Proverbs 27:13 ¶ Take his garment that is surety for a
stranger, and take a pledge of him for a strange woman.
(See Proverbs 20:16 for the earlier placement of
this verse.) Remember that the Law not only was to govern the ancient Hebrew’s
spiritual life and obligations but his civil life as well, unlike the modern
Christian, whose life should be managed by the doctrines of grace given in the
New Testament letters from Paul to the churches with the indwelling Holy Spirit
guiding him or her.
Here, a person is to give his garment as a
pledge to guarantee the debt of a foreigner to an Israelite and the Hebrew was
told to be sure to get a pledge from him if he was trying to guarantee the debt
of a foreign woman (there would probably be all kinds of problems with that
debt if the relationship changed course, as they often do) and as was stated
previously promising to guarantee someone else’s debt is not a wise thing to
do.
Proverbs 6:1 My son, if thou be surety for
thy friend, if thou hast stricken thy hand with a stranger, 2 Thou art snared
with the words of thy mouth, thou art taken with the words of thy mouth. 3 Do
this now, my son, and deliver thyself, when thou art come into the hand of thy
friend; go, humble thyself, and make sure thy friend.
Proverbs 11:15 He that is surety for a stranger shall smart for it: and he that
hateth suretiship is sure.
Proverbs 17:18 A man void of understanding
striketh hands, and becometh surety in the presence of his friend.
These are warnings, not only about suretyship
but the people who were not of Israel, who didn’t worship Israel’s God, the
Creator of all things, the God of the Bible. Foreign people and foreign worship,
customs, and standards of behavior were constant thorns of irritation for
Israel and even helped bring about their downfall.
I could go off on an application to Christians
that many commentators would about how you should only offer to co-sign or back
up a note for a Christian and not an unbeliever. But, that’s simply wrong. The
principle here is not to be surety for anyone. Sadly, there are many Christians
who are as dishonest or unreliable as any pagan person and many atheists who
are more honorable and honest than Christians. Don’t promise another’s debts.
If you have the money they need and you think the cause is worthwhile then give
the money to the Lord by giving it to them. If they can pay it back ask them to
pay it forward and help someone else.
But, most debts we incur are not of necessity or
out of wisdom. Most of the debts people ask you to guarantee are poorly thought
out and come out of irresponsibility on their part. If you are not in a
position to help that person with the money they need, and only for essential
things, then I would certainly not go against the Biblical principle and
promise to guarantee their debts. But, this is my own opinion. If someone wants
to start a business let them save their own money or seek out investors, not come
to you to ask you to put your good credit and name on the line as a guarantee
of their debt to a bank. Once again, my own opinion. In my youth I would have
been one of those guys you would not have wanted to lend money to or to not get
a pledge from when I was vouching for someone. I had terrible judgment and bad
character.
Why are people who call themselves Christians as unreliable
today as others? It’s probably for the same reason that Christians have similar
rates or worse of drug addiction, divorce, and immoral or amoral living as
others. Why is it that for all the preaching and hammering on personal moral
behavior in pulpits that so much of it seems to go in one ear and out the
other? Repeatedly, throughout history, Christian leaders have pointed out the
Bible’s role in setting the believer apart to be of some use to God.
The Waldensians had a saying, “The Holy
Scriptures alone are sufficient to sanctify the believer”, I have read. They
would attempt to memorize, to be able to recite by heart, the entire New
Testament.
Bishop Becke, an Anglican priest of the Reformation, promised
that reading the Bible a half hour a day would relieve the Christian of
blasphemy, gambling, and other sins. John Burgon, the Anglican champion of the
Received Text in the late 1800’s who opposed the revision of Westcott and Hort
(see his books The Last Twelve Verses of Mark and The Revision
Revised) gave a lecture I’ve read to his Anglican priest students in which
he also recommended daily half hour Bible reading never to be interrupted or
put aside for the young preacher of his day. Thomas Cranmer, the archbishop of
Canterbury under Henry VIII, wrote in the preface to The Great Bible,
that the Christian must read the Bible every day, implying that if you don’t
you certainly aren’t in a position to receive a sermon on Sunday. Daniel Walker
Howe in his book What Hath God Wrought, part of the Oxford History of
the United States series, talks about how, even up until the early 1800’s
that Bible reading was important to the common American, that is before the so
called Second Great Awakening took off, followed by emotional fixes in place of
a daily letting God speak to them through His word and replacing God with
government action.
Paul admonishes the young Pastor, Timothy, in 1 Timothy 4:13
, to “give attendance to reading” also tells the Corinthians, the Ephesians,
and the Thessalonians to read his letters, making sure the congregations hear
and see them. The early church leader, Tertullian, writing about 200AD states
that the originals or authentic copies of the letters from the Apostles were
still available in the churches which they started and nourished, implying that
you could read them.
God commanded through Moses, in expectation of
the Israelites eventually demanding a king, in Deuteronomy 17, that their king
should read the Bible they had, which was the Law given to Moses, every day of
his life so that he would learn to fear the Lord, keep all the words of the Law
and do them, and so he wouldn’t get arrogant and think himself above the Law.
Joshua commanded the Israelites to constantly
have the Book of the Law on their tongues and in their minds.
Joshua 1:8 This book of the law shall not
depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that
thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then
thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.
