Training Up Children

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“Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.” Few verses have been written more lovingly on nursery walls, quoted more often at baby dedications, or carried more quietly in a parent’s heart than Proverbs 22:6.

And few have been more painfully misapplied.

For many Christian parents, the verse has become a kind of spiritual contract: If I do this faithfully, God will guarantee the result. When a son or daughter later walks away from the faith, the verse that once brought comfort can turn into a quiet accusation. Did I fail? Did I not train them well enough? That weight was never meant to rest on this proverb.

A warmer, truer reading begins by putting the verse back where it belongs: in the book of Proverbs, as wisdom—not as a formula.

Wisdom, Not a Warranty

Proverbs is not the same kind of literature as the covenants or the promises of the gospel. It is skill-for-living. It describes the way the world generally works under God’s design. A soft answer often turns away wrath. Diligence often leads to provision. Early formation often leaves a lasting mark. These are observed patterns, not unbreakable laws.

Life is more complicated than any single proverb can capture. Children have their own wills. Hearts are not clay we fully control. Even the Lord Himself, the perfect Father, watched His covenant people wander. Treating Proverbs 22:6 as an ironclad promise of lifelong faithfulness sets parents up for either pride when children thrive or crushing guilt when they do not. Neither is the fruit the Spirit intends.

What the Hebrew Actually Says

The familiar English phrasing—“in the way he should go”—adds a word that is not in the original. The Hebrew is closer to “Train (or dedicate) a youth according to his way.” The verb chanak is used elsewhere for dedicating a house or the temple: to inaugurate something, to set it apart for its intended purpose. The word for “child” (na’ar) can describe a young child, but also a youth or young man still being formed.

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“His way” has been understood in more than one direction. Some see it as a call to notice the unique bent, temperament, and gifts God has given this particular child—not a one-size-fits-all program. Others hear a warning: if you simply let a child follow his own natural, often foolish inclinations, those patterns will harden. Still others hear an encouragement to start a young person on the path of wisdom itself—the fear of the Lord—so that the groove formed early tends to remain.

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All of these readings share a common thread: early, intentional shaping matters. The path a young person is started on tends to become familiar. Habits of the heart, like grooves in a road, are easier to follow than to leave.

That is a gracious observation, not a threat and not a guarantee.

The Heart of the Misapplication

The most common misuse is turning a principle of formation into a test of parental worth. Scripture never makes a child’s adult faith the final report card on a parent. Salvation is the Lord’s work. Children are not projects we complete; they are image-bearers we shepherd for a season and then release into the hands of a God who loves them more than we do.

When we treat the verse as a promise of guaranteed outcome, we can also miss its actual invitation: to dedicate our children. To inaugurate them into a life oriented toward the Lord. To walk with them in the fear of God, according to who they actually are, while they are still being formed. That is holy, hopeful work. It is not a contract that binds God to our performance.

A Kinder Way to Hold the Verse

From a Christian vantage point, Proverbs 22:6 sits comfortably beside Deuteronomy 6 and Ephesians 6:4. We are called to teach diligently, to bring children up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord, to talk of God’s ways in the ordinary moments of life. We model repentance when we fail. We pray. We tell the old, old story. We notice the particular child God has given us instead of forcing them into someone else’s mold.

And then we trust.

The gospel frees us from the need to be perfect parents so that our children might be perfect Christians. Jesus is the One who seeks and saves. The Father of the prodigal still watches the road. The Spirit still opens hearts that look, for a long season, closed.

If your children are walking with the Lord, give thanks—not as proof that you “got it right,” but as grace. If they are far from home, this verse does not stand over you as a verdict. It simply reminds you that the early years were not wasted, that seeds can lie dormant for a long time, and that the God who formed them in the womb has not forgotten them.

Train them. Dedicate them. Love them according to the way God made them. Point them again and again to Christ.

Then rest. The results were never yours to secure. They belong to the One who is both wiser and kinder than any proverb, and who delights to bring wanderers home.

A Sheep Contemplates Colossians 1:9-12

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Filled With Knowledge

My fellow travelers,

As we continue journeying through Colossians, let today’s passage warm your heart as surely as your morning tea does. We will see today the heart of the Apostle Paul as he prays for fellow believers.

Beloved, there is a kind of prayer that does not hurry. Paul had never walked the streets of Colossae, yet from the day Epaphras told him of their faith and love, he had not ceased to pray for them. And the prayer he prayed is the one we still need. Listen to Paul’s heart as we read the passage.

For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives,so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified youto share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light.

