Let Others Preserve Your Reputation (Proverbs 27:2)

“Let another praise you, and not your own mouth; a stranger, and not your own lips.”

[Proverbs 27:2, ESV]

I love this verse, and I love that its meaning is immediately clear: let others speak highly of you. Rather than try to somehow simplify a verse that is already simple, I would like to write a bit about how this verse resonates with me, and how it exposes the folly of trying to establish and maintain your reputation.

“Let another praise you, and not your own mouth…”

The first part of Proverbs 27:2 means exactly what it says. You are not the one who should be speaking highly of yourself. Why? For one, it is incredibly weird to talk about how smart you are, how well you work, how strong you are, or anything else like that. Secondly, if you are the only person who speaks highly of your character, there is something very wrong. If others have to ask you about your character, you have failed to make your character known. Goodness is easy to see in a world where sin abounds, and if there is any goodness in you, it should be apparent to those around you. This reminds me of the message that James gives us in James 2:

“For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.”

[James 2:26, ESV]

As for the source of all that is good, James tells us that God is the ultimate source:

“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”

[James 1:17, ESV]

All good comes from God, and if we are truly saved, our faith should be producing good works in and through us. If you have to tell others about what is good about you, I would encourage you to reflect on your faith, and to figure out if your faith is truly living. Third, of all the people to ask about your character, why would anybody want to hear your opinion? There is nobody as biased about myself as I am, and that bias is a reflection of my overall view of my life. I see the gifts that God has blessed me with, but I often focus too much on the things that I really should be better at. God has a plan for all of us, and I am very tough on myself when it comes to doing what I have been called to do. If I am lacking, it really bothers me. With that in mind, if you were to ask me about what I am good at, that bias would certainly work its way into my response. The best person to speak about me would probably be somebody who has not known me for long, since they would have nothing clouding their judgment. A person who gets to know me will either like me or dislike me, and the more that they know me, the more complicated their assessment of my character becomes. I am far from perfect, and as people learn more about me, they learn more about my shortcomings. Of course, they also learn more about the strengths that God has blessed me with, but those strengths only make up a portion of the assessment that others have of me.

I am reminded of a portion of a book that Timothy Keller wrote about marriage, aptly titled, “The Meaning of Marriage”. He describes how, if I apply the meaning to myself, my wife will have a better understanding of me than anybody else, and that may even include my understanding of myself. Why? Well, my wife will see me at my best, she will see me at my worst, and she will see me at every point in between. Her view of me will be one based on a more intimate understanding of my character than anybody else will ever have, and that understanding will also be subjected to her biases, just as my perception of myself is shaped by my biases. The point of me mentioning all of this stuff is to explain how your view of yourself is not as accurate as you might think, and you will miss things that others will pick up on. This leads us to the second half of Proverbs 27:2.

“...a stranger, and not your own lips.”

The word, “stranger” was one that I had to look up. I know what a stranger is, of course, but I wanted to know what it meant in this context. The word’s meaning is consistent, across different translations. The NIV uses the word, “outsider”, and it looks like most of the other translations use the word, “stranger” (including the NASB, CSB, NLT, KJV, NKJV). Why a stranger, and not somebody who knows you? Why should my reputation be based on what a stranger thinks of me?

The best explanation I found, and the explanation that I believe to be correct, is that your character should be demonstrated in such a way that even somebody who does not know you will know your character. I think of James 2:26, and I believe that James 2:26 really helps us understand how we can apply Proverbs 27:2 to our lives.

If we have true faith, if our faith is active, if our faith is alive, then our lives should produce good fruit. If your faith is alive, your faith should be producing fruit that even a stranger recognizes. The fruit of the Spirit should be displayed so prominently that a passing glance from somebody should be more than enough to see your character.

If you witness somebody donating to a homeless shelter, for example, you would likely think that the person is one of good character. If you witnessed a second person roll down their car window and throw trash out onto the street, you would likely think that the person is not one of good character. In both examples, the character of the person in question is immediately demonstrated by their actions, respectively.

