Whoever restrains his words has knowledge,
and he who has a cool spirit is a man of understanding.
Even a fool who keeps silent is considered wise;
when he closes his lips, he is deemed intelligent.
Whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire;
he breaks out against all sound judgment.
A fool takes no pleasure in understanding,
but only in expressing his opinion.
When wickedness comes, contempt comes also,
and with dishonor comes disgrace.
The words of a man’s mouth are deep waters;
the fountain of wisdom is a bubbling brook.

Proverbs 17:27–28; 18:1-4

If I think about the number of hours I have watched sitcoms, it explains a lot about what kind of speech I have encountered (and practiced, I’m afraid) and why it has often not worked out that well for me.

The essential feature of many sitcoms for every age is that someone outwits someone else. As a person encounters a situation he says something, on the spot, that is really clever. When he has an argument, he makes a smart if insulting response that seems funny. This goes on and on.

What is true in every case in a sitcom is that no one is actually thinking up anything to say on the spot. No one spontaneously comes up with a witty comeback. It is all script. It was all written beforehand by a team of writers and memorized by the actors.

So a system of writing, memorization, and rehearsal is used in our culture to produce an ideal of how people should talk to one another in a quick, witty, and often insulting manner.

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I’ve written two posts on the possibility that we shouldn’t always (or as often) pray for release from our circumstances (here and here). So now I want to suggest a way to think about prayer that will lead us into better practices, and show some (more?) Scriptural support.

The central issue, in my opinion, should be settled by the account of the creation of mankind. Quite simply: God created humanity to rule—to subdue the earth and to multiply to fill the earth. Humanity was not created primarily to ask God for things. We were created to actually do something ourselves for God. While this activity had to be performed as subordinate creatures to the Creator, and thus entailed prayer as part of that relationship and mandate, it still doesn’t change our purpose. God didn’t make us to ask but to act.

Additionally, the creation story tells us that we are dependent on God but it doesn’t seem concerned with our asking for things. Rather, God gives before we can ask. While that doesn’t mean we aren’t supposed to ask for help, again the emphasis of creation lies elsewhere.

To repeat: none of this is meant to say we should not ask for things we need or want. Obviously, we should do so (Matthew 7:7). But such prayer is supposed to fit in the context of us as God’s vicegerents who are ordered to take dominion.

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Christians pray for deliverance and there is plenty of Biblical reason for them to do so. Nevertheless, I’ve begun to have some doubts regarding how Christians apply the Bible’s material on praying for different circumstances. (Or at least, I don’t think I’ve always done it right.)

I mentioned in my earlier post the ambiguous results from winning the lottery. While data is hard to collect, it seems that coming into money is not the solution to life that some people expect. Indeed, it is not a solution to one’s financial problems in some cases.

In the Bible, an event that resembled winning a big lottery occured for the Israelites when God brought them out of Egypt. They had groaned for release and God heard them (Exodus 2:23-25; 3:7-10). God transformed a society of slaves into an independent nation. Additionally, they were both enriched from the Egyptians and sustained in basic needs by God’s miraculous provision. Their circumstances were supernaturally changed.

But the change didn’t work out the way the Israelites expected. First of all, they got angry with Moses for confronting Pharaoh (5:21). Later, they continally expected God to abandon them to their enemies or to starvation. The Israelites even claimed they were treated better as slaves by the Egyptians than by God (Numbers 11:5-6). Ultimately, the entire generation had to die off in the wilderness and only the children survived.

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Proverbs begins and ends with women. Perhaps it is a bit delayed in the beginning (more on that below) but, once Wisdom is revealed to be a female human being, it becomes clear that even Proverbs 1:2 may be about more than you think when it declares the writings are to enable the reader “to know Wisdom.” (more…)

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I argued recently that Uncle Ben’s urgent plea to Peter Parker is quite similar to Solomon’s exhortation to his “son” in Proverbs. The Tobey Maguire Spider-Man movie really brought this out.

But there is another aspect to that franchise that also is quite similar to the warnings of Proverbs.

Peter Parker’s development of unexpected and profound new powers threatens to lead him to a bad end. For years he’s been bullied by stronger and faster jocks. Suddenly, they are in the inferior position and he has a chance (he imagines) to replace them and attract the female that he thought would never notice him.

Solomon writes to “sons” on the cusp of adulthood and is worried they will adopt ways of violence and run after the wrong kinds of women (the two long temptation narratives of Proverbs 1-9). In Parker’s case, the woman isn’t necessarily the wrong type, but how he sets about winning her is foolish.

