Bible Guys Classics: Proverbs 17

You're listening to the Bible guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun in practical ways. Hey, everybody. Anyways, you know, on the drive here, it was really interesting and. No, Jeff it started. We are we are. We were chit chatting right there before everything came on. Hey, So welcome to the Bible guys. My name is Chris. This is Jeff. And today we are continuing in the Book of Proverbs. Proverbs, yes, written. By King Solomon, who we know is David's son, who is now king, who is somehow, well not somehow we know how May attained the most wisdom that any man will ever have, any human in any part from Jesus. Yeah, I guess, I guess that is true. He's a he's a human. God, the man God, that's right, the God man. My yeah, I guess it's God man. Yeah, the Man God, God man undred percent. So absolutely, that's right. But other than Jesus Solomon right there. Yeah, And what's amazing is nobody will ever be as as wise as Solomon according to God. That's right. So today, before we get into that, we started with a segment that we have that is called mail bags. And this is actually written in by Paul K. Paul K. Hi, Paul K. Yeah, there it is. If you had to choose a Bible character besides Jesus that I have with for a day, who would it be? And why? Oh? A sexually tough one. Have you ever You've been asked this before, haven't you? Yeah? Probably? I think so. Yeah, And I think I choose somebody different every time. Okay, probably me too, then, yeah, I think so. But there's so much to choose from, but there's always a clear choice for me, so I'll skip back and forth often, but obviously my choice is the Apostle Paul. Really, yeah, it always is always. Yeah, He's sort of my hero besides Jesus in the Bible. Yeah, big fan. I'm a big fan. I'm a big fan. Hey, PAULI read some of your books, like him, big fan, the way that you captured. The reader, all the way that you scorned. The Apostle, Paul. Yeah, I'd say the Apostle Paul. Wow, he is, you know, an incredible man with incredible courage, incredible sacrifice. He had such a great influence on the world that we live in today, the Western world, right, I mean you can connect the dots all the way back to the apostle. Paul. It's one of the reasons why you and I are sitting in this podcast studio today. It's true. It is true. It is true. Yeah, so uh man, that's good choice. Good choice. So, now that he's off the table, I think he's very intellectual. Did I take your choice? No, I don't think so. Okay, I think he's very intellectual. I think he had an outrageous amount of courage right his The grit that Paul had to just keep going is really impressive. I thought about this one. I think, I believe or not, I think Peter would be one that would be super intrigued by He's so spontaneous and off the cuff and just kind of running full steam ahead without always thinking. It just seems like. I bet he was a fun guy. I bet he had a a hot head a little bit, it seemed like. But I think he would have been a fun person to hang out with. So him or David. I think David would be an interesting guy again, same thing. He's a warrior poet. He runs a muck sometimes, but he just he really wants to honor God. And yeah, I think those two guys would be kind of cool. Yeah. Would you not want to hang out with? Oh? Ge is what a question? Who would I? Not? Anybody in the Bible I would not want to hang out with. Yeah, Jeremiah, Yeah, the weeping Prophet. Ye, it's always sad. Yeah, well, I mean the poor guy. I'm sure he would tell stories. I don't want to hear those stories. Yeah. Yeah right, and where I. Was so by myself? Yeah, I for a thousand. Years, not as thousand. But I'm just kidding it. Like it when you read it, I don't. I don't think i'd want to hang out with Adam unless he got some clothes on. Well, that would be uncomfortable. Yeah, well, I mean, are you really going to feel that? Though in heaven I'm assuming it's in heaven. I don't know they have robes in heaven. Yeah that's true. I know something. But you know what I'm saying, Like, have you ever thought about this? I know I didn't say in heaven. You're right, okay, didn't put the heaven caveat there? Just hang out for the day. Yeah, there's the lawyer in your brain. But what I'm saying is what I'm saying is have you ever thought about this? So side topic if it is in heaven? If not, side topic, like you won't feel any anything negative in heaven. Like for instance, my good buddy Sean in the mailroom at Baptist Broba College told me one time, he said, don't you think, uh, you know, in heaven after a couple of billion years passes, don't you think you get bored? And he was like dead serious, like you know you're gonna get bored? And I said, I'm pretty sure boredom is an impossibility in heaven. Isn't that connected to like negativity, sin the fall? Isn't that connected to our our our sinful human nature? So what if boredom is an absolute impossibility? Have you have you ever thought about. That, whether or not I can get bored in heaven? Yes, I mean like well, I mean actually. I almost fell asleep in that question. So I and it's a little it's a little heaven sitting here with you, Oh wow, a little bit. You don't want to answer the question. I don't know, I don't I don't know if I think that boredom is a part of the fall. Boredom is the absence of doing something in the moment? Is it bad? But isn't well? I mean it's super negative? Is it isn't it? Does it make you feel sad? You think? I don't know. I think sadness can be it says Heaven's no more sorrow. If you're all ways only euphoric? Is there actual euphoria? Then? But what if to be ups and downs in order to have real happiness? True? But what if? What if the sadness were an impossibility and then therefore. It was sadness? Yes? Yeah, well it doesn't boredom lead to sadness. Or it leads me to go do something interesting? Huh interesting? Yeah? Okay, maybe not boredom. I don't know. I don't know. I'm not arguing that point against it. I'm just just not embracing it. Okay, all right, but this. One hanging out with I would hang out with Peter or David, you'd hang out with Paul or who? Who would be your second? You want me to do a second choice? Do you have a second choice? One? A? One? B? Yeah? I think it be Oh, I mean Peter and David are great. There are good ones. Maybe maybe to be Elijah. Oh, there you go, that's a good one. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, he's a pretty pretty rough guy. Yeah right, he's the wilderness guy. He's the take on the world guy. Stand up to the king, guys, stand up to the king. Yeah yeah, yeah, you run faster than a cherry. Yeah. Even God was like, yeah, he's riding a fiery cherry at home. There's no there's no other more appropriate. Uh okay, good one, good call. Well, hey, thank you, Paul k Yes, super cool. And uh, I'm sure next time we'll give different answers, but this time that's Yeah, that's what's on our mind today. If it was if it was today, that's who we'd hang out with. But uh, that being said, talking about today and hanging out with people, we're hanging out with the wisest guy in the Bible. Yes, we are hanging out with him. Yes. Every time we open the Book of Proverbs, it's like having a cup of coffee with Solomon. I can't stand coffee. It's like having a cup of mountain dew with Solomon. Fan. It's like having a cup of coke zero. There you go, Okay, I'm ready, I'm ready now I like tea, all right, here we go. Ready. Proverbs, chapter seventeen, is where we're at. And it seems like what we're doing is we're just plowing through from ten to twenty two something like that. I don't know this big chunk where it's just slogan after slogan after slogan, one liner after one liner after one liner. So each of these things, each sentence is its own idea. Essentially, he says, better a dry crust eaten in peace than a house filled with feasting and conflict. That's appropriate, especially considering lots of people just can't. That's thanksgiving right. A wise servant will rule over the master's disgraceful son, and will share the inheritance of the master's children. Fire tests the purity of silver and gold, but the lord tests the heart. Wrongdoers eagerly listen to gossip, and liars pay close attention to slander. Those who mock the poor and salt their maker. Those who rejoice that the misfortune of others will be punished. Grandchildren are the crowning glory of the aged. Parents are the pride of their children. Eloquent words are not fitting for a fool, even less our lives fitting for a ruler. A bribe is like a lucky charm. Whoever gives one will prosper. Love prospers when a fault is forgiven, but dwelling in a dwelling on it separates close friends. A single rebuke does more for a person of understanding than one hundred lashes on the back of a fool. Evil people are eager for rebellion, but they will be severely punished. It is safer to meet a bear robbed of her cubs than to confront a fool. Cotton foolishness. Wow. If you repay good with evil, evil will never leave your house. Starting a coral is like opening a floodgate, so stop before a dispute breaks out. Acquitting the guilty and condemning the innocent both are detestable to the lord. It is senseless to pay tuition to educate a fool, since he has no heart for learning. A friend is always loyal, and a brother is born to help in time of need. It's poor judgment to guarantee another person's debt or put up security for a friend. Anyone who loves to quarrel loves sin. Anyone who trusts in high walls invites disaster. Their crooked heart will not prosper and the lying tongue tumbles into trouble. It is painful to be the parent of a fool. There is no joy for the father of a rebel. A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit SAPs a person's strength. The wicked takes secret bribes to pervert the course of justice. Sensible people keep their eyes glued on wisdom, but a fool's eyes wander to the ends of the earth. Foolish children bring grief to their father, and bitterness to the one who gave them birth. It is wrong to punish the godly for being good, or to flog leaders for being honest. A truly wise person uses few words. A person with understanding is even tempered. Even fools are thought wise. When they keep silent with their mouth shut, they seem intelligent. That's that's a good one. In I love that one. They seem intelligent. It's better to keep your mouth shut in a peer wise than open your mouth and prove otherwise. Yeah. Right. And it's safer to meet a bear robbed of her cubs than it confront of fool cotton foolishness. And and you know what it's uh, I think about Uh? You know back that in those days it is probably not uncommon to come across bears, right, you know, they had more reason to be out in the wilderness, you know, hunting for food, you know, watching sheep, right, you know, bears, you know, bear would often you know, look for sheep and take them out right in the in the herd. And so you know, people were actually you know, you and me. Have you ever encountered a live bear in a cave somewhere? Yes, you have. I've come across bears four times out hunting black bears. Okay, all right, yeah, I don't know why. So black bears are meaner than grizzly bears, are they really? Yeah? So a grizzly bear, if you ball up and don't fight it, a grizzly bear will get bored with you unless it's going to eat you, whereas a black bear doesn't want to engage with you. But when a black bear engages with you, it doesn't stop, so you just have to keep fighting. Yeah, so grizzly bear stopped fighting, it'll throw you