Here Are My Thoughts

READ: Proverbs 7

“All at once he follows her, as an ox goes to the slaughter, or as a stag is caught fast till an arrow pierces its liver; as a bird rushes into a snare; he does not know that it will cost him his life.” (Proverbs 7:22-23)

The more you read in Proverbs, the more you discover just how much space is devoted in this book to warnings against sexual temptation. Maybe Solomon is trying to tell us something? Regardless, these passages are helpful, even if you don’t struggle in that area of life-because the principles apply to almost anything you can be tempted by. Yesterday, in Proverbs 6, we discussed one of my favorite passages in all of Proverbs. We talked about how we can’t expect to overcome temptations when we walk so closely to them. And here, today, in Proverbs 7, we get an incredible illustration as to exactly what Solomon is trying to teach us.

In verses 6-23 of Proverbs 7, Solomon tells us a story about a woman and a man. The woman sees the man and wants to seduce him. The woman is married. The man is young and “lacks sense” (vs. 7). The woman pursues the man, and the man is mesmerized. She persuades and compels him to have relations with her, even though the man knows it is wrong.

The verses that are written at the top of this post are the ending to this story-the man follows her and apparently sleeps with her. Solomon describes him as an ox going to the slaughter, or bird rushing into a snare. The man is single-minded in his desire, too foolish to see the consequences in the midst of the flattery and seduction. He succumbs to his tempter and temptations, and Solomon states that the man doesn’t realize that this decision will cost him his life. Do I think he’s speaking literally? No. What I think Solomon is saying is that this man was giving up something eternal to satisfy something immediate. He was so captivated by what was right in front of him that he couldn’t see what lied ahead. 

And I can’t help but ask the question-how did this man get here? How did he wind up in this state, making this decision, a decision that would cost him so much? There’s a principle here, I think, that answers these questions: A series of unwise decisions can lead to an immoral or destructive decision. Look back at this man’s story: the man was foolish, he clearly hadn’t sought wisdom, which in itself is unwise. In the evenings and nights, he would pass by her house-not necessarily doing anything wrong, but inching closer to it. You can just picture it-the man, more and more often, finding himself near her house, on her street, hoping to catch a glimpse or to say hi. Yes, the woman pursued him-yes, she waited for him-but the man didn’t help himself. He put himself in a position in which he couldn’t think rationally. Combined with his lack of wisdom, this was a recipe for disaster.

I write this post today because too often, I’ve been this man in regards to various slices of my life. I’ve allowed unwise decisions to compound until I do something that I know is destructive. It’s so clear, I can look back at these instances and know that if I just would have been wise in the paths I went down, I could have avoided these costly choices. And I know today that, if I’ve been this man, so have you. Maybe it hasn’t cost you a lot, maybe this principle has only played out in small scenarios-but how you handle what is seemingly insignificant determines how you handle the high-stakes moments. 

So I hope this story, and this chapter, serves as a stark lesson to us. May we be careful about the choices we make-and may we seek to make them wisely-so that our foolishness does wind up costing us greatly.

-Brett