While the Maquire Parker doesn’t intentionally embrace violence against his high school rivals, in the 2012 Amazing Spider-Man reboot, Peter Parker (played by Andrew Garfield) definitely does.

It’s hard not to enjoy this scene, and the tongue-lashing delivered by Uncle Ben to Peter seems aimed at the movie audience as well for their vicarious enjoyment. (Later, the “bully” is revealed to be no villain.)  Parker is headed in the wrong direction with his new powers. His straying continues until he participates in a minor way in the theft that leads to Uncle Ben’s murder.

my son, do not walk in the way with them;
hold back your foot from their paths,
for their feet run to evil,
and they make haste to shed blood (Proverbs 1:15–16; ESV)

It is clear that Parker, though quite intelligent, is rendered stupid by his new abilities. He is headed towards villainhood and it takes the death of Uncle Ben to enable him to hear the voice of wisdom and change course.

Coming back to the Tobey Maguire franchise, the escape of Peter Parker from foolishness is highlighted by the path taken by those who become villains. In the original movie, the Green Goblin is created when Norman Osborne takes a drug that gives him strength and speed but makes him psychotic. While Parker is initially led astray by his abilities, Osborne’s actually speak to him as a split personality:

In the second movie, Doctor Otto Octavius develops automated arms that he can plug into his nervous system to control them to perform an experiment. The arms have an artificial intelligence that could control Octavius except for a chip that restrains them. When the experiment goes wrong, the chip is destroyed.

The result is a great scene where Doc Oc’s abilities/habits/ambitions/desires start doing his thinking for him:

Solomon warns that our habits do our thinking for us. Ideally, we learn from out mistakes. But, if we don’t, our mistakes provide a fake wisdom that leads us downward.

Thus, “A man of great wrath will pay the penalty, for if you deliver him, you will only have to do it again” (Proverbs 19:19; ESV). You would think that the penalty would train a man to bridle his anger and develop different ways to respond to frustrations. But it often doesn’t. Anger is its own reward once you become accustomed to it.

Or consider sloth: “The sluggard buries his hand in the dish and will not even bring it back to his mouth” (Proverbs 19:24; 26:15). This is irrational and self-destructive behavior, but sloth is inherently self-rationalizing to the one who falls into it. “The sluggard says, ‘There is a lion outside! I shall be killed in the streets!'” (Proverbs 22:13; 26:13). Does the fear produce the sloth or does the sloth pursue the fear? “The desire of the sluggard kills him, for his hands refuse to labor” (Proverbs 21:25). But the sluggard is not likely to admit he’s killing himself. “The sluggard is wiser in his own eyes than seven men who can answer sensibly” (Proverbs 26:16).

The behavior of an alcoholic (to use modern terminology) is well-known. Proverbs warns against being “led astray” by wine because the one so led “is not wise” (20:1). But all foolishness can be similarly enslaving.

The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him,
and he is held fast in the cords of his sin.
He dies for lack of discipline,
and because of his great folly he is led astray (Proverbs 5:22–23).

As we become adults our abilities give us great power in the service of God. But otherwise they become ultimately lethal masters. Instead of seeing the danger and changing course, these vices often provide false wisdom to those under their spell.

Mark Horne holds an M.Div from Covenant Theological Seminary and is a minister in the Presbyterian Church in America. He is the executive director of Logo Sapiens Communications and  writes at www.SolomonSays.net.

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Luke provides the clear purpose for his Gospel in his opening words: that Theophilus might be convinced of the words in which he had been catechized (Luke 1.4). The Gospel is written to be persuasive, to assure Theophilus that what he has learned is true. Luke doesn’t write simply to lay down a great number of facts about Jesus, but he sets his hand to join with others in writing a narrative that is an “orderly account,” a word in Greek that connotes that Luke is setting out a persuasive order of events so that Theophilus will be fully assured of the fact that God has revealed himself in the historical figure of Jesus the Christ.

This is the goal of all Christian catechism. Catechetical instruction is rooted in facts. In its most basic form it can be laid out in question-and-answer format. “Who made you?” “God made me.” Simple. Straightforward. Factual. Getting the facts right is vital to being catechized in the Faith. As we move through the Gospel, we hear of the virgin conception and birth of Jesus, the fact that he lived during the time of Herod the Great under the rule of the Roman Empire. Jesus is baptized, tempted in the wilderness, teaches, heals, is condemned, dies, rises again, and ascends to sit at the right hand of the Father. Facts. Vital, indispensable, facts. Facts that need to be learned. (more…)

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