Introduction
Although my wife Heidi and I have been married for less than 5 years, we’ve moved a lot in that time period. We’ve lived in three states, 3 apartments, and two houses, and we feel a bit like gypsies without a real home. Heidi and I met up in Manitoba at Providence Bible College. After two years there, we both moved down to the Twin Cities—I went to Bethel Seminary, and my wife went to Crown College. We eventually got married and lived in the Twin Cities for a year before moving to CA. We lived in Pasadena for a year, and then a nearby suburb, El Monte, for another, before moving back to Jamestown, where we’ve been for a little over a year.
For some people, this frequent moving is a normal part of life—I work with a guy who’s never lived in one place longer than 4 years—but for me, it feels strange. I’m originally from Maple Grove, a suburb of the Twin Cities, and I lived on the same block, and in the same house for the first eighteen years of my life, and then a few more after that while at Bethel Seminary.
Many of you would probably hate to raise a family in an urban environment, but the city of Maple Grove where I grew up is a pretty good place to raise a family: they have really good schools, safe neighborhoods, great parks and biking trails, and lots of kids to play with. We locked our doors at night, but at the same time, we never really worried about something happening.
There are a few things that Maple Grove does not have, that I always just took for granted. For one thing, the city doesn’t really have any gangs and doesn’t have many of the problems associated with gangs. I never saw any drug deals go down; I never saw prostitutes soliciting anyone; I never saw gang-related violence. I’m not saying that there aren’t neighborhoods like this in the Twin Cities—I’ve seen people selling drugs in downtown Minneapolis—but my own little corner of the world was safe and worry-free. The closest I got to gang violence was seeing the occasional fight break out in junior high. The closest I got to drugs was occasionally smelling marijuana in some of the back hallways—but the students who used it were always long gone before I got there, and I was somehow sheltered enough that I didn’t realize for a long time what it was that I was smelling.
I’m guessing that most, or maybe all, of you here this morning had a similar school experience to mine. You maybe knew a couple people who got in a lot of fights, who got suspended or even expelled, or who used drugs, but for the most part these types of concerns were something that belonged to inner cities like Chicago or Los Angeles.
Although we tend to think of gangs and gang activity as a modern-day problem, they have actually been around for centuries. In fact, the passage we’ll look at today takes a very practical look at gangs—both at their appeal, and at their dangers. Although this whole topic may seem a bit foreign, especially for us here in rural ND, the passage turns out to be extremely relevant.
Before we jump into the text, it may help to know a few things about the background of Proverbs.
The first nine chapters of the book of Proverbs mainly consist of advice given from parents, the father in particular—to their son. This son is on the brink of turning from a boy to a man, and his parents are doing what they can to make sure that the path he takes in life is a good one—one that will please God and be good for him and others. Basically, the father wants what all of us want for our children, and what we try so hard to make sure happens. We want our children to succeed in all areas of life. In this particular lesson, the first one in the book of Proverbs, the father warns his sons about gangs, and we’ll jump in where he does in 1:8-9.
“Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction;
Neglect not your mother’s teaching,
For they are a graceful garland for your head,
And a necklace for your throat.
The parents begin their instruction here by telling their son to “listen,” or depending on your translation, to “hear.” The Hebrew word for this, shema, can also be translated as obey—Moses often tells Israel to “listen” to God’s commands, and we often just go ahead and translate it as “obey.” We find the same idea in English. When you see a frustrated parent in a store tell his child, “Listen to me,” we all know he means, “obey me”—that, and please stop embarrassing me.
[FWIW, I'm heavily indebted to Michael V. Fox's commentary on Proverbs 1-9 throughout. He's brilliant.]
The second line of verse 8, “neglect not your mother’s teaching, has basically the same idea as the first one, only it approaches it from a different angle. If you aren’t listening to someone, you are neglecting or ignoring them. The nice thing about this line is that it clarifies the first; the passage isn’t teaching that you need to listen to your father but not your mother; both parents have wisdom to offer and both should be listened to.