It is also worth mentioning how, as Christians, we must make sure that our actions reflect our Savior and our faith, not our shortcomings. You do not know who is watching you when you are out in public, so you must be sure that, if somebody were to see you, their conclusion would be that you are a person of good character, and that there is something about your God that is different from all the other “gods” that people believe in. If somebody stopped you at a random point, while you were going about your day, what would they think of your character?

The last part of Proverbs 27:2 is a restatement of the overall meaning of the verse. Your lips should be used to praise God, and to speak praises about the characters of others, not to speak praise about yourself. I pray that you were encouraged by this essay, and I pray that your life was changed today by the power of the Word of God.

 

A Wise Reproof Demands A Listening Ear (Proverbs 25:12)

“Like a gold ring or an ornament of gold is a wise reprover to a listening ear.”

[Proverbs 25:12, ESV]

In the essay about Proverbs 19:20, we learned about how we can become wise by listening to advice and accepting instruction. In this essay, we will learn about the value of having a “wise reprover”, and how we can be blessed by their wisdom.

First, let us examine the way that Proverbs 25:12 describes the value of a wise reprover, to a listening ear:

“Like a gold ring or an ornament of gold…”

I am sure that you know how valuable gold is. After all, gold is beautiful to look at, and it has been sought after throughout history. Its beauty is responsible for most of its value, but not all of it. When I began to learn more about electricity, how computers work, and how much effort goes into designing every aspect of the devices that our world is becoming increasingly dependent on, I began to see a theme: gold is everywhere. Why?

I will try not to bore you with the sciency, geeky stuff. Gold is classified as a noble metal, which is a classification used for only a handful of metals, all of which have the ability to withstand almost anything that you could think of. One of the most interesting projects that I worked on while I was in college was recovering the gold that was on the circuit-boards of all sorts of devices. People would throw away remotes, old computer parts, charging cables, and all sorts of other things. I would ask for as many of these devices as I could, I would take them to my workshop, and I would tear them apart. The circuit boards would be cleaned of the parts that were attached to it, and the cleaned circuit-boards would be stored together. Why? Because those circuit-boards are covered in gold. More specifically, they are covered in gold plating. Gold plating is, simply, a tiny amount of gold that covers the metal that is underneath (usually copper). This is done for two reasons: (1) gold is excellent at conducting electricity, and (2) gold does not get destroyed by oxygen, water, rust, acid, or anything else, really.

I spent countless hours, after my classes, trying to figure out how to salvage the tiny amount of gold that I had. During this process, I realized how amazing gold is. There are two methods I could use to effectively recover the gold that I had collected. The first was to use cyanide leeching, and I do not know where I could by cyanide, it would be too expensive, cyanide is very dangerous, and I would not be shocked to have the police visit me if they saw I had a bunch of cyanide showing up to my house. The second method was to use a combination of nitric acid and hydrochloric acid, which, when combined according to a specific ratio, could dissolve gold. This acid could be filtered, and then I could retrieve the gold out of the solution, which I could filter again to purify it further, or I could melt it into a gold bead. Even a tiny amount of gold is very, very expensive. All those hours would be worth it when I had a bit of gold, which I could easily sell and make some money from, while learning all sorts of things about chemistry. The only issue for me is that, as much as I tried, I never really got the process to work. The gold would not dissolve, or I could not recover it, or I would spill the solution (this happened once, and it was very upsetting). Why go through all that trouble? Because I am kind of weird, and because gold is that valuable.