Paul asks that they would be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding. Not a thin acquaintance with religious ideas, but a knowledge that fills the whole of a person—the kind that comes when the Spirit opens the mind and heart to what the Father actually desires. The verb “filled” carries the sense of being brought to fullness, not merely informed. The knowledge he seeks is epignōsis—a personal, precise acquaintance with what God wants, not a stock of religious facts. Wisdom here is the skill of living under Christ’s lordship; understanding is the quiet ability to see how the pieces of an ordinary day fit together with his purposes. Paul is not asking for them to become clever. He is asking that the Colossians would know God’s mind so thoroughly that their choices begin to look like his.

That knowledge is given for a walk. “so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way”. The Christian life is not a set of moments when we feel spiritual; it is the long habit of ordinary conduct—work, speech, patience with people, the use of money and time—lived at a pitch that fits the One who has called us. Worthy does not mean we earn his smile. It means our steps start to match the gift we have already received. And the marks of that walk are simple and searching: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. Fruit and knowledge grow on the same branch. Obedience makes the face of God clearer; a clearer sight of God makes obedience more natural and more wide. Fruit and knowledge grow together. Good works are not a substitute for knowing God, nor is knowing God an excuse for barrenness. Each feeds the other. As obedience deepens, the knowledge of God becomes clearer; as the knowledge of God grows, the range of good work expands.

Such a walk needs strength we do not carry in ourselves. So Paul asks that they would be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy. The power is measured by God’s own might, not by our reserves. It is given for the long obedience—endurance when the pressure does not lift, patience when we are wronged and the impulse is to answer in kind—and both are to be carried with joy. Joy is not the absence of weight. It is the atmosphere of people who know the Father has already acted.

And he has. The prayer ends where every true prayer begins: giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has made us fit. He has rendered us sufficient for a share we could never have secured. The inheritance is not a prize at the end of a successful life; it is the gift already sealed in Christ, the reason we can give thanks even while we are still learning endurance.

This is the pastoral heart of the passage. God does not leave his people to piece together a worthy life from their own insight or strength. He fills them with the knowledge of his will, he supplies power equal to his own might, and he does both because he has already qualified them for glory. The prayer Paul prayed for the Colossians is the prayer the Spirit still loves to answer.

Take a few quiet minutes with these questions:

Where do you most need to be filled with the knowledge of his will, and what would it mean to ask for spiritual wisdom rather than simply a change in circumstances?

In the ordinary paths of this week, what would a walk fully pleasing to the Lord look like—and where is fruit or a growing knowledge of God currently thin?

What pressure is asking for endurance and patience, and how does the Father’s qualifying work give you reason for joy inside it?

When you give thanks, can you thank him not only for gifts he has placed in your hands, but for the deeper mercy that he has already made you fit to share the inheritance of the saints in light?

Beloved, rejoice that the Lord who has begun a good work in you will be faithful to complete it. Rejoice in knowing you are deeply loved by the Father.

You fellow sheep

A Sheep Contemplates Colossians 1:6b-8

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Not A Private Possession

My dear friends,

As we sit with our Bibles open in our laps and coffee in our hands, let us be inspired today from Paul’s letter to the church at Colossae. As we read together, recall the people who shared the gospel of Christ with you and give thanks to God for them today.

The gospel that reached Colossae was never a private possession. In the opening thanksgiving of his letter, Paul describes it as a living word already at work far beyond that small city: “as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and increasing—as it also does among you, since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth, just as you learned it from Epaphras our beloved fellow servant. He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf and has made known to us your love in the Spirit” (Colossians 1:6b–8).

Paul has just given thanks for the Colossians’ faith in Christ and their love for all the saints, both of which rest on the hope laid up for them in heaven—a hope they first heard in “the word of the truth, the gospel” (1:5). He then pictures that same word as active. The participles “bearing fruit and increasing” are present and continuous. The gospel is not a finished announcement that sits still once delivered; it keeps producing fruit and keeps spreading. Later he will pray that the Colossians themselves bear fruit in every good work and grow in the knowledge of God (1:10). What the message does in the world, it is meant to do in the people who receive it.

The worldwide scope is no vague slogan. From Paul’s vantage the gospel has already moved through the cities of the eastern Mediterranean and beyond, and the same pattern is visible in Colossae. Local faithfulness is not isolated; it belongs to a larger work of God. At the same time, the local is not swallowed by the global. The fruit-bearing happening “in the whole world” is happening “among you.”

