Tender – Proverbs 4:1-9

Why are we so hesitant, many of us, to talk plainly about sexuality, menstrual cycles, and other subjects like that?  One of the reasons is surely that we are painfully aware of the way sexuality is warped and abused and we worry that giving information about it to young people might lead them to that loss of innocence we treasure in children.  Of course, it is likely just the opposite is true, that keeping our kids in ignorance means they learn about these things from inappropriate sources.  Solomon does not hesitate to give instruction in righteousness to his son.

Hear, O sons, a father’s instruction, and be attentive, that you may gain insight, for I give you good precepts; do not forsake my teaching.  When I was a son with my father, tender, the only one in the sight of my mother, he taught me and said to me,

“Let your heart hold fast my words; keep my commandments, and live.  Get wisdom; get insight; do not forget, and do not turn away from the words of my mouth.  Do not forsake her, and she will keep you; love her, and she will guard you.  The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom, and whatever you get, get insight.  Prize her highly, and she will exalt you; she will honor you if you embrace her.  She will place on your head a graceful garland; she will bestow on you a beautiful crown.” (Proverbs 4:1-9, ESV)

Can you imagine a father purposely sending his son into the arms of a woman?  That is what this father is doing.  Wisdom is a woman, a woman worthy of embracing, a woman who, if prized, will keep him, exalt him and honor him.  There are women the father has already warned his son not to embrace (2:16-22), women who will lead him down the paths of death.  This woman, however, will bring life to the fullest.

This father was once a young son like his son is.  He was a son with his father, a son in the place of needing instruction, not yet fully ready to face the world on his own, tender, as he says.  Are you still tender?  There is something in us that wishes we could still be tender, still be naïve about life.  We want to still believe that people are basically good and will always make choices that are unselfish.  We want to be shielded from the hard things of life that harden us. 

If we were still living in the Garden of Eden that could be so.  We would all still be tender and rightfully so.  We could be the only one in the sight of our mothers forever.  But now we are in a battle for our souls.  Only this woman Wisdom can help us find our way.  She will guard us from the foolish, sinful decisions we could make and the judgment of God that will inevitably attend such wickedness.  Her help will come in the form of commandments, which we will naturally hate but which, if we obey, will bring life.

We have to choose to prize her and not forsake her, though it would seem obviously crazy to leave her for another woman.  But something inside us rebels against her and wants to pull away from her arms.  “Don’t touch me,” we say inside, because we don’t think we need insight from her, we don’t need to be guarded.  We’re perfectly capable of being our own God, determining right from wrong.  We might need to lie to get ahead, or hurt someone else, or pile up money to hedge against the future downfall, and we don’t need her telling us “no, no.”

Who will you embrace?