Proverbs 26:17 ¶ He that passeth by, and meddleth with strife
belonging not to him, is like one that taketh a dog by the ears.
When I was young my Dad warned me not to get in
between two fighting animals. He told me to stay out of other people’s fights.
This Proverb tells us to stay out of a fight that is none of our business. As
Matthew Henry pointed out, if we are not to be hasty to get into a fight on our
own account we most certainly shouldn’t be meddling in someone else’s business.
Proverbs 25:8 ¶ Go not forth hastily to strive,
lest thou know not what to do in the end thereof, when thy neighbour hath put
thee to shame.
Moses thought he was defending his people when
he interfered but he didn’t get the result he probably expected (Exodus
2:11-15) and went ahead of God’s plan by forty years. Josiah’s death on the
field of battle was due to a deliberate seizing of the dog’s ears (2 Chronicles
35:20-24).
Another thing that’s pointed out by the
commentators is that sticking your nose in someone else’s strife is like
grabbing a dog by the ears because once you’ve gone that far you’re in deep
trouble because he’s going to bite you whether you let go or not. Ruckman pointed
out that if you let go you get bit and if you hold on you’re not free to do
anything else.
How often have you been bitten by sticking your
nose in a family dispute that was none of your affair? What about within the
church? You thought you’d offer to be the mediator but instead were viewed as
taking one side or the other and attacked as well and had a hard time extricating
yourself from the mess. It’s unfortunate for the many dead young men and women
and children that they didn’t but our own government would have been wiser in
the past to have heeded this advice and to have not gotten into some issues
between others that were not our business as a people. But, as many historians
have pointed out, war increases a government’s power over its own people and
lessens their freedom at home, so it is in the nature of a modern nation-state,
whenever possible, to get into someone else’s fight if they can’t conjure up
their own.
In the church we are to try to avoid this kind
of self-imposed disaster and if we had the following attitude most strife just
wouldn't happen.
Philippians 2:3 Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory;
but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.
This is one of those admonitions for Christians
that we like to overlook because it’s not pleasing to the flesh. Mind your own
business.
Proverbs 26:18 ¶ As a mad man who casteth firebrands, arrows,
and death, 19 So is the man that deceiveth his neighbour, and saith, Am not I
in sport?
Here, we are told that the person who deceives
another and when caught, insists they were just joking, that it was all in fun
is like an insane person who does great bodily harm to another and insists they
meant no harm. The act of deceit is akin to malicious, physical behavior
performed by a person who is “off their rocker”.
Here, the Christian is warning against jesting
which is making sport at someone else’s expense, mocking them, or their
circumstance, and thinking it’s funny. Notice the company jesting keeps with
regard to various sins.
Ephesians 5:3 ¶ But fornication, and all
uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh
saints; 4 Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not
convenient: but rather giving of thanks.
Much of what goes on today as bullying begins as
making fun of someone, jesting at their expense. It is not for a Christian to
do.
But, with this Proverb we are talking
specifically about deception. We have our April Fools jokes and our pranks.
These can backfire. You don’t know what mental state your victim is in, what
they have gone through of late, or what they are pondering. Your “harmless”
little deception might be the trigger that sets off a fire you did not expect.
I’ve been guilty of everything I have spoken against at one time or another so
I know how things can go too far. This is particularly true of saying something
about the person that isn’t true but we’ll get to that next.
Deception is lying, pure and simple.
Colossians 3:9 Lie not one to another, seeing
that ye have put off the old man with his deeds;
So, for us, again, the principle here is that
deceiving another person and insisting you were only joking when caught, is as
malicious as an insane person setting fire to their barn or shooting arrows at
them and then, when caught, claiming it was all meant to be in fun. Can’t you
take a joke?
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