Day 586 – Rejecting Lady Folly – Proverbs 5

Wisdom-Trek

Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy Welcome to Day 586 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me. I am Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom Rejecting Lady Folly - Proverbs 5 Thank you for joining us for our 5 days per week wisdom and legacy building podcast. Today is Day 586 of our trek, and it is Wisdom Wednesday. Every Wednesday along life’s trails we dig for the nuggets of wisdom that are found within the book of Proverbs. Today we will explore Proverbs 5 from The Voice Translation, which will give us a fresh perspective on this book of timeless wisdom. We are broadcasting from our studio at The Big House in Marietta, Ohio. In today’s world, as it has been since the beginning of recorded history, it is so easy to fall into the trap of folly. That is to say making decisions that are foolish instead of wise. We are all prone to this, and it is only when we seek out wisdom on a daily basis that we will have any hope to make wise decisions. One area that is probably most destructive is when we make foolish decisions about our relationships, especially when it involves becoming intimate with others outside the covenant that we make when we marry. Solomon has much to say about this in Proverbs and in this chapter Solomon instructs his sons with very direct teaching. Solomon made many foolish decisions in this area, so he had much experience to teach from. So today in Chapter 5 of Proverbs, we will explore the importance of… Rejecting Lady Folly 8th Speech from Father to Son There is a character in Proverbs, the adulteress, referred to as the seductive woman, who we have only had brief encounters with so far (2:16-19). Now in Chapters 5-7, we get a much closer look at this woman, and it’s not pretty. This lady is a sham and will do you no good. This speech is frightening. The father calls the adulteress the “seductive woman.” As the passage implies, she is already a married woman. Beware! She might be persuasive, with lips that speak “honey-sweet” and words that are “smooth like oil,” but in reality, she is barbed and bitter. Follow her, and she will take you down with her “straight to the grave.” The father goes on to use a contrasting set of images – the house of the adulteress is the root of destruction, but the home of your bride is the fruit of life. The father’s speech flows with words comparing the wife to that of water (a “cistern” and “fountain”). Water in the Near East was particularly gratifying due to extremely high temperatures. Likewise, the father implies, a man’s wife is water to his soul. The sexually thirsty man should always drink of his wife’s body and be intoxicated with her love and never partake from another woman. The father tells his son “may you know true joy with the wife of your youth” (18). This is a call to enjoy sexual intimacy with your spouse. Drink from the pure waters of marriage, and let the polluted waters of the adulteress go trickling by. If you are married, give thanks for your spouse as you read this chapter, and ask yourself how you can rejoice greater in your love for each other. If you are not married, ask God to give you patience for pure water. People are easily seduced, especially men. Everyone is vulnerable to sexual sin at some point or another, and history is strewn with the wreckage that results when the path of adultery is followed – bitterness, death, instability, loss, ruin…Time and again, these are the consequences of violating God’s instruction. Wisdom recognizes the beauty of sexual intimacy. After all, God designed us as sexual beings. But for physical intimacy to retain the beauty of its design, it must be shared wisely. It is meant to be shared with someone who is your own. In marriage two become one (Genesis 2:24), so they belong together and belong to each other. In that safe place of belonging, one finds fulfillment. So a husband or a wife must partake only of the partner’s body and love.