God's Wisdom for Navigating Life

by Timothy Keller

  THE DIGNITY OF WORK. The paradox in the final clause is that even the most menial tasks of a servant who protects their master, if they are done well, are cause for honor. All work done well has a dignity in the eyes of God (cf. Ephesians 6:5–8).

  In the Babylonian creation myth, the Enûma Eliš, humans were created to do the work considered beneath the gods. Yet in Genesis you see God literally with his hands in the dirt (Genesis 2:7) doing manual labor and not considering it beneath him. Even now the Holy Spirit renews the face of the earth (Psalm 104:30). When God created a paradise for humanity, he put work into it (Genesis 2:15). And when Jesus came to earth, he came not as a man of leisure but as a carpenter. If you’re not doing work, and work in which you can take pride, you’re being cut off from part of your humanity. There will be an atrophy of your soul, because the Bible says work is not a necessary evil; work is a good. Yet it doesn’t have to be a great world-changing career. Any work that is useful to others and done with excellence is deserving of honor.

  Do you undervalue so-called blue collar work? Do you mistrust or despise people who have careers that take more skill and education than you have?

  Prayer: Lord Jesus, I live in a society that, in some places, overly values high-paying jobs that require years of education and, in others, deeply distrusts these same people. But these distinctions of class and status don’t matter to you. Let them not matter to me either. Amen.

  The Seven Deadly Sins: Greed

  June 3

  The greedy bring ruin to their households, but the one who hates bribes will live. (15:27)

  GREED KILLS. The one who hates bribes refuses to compromise integrity, even when it means the loss of a big payday. But for the greedy, the means justify the ends. Greed says, “If I could make huge money, even if it requires that I lie or bribe, then why not?” The greedy find ways to justify dishonest financial dealings to themselves, and there is no better way than to say that it will benefit your family or your household.

  But this is an illusion. When their misrepresentations, bribes, and lies are made public, the greedy have brought ruin to their households. Indeed, when 15:27 says that those marked by honesty and prudence in financial matters will live, it hints that exposed corruption can lead not only to economic disaster but even to suicide. Jesus and Paul add that greed threatens your soul (Mark 8:37; Ephesians 5:5). So even if the bribe or lies are not exposed, if your heart is set on money in a greedy way, it will poison your character and weaken your family. But the one who puts integrity and service ahead of profit will live.

  What kinds of justifications have you used or seen others use to cut ethical corners in financial dealings?

  Prayer: Lord, there are scores of smaller and larger ways to cheat and misrepresent in financial dealings with employers, customers, buyers, and sellers. Make me a person of absolute integrity with regard to money. Amen.

  June 4

  Those who trust in their riches will fall, but the righteous will thrive like a green leaf. (11:28)

  GREED DESTABILIZES. As we will see later, the Bible is not against wealth creation or profit. What, then, is greed? We saw yesterday that one sign of a greedy heart is that it puts wealth before moral principle. Another mark of a greedy heart is that it does not merely enjoy wealth but has come to trust in it. Job claims that to say to money, “You are my security,” is a grave sin (Job 31:24–28).

  Some trust wealth for safety in this world. Others trust it for a sense of significance and worth. But these are things only God can give us. What is the result? The greedy will fall, a Hebrew word that means to fall to one’s death. Why? If God’s love is the basis of your self-image, then when the inevitable financial downturn or business failure occurs, you will be grieved. But these ups and downs will be far more devastating if your very self is tied to the level of your prosperity. Greed destabilizes your life. Only God is completely reliable (22:19). And only Jesus—and his salvation—is true treasure (Colossians 2:3).

  What do you tend to trust money for—security, power, acceptance by others, control?

  Prayer: Lord, I see people who are trusting in money but blind to it. How, then, do I know that I am not doing this too? Help me to dare to look at my heart and talk to my closest friends in order to discern my real spiritual attitude toward money. Amen.

  June 5

  Better a little with the fear of the LORD than great wealth with turmoil. Better a small serving of vegetables with love than a fattened calf with hatred. (15:16–17)

  GREED STARVES. The fattened calf was valuable (1 Kings 4:23) and a sign of celebration (Luke 15:23). But when love is life’s main dish, it doesn’t matter if the rest of the meal is just a bit of vegetables. And if hatred is the main course, even a fattened calf cannot redeem it. The greed that can pay for the richest food will still starve the human soul of that for which it most hungers, because greed is self-serving and the opposite of self-giving love.

  These texts correct simplistic views that see wealth as always a sign of God’s favor and hard work. That is how Job’s friends read things. Even Jesus’ disciples were shocked by his teaching that wealth could be a hindrance to spiritual growth and salvation, not a help (Luke 18:25–27). Yet this text is not so much about the problem of wealth as the greatness of love. “In a broken world where injustice and the absurd can prevail . . . faith (represented here by ‘love’ and ‘the fear of the Lord’) can transform a meal of vegetables into a continual feast (15:15).”129

  In your own life experience have you seen a person or family become more unhappy and unsatisfied as they became more prosperous?