around a little bit and hopefully you live. A black bear just keeps coming at you once it coin. I was told with a black bearry, you act big and go. Yeah, yeah, because they're not as big, right there. One of the bears that came up on she stood up and she had cubs with her, and she was off maybe about one hundred and fifty yards two hundred yards away. I was in a tree stand and it was coming towards lunch, and she stood up and she's just look, because they can smell, like in three D bears can wow, so they can smell everything. And so she knew I was there way before I knew she was there, and probably that's why she cut out around that field. But then she gets straight out in front of me, and then she stood up just kind of looked at me for a minute like that, and then out on the logging trail I had to walk out on to go back to meet my brother and the other guys we were hunting with. And so that was a little intimidating, right, I think. Right, Yeah, And then other times I've had them come in. I've had some young ones. But she was probably as tall as I am once she stood up, maybe a little taller. Yeah, so probably three hundred and something pounds. You know, that's a pretty big bear. Yeah, but yeah, four times out in the woods. I've come across different bears. Usually they're smaller, but that was a big one. Okay, so one a person who may not hunt like myself. Yeah right right, cities, citiesers have no reason they come across a bear. But the idea of coming across a bear who just get robbed of her. Cubs, yeah, oh, that's you're in trouble. You're in trouble. Yeah, you're in trouble. Yeah. And so he's going out of his way to say, imagine the most dangerous situation. Is there any more of a dangerous situation? I can't imagine? Well, I mean that's that's a known phrase, right as far as anger goes. She's like a mama bear. That that's a phrase, right, or a bear robbed up her cubs, or don't get between a mother and her cubs. Rite that kind of idea, right, she does know she's gonna fight you, right right. Yeah. And you're in double yeah. And so that idea of trying to correct a fool, they're just going to come after you. Sometimes it's just not worth. It, yeah yeah. And and and the danger of it too. So so Solomon is going to hurt right, it's going to hurt you. Right, And Solomon is warning against the foolishness. And so it's not just that a fool is a fool in terms of observation. Oh, yeah, there's such a fool it is. It is. Actually what he's trying to say is no, a fool is something somebody you want to avoid in your life because they will hurt you. Right. That's a good point. Yeah, and I and I actually I was thinking about the one that said, uh, educating a fool. Where was that one at don't pay tuition? Yes, where's that at? Yeah? Verse sixteen? It's senseless to pay tuition to educate a fool since he has no heart for learning. Yeah, that is that is something, isn't it? You know, just to you know, to uh, you know, I think about all the people in your life that you have, you know, either talked with or tried to reason with, and you actually think to yourself, man, it is a hopeless conversation. Yeah, if they don't have a heart for learning, whether there's not anything you can really do. Yeah. And so let's talk about teachability. Uh, don't you think that one of the greatest one of the greatest abilities abilities is teachability. Yeah, and uh, you know, so one of the things that we do is we tried Heritage Church to bring along people of the next generation on staff. Right, So there are people who you know, have less experience, and they're younger, and they don't you know, they don't know what they don't know some times, and and so you bring them along and you say, okay, so hey, here's here's my opinion. And one of the favorite phrases that I have, uh, which I which I totally stole from Andy Stanley when he talks about, you know, mentoring the younger generation, as he says, it's not my responsibility to fill their cup, but it is always my responsibility to empty mind you grate. And so it's like it's like it's my job to completely empty my cup into you know, disciple or mentor or train or teach. Uh, you know, and and regardless of whether they're gonna you know, take take my advice or like it or not like it, that's not my responsibility. My responsibility is just to to do so. And uh, but I think I got to tell you I've done it for a long time. And teachability is the number one thing that you look for in this situation. I think that So that's one of the things we look for in hiring right as we hire, So obviously availability, somebody who has the sense of, you know, I look for people that say, hey, whatever it takes, as opposed to people who want a really clear understanding of well that's not my job or you know, I'm it's after five now kind of an idea. Then you see that. So availability is a really big one for us. We're looking for people who are just like, whatever it takes, I'm all in on it, right, So that's one, as opposed to somebody counting minutes and paying super close attention to their job description or whatever. So that'd be one. The other one would be likability, I think is super important. Just chemistry in the office. Are they like the rest of the people. Are we going to have enjoyable time together? I think that's important. But then I think the most important one for somebody to be able to thrive. Those two are important because they reflect more your character. This one, this teachability idea, it really is. It determines the ceiling right for that person. Somebody who's super cures and teachable. I think you have a tremendous amount of headroom above them from where you hire to the top. But people who don't seem particularly curious, they're not wondering why do we do what we do or