Skip to main content

Not Worth a Loaf of Bread?


For these commands are a lamp, this teaching is a light, and the corrections of discipline are the way to life, keeping you from the immoral woman, from the smooth tongue of the wayward wife. Do not lust in your heart after her beauty or let her captivate you with her eyes, for the prostitute reduces you to a loaf of bread, and the adulteress preys upon your very life. Can a man scoop fire into his lap without his clothes being burned? Can a man walk on hot coals without his feet being scorched? (Proverbs 6:23-28)

            Much of the book of Proverbs consists of things that Solomon, as both father and king, thought it important to teach his son, Rehoboam. I'm assuming the son in question was Rehoboam because he became the next king. We don't know if he also wrote to his other sons or his daughters, but if he did, I suspect this passage would have been adjusted just far enough to speak to the intended recipient. Over and over in his instructions to his son, he advises against relationships with immoral women. Over and over in any instructions he gave his daughters, he would have advised against relationships with immoral men.
           The book of Ecclesiastes suggests that he speaks from experience. He was involved in lots of relationships. Some were undoubtedly good, some were probably nightmares. As he reflected on his life, the conclusion that his experience brought him to is that "love" is not love. Romance, intrigue, infatuation, lust, sexual chemistry...none of these is love.  That person who sets your heart aflutter and you can't get out of your mind, the person you can't live without - especially if part of the intoxication is the thrill of "breaking the rules" - may be toxic. When that person's excitement or other payoff ends, either you or they aren't worth "a loaf of bread." 
           This is why morality is key to relationships, not to make your life miserable by telling you you can't have that "tasty treat," but because relationships involving nothing more than romance, intrigue, infatuation, lust and sexual chemistry dehumanize the participants. They reduce people to toys and tools to be thrown away whenever someone gets bored. When you're the one who can be thrown away as having no value, it damages you. When you're the one who can simply throw away another human being, it damages you. Something in you gets burned, either way.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The List

              Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,   through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;   perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. (Romans 5:1-5)           Think about it. We have been justified. At least, we could be justified if we stopped insisting that our justification be based on our merits. We have peace with God, or could have peace if we stopped throwing temper tantrums. We have gained access into grace i...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meditations of the Heart

  May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm19:14)           As I started writing this post, I noted that the meditations of my heart are all over the mental landscape, from a hub where eight superhighways come together to a lunar or nuclear landscape. Do you see my error? The moment I read the word meditation , I think about thoughts. But what’s described here is the meditations of our hearts ; our wills.           While the meditations of our minds may be all over the place, the meditations of our wills tend to be a little more stable by the time we are adults. We no longer tend to want to pursue the ten separate careers we did in any given day as children. Part of this is humble acceptance of reality. We come to understand that we can’t do it all. I think another part of it is disappointmen...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Way, The Truth, and The Life

              Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me . (John 14:6)           If “I am the gate of the sheep…I am the good shepherd” from chapter 10 is a double whammy, this verse is a triple whammy. And its first victim is the notion that any other so-called god was acceptable or the same as Jesus. He, and He alone is the way, the truth, and the life, and the only way to get to the Father. There is no other Savior, or Redeemer, according to Jesus. Now, to be fair, other religions will claim that their religion or god(s) are the only way. That is the nature of gods and of religions. If this and that are equally good and agree on what’s necessary, then this and that are the same thing, so there’s no need to from the other to one. If that’s the case, then why speak against the other or promote the one? There’s a song I’ve been listening to i...
Post a Comment
Read more