Read
It's Wrong
1It's selfish and stupid
to think only of yourself
and to sneer at people
who have sense.
2Fools have no desire to learn,
instead they would rather
give their own opinion.
3Wrongdoing leads to shame
and disgrace.
4Words of wisdom
are a stream that flows
from a deep fountain.
5It's wrong to favor the guilty
and keep the innocent
from getting justice.
Reflect
It would appear that being focused on your own agenda and doing things your own way are hallmarks of foolishness, as far as God is concerned. Strangely, many aspects of our contemporary society laud exactly that kind of approach. We value take-charge people who are certain that their way is the only way. A great many of our “heroes” on the screen or field of competition are iconoclasts who march only to their own internal drummer.
The only thing we enjoy more than idolizing such rebel icons is watching them fall. Shame, disgrace – they’re grist for the media mill, and there’s no end of water cooler pundits who revel in explaining exactly how their hubris-filled actions ultimately wrought the dramatic plunge of those who were once exalted.
Where do you and I find our centre, our standard, our source of inspiration? Do we, too, eagerly lap up the outlandish activities of people who, really, have nothing to offer us as followers of Jesus and children of God? Do we consider such a diet to be “harmless, really”?
It’s wrong, Solomon tells us, to favor the guilty – “to accept the person of the wicked”, as one old version relates it. (He means the people described in the first three verses.) When we make heroes of those who live essentially selfish lives, it keeps us from properly valuing the people God sees as important. It actually subverts God’s justice.
Good news, though: wisdom, if we seek it instead, is a refreshing stream from an inexhaustible source.
Respond
All-sufficient Lord, Your wisdom is inexhaustible. Help us turn our eyes and hearts from the distracting antics of self-involved people, and find fulfillment instead in the cool stream of your words. In the name of Christ, the Living Water.
Greg Paul
Greg Paul is a pastor and member, as well as the founder, of the Sanctuary community in Toronto. Sanctuary, a community in which people who are wealthy and people who are poor live, work and share their experiences and resources on a daily basis, makes a priority of welcoming and caring for some of the most hurting and excluded people in Canada’s largest city, including people struggling with addiction, mental illness, prostitution, and homelessness. Greg is the author of the recently released Resurrecting Religion and several other award-winning books: Simply Open; Close Enough to Hear God Breathe; The Twenty-Piece Shuffle; and God In The Alley. He is the father of four children, and married to Maggie, who has three children of her own.