how things work or or all that kind of stuff. Typically, and then they're not looking for new information, new ideas. They typically get kind of they very quickly will get into a rut and then they just they're they're more worker bees than they are the kind of you know, massive contributors are going to you know, be a force multiplier to change an organization, moving an organization forward. So, yeah, teachability would be I think is one of the most important things. Yeah, And somebody who's not teachable, I think you have to offload them quickly. Yes, and doesn't Paul say In the New Testament, he says he's going to teach Timothy to teach others, to train others. What does that called? Yeah, twond Timothy too too. Yeah. Yeah, So Paul says that I taught you, Timothy, yep, in front of all these other witnesses, these other godly people, teach faithfulness, to teach it to faithful men who will teach others also. Yeah, And so it's the idea of like passing it down, right, you know, passing the baton, so to speak. And I tell you what, if you've not ever been in a situation where you have asked somebody to be a mentor, you know, you don't even necessarily have to make it formalized. You know, you don't have to say will you be my mentor? Right? Yeah, but you can you can glean off of that person and you can sort of naturally organically fall into this mentor mentee role where you're just you know, just being intentional and just saying like, hey, what do you think about this? And I tell you what, there's there's there's there's a lot of value in finding somebody that you want to emulate, or somebody that's been successful, somebody that you admire, somebody who you know, you feel like has a lot of wisdom or has figured it out, and whether you make it formal or not formal, just to naturally fall into a role where you're gleaning off of them and learning from them, that's really cool. And then as we're wrapping up, I think one of my favorite ones, and we've mentioned this a few times, but here we are now Verse twenty two, a cheerful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit SAPs a person's strength, and you know what that's like. Man, when your heart's broken or whatever, it's just hard to keep moving forward. But the antidote to that is a little bit of cheerfulness. And so finding out I think part of it is knowing what the key to your cheerfulness is. I think is important. If it's a hanging out with friends and family, if it's being lighthearted, if it's watching a funny movie, if it's a stand up comedian whatever. I was listening to an interview today with Nate BARGATSI, yeah, yeah, yeah, So it was an interview about how he partly about how he writes his jokes or writes his stories or develops his thing. And even that was funny. He delights me. I like the storyteller type comedians tremendously. And I just so I got up this morning. Yesterday was a fourteen and a half hour day for me. So from the time I got in the office until time I left last night, there's a long day. And this is like the third fourth long day in a row, and I'm just tired. So I got up this morning and I'm like, I don't want to go to this studio. I don't want to, right, And I just was it was that kind of It wasn't a broken spirit. It's more like a broken body At this point, I'm just tired, you know what I mean. Yeah, But I get in the truck and then I saw, oh, hey, here's an interview I haven't seen or heard yet, and so I turned that out when I'm driving and I had a long drive, I had something else I need to do for I came in. It was naturally funny and it was so funny. One he did a couple of his bits while he was talking about how he made how he designs his bits. But then the other part of his he's just a funny guy, right, and he delights me. And so I come walking in the studio today going, man, I feel like a million bucks. It was it was a thirty minute switch, and it was thirty minutes. So knowing what the key is to your cheerfulness. Cheerfulness is not joy, right, right, So that's a different thing. But here a cheerful heart is is good medicine. It really does change your outlook, it changes your body, it changes your mind, it releases the right kind of endorphins on your brain to to kind of lighten up the mood in a moment, as opposed to coming and being miserable and raining on everybody else's parade. Yes, and and it's uh and it's it's been proven physically and and uh, you know, health wise everything else. Yeah, and uh and you know what, those are the kind of people that we want to be around. Yeah, right, Like if you've ever been around somebody who's naturally cheerful and and uh and you're just like, I mean, I think we have our good days. We have our good days, we have our. Good days, and uh and so yeah, it's it's definitely the kind of person to strive to be right. Yeah. So yeah, and there's a lot in here too, you know. It talks about the lying tongue, the crooked heart, you know, quarreling. I mean, obviously there's a lot in here about being a fool and being around a fool. He warns us again about not co signing. Yep, right, there's there's a lot of those things in here. This time even. Talks about bribes. Yeah, a bribe is like a lucky charm. Whoever gives prosper anyway. Yeah, there's a lot in there, so go back and read it and you know, just pick out whatever it is. That's why I love Proverbs because you read it and one time you'll read it, something will jump out at you, and then, depending on what you're going through, you read it again, and then something else will jump out at you based on your life situation. Right, Yeah, you're just really looking at everyday life when you read it. Read the Book of Proverbs. Yeah, I agree. Well, hey, that's our time, so hopefully we'll see you next time. I'm the Bible guys,