  Prayer: Lord Jesus, sometimes a lucrative job or deal will give us less time for family and friends. Sometimes we see we could make more money if we disadvantaged someone else. Lord, you lost power in order to fulfill your loving purpose for us. Let me never choose money over love. Amen.

  The Seven Deadly Sins: Lust

  June 6

  For this command is a lamp, this teaching is a light, and correction and instruction are the way to life, keeping you from your neighbor’s wife, from the smooth talk of a wayward woman. Do not lust in your heart after her beauty or let her captivate you with her eyes. (6:23–25)

  WHAT IS LUST? 6:25 warns against lusting after someone’s beauty. It is one thing to recognize and appreciate someone’s physical attractiveness. It is another thing to be intensely driven to possess someone’s beautiful body for your own. We often say that a lust-driven man “wants a woman’” But, as C. S. Lewis points out, “strictly speaking, a woman is just what he does not want. He wants a pleasure for which a [beautiful] woman is a necessary piece of apparatus.”130

  Real love moves you to give yourself fully to a particular man or woman. Lust works in the opposite direction. It wants to get a fulfilling, self-maximizing experience from the person. In the biblical view, the purpose of sex is not personal self-expression (in order to be happy) but personal self-donation that brings permanent unity and life (in imitation of Christ, Ephesians 5:22ff.). Sex without the giving of oneself is a monstrosity, akin to a body walking around without a head. Lust and sex without marriage is like tasting food without swallowing and digesting it.131

  Why is pornography so widespread? In light of this reflection, what are the great dangers of it?

  Prayer: Lord, Achan lusted after the beauty of the gold, so he stole it (Joshua 7:21). If I allow myself to gaze at and lust after someone’s physical beauty, I too might be inflamed and steal it, taking it wrongly. Help me redirect my desire for intimacy and beauty into communion with you, fairest Lord Jesus. Amen.

  June 7

  For the lips of the adulterous woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil; but in the end she is bitter as gall, sharp as a double-edged sword. Her feet go down to death; her steps lead straight to the grave. (5:3–5)

  SEX AS HONEY. Sin is always sweet in the mouth and poisonously bitter in the stomach. Sin alw
ays “shows us the bait but hides the hook,”132 as a good fisherman does to the fish he wants to catch and fry. Anything contrary to the Word and will of God, even if it leads initially to pleasure and prosperity, will disappoint.

  Using honey as a metaphor for sexual sin is apt, because honey can be electrifyingly sweet and pleasurable but cannot provide even the nourishment of a single square meal. And too much honey can make you ill. According to the Bible, then, sex outside of a lifelong covenant of marriage is like trying to live on honey alone. Sex without a promise of mutual whole-life commitment can lead one party to make a far greater emotional investment than the other, with agonizing results. Or it can teach both parties to use sex for pleasure and not for radical self-giving. Either way, it’s honey followed by hunger.

  Think of the ways that sex outside of a lifelong covenant of marriage is like eating honey rather than enjoying a full meal.

  Prayer: Lord, keep me from falling for the false promise of sexual joy and intimacy apart from marriage. That lie has destroyed so many. Help me learn how to defeat sexual temptation. Amen.

  June 8

  Drink water from your own cistern, running water from your own well. Should your springs overflow in the streets, your streams of water in the public squares? Let them be yours alone, never to be shared with strangers. (5:15–17)

  STRANGENESS. The Hebrew word for the “adulterous” woman (5:3) literally means the strange woman. Married sex is likened to the refreshment and joy of well water; but why have sex with strangers? This is not saying you should have sex only with someone you know. Rather, it is a claim that sex outside of marriage is alien to your true nature. Imagine going by rocket to Venus. If you got out and inhaled the atmosphere, you would die. Why? Because the clouds of sulfuric acid are alien to the nature of your lungs.

  “In the end, humans can no more live outside God’s moral order than can the . . . fish . . . live outside God’s biotic order. Outside the ordinances of God we find not life but, ultimately, death.”133 When God says, “You must give yourself sexually only to someone to whom you’ve given yourself wholly, legally, and permanently in marriage,” he is saying, “This fits who you are, who I made you to be.” Sin leads to alienation from your own nature and God’s created order, and that leads to destruction.

  Why is the Christian sex ethic criticized today? Can you give answers to those objections, or do you believe some of them yourself?

  Prayer: Lord, when the church was new, its sex ethic was considered crazy, narrow, and offensive. Two thousand years later we are in the same place. Help me to be as faithful and confident in what your Word says about sex as that great cloud of witnesses. Help me to understand, defend, and practice it. Amen.

