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Rewards or Results
By peace | November 21, 2007
Wisdom teachers were observers as well as thinkers. Although they struggled with the mysteries of life, they also looked at the workaday world closely and critically. They taught us those who faced life honestly.
Sometimes the ‘teaching’ was no more than an observation. It contained no instruction, one way or the other. For example, ‘the poor are disliked by their neighbours, but the rich have many friends’. ‘A gift opens doors for the giver and brings him before the great’. Elsewhere the teacher speaks sympathetically of the despised poor and critically of the corrupt rich, but here he is primarily recording his observations.
This is something we should bear in mind when reading those proverbs that may seem at first to appeal to human selfishness. For example, ‘Keep my teachings, for they will prolong your life and bring you prosperity.’. ‘Honour the Lord with your wealth and the best of your crops; then your barns will be filled with grain and your vats will overflow with wine’. It seems that people are urged to a course of action solely because of the reward that lures them on.
A better way to understand such proverbs is not as inducements but as observations. The writer is not appealing to selfish motives, but telling people what will happen if they behave in a certain way. And that applies to bad behaviour as well as good.
Whatever people sow, eventually they reap. The consequences of their behaviour inevitably returns to them, for better or for worse. In the end, those who sow to the flesh will reap corruption, but those who sow to the Spirit will reap life.
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