Verse 9 contains a promise given to the son—if he obeys, and not neglects, his parents’ instruction, the instruction will be like a garland for his head and necklace for his throat. Most guys I know wouldn’t be caught dead wearing a necklace or especially a garland—they’re for girls, everyone knows they’re for girls, and depending on where you go while wearing them, it’s the kind of thing that you could get beat up over. But in the Hebrew culture, these things made you handsome and were symbols of honor—it shows that you are an important and well-respected person. The same basic idea is found a few other places in Proverbs. Proverbs 3:21-22 reads, “My son, let not my words escape your eyes; retain competence and shrewdness. They’ll give vitality to your throat, grace to your neck.” Or in Proverbs 4:8-9 we read, “Cherish wisdom and she’ll exalt you, she’ll bring your honor if you embrace her. She’ll place a graceful garland on your head; grant you a splendid diadem.”
What the father is saying in this verse is that the parents’ teaching provides the same benefit as a necklace or garland—people will look at them and think, “Now that is a person who is worthy of respect.”
We all want people to think well of us; we all work very hard to make sure people respect us. Here, the son’s parents are saying that these things are within his grasp—if he simply obeys the instructions his parents are about to give him in verses 10-16.
Verses: 10-16
“My son,
If sinners lure you,
Don’t give in.
If they say,
“Come with us, let’s lurk for blood,
Waylay the innocent man without cause.
Let us swallow them alive, just as Sheol does,
(swallow) the blameless ones, like those who go down to the Pit.
Treasure of all sorts we’ll seize,
Our houses cram with loot.
Throw in your lot with us,
We’ll all share one purse”—
My son, don’t go in the way with them;
Don’t step upon their path,
For their feet run to harm;
They rush to shed blood.
The father begins in verse 10 by telling his son not to give in to the temptation of sinners. “Sinners” in the OT often has a different meaning than in the NT; when we think of sinners, we tend to start from the fact that everyone is a sinner and needs God’s grace. I’m a sinner; you’re a sinner; the person next to you is a sinner. But in the OT, identifying someone as a sinner is usually equivalent to calling someone a criminal; a sinner is someone hard-hearted who regularly, and deliberately does wrong and has no desire to please God. In Psalm 1:1, we read “Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or take the path that sinners tread, or sit in the seat of scoffers.” Sinners are a category of people, comparable in some ways to the wicked and scoffers, who are distinguished from the community as a whole.
In verses 11-14, the father describes the type of appeal that sinners are likely to make toward the son. They begin by saying “Come with us,” which in the book of Proverbs is a much more loaded statement than it seems. In Proverbs, the son is constantly being pulled in different directions and to a different way of life. Here, sinners are appealing to him to join them and their lifestyle. In Proverbs 7:18, the adulteress will say to the son, “Come, let’s slake our thirst on love till dawn, take our delight in lovemaking!” Later, in Proverbs 9:5, Wisdom, personified as an attractive woman, will appeal to him: “Come, dine on my food, drink of the wine I have mixed. Abandon callowness and live; walk in the path of understanding, for through me your days will increase and years will be added to your life.” So the son is faced in life with difficult choices he has to make. Does he listen to gangs, and join them? Does he listen to the adulterer, and sleep with someone he’s not married to? Or does he do what’s right and listen to wisdom? What’s clear from this language is that the criminals here are not inviting him to a one-time act, but rather, they are inviting him to join them in a long-term lifestyle.
The sinners then go on to describe the lifestyle they are offering, which has four main elements. The first, and most basic, is murdering people—and not just anybody; they are murdering innocent people. The people’s innocence is stressed three times in this verse: they, first of all, waylay THE INNOCENT MAN; they do so, secondly, WITHOUT CAUSE. The third mention of the people’s innocence is mistranslated in most translations as “whole.” The NRSV and NIV have, “and whole, like those who go down to the Pit.” The word is usually used to describe animals that are acceptable for sacrificing—there is nothing wrong with them, and no blemishes—and so they are considered whole. But the word is never used that way for humans, as if we are being sized up to see if we can be sacrificed. There’s maybe a dozen places where the word is used of humans, and each time it means something like “blameless” or “having integrity.”