  June 9

  May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth. A loving doe, a graceful deer—may her breasts satisfy you always, may you ever be intoxicated with her love. (5:18–19)

  COMMODITY. In a time when marriage was most often contracted to secure social standing, we are told that being intoxicated with . . . love should be the mark of a marital relationship (September 5 and 24). Spouses are to give themselves to each other in joyful abandon. When people have sex outside marriage, maintaining their independence and right to walk away at any time, it turns sex into just a dispensed commodity, with both persons remaining detached and in control. Instead, sexual union should always and only take place between a husband and a wife who share every other kind of union—legal, social, financial, personal—in marriage. Then sex becomes both a sign of the union and a way to deepen it. When two people are committed to be with each other—through plenty and want, joy and sorrow, sickness and health, repentance and forgiveness—sexual intimacy becomes richer and richer. All your spouse has done for you and means to you can somehow pass into your lovemaking, and the two truly become one.

  In what ways does sex outside marriage differ from sex within it?

  Prayer: Lord, you were willing to die for me. And no one can have your love shed abroad in their hearts unless they give their whole lives to you. So protect your people from the tragic mistake of thinking sex outside a marriage covenant is somehow, sometimes all right in your eyes. It isn’t. Amen.

  June 10

  May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth. A loving doe, a graceful deer—may her breasts satisfy you always, may you ever be intoxicated with her love. Why, my son, be intoxicated with another man’s wife? Why embrace the bosom of a wayward woman? (5:18–20)

  COUNTERFEIT INTIMACY. Marital joy includes sexual pleasure (5:18–19) but much more. In the Bible no one is called your blessing (verse 18) unless they have the power to produce well-being in you and are deeply connected to you in faith and social bond.134 Marriage brings growth that is impossible outside of the security of the bonded union. Because you cannot just walk away when things get difficult, it brings increased self-knowledge, emotional and spiritual growth, deep mutual affirmation and support, and the distinct joy you can have only in the presence of someone with whom you have been through thick and thin.

  Sex outside marriage is “to exchange true intimacy for its parody.”135 A parody is a cartoonish imitation. When you have given yourself wholly to another in marriage, and the other person has also made a solemn commitment that would be hard to break, there is a new level of trust and thus freedom from fear, and so you can, literally, lose yourself in their love (verse 19).136 If you have not done so, you may only lose yourself.

  In what ways does the trust that a solemn vow and a legal bond bring enhance love and spiritual growth?

  Prayer: Lord, I see that true intimacy between human beings depends not on fleeting “chemistry,” sexual or otherwise, but on long-term commitment and faithfulness to helping the other person be all they should be before you. Let all my relationships—and not just marriage—reflect this insight from you. Amen.

  June 11

  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? So is he who sleeps with another man’s wife; no one who touches her will go unpunished. (6:27–29)

  THE FREEDOM OF LIMITS. In likening sexual infidelity to fire [in one’s] lap, we return to the familiar theme of God’s created order. Limiting sex to marriage is analogous to limiting ourselves through diet and exercise, which leads to the freedom of health. Honoring God’s design leads to liberation. “Self-limitation . . . and deliberate acceptance of inter-personal and cosmic limits are basic to biblical wisdom. When humans practice self-discipline in relation to . . . sex, food, sleep, exercise, work, play, speech it promotes self-knowledge, self-mastery, and paradoxically, freedom.”137 Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “None learns the secret of freedom save only by way of control.”138

  How do we accept the freedom of God-ordained limits? The one way is to remember the benefits to us. So we pray: “O God, who art the author of peace and lover of concord, in knowledge of whom standeth our eternal life, whose service is perfect freedom . . .”139 But in the end we are best motivated by looking at our Savior limiting himself for us. “Our God contracted to a span—incomprehensibly made man.”140

  Think of all the ways you accept the loss of smaller freedoms in order to get greater ones.

  Prayer: Lord Jesus, indeed you not only limited yourself for me but you enslaved yourself, “taking the very nature of a servant” (Philippians 2:7). How, then, can I view your commands to me about sex, money, and power as burdensome? Keep me from ever resenting your wonderful precepts. Amen.

  June 12

  My son, give me your heart and let your eyes delight in my ways, for an adulterous woman is a deep pit, and a wayward wife is a narrow well. Like a bandit she lies in wait and multiplies the unfaithful among men. (23:26–28)

  SEX AND FAITH. When the text calls an adulterous partner a deep pit, it means a trap. But the term also has the connotation of the pit, Sheol
, the underworld. So adultery not only creates this-world practical problems but also jeopardizes the state of your soul. How? It is true that our beliefs shape our behavior, but behavior also influences our thinking and belief. Many believers have testified that when they violated their conscience, God became less real to them. I have talked to college students from church backgrounds who started having sex because they lost their faith, but I met just as many who lost their faith because they started having sex.

  So sexual sin can multiply the unfaithful. “Those who think to explore life this way are