That fruit began on a particular day: the day they heard and understood. Hearing alone is not enough. They “understood the grace of God in truth.” Grace here is not a general religious mood; it is the concrete favor of God that meets people in Christ—forgiveness, reconciliation, a share in the inheritance of the saints in light (1:12–14). To understand it “in truth” is to grasp it as it really is, not as a distorted or partial version. Later Paul will warn against teachings that sound wise but empty the gospel of Christ’s sufficiency (2:4, 8). The Colossians’ beginning was different. From the first day they received the real thing, and from that day the same gospel moving through the world began its quiet increase among them.

They received it through a person. “Just as you learned it from Epaphras.” The verb suggests more than a single sermon; it points to instruction that took root. Epaphras is “our beloved fellow servant”—literally a fellow slave—and “a faithful minister of Christ.” He did not invent the message or improve upon it. He delivered what he had received, and he did so with steady loyalty to both the word and the people. Whether the phrase is read “on your behalf” or “on our behalf,” the sense is mediation: he stood between the apostolic gospel and this congregation, serving Christ by serving them. He later traveled to Paul, shared their story, and continued to labor in prayer for them (4:12–13). Faithfulness here looks ordinary and costly at once—teaching the truth clearly, staying with the people, and carrying their needs to God.

The evidence he brought was specific. He “made known to us your love in the Spirit.” Their love was not mere friendliness. It was love produced by the Holy Spirit, the kind that can be recognized and reported, the kind that moves an apostle to unceasing prayer (1:9). Faith, hope, and this Spirit-given love belonged together from the beginning.

So the short paragraph holds several gifts at once: a word that keeps bearing fruit across the world and inside a local church; a grace that can be truly understood rather than merely admired; a faithful servant who hands that grace on without distortion; and a Spirit-given love that confirms the word has taken root. None of these replace Christ. All of them display his ongoing work.

The same gospel is still bearing fruit and increasing. It does not depend on our brilliance, yet it still ordinarily travels through people who teach it faithfully and shows itself in love the Spirit alone can produce. Wherever that is happening—even in small and ordinary places—it is already part of the larger increase Paul celebrates.

For reflection

  • Can you name the season when the grace of God moved from something you had heard to something you truly understood? What has that understanding cost you, or given you, since?
  • Who has served you as Epaphras did—teaching the gospel faithfully and remaining a fellow servant rather than a distant expert? How might you give thanks for them today?
  • Paul treats “love in the Spirit” as observable evidence that the gospel is bearing fruit. Where do you see that kind of love already at work around you, and where are you asking the Lord to let it increase?
  • The gospel is described as bearing fruit and increasing both “in the whole world” and “among you.” How does holding those two together shape the way you pray for your own congregation and for the church beyond it?

My dear ones, just as others shared the gospel with you, you now need to share the gospel with another, Keep passing on the good news of Jesus Christ to those who still are enslaved to sin and let the truth set them free,

Until next time,

Your fellow sheep along the journey

A Sheep Contemplates Colossians 1:3-6a

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Thanking God for Others

We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel, which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and increasing—as it also does among you, since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth.

My dear ones in Christ,

As we sit sipping our morning beverage today, we get the privilege of looking at Paul’s letter to the church at Colossae. Paul, as far as we know, never personally travelled there. A man named Epaphras, described as one of Paul’s co-workers in Ephesus, believed the gospel, took it to his town and started a church. He then reports to Paul how things are going.

Paul has never met most of these believers. He writes from a distance, perhaps from a prison cell, and the first thing that rises in him is not correction or strategy. It is thanksgiving. Whenever he prays for them, he thanks God. That is worth sitting with. The Christian life begins, and is continually renewed, not with what we produce for God, but with what God has already done in people we may barely know.

He thanks God because he has heard two things: their faith in Christ Jesus, and their love for all the saints. Faith here is not a vague spirituality. It is trust directed toward a Person—Christ Jesus. Love is not a general warmth. It is directed toward “all the saints,” the whole family of God, not only the easy ones. These two marks—trusting Jesus and loving His people—are the evidence that grace has taken root.

Then Paul names the spring from which both flow: “because of the hope laid up for you in heaven.” Faith and love are not self-generated virtues. They rise from a hope that is already stored, already reserved, already safe. Hope in the New Testament is not fragile wishing. It is a confident expectation of what God has promised and will surely give. Because something solid is waiting in heaven, the Colossians can trust Christ now and love one another now. The future gift steadies the present life.

That hope did not arrive as a private impression. They heard it “in the word of the truth, the gospel.” The gospel is not one message among many. It is the word of truth—the announcement of God’s grace in Jesus that actually corresponds to reality. It “has come to you.” It traveled. It crossed culture and distance. And once it arrived, it did what the gospel always does: it bore fruit and increased. Not only in Colossae, but “in the whole world.” The same seed produces the same life wherever it is received.