In the Bible, the Holy Spirit, speaking through
a Psalmist, says this about how God views his word, small “w”.
Psalm 138:2 I will worship toward thy holy
temple, and praise thy name for thy lovingkindness and for thy truth: for thou
hast magnified thy word above all thy name.
In earlier days in America, the Bible may have been the only
book in a person’s house. Many of the early Americans learned to read by daily
Bible reading within their families. Remember the country song about Bible
reading called The Family Bible, written by Jim Ed Brown, I believe, and
sung by both Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash?
“Rock of Ages, Rock of Ages cleft for me.
There's a fam'ly bible on the table
Each page is torn and hard to read
But the fam'ly bible on the table
Will ever be my key to memories.
At the end of day when work was over
And when the evening meal was done
Dad would read to us from the fam'ly bible
And we'd count our many blessings one by one.
Refrain:
I can see us sittin' 'round the table
When from the fam'ly bible dad would read
I can hear my mother softly singing
Rock of Ages, Rock of Ages cleft for me.
This old world of ours is full of troubles
This old world would oh, so better be
If we had more bibles on the table
And mothers singing Rock of Ages cleft for me.
Refrain:
I can see us sittin' 'round the table
When from the fam'ly bible dad would read
I can hear my mother softly singing
Rock of Ages, Rock of Ages cleft for me.
Rock of Ages, Rock of Ages cleft for me...”
There is also an old poem by Amos Wells that
I’ve been inspired by about reading the Bible entitled “When You Read the Bible
Through”.
“I supposed I knew my Bible
Reading piecemeal, hit and miss,
Now a bit of John or Matthew,
Now a snatch of Genesis,
Certain chapters of Isaiah
Certain Psalms (the twenty-third);
Twelfth of Romans, First of Proverbs
Yes, I thought I knew the Word;
But I found that thorough reading
Was a different thing to do,
And the way was unfamiliar
When I read the Bible through.
Oh, the massive, mighty volume!
Oh, the treasures manifold!
Oh, the beauty of the wisdom
And the grace it proved to hold!
As the story of the Hebrews
Swept in majesty along,
As it leaped in waves prophetic,
As it burst to sacred song,
As it gleamed with Christly omens,
The Old Testament was new,
Strong with cumulative power,
When I read the Bible through.
Ah, imperial Jeremiah,
With his keen, coruscant mind,
And the blunt old Nehemiah,
And Ezekiel refined!
Newly came the Minor Prophets,
Each with his distinctive robe;
Newly came the Song idyllic,
And the tragedy of Job,
Deuteronomy, the regal,
To a towering mountain grew,
With its comrade peaks around it,
When I read the Bible through.
What a radiant procession
As the pages rise and fall,
James the sturdy, John the tender
Oh, the myriad-minded Paul!
Vast apocalyptic glories
Wheel and thunder, flash and flame,
While the church triumphant raises
One incomparable name.
Ah, the story of the Savior
Never glows supremely true
Till you read it whole and swiftly,
Till you read the Bible through.
You who like to play at Bible,
Dip and dabble, here and there,
Just before you kneel, aweary,
And yawn thro’ a hurried prayer;
You who treat the Crown of Writings
As you treat no other book
Just a paragraph disjointed,
Just a crude, impatient look
Try a worthier procedure,
Try a broad and steady view;
You will kneel in very rapture
When you read the Bible through.”
Preachers, evangelists, and scholars like Dr.
Samuel Gipp who wrote the wonderfully easy to read book An Understandable
History of the Bible and people like Dr. Peter Ruckman, frail and human as
they are, encouraged Christians to read, read, and read the Bible. Dr. Ruckman
told a story that when he took over a Baptist church in the early 1960’s that
the deacons smoked in the church. There were ashtrays in the pews in some
churches back in those days. He chose not to preach on the ills of smoking but
pounded on daily, personal Bible reading as something apart and distinct from
Bible study. He claims that within two years, not only had smoking ceased in
the church, but he only knew of one family that smoked at home. He claims, like
the preachers of old, that daily Bible reading will change you.
Whether it be the God of the Bible through the
Bible itself, theologians, preachers, persecuted Medieval Christians, poets,
and songwriters there are people throughout history telling you to read that
Bible you have gathering dust on the shelf or laying on your desk.
I am not much of an example. I’ve accomplished
very little in life. I’m prone to sin and failure at every turn. Do not expect
too much from me as judging by my track record I’ll let you down. But God has
changed me and is changing me through His word. With the exceptions of a few
short periods of complete and utter insanity over the last several years God
has been molding me with His word. My wife sees it. Some of my family know it.
Perhaps others do, as well. God has removed from my heart, several things that
were not good and added a few that were. It’s been a slow process but I am
certain that from what someone as carnal and degenerate as I’ve been all my
life can see accomplished in his life by God with my only action being to read
and believe and to trust and wait, that you, better person than I’ll ever be on
this earth, can experience so much more.
What Christians are missing in their lives today
is the joy, love, and peace that God wants to give them through His words in
His Book, and not only that, but victory over sin and other foolishness. Why
are Christians often no more trustworthy or moral than the world at large?
Because the Bible is not center stage in their hearts. Because of that the God
of the Bible, the Lord Jesus Christ, isn’t sitting on the throne of their
hearts.
As Jesus Himself said;
John 17:17 Sanctify them through thy truth:
thy word is truth.
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