Proverbs 12:6 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Proverbs 12:6

Comments

In verse 5 we consider the thoughts, now we look at the words. We are back to the district gang, quite clearly. It is always the wisest thing to do to see repeated the earlier pictures in the Book of Proverbs. The wicked, their words are designed to plot against, to make victims of traders that pass their way. Some even join a trading group, and make out as if to travel with them to act as guides, but what they are really doing, is guiding them straight into the ambush of their friends.It is a picture of plotting and scheming against others. That plotting starts in the secret of his own thoughts and eventually comes out in his words. He naturally tries to recruit others to his way of thinking, and there is much cunning and lying involved in this, as well as in the attempts to spill blood. To lie in wait is to set a trap which it is hard to escape from, something which makes use of surprise and sudden execution. But the mouth of the upright shall deliver them from the murderous plots of the wicked (as they may also deliver others, though this is not the main thought of the verse). This deliverance does not come as a result of pleading for their own lives or anything as direct as this, but it comes through the honouring of the truth which God respects and rewards. The deliverance is not one which they engineer for themselves, but it is given to them as a result of their integrity. God is on the watch for them to guard them against the plotting of their enemies, and he does this even where his children are unaware of that plotting. He protects his own against evils too great for them to handle.

Application

Am I in my inner being, a vindictive, malicious person or a merciful person? Here is one of the great differences between the unbeliever and the believer. Every unbeliever is naturally a kind of vindictive, hostile person. Human nature in its fallen state is a reactive thing. People are offended, they always want to strike back. Vengeance is written large right across human nature. That is why the whole world would be constantly at war if it were not for the fact that God in an amazing way holds man down and prevents war and bloodshed from bubbling out everywhere. Within families there is hostility and backbiting. It is the natural unregenerate mind. Take any company, take any college – staff members one against another. This is the stuff of life for the unregenerate heart. Man forges a career for himself. He soon discovers that nine-tenths of his life will be politics, intrigue, resentment, competition of the wrong kind. But the great mark of grace for a Christian is this: that this bondage to vengeance, this spirit of vengeance, is broken and there is a positive capacity to desire the best for people. Now the question is this: have I been so lazy in my thought life and in my personal discipline that I have allowed the old vindictive, hostile spirit to come back and little by little to take over once again? Or have I honoured and cherished this mark of grace that the Lord gave me, that I had a positive desire to see people's good? Do I allow the weeds to come in and to choke the very plant that is supposed to be flourishing in the mind as far as I am concerned?

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Proverbs 12:6 Commentary and Bible Study