Notice the pairing: they heard it and understood the grace of God in truth. Hearing is not enough. The gospel must be grasped as grace—unearned, undeserved, sufficient. When grace is understood that way, fruit follows. Faith takes hold of Christ. Love reaches toward the saints. Hope lifts the eyes. The church becomes something for which an apostle can thank God.

This is still how the Lord works. The gospel comes. Someone hears. Grace is understood. Faith, love, and hope appear. And someone far away, or close at hand, gives thanks.

For personal response

  1. When you pray for other believers, do you more often ask God to fix them—or thank Him for what He has already begun in them?
  2. Where is your hope currently “laid up”? What do you find yourself leaning on when the present feels thin?
  3. Can you name a time when you truly understood the gospel as grace, not merely as information? How did that change the way you trusted Christ or loved His people?
  4. The gospel is “bearing fruit and increasing.” Where do you see even a small increase of faith or love in your own life, or in the life of your church, since you first heard it?
  5. Who has been an Epaphras to you—someone who brought you the word of truth? Whom might the Lord be asking you to thank, or to carry that same word toward?

Remember dear ones, because God loves you deeply, He sent someone to share His gospel with you. Thank Him for His mercy and goodness to you.

Until next time

Your fellow sheep

A Sheep Contemplates Colossians 1:1-2

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A Family Letter

My dear friends,

As we begin our study in Colossians, let us take the time to look at the two first verses of Paul’s letter. Greetings are easy to skim through, but this morning let us take the same time to linger over them as we linger over our coffee.

Paul begins the way a pastor often must begin: by reminding the people who they are, whose they are, and what God is still giving them.

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, To God’s holy people in Colossae, the faithful brothers and sisters in Christ: Grace and peace to you from God our Father.— Colossians 1:1–2 (NIV)

The letter opens with a name, then a vocation, then a source. “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God.” He does not introduce himself as a religious expert, a gifted writer, or a man who finally got his life together. He stands in this letter because God willed it. The same man who once tried to destroy the church now speaks as one sent by the risen Christ. That is not a résumé line. It is a confession. Authority in the church does not begin with personality. It begins with the will of God.

There is comfort here for ordinary believers as well. If Paul’s apostleship rests on God’s will, then your place in Christ does too. You are not in the family because you were impressive enough to earn a seat. You are here because the Father wanted you.

And Paul does not stand alone. “Timothy our brother.” The great apostle names a younger coworker as family. The gospel does not produce isolated heroes. It produces brothers and sisters who labor side by side. Paul had not even planted this church himself; Epaphras had carried the gospel to Colossae. Still he writes as a father in the faith, and he writes with a brother at his side. Ministry, at its healthiest, always sounds like this: sent by God, shared with family.

Then Paul turns to the church. “To God’s holy people in Colossae, the faithful brothers and sisters in Christ.” Holy people does not mean a special class of Christians who have risen above the rest. In Scripture, the saints are simply those God has set apart for himself. Holiness here is first a gift of belonging before it is a pattern of living. These believers were not holy because Colossae was a pure place. It was not. It was a small market city in the Lycus Valley, full of mixed religions, local customs, and spiritual pressure. They were holy because they belonged to God.

That matters if you have ever looked at your own life and thought, If Paul knew my actual week, he would have chosen a different adjective. He does not begin with their performance. He begins with their identity. Before he corrects, warns, or exhorts, he blesses them with their true name.

He also calls them “faithful brothers and sisters.” The word can mean believing as well as loyal. Either way, the point is family. They are not a club of the spiritually successful. They are siblings. The church is not first an event you attend. It is a household you have been brought into.

And notice the two addresses Paul holds together: they live in Colossae, and they live in Christ. One is their street and city. The other is their true home. You and I also live in two places at once. We have a town, a job, a family system, a set of limitations, a particular sadness, a particular history. That is our Colossae. But if we belong to Jesus, our deepest location is not the place that appears on an envelope. It is union with Christ. Colossae may explain much of what you face. It does not get to define who you are.

Then comes the prayer disguised as a greeting: “Grace and peace to you from God our Father.” This is more than ancient letter etiquette. Paul takes the common Greek wish for favor and the common Hebrew wish for wholeness and fills both with the gospel. Grace is God’s undeserved kindness toward sinners in Christ. Peace is the reconciling fruit of that kindness: peace with God, and then, slowly, peace within and among his people. The order is theologically deliberate. Peace does not create grace. Grace creates peace.