Gold is not only great to use with electricity, it is easy to work with. Gold is incredibly soft, making it easy to shape. Did you know that the device that you are using has gold throughout it? Did you know that if you were to break open the chips in your computer, you would find tiny gold wires, connecting different parts of the chip to different pins? Gold is everywhere, and it needs to be. Leave a hammer outside for a week and you will find it covered in rust. Leave a gold necklace outside for a week, and you will probably never find it (it is very valuable and somebody would probably take it). If you did find it, however, you would see that it is identical to the way it looked when you first put it there. Leave it there for a year, two years, ten years, or however long you want, the gold will be in the same condition as it was.

I pray that all of this information helps make the value of gold make more sense, and I pray that this information makes the rest of Proverbs 25:12 resonate with you in a way that it may not have resonated before.

“Like a gold ring or an ornament of gold is a wise reprover to a listening ear.”

As valuable as gold is a wise reprover to a listening ear. What is a “wise reprover”, anyway? A reprover is somebody who gives correction. A parent reproves a child when the child misbehaves. I am not the first to say it, but it does not take a genius to find problems. It does, however, take wisdom to offer correction that is wise. This wise reprover, however, need to be reproving a “listening ear” in order for his reproof to be as valuable as “a gold ring or an ornament of gold”. This is the part that we have to apply to our lives.

Be a listener, be open to criticism, be open to being incorrect, and be willing to change when you are presented with the reproof of somebody who is wise. I do not always agree with my parents, for example, but I know that they are far wiser than I am, so if my mother or father tells me to do something, I listen. I trust that God has given wisdom to my parents, and I trust that my parents are offering correction that comes from that wisdom. Of course, they are not always correct, but when they tell me that I said something that I should not have said, that I behaved in a way that I should not have behaved, or that I failed to do something that I should have done, I trust that they know better, and I listen to their correction.

I pray that this essay encourages you to pursue wisdom, to see the Holy Spirit sanctify you, and to become more like the man or woman that He has called you to be.

Listen Today, Be Wise Tomorrow (Proverbs 19:20)

 “Listen to advice and accept instruction, that you may gain wisdom in the future.”

[Proverbs 19:20, ESV]

The book of Proverbs is not only the greatest book for learning how to live life as we are called to live, it is the greatest book for learning about how to live, in the shortest amount of time. The Proverbs are concise, powerful, and can easily change one’s thinking for the rest of his life. I love this proverb, and I pray that, by the end of this essay, you come to love it as much as I do.

I believe that it is our duty as Christians to pursue knowledge, to grow in wisdom, to be better today than we were yesterday, and to prepare ourselves to be even better tomorrow than we are today. Do not take my word for it, read what the Bible tells us about the pursuit of knowledge:

“An intelligent heart acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge.”

[Proverbs 18:15, ESV]

I did not expect to quote Proverbs 18:15 in this essay, but I am very glad that I did, since it ties in perfectly with the meaning of Proverbs 19:20. Proverbs 18:15 tells us that an intelligent heart will acquire knowledge, and that “intelligent heart” should be in all of us. If you are a genius, you should be seeking out more knowledge than anybody (and you should contact me and give me some advice on how to be more like you). If you are not a genius, you are in good company. If you are not a genius, seek as much knowledge as you can. The goal of living as a Christian should be to be the best steward that you can be, of all the gifts that God has blessed you with. When I was a child, I was told by my grandmother that, for me to not live up to my potential would be “a sin”, and I agree with her, wholeheartedly. If you have been blessed with the ability to study, you should study as much as you can, and do it for the glory of God. If you are gifted with the ability to knit, you should knit as well as you can, and knit for the glory of God. If you have been gifted with the ability to make music, make music for the glory of God. This calling applies to everybody, regardless of the abilities God has given to them, the level of ability, or where they are in life. If you exist, you have a purpose. If you have a purpose, you should strive to serve according to that purpose. Do not let a moment pass without seeking to do the will of God, to the best of the abilities that He has blessed you with. The “intelligent heart” is not necessarily the heart of somebody who is intelligent, it is the heart of somebody who pursues intelligence.