The second main element is that the gang’s lifestyle is a lifestyle of power. The sinners compare the power they hold in deciding which people live and which people die to Sheol. In the Old Testament, people had a much different understanding of death and the afterlife than we do today—God had not yet clearly revealed to them that there was life beyond the grave. Instead, people believed that when you died, you went to a place called Sheol, which is sometimes translated as the Pit. Everyone went to this place—kings, commoners, the rich, the poor, the righteous, the wicked—and everyone was treated the same. When a person dies, they are said to be swallowed by Sheol. In Isaiah 5:14 we read, “Therefore Sheol enlarges its appetite and opens its mouth without limit; into it will descend Israel’s nobles and masses with all their brawlers and revelers.” Hab 2:5 describes Sheol as greedy and never satisfied—it’s always hungry for more and more dead people. Here, the criminals arrogantly claim that they are like Sheol—they have the same type and degree of power.
The third main element is that the gang’s lifestyle is one of wealth. Apparently, there’s all kinds of money to be had in mugging people—if the son joins them, he will become fabulously rich—he will gain treasure and his house will be stuffed full of expensive things.
The fourth major element of their lifestyle is the bond they will share as community, in 1:14. Throw in your lot with us, We’ll all share one purse”—
This gang of criminals is tight-knit; they become like a family to each other. If one of them is threatened, the gang will defend him. If one of them is hurt, the others will care for him. They will rise and fall together. And all the money they make will be split evenly; it’ll be like a humongous joint checking account, with plenty for everyone.
So the four major elements of their lifestyle again are these: murder, power, wealth, and community. The last three parts of this lifestyle have a lot of appeal—most people kind of like the feeling of power; most people like money, and most people like feeling loved and welcome. The whole mugging and murdering part of being a criminal is probably the biggest drawback—especially when the people you are hurting have done nothing wrong. That said, if you can somehow get around this moral dilemma, or just focus on the ends and not the means, being part of the gang sounds like a pretty good thing.
But in verse 15 the father jumps back in, reminding his son that this lifestyle is not a good one—the son should not walk in this path, in this lifestyle, because “their feet run to harm; they rush to shed blood.” It is impossible to gloss over this truth; being a criminal means you have to do bad things. You can’t choose to be a pilot without having to fly. You can’t be a mechanic without having to work on cars. And you can’t choose to be a criminal without doing criminal things.
In verses 17-18, the father cites a well-known proverb to influence the son not to join the gang.
1:17-18
For “The net is spread for nothing while the bird is watching.”
Yet they lie in wait—for their very own blood,
Set an ambush—for their very own lives.
Birds are viewed as pretty dumb in the Bible—in Hosea 7:11, they are called innocent or gullible; and Ecclesiastes 9:12 says that birds don’t know their own fate. However, birds are smart enough to realize when people are setting up a trap to catch them, and they won’t willingly fly into it if they know what’s going on. The criminals, on the other hand, don’t see how dangerous their lifestyle is. The trap they are setting, is actually going to be used on them—but they are so stupid that they don’t realize what’s going to happen to them, that their actions will soon cost them their lives. Ultimately, the father says, this lifestyle is a self-destructive one. You may intend to shed others’ blood, but eventually/ultimately it is your own life that will be lost. Although you intend to ambush others, your own life will be lost without warning. The son, then, is supposed to learn from the intelligence of the birds, and the stupidity of the criminals, and avoid setting a trap for others that will only catch and destroy him.
This brings us to verse 19, which provides the true lesson for the passage.
“This is what happens to everyone who grasps ill-gotten gain: it robs him who holds it of life.”
