Proverbs Devotion - Day 24

Today’s devotion will focus on verses 28-29. They form a pair, as they are addressing two things that a wise person should not do within the community. First, we are told what kind of witness not to be against our neighbor. There are two distinctions made. Do not be a witness against your neighbor “without cause”. This would mean to insert yourself into a neighbor’s affair without being affected or impacted. Sometimes we love to insert ourselves into other’s affairs. If we don’t do it vocally, we sure have opinions on matters that do not pertain to us. But this proverb says do not speak up against your neighbor when it has nothing to do with you. Also, “do not deceive with your lips”, meaning especially do not fabricate a lie against them. That makes it even worse when we insert ourselves into judgment of a neighbor and it’s something that is not true. 

Verse 29 goes along with that. Do not seek to repay your neighbor with the same action that was done to you. This could be describing why someone would lie on a neighbor, or it could be an independent idea. A neighbor or friend may have done something hurtful to you and then, in your heart, you may then begin devising how you will get them back. After all, they came after you, so we justify ourselves that it is only right to get them back. Retribution feels like rightful justice, something that is owed (hence the use of “pay”). Sometimes we can even imagine how good it will feel to see them impacted in the same way they made us feel, always watchful for the opportunity.

These proverbs remind us both the darkness that lies within our heart and the importance of protecting truth and trust within a community. So many friendships are torn apart because of these practices. How many family members no longer speak to each other because of gossip, lying, and retribution? Our flesh craves malice, anger, and our own version of justice. You may be saying to yourself: “I would never do something like that!” But how much have you wished to? How often have you played it out in your heart, even taking joy if a person received what you felt was due them because of what they had done to you? If we’re honest, these proverbs speak to the parts of our heart that crave being the judge who hands down what (we think) others deserve. 

The issue with this is that, in each of these, Jesus has told us how to respond. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus addresses both retaliation and loving your enemies (Matthew 5:38-48). We are not called to retaliate but rather to give even more. We are also told not to hate our enemies but rather to love them and pray for them. Do we talk to others about enemies more than we talk to God about them? It’s hard to hate someone if we are praying for them. It’s difficult to lie about someone when we are seeking to show them honor. Jesus flips everything upside down. What our flesh desires to do, Jesus himself teaches (and models) the opposite. 

Because the truth is, when we seek to get even, insert ourselves and lie about someone else, we are no longer responding as Jesus would but rather like his accusers (Mark 14:55-59). Peter reminds us how Jesus, the truly innocent one, responded. “He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.” - 1 Peter 2:22-25

So, maybe you need to confess that broken part of your heart that sometimes wants to respond in this way. We don’t need to act like it’s not there, God knows it is. Rather bring it into the light, confess it to Him, and repent of it. This will enable your Father to begin to cleanse us of it through the person and work of Jesus. The one who had every reason to rightly accuse us and pay us back for our sin, yet instead he took it upon himself. Instead of saying “I’ll pay them back”, he said “put their sin on my account” and satisfied it through his death. Then, he calls us to love our neighbors as our ourselves. But his sacrifice calls us to even more: love them the way he loves us.