And the source is family language again: “from God our Father.” Not a distant deity. Not a vague spiritual force. The Father of the Lord Jesus has become our Father. That is why Timothy can be called “our brother,” and why the Colossians can be called brothers and sisters. The whole greeting is already quietly Trinitarian and deeply pastoral. God wills. Christ sends. The Father gives grace and peace. The church becomes a family.

You may think you need a new strategy, a clearer future, or a lighter load. You may. But underneath all of that, you need what Paul asked for this little church: fresh grace for people who cannot save themselves, and the peace that only a reconciled Father can give.

These two verses are easy to hurry past. Do not.

  • If you feel unauthorized and small, hear this: God places his people where he wills.
  • If you feel stained and ordinary, hear this: in Christ you are already named among God’s holy people.
  • If you feel isolated, hear this: you have been given brothers and sisters.
  • If your town, your past, or your present pressure feels louder than the gospel, hear this: you live in Colossae, but you also live in Christ.
  • If your soul is restless, hear this: grace and peace are not souvenirs from the day you first believed. They are the Father’s ongoing gift to his children.

Paul will soon lift our eyes to the Son who is before all things and in whom all things hold together. But he starts here, close to the ground, with names, family, and blessing. That is how God often meets us too—not first with a system to master, but with a word that tells us we belong.

Reflection Questions

  1. Where in your life are you tempted to treat your calling as self-made rather than received “by the will of God”?
  2. When you hear the phrase “God’s holy people,” do you instinctively exclude yourself? What would change if you received that name as a gift rather than a grade?
  3. What is your “Colossae”—the particular place, pressure, or ordinary setting where you live right now? How does being “in Christ” speak to that place?
  4. Who has been a “Timothy” to you—a brother or sister who reminds you that faith is not a solo project? Whom might you stand beside in that same way?
  5. Which do you more urgently need today: grace (God’s undeserved help) or peace (the settled fruit of belonging to the Father)? Why?
  6. How might your greetings, prayers, and conversations with other believers become more like Paul’s—naming people by their identity in Christ before rushing to advice?

Know this, dear ones. Because God deeply loves you, He has adopted you into His family.

Your brother in Christ

Recalculating Life

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You know that moment. You’ve got the spreadsheet. Color-coded. Goals neatly stacked like Tupperware. Career trajectory? Locked in. Family timeline? Optimistic but “realistic.” Spiritual growth? You’ll get to that after the kitchen remodel.

Then life happens. The job evaporates. The relationship you were sure was “the one” becomes a cautionary tale you tell at small group. The house you prayed for comes with a roof that leaks in three places and a neighbor who mows at 6:17 a.m. You stare at the ceiling at 2 a.m. and whisper, “Lord, I thought we had an understanding.”

Proverbs 20:24 looks at your carefully laminated life plan and smiles, not unkindly: “A person’s steps are directed by the Lord. How then can anyone understand their own way?”

It’s not a scolding. It’s more like a gentle elbow to the ribs. Solomon isn’t saying your plans are worthless or that you should wander around in a spiritual fog waiting for a skywriting angel. Scripture is full of people who planned—Joseph stored grain, Nehemiah inspected walls, Paul mapped missionary routes. Planning is wisdom. Clinging to the plan as if it were Scripture is something else.

The first half of the verse is a statement of fact, not a threat: your steps are directed by the Lord. Not micromanaged like a nervous stage parent. Directed. Guided. Held. The same God who numbered the hairs on your head (including the ones you keep finding on your pillow) is not surprised by the detour you just took. He is not frantically flipping through a celestial binder muttering, “Wait, that wasn’t on the agenda.”

The second half is the honest question that follows: How then can anyone understand their own way? Answer: We can’t. Not fully. Not the way we want to.

We see the next three steps. God sees the whole map, including the scenic route through the valley we would have voted against. We want the itinerary. He offers Himself. That is both more frustrating and more wonderful than we usually admit.

This is not fatalism in a Sunday dress. You still choose. You still repent. You still show up, work hard, love people, and make the next faithful decision. But the illusion that you can stand at the beginning of the path and comprehend the whole journey? That’s the part the proverb quietly dismantles. We are not the authors of our stories. We are characters who have been invited to trust the Author.

And here is the Christian hope tucked inside the mystery: the One directing the steps is not a distant cosmic traffic cop. He is the God who became flesh and walked dusty roads Himself. Jesus didn’t just give directions. He is the Way. When we cannot understand our own path, we are not left with a shrug. We are left with a Person who already walked through death and out the other side.