The reality for the son, and for most of us, is that we are rarely faced with a situation that is so black and white, and with such potentially enormous consequences. No one has ever asked me to become a gang member, to mug someone, to kill someone, to sell drugs, or steal. I doubt anyone ever will. And so the father’s advice may seem pointless—the kind of advice where kids, once their parents have set them down on the couch and finished “the talk,” roll their eyes and say, “Whatever, dad,” or “Sure thing, dad.” But the point the father is making is that anytime the son is confronted with a situation where he is tempted to get ahead in life, and get ahead financially, by acting unethically, that the issue IS that black and white, and that the consequences ARE that serious. These issues, and choices, are a matter of life and death, and the son ought to learn this valuable lesson from the more extreme and obvious cases, and apply it to all aspects of his life.
So to summarize the logic of the passage, and here you can fill in your outline:
Listen to my teaching (8)
because it will bring you honor and respect. (9)
If criminals tempt you (10-14),
don’t follow them (15)
because criminals are self-destructive (16-18).
All criminals are self-destructive (19).
Application
This passage touches on three serious desires that all of have and in some ways need: the desire for wealth; the desire for power, and the desire for community, and I think this is where the passage’s ongoing relevance jumps out at us.
The desire for wealth
The desire for wealth, and the caution against it, are at the heart of this passage. And truthfully, we all need money. We need a place to live; we need clothes to stay warm; we need food; most of us need a car to get around. We have taxes to pay, farm equipment that we need to buy and repair—especially, I hear, when Micah Schott is using it—and for all of that we need money.
As a result, most of us need a job—or sometimes two. But the problem with jobs, especially in a place like [place], is that a lot of them don’t pay very well—or if they do pay well, they only pay well in good years, when crops are worth a lot of money and your yields are what they should be. You work long hours, doing a job you don’t necessarily like, and you still end up pinching pennies and trying to scrape together a living. In this situation, it’s tempting to take shortcuts and try to get ahead financially by doing things that you know are wrong. And so employees are tempted to take stuff home from work like office supplies, or maybe embezzle from the company, or claim overtime they didn’t work. Business owners are tempted to overcharge customers, or pay employees less than they promised, or make them work overtime without paying them for it. A lot of these activities can maybe be justified—my boss badly underpays me for all the hard work I do, so I’ll just help myself to stuff from the office. Or, my employees slack off while punched in, so I’ll rewrite their timecards to show they worked less than they did. Contractors are notorious for giving an initially low estimate and then either going back and demanding more money to finish the job, or simply doing really cheap, shoddy work. And, of course, the government shouldn’t actually take as much in taxes as they do from me, so I’ll just underreport my income.
Most of these things seem like small issues—not worth the breath it takes to talk about them—but what the father says in verse 19 is that there are no small issues when it comes to ill-gotten gain. You may not be waiting in the downtown alleys of [place], hoping to mug someone, but if you are stealing from someone, you will ultimately share the same fate—and it will cost you far more than it was worth.
The desire for power
The second desire, the desire for power, is usually really dangerous. It’s been said that you see someone’s true character when you put them in a position of leadership, because when you give someone power, they find themselves able to do things they would never have been able to do before. In 1 Samuel, when the people of Israel ask for a king, this is what God has Samuel tell the people:
These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen, and to run before his chariots; 12 and he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots. 13 He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. 14 He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his courtiers. 15 He will take one-tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and his courtiers. 16 He will take your male and female slaves, and the best of your cattle {Gk: Heb [young men] } and donkeys, and put them to his work. 17 He will take one-tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves. 18 And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves; but the LORD will not answer you in that day."
History—including Israel’s—is littered with leaders who couldn’t handle the power they were given and ended up doing really terrible things. And we’ve probably all had or known managers at some point or another who were incredibly difficult to work for—they get used to having things done their way, they get used to making demands, and they start to take you for granted. Power tends to be an incredibly corrupting thing, and something that many people can’t handle having.
