Still reading in Proverbs about the thirty sterling
principles. Today I will look at principles #6 and #7.
Proverbs 23:1-3 states the 6th principle:
“When you go out to dinner with an influential person, mind
your manners; Don’t gobble your food, don’t talk with your mouth full. And
don’t stuff yourself; bridle your appetite.”
This sounds like very practical advice, and it seems like
common sense to me. However, if a rich person is paying for dinner, someone
might be tempted to order the most expensive thing on the menu, something they
might not ordinarily order because they couldn’t afford it. This passage warns
us against doing that. It doesn’t give us a reason why, but politeness sounds
like a good enough reason to me. I wonder what the customs of the day were that
would make this one of the highlighted principles in Proverbs.
Proverbs 23:4-5 states the 7th principle:
“Don’t wear yourself out trying to get rich; restrain
yourself! Riches disappear in the blink of an eye; wealth sprouts wings and
flies off into the wild blue yonder.”
Most jobs these days won’t get a person rich, so working so
hard that you wear yourself out seems pointless. But are there other things,
besides a job, that we might work so hard at and wear ourselves out? We need to
evaluate all our activities and make sure that we are only giving our best to
the things that matter to God. Wealth and riches are not as important to God as
they are to us, so working towards those things is a waste of our efforts. What
God wants is our worship, praise and obedience. Those are the things we should
put our efforts into.
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