So yes, make the plan. Write it down. Pray over it. Then hold it with open hands, the way you hold a toddler’s drawing you love more than the artwork itself. Because the point was never the perfect route. The point was walking with the One who already knows where this is going.

Even when the GPS of your heart keeps saying “recalculating.” Especially then. A few questions to sit with:

  • Where in your life right now are you most tempted to demand a full explanation from God before you’ll take the next step?
  • What “five-year plan” (or five-month plan) have you been gripping so tightly that it might be crowding out trust?
  • How might your anxiety change if you treated uncertainty less like a problem to solve and more like an invitation to walk closer to Jesus?
  • Can you name one past detour that, looking back, you now see as directed rather than derailed? What does that memory do to your current fears?
  • What is one small, faithful next step you can take this week without needing to understand the entire road ahead?

The Great Equalizer

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There’s a verse tucked away in the middle of Proverbs that doesn’t get quoted on coffee mugs nearly as often as “Trust in the Lord with all your heart.” It’s Proverbs 29:13, and it goes like this:

“The poor and the oppressor have this in common: the Lord gives sight to the eyes of both.” (NIV)

Or, if you prefer the ESV’s slightly more dramatic flair:

“The poor man and the oppressor meet together; the Lord gives light to the eyes of both.”

At first glance it feels almost too straightforward. Like Solomon looked around, shrugged, and said, “Well, both of these guys can see the sunrise. Next proverb, please.” But linger with it for a minute, and it starts to glow with the quiet, slightly mischievous wisdom of God.

Picture the scene. On one side of the ancient marketplace sits a man whose sandals have more holes than leather. On the other side stands the guy who owns half the marketplace and has strong opinions about how little the first man should be paid. They don’t share a lunch table. They don’t share a worldview. They barely share the same air without tension. And yet—same eyes, same gift of light from the same Lord.

God doesn’t check the bank balance before He flips the switch on another day. The sun rises on the righteous and the unrighteous (Matthew 5:45), and here Solomon points out that the same divine generosity that lets a beggar see the path to the bread line also lets the oppressor see the path to the counting house. It’s almost funny in its fairness. The Lord of the universe is not impressed by our hierarchies. He hands out eyesight like free samples at Costco—no membership required.

This is pure common grace with a side of holy humor. The God who formed the poor man’s eyes also formed the rich man’s. The same breath that gave life to the oppressed gave life to the one doing the oppressing. Neither of them earned the ability to open their eyelids this morning. Both of them will close those same eyelids one day and give an account. In that light, the oppressor’s temporary advantage looks a lot less permanent, and the poor man’s temporary disadvantage looks a lot less final.

From a Christian perspective, this verse is a gentle reminder that the ground at the foot of the cross is perfectly level. Jesus didn’t die for the deserving. He died for people who could see—literally and spiritually—only because God first opened their eyes. Some of us use that sight to chase status and power. Others use it to simply survive. Either way, the light came as a gift.

So the next time you’re tempted to write someone off as “those people” (the lazy poor, the heartless rich, the annoying neighbor who parks like a maniac), remember Proverbs 29:13. The Lord gave that person the same capacity to see beauty, truth, and their own need for grace that He gave you. That’s either deeply comforting or mildly inconvenient, depending on how much you enjoy ranking people. Personally, I find it both—and I’m pretty sure Solomon would have smiled at that.

After all, if God is generous enough to keep the lights on for both the underdog and the top dog, maybe we can afford to be a little more generous with our attitudes too.

Application Questions

  1. When was the last time you caught yourself mentally sorting people into “deserving” and “undeserving” categories? How does this verse challenge that habit?
  2. In what practical ways can you reflect God’s impartial generosity this week—toward someone poorer than you and toward someone who seems to have more power or privilege?
  3. How does remembering that every person you meet received the gift of sight (and life) from the same Lord change the way you pray for both the oppressed and the oppressor?
  4. Where might God be inviting you to “meet together” with someone very different from you, simply because you both stand under the same light?

Owning More, Enjoying Less

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Solomon had seen enough warehouses, banquets, and anxious rich men to notice a pattern most of us learn the hard way.

“As goods increase, so do those who consume them. And what benefit are they to the owners except to feast their eyes on them?” (Ecclesiastes 5:11, NIV)

That is a surprisingly cheerful way of saying: congratulations on the extra. Please also meet the crowd that arrived with it.

Get a little more, and life develops appetites you did not put on the grocery list. The house needs more furniture. The furniture needs more space. The space needs more cleaning. The kids need more activities. The activities need more snacks, more gas, more uniforms that will be outgrown by Thursday. Distant cousins develop a sudden interest in “catching up.” The budget, which you thought had finally exhaled, starts breathing through its mouth.