At the same time, it can be really difficult when you find yourself in a situation where you are powerless—where you have no control over what happens to you. Returning to gangs: Most gangs are based in large metropolitan, inner city areas—places with crushing poverty, drug abuse, broken homes, poor schools, and a lack of good jobs.
It’s tempting in this situation to give up on life and begin to despair—life will never get any better, and we will be stuck here forever. In this context, who wouldn’t want to grab for power, for the chance to be someone? The gang members the father talks about maybe don’t have the type of power that many people want—but they are definitely Somebodies, with a capital S. It is they who decide who lives and who dies, who gets mugged and who makes it home safely, and they are feared—and given a certain amount of healthy respect—in their communities. When they walk down the street, you cross over to the other side, or look down at your feet and give them a wide berth; you don’t do anything that can give offense.
If this passage teaches one thing about power, though, it is that no matter how hard we work to become powerful, none of us are really ever in control. Only God has the true power and the true control. God’s plans are the only ones that will always work out. For those of us who living right, especially when life seems scary and crazy, this is reassuring. God is looking out for us, and he sees what people are doing to us, and the situation we are in. For those of us who are living wrong, God’s being in control is a caution and warning. We can make our plans—like the gang of Proverbs 1 did—but if God has a different plan, what we want doesn’t matter; he will get his way.
The desire for community
The third desire, the desire for community, is a central part of what it means to be human. We all need to feel like we belong, like someone loves and cares for us, that we are part of a group larger than ourselves.
The flip side is that it’s tough being alone—and lonely. No one wants to be an outsider; the last kid picked for a football game, the one that no one wants to talk to at a party, the one who actually makes people cringe when he/she comes up to talk. The gang’s appeal to the son—that they will share in all things, and become in effect a new family—is a very real one, especially for people who come from dysfunctional families.
However, the danger of wanting to be part of a community is that you may find yourself having to do things you really shouldn’t do to fit in. Maybe your coworkers are coarse, or racist, or sexist, or they steal—and you find yourself using language or telling jokes you’d never repeat around your kids or at church just so that they trust and like you.
Thankfully, most of us here this morning shouldn’t have to do too much to find a community in which we are loved and accepted. Our parents and children love and care for us, and we know that our family will always be there for us, and we will always be there for our family.
As Christians, we are also blessed to have a second family, the church, where in theory we can be real with each other, have authentic relationships, where we can admit to struggles, where we can find help when we are having problems, and where we can help others. We shouldn’t need to compromise to find people who love us; look to your left, and your right, and in front, and in back—these are your brothers and sisters; this is your family; this is your community.
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Conclusion
Probably, you'll never be invited to join a gang. You'll never be offered the chance to murder innocent people, or mug them. When you're invited to sin, the invitation is hardly ever this straight-forward. Usually, it's more of a slippery slope.
But the beauty of this gang's appeal, for us, is how transparent it is. You read it, and you're forced to consider the truth about sin.
At some point in your life, you're going to be offered a shortcut to power, or wealth, or community. Someone is going to tell you, "There's an easier path that you can take. There's a way to hide money from the IRS. There's a way to steal, without getting caught. There's a secret path to power, and influence, that comes from knowing the right people, and paying off the right people."
This passage tells you, sinful shortcuts won't work. Choose the sinful path, and it will destroy you. You'll end up in jail. You'll end up being publicly shamed. Maybe, you'll end up dead.
The father's specific warning here had to do with money. There will come a time in life, when you will want more money, or need more money. When that happens, what should you do? We've all been there. We've all had bad months, or bad years, when things were tight. What do you do?
The father here encourages you, don't take the sinful shortcut.
Maybe, you need to get a second job. Maybe, you need to get a better job. Maybe you need to work harder, and make yourself a more valuable employee, so you get paid more. Or maybe, you just need to cut your expenses.
There are good paths out there, to having more. There are good options.
If you want to be prosperous, and successful in life, listen to your father, and do things the right way.
