Wisdom Truck 7

 

There is a fine line between wisdom and its opposite-as I can well tell you.  I've been floating this latest verse in my mind this weekend, and a sermon I heard today (as I type) gave me a contrast to what I found.

First, the verse:

Deu 16:19  You shall not pervert justice. You shall not show partiality, and you shall not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and subverts the cause of the righteous. 

Now if I were you, I'd probably say, "Well that's certainly self-explanitory", but it isn't for a couple of reasons.  First one is the next verse, which I'm going to put up, but ask you to keep it in your pocket for a bit:

Deu 16:20  Justice, and only justice, you shall follow, that you may live and inherit the land that the LORD your God is giving you. 

Then, I want to show you an almost-but-not-quite the same verse to expand the story a bit:

Exo 23:8  And you shall take no bribe, for a bribe blinds the clear-sighted and subverts the cause of those who are in the right. 

Now, one difference is that the target verse is Moses reminding the people- the second one is God's own dictation, as it were.  But more than that- what is 'the clear sighted'?  Well, far enough back, it means to have your senses open to spiritual things.  Or, in Martin terms, to be able to listen to God.  Once again, we see wisdom as our connection to the Holy Spirit- and mammon being the main blockage of it.

Okay, back to that other verse.  What, then, is considered justice?  Once again with some hopscotching help from the various commentators, we land in Ezekiel 18: 5-9, where the Lord gives Ezekiel a list of things to look for in a just man- which I shall try to summarize:

- Stays clear of 'idols' (keeping in mind what idols can mean to modern man) in his heart and in his actions;

- Avoids sexual sin (Solomon will go chapter and verse, as it were, about this connection when we get to Proverbs);

- "approach a woman in her time of menstrual impurity..." this is a tough one to analyze, but I think in modern thought it would bring into play the purity and sanctity of marital sex;

- does not oppress anyone, with immediate connection to restoring "the pledge of the debtor"- in other words. being honest and ethical in business dealings;

- commits no robbery;

-Gives to the poor; 

- Lends to others without interest; interesting that while Jesus was okay with institutional lenders (the Parable of the Talents, for example), it is not allowed to charge your buddy (or more appropriately, your "brother") interest.  The institutionals aren't off the hook either; the word here used means "to OPPRESS with interest," and the Mosaic Law didn't allow Jews to charge interest to fellow Jews.

- Keeps himself from evil plans;

-And judges fairly between one man and another.

Today, Chuck Swindoll was talking about Rehoboam (Solomon's son), and what he did on assuming the throne of his father.  As wise as Solomon was- as we've talked about before- he gave his son written Proverbs to live by, but spent a lifetime trying to judge between earthly wisdom and God's wisdom, and as a result, Rehoboam followed the example instead of the testament:

- He did not set his heart to seek the Lord, (2 Chr 12:14), especially after he secured his now divided kingdom ( same chapter, v1);

-Spent his money on fortifying cities for his war with the new Israelite king Jereboam, rather than helping the people; that resulted in the lynching of his tax collector (1 Kings 12:18).

- He was prodigious sexually, though not on the level of his father (18 wives, 60 concubines, 88 kids);

- Based his rule on being more oppresive than his father (1 Kings 12), thus causing 10 of the 12 tribes to reject him.

It took an invasion from Egypt to finally knock sense into him, and after that God looked kindly on him because he humbled himself before the Lord.  But if he had listened to his father's counselors, who were clear-sighted- instead of his buddies, whom Solomon warned him about in Proverbs 1:10-16- he might have topped his father and passed a whole, peaceful kingdom to his son.