The second half of Proverbs 18:15 connects to Proverbs 19:20. We must seek knowledge if we are to be wise, and we should all seek to be wise. How do we gain wisdom, gain knowledge, and be good stewards of what God has blessed us with? Why, by listening to advice, of course!

The first half of Proverbs 19:20 tells us to listen to advice, and to accept instruction. Listening to advice is the easy part. Unless you are Adam (which you certainly are not), you were a child. If you were a child, you were given advice, and a lot of that advice was not advice you asked for, nor was it advice that you really wanted to hear. If one raises his voice, others are forced to listen to him, but they are not forced to do anything with it. This leads us to the second aspect of the first half of Proverbs 19:20: accepting instruction.

When applied as a single command, the first half of Proverbs 19:20 is clear, powerful, and life-changing. We are to listen to advice, and we are to accept instruction. Not only do we need to listen to the advice, we need to do something with it. What good would it be to spend your life, building a home for yourself, getting it all nice and decorated, then setting it ablaze and raising the thing to the ground? What good would it do for you to listen to the advice of men and women, far wiser than you, but never actually do anything with that advice?

Okay, so you listen to advice, you accept instruction, but then what? Do you gain wisdom, immediately? Perhaps, but that is not what Proverbs 19:20 tells us to expect. The result of listening to advice and accepting instruction is that we gain wisdom in the future. This is not some quirk of the English Standard Version (ESV), it is the same message that is found in every major translation:

“...so you will be wise the rest of your life.” [New International Version]

“...that you may be wise the rest of your days.” [Berean Standard Bible]

“...that thou mayest be wise in thy latter end.” [King James Bible]

“...That you may be wise in the time to come.” [Amplified Bible]

It is clear, then, that by listening to advice and accepting instruction today, we ensure that we will be wise in the future. I believe that listening to advice is something that we need to do as a part of living our lives, rather than something we do sometimes.

Of course, we do not need to listen to the advice of everybody, but if you are being given advice by those unfit to provide it, you have another issue to address (see Proverbs 13:20). There is wisdom in discerning whom you choose to listen to, but that is another subject.

I will end this essay with an experience that I had somewhat recently. I had been trying to figure out how to do something with a woodworking project that I was showing to some children in my neighborhood, and I could not figure out how to deal with a nut that had been stuck on a threaded rod. I am always working on something, whether it is woodworking, blacksmithing, some kind of computer, circuitry, chemistry, or anything else that I am studying at the moment, and I am always working out of the garage. It is very hot and humid in Missouri, so I have to keep my garage door open. Given how often I am working on something, how often that thing changes, and how weird some of my projects are, I have a knack for getting people to wonder what I am doing, and why I am doing it. I do not try to get attention, I just happen to get it. What would you do if your neighbor was up at midnight, testing out a high-voltage transformer, tinkering with some kind of obscure electrical component, or sanding a large wooden monstrosity (it is a planter that I am making for my mother, I swear)?

Well, I just so happened to attract the attention of a few of the neighbors, and one of them was a young man who, while I was trying to figure out how to fix this issue with my project, asked me, “Why don’t you just cut it off?”

“Honestly, you have a point.”, I replied.

In a couple of minutes, the issue that had been giving me so much frustration had been fixed, all because of one young man.

I could have ignored him, or downplayed how helpful he was, but I cannot deprive the young man of the credit that he deserves for his brilliance. It was something that I could have thought of, I suppose, but I had not thought of it. The reality is that I would have taken a lot longer to think of just cutting the nut off of the threaded rod, and it would only have come to mind after I had spent a while trying a bunch of other ideas.

This is just one of countless examples where I was really blessed by the wisdom of another person, and I am blessed to have had an opportunity to remind the young man of how smart he is, how helpful he is, and how his idea saved me so much of my time. Wisdom is valuable, regardless of its source, and we should use any opportunity that God gives us to learn and grow.

I pray that you were blessed by the passage we studied, and I pray that your life has been transformed by the power of the Word of God.