You still get to look at what you have. Solomon grants you that much. You can open the account app, admire the closet, walk through the rooms and think, This is mine. It is a real pleasure, in the way looking at a bakery window is a real pleasure. It is just not the same as sitting down to eat.

The humor in the verse is almost kind. God is not rolling His eyes at your paycheck. He is rescuing you from a myth: that more stuff will finally make the room go quiet. It usually does the opposite. More goods attract more mouths—some of them people you love, some of them bills with no last name, some of them your own restless want for the next slightly nicer thing.

A Christian reading does not turn this into a guilt trip about owning a sofa. Scripture is not allergic to provision. God feeds birds, clothes lilies, and calls work good. Later in the same chapter Solomon even says it is a gift to enjoy what you have been given. The warning is narrower and more useful: do not confuse the gift with the Giver, and do not confuse looking at the gift with living.

Jesus said life does not consist in the abundance of possessions. That is not a slogan for people who have failed at abundance. It is good news for people who succeeded and still felt strangely hungry. Paul could be content with plenty and with little because Christ was the portion that did not shrink when the expenses grew. The laborer in the next verse sleeps. The person guarding a growing pile often does not. One of them has less to stare at. The other has less peace.

So what do we do with the pantry that got bigger?

Use it. Share it. Thank God for it. Let some of it be eaten on purpose—around a table, in a tithe, in a quiet kindness nobody will post about. That kind of consumption is not the tragedy Solomon is describing. The tragedy is owning more and enjoying less, managing more and trusting less, feasting your eyes while your heart stays on a diet.

You do not have to despise what God has put in your hands. You also do not have to keep asking it to save you. Look at it if you like. Then go eat with the people in front of you, and let Christ be the one thing that does not get consumed when everything else does.

Application Questions

  1. What “increase” in your life recently came with extra consumers—people, bills, maintenance, or new expectations—and how did that change the way the increase felt?
  2. Are you currently using what you have, sharing what you have, or mostly just keeping watch over it? What is one ordinary way you could move from looking to enjoying this week?
  3. Who might God be inviting to “eat” from what He has given you—family, a neighbor, the church, someone under strain—and what would generous stewardship look like without turning into anxious people-pleasing?
  4. Where do you need contentment more than a larger margin? What would it sound like to thank God for today’s portion instead of waiting for a future pile that finally feels like enough?

Food In The Fallow Ground

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Let’s be honest: most of us have a mental highlight reel of Proverbs. There’s “A soft answer turns away wrath,” which we quote right before yelling at the dog. There’s the classic about the sluggard who won’t even lift a hand to his mouth, which we mutter while staring at the pile of laundry that has officially achieved sentience. And then there’s Proverbs 13:23—the quiet kid in the back of the class that almost never gets called on at Bible study:

“The fallow ground of the poor would yield much food, but it is swept away through injustice.” (ESV)

In other words, Solomon—ancient Israel’s answer to a very wise, slightly sarcastic farmer—looks at a patch of land that resembles the average teenager’s bedroom after a three-week gaming marathon (weeds, mystery clumps, and a general air of “please don’t make me deal with this”) and says, “Relax. That mess is secretly an all-you-can-eat buffet… if somebody would just stop vacuuming the groceries out of it.”

The field itself is ready to produce. God packed it with potential the way your grandma packs a suitcase—way more than seems possible. The problem isn’t the dirt. The problem is that injustice keeps showing up like an overzealous housekeeper with a giant industrial broom, sweeping the entire harvest into the nearest dumpster while whistling cheerfully.

From a Christian viewpoint, this little proverb is pure gospel in overalls. God has woven abundance into the ordinary. He designed creation so that even “fallow” ground—the unspectacular, the under-resourced, the not-yet-plowed—can yield more than enough. That’s His generous heart on display. Yet the same verse refuses to let us pretend that good intentions alone will fill the barn. Injustice has a nasty habit of showing up with a rake and a smug grin, scattering what God meant for the poor.

Jesus later put flesh on the same idea. He talked about the Kingdom like seed that falls into all kinds of soil, some of it rocky or thorny or trampled by the wayside. The potential is always there; the tragedy is when something—or someone—keeps the harvest from happening. Proverbs 13:23 is the Old Testament version of that same ache: God is not stingy. People sometimes are.

Now, a couple of practical applications that might actually fit into a regular Tuesday:

Look for the “fallow ground” in your own circle and refuse to sweep it away.

That might be the coworker whose ideas get ignored in meetings because they don’t have the right title, the single parent in your church who never gets invited to the “fun” small groups, or the quiet neighbor whose kids could use a ride to practice. Injustice doesn’t always wear a cape and a sneer; sometimes it just looks like “that’s just how things are.” A Christian response is to notice the potential, protect it, and—when we can—help plow a little. Buy the extra groceries and drop them off without a speech. Speak up when the promotion process feels tilted. Sometimes the most spiritual thing you can do is make sure the harvest doesn’t get swept into someone else’s barn.

Check your own broom.

It’s easy to point at “the system.” Harder to admit we occasionally do a little sweeping ourselves. Maybe we favor the people who already have advantages because it makes life simpler. Maybe we quietly decide certain folks “just aren’t worth the investment.” Proverbs won’t let us off that easily.

The same God who stocked the fallow field also sees the tiny injustices we commit in traffic, in family group chats, and in the way we interact with those who are “different”. Repentance here can be as simple as choosing the longer checkout line so the new cashier isn’t left alone with the difficult customers, or making sure the kid who never gets picked first still gets a turn. Small acts of justice keep the harvest where it belongs.

The beautiful, slightly comic truth is that God keeps scattering seed in fields that look unpromising. He seems to enjoy working with the overlooked plot more than the manicured estate. Our job isn’t to manufacture the abundance—He’s already put that in the dirt. Our job is simply to stop sweeping it away, and maybe, when the chance comes, to grab a hoe and help.

So, the next time you pass a patch of weeds that looks like nothing, smile a little. Somewhere in there is a harvest waiting. And the King of the universe is still rooting for the poor to eat their fill.

Sparks and Tinder

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Proverbs 22:24-25 has the gentle bluntness of a friend who loves you enough to say, “That person is delightful… from a safe distance.”

The NIV puts it this way:

“Do not make friends with a hot-tempered person, do not associate with one easily angered, or you may learn their ways and get yourself ensnared.”

Solomon is not telling us to hide from every human being who has ever raised their voice. If that were the standard, most of us would have to live in a cave with a very patient goat. He is talking about close friendship. The kind of companionship that slowly shapes how we talk, how we react, and how we see the world.

Anger is surprisingly contagious. Spend enough time around someone who treats every inconvenience like a personal insult, and you may notice your own fuse getting shorter. You start finishing their sentences. You start feeling justified in the same little explosions. Before long, the “that’s just how they are” excuse has quietly become “that’s just how we are.” Matthew Henry put it well centuries ago: our hearts already have plenty of tinder in them. We do not need someone tossing sparks around.

This is not a call to become cold or superior. Christians are commanded to love our neighbors, bless those who curse us, and show kindness even to difficult people. Jesus sat with tax collectors and sinners. He also chose His inner circle with care. There is a difference between being friendly and becoming entangled. You can be gracious to the hot-tempered coworker without making them your accountability partner. You can pray for the relative who treats every family dinner like a debate club without inviting them to set the emotional temperature of your home.

The warning is practical because the danger is real. Habitual anger rarely stays contained. It spills into words we later regret, decisions we would not have made in a calmer moment, and a witness that looks more like the world than like Christ. The “snare” in verse 25 is not just social awkwardness. It is the quiet trapping of the soul—becoming the very kind of person we once winced at. Paul later says the same thing in different clothes: “Bad company corrupts good character” (1 Corinthians 15:33).

The good news is that this proverb is not the last word. Many of us are the hot-tempered person on our worse days. The gospel does not leave us there. The Holy Spirit produces self-control, gentleness, and patience—the very qualities that make a person safe to be around. Jesus absorbed the world’s rage on the cross and offers us a better way to live. We can ask Him to change our own tempers even as we wisely choose who gets a front-row seat to our formation.

Choosing companions is one of the most ordinary and most spiritual decisions we make. The people who sit at our tables, text us late at night, and influence our moods are forming us whether we notice or not. Wisdom says: choose people whose presence makes it easier, not harder, to become like Jesus.

Application questions

  1. Who in your life consistently leaves you more agitated than you were before you spent time with them? What would a wiser level of closeness look like?
  2. In what situations do you become the hot-tempered person others might need to be careful around? What usually lights that fuse?
  3. How can you remain kind and available to difficult people without making their patterns your own?
  4. Who are the calm, steady, grace-filled friends God has already given you? How can you invest more intentionally in those relationships this week?
  5. Where do you need the Holy Spirit’s help to grow in patience and self-control so that others are safer, not more tense, because they know you?