Proverbs 28:3 Commentary and Bible Study

Our inability to sympathise with others may stem from ignorance; it may be that a lack of imagination coupled with never having experienced some form of hardship may leave us incapable of feeling the grief of others. They are going through trials that we have never gone through and so we have only a dim sense of their suffering. In this case we should stretch our minds to consider what it must be to have their experience, for Scripture tells us to rejoice with those who rejoice, and to weep with those who weep (Romans 12:15). But in the case before us, there is no such excuse. Here is someone, let us suppose, who has known what it is to worry about putting food on the table for their family, who has faced the spectre of homelessness, who has wondered how they will clothe themselves and their children adequately, and has wondered in this cruel world whether there is anyone who would show them sympathy. And yet now somehow they are in a position to help others in the same predicament. How will they behave? Amazingly, it is as if they had never themselves suffered in this way, for where those sufferings ought to have increased their compassion towards those in the same situation, but they now think only of themselves. It is like the man in the parable who was forgiven much by his lord, but who then refused to forgive his fellow servant (Matthew 18:23-35). What has this got to do with conscience? It tells us that a good conscience will make us sympathetic to others, and that those who are cruel and incapable of sympathy have suppressed their consciences which certainly taught them to extend the same kindness that they would have wanted others to show them. Our Lord says, ‘Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again. And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise’ (Luke 6:30-31).Such a man is like a sweeping rain, a rain that flattens all before it. A gentle rain is a welcome relief, especially when it comes at the right time of year, but a rain accompanied by strong winds is destructive. The field is about to be harvested and the hay or cereal brought safely into the barns, but strong winds and heavy rain flatten the crop so that it is impossible to harvest. It may have to be abandoned and ploughed back in, written off as a lost year. Similarly the poor rejoiced at first when they saw someone whom they knew had been through the same troubles himself. Surely he of all people will show kindness to us, they thought. But no; what should have been a gentle rain has come down as a flattening torrent. Where is his conscience?