world ought to be.”
According to Proverbs, Human wisdom discerns the pattern of God’s creation, and acts accordingly.
What happens when you lie to another person?
When you lie you are unravelling the fabric of Shalom, you are withholding information that is needed, and relationships are unravelled.
The wise man tells the truth. Why?
When you tell the truth you are weaving the fabric of Shalom.
A wise man is generous with the money and doesn’t spend it all on himself but rather is giving to friends, neighbors, the poor, your church. This weaves the fabric of Shalom.
Not just because it moral but because its wise.
Lying and stinginess is stupid. You are destroying the fabric of the world you are living in.
Wisdom is understanding that interwovenness and maintaining and sustaining it
Justice is weaving it back where it is unravelling.
The world is unravelling everywhere. The work of justice is to go physically spiritually socially materially into those places and inject yourself into the lives of those persons.
Do you believe in justice?
If you understand God and His ways, Yes!
But what if you don’t?
If God did not make this world, and you are an evolutionist who believes in the survival of the fittest, where is your standard or basis of justice?
There is no standard.
1963 Dr Martin Luther King wrote 'A Letter from the Birmingham Jail'
White pastors were asking: “How can this man call people to disobey any of the laws”
“You ask how can to advocate breaking some laws and obeying others. The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws, just laws and unjust laws. Now how does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man made code what squares with the natural moral law of God, and an unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law of God.” Martin Luther King
Thomas Aquinas: “An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal divine and natural law.”
If nature is all there is, then the only way we can know that something is out of order is that there must be a supernatural law, a God’s law that show is the order, or disorder.
If there is no God, then justice is just a matter of your opinion, and your protests against injustice are just your own power play against those in power.
Wisdom is understanding that interwovenness and maintaining and sustaining it and Justice is weaving it back where it is unravelling.
If you have elderly neighbors who can’t do things around their house, can't afford decent housing, don’t have money to feed their kids, or others who can’t afford to go to school, don’t have food to feed their family, have homes in need of repair, have health problems and you have the resources to help, then according to Proverbs, you have a responsibility to share.
This is justice to maintain and repair Shalom.
Do not withhold good from those who deserve it,
when it is in your power to act.
28 Do not say to your neighbor,
“Come back later; I’ll give it tomorrow”–
when you now have it with you.
29 Do not plot harm against your neighbor,
who lives trustfully near you.
30 Do not accuse a man for no reason–
when he has done you no harm. Proverbs 3:27-30 NIV
These are examples of Justice living.
Do not withhold good from those who deserve it,
when it is in your power to act.
Good: Tob: a good thing, benefit, welfare: the opposite of evil, generous, be prosperous, make prosperous, giving much in relation to one’s possessions.
Not just being nice- material goods, tools, whatever your neighbor needs to flourish economically, socially,
Deserve: Baal, possessor, master, those who have, i.e., one who owns possessions
According to Proverbs your “neighbor” has ownership in your possessions.
Miskito culture considers fruit trees community property
We are all fortunate to be born in America. We are the richest people on Earth.
Most of us were born into families that loved each other and provided us an incredibly high standard of life with great opportunities for education, healthcare, physical comfort, and job skills.
Many in our country and the world have not had such opportunities.
I think of our students on the Coco River in Nicaragua.
I think of some who were born into the impoverished communites around us..
What is the difference between them and us?
They were born into another kind of family, another kind of environment, with fewer beneficial circumstances.
Whatever resources that you have that they have need of, Proverbs says they are “owners” of our possessions, and we should get involved in meeting their needs.
This is doing Justice.
This concept is echoed in the Christian Scriptures:
What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,” and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? 17 Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself.
18 But someone may well say, “You have faith and I have works; show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works.” James 2:14-18
Faith is active. We should care for all those around us.
When the righteous prosper, the city rejoices;
when the wicked perish, there are shouts of joy.
11 Through the blessing of the upright a city is exalted,
but by the mouth of the wicked it is destroyed. Proverbs 11:10-11 NIV
When these guys have success and get to the top, everyone rejoices because it is a victory for them all.
Why? Because they have a righteous attitude about their possessions.
Sow with a view to righteousness,
Reap in accordance with kindness;
Break up your fallow ground,
For it is time to seek the LORD
Until He comes to rain righteousness on you. Hosea 10:12
“The righteous, in the book of Proverbs are by definition are those who are willing to disadvantage themselves to advantage the community, while the wicked are those who put their own economic, social and personal needs ahead of the community.”
Ask yourself a question. Are you a righteous person?
Are you and your family the kind of people that your neighbors would say something like “I don’t agree with their faith but we would all be at a loss if they were not part of our community. They give so much it would be hard to replace them”.
Or
“If our church would suddenly disappear from our city, would we be missed? Or would people say that even though they don’t necessarily believe what we do, that our church does so much for our community that they could not imagine our city without our church family?”
It doesn’t say “If the righteous prosper the righteous rejoice”!
What kind of church community would we have to be to be considered the “Righteous” ?
A church that does justice, that maintains the Shalom of Creation.
One who is gracious to a poor man lends to the LORD,
And He will repay him for his good deed. Proverbs 19:17
This is what the Righteous do, they are always open to helping, because they are trusting that God will cover all the “loans”.
No one is a black hole. God covers all the debts.
Two points:
1) You can’t out give God.
2) God identifies with the Poor.
What is the most vivid example of God identifying with the poor?
Jesus, born in a cave home where the animals stayed
Lived in a cave home in Nazareth
Worked as a manual laborer – a stone mason
Had customers who didn’t pay him, had to pay taxes.
Lived under an oppressive government.
Owned no property
When he died only owned one thing- his garment.
Jesus says that we will be called to account on how we identified with the poor, the oppressed, the sick, those thrown in jail.
31 “But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; 33 and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left.
34 “Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35 For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; 36 naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’
37 Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? 38 And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? 39 When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’
40 The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’
41 “Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; 42 for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; 43 I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.’
44 Then they themselves also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?’ 45 Then He will answer them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’
46 These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” Matthew 25:31-46
He who pursues righteousness and loyalty
Finds life, righteousness and honor. Proverbs 21:21
Winderness of Zin, 1999
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