Click or tap book name
Use <control> drag to
scroll
Bible Notes - Tabernacle Commentaries
About
Links
Home
"
Navigator
Proverbs 22:10
Comments
The lesson of this proverb is – Be firm with the flesh. ‘Cast out the scorner.’ The illustration is easy to understand. The Hebrew word translated scorner means somebody who makes faces, so it is quite right to translate it as a scorner, a scoffer. It is very dramatic – throw him out. I imagine it is a feast and somebody is complaining, and he is insulting everyone around him and he is making completely improper remarks about the person who is organising the feast. But they have got, to use a modern term, a bouncer there and he is to be removed because he is upsetting the feast. The scoffer is insulting everyone. He is complaining, he is misrepresenting, he is exaggerating, he is starting arguments, he is brewing bitterness, and maybe other people are taking up the tune, so the best thing to do, says the proverb, is cast him out. We are confirmed in this view of the proverb by the next one.
Application
Well, that is a very strange proverb. How do we apply it? To ourselves as individuals. That is the best way. Be firm with the flesh. If you find yourself with a big complaint and you are exaggerating things, you are getting carried away and it is all unreasonable, cast that thought out. Get rid of it. ‘Cast out the scorner, and contention will go out.’ Your nature will be sweet once again, and you will see everything in perspective, and it will be balanced. Preserve your integrity. That is the connection with the theme. You cannot have integrity while there are all sorts of exaggerated malign ideas rushing around inside you and malevolence towards others.
Questions
Outline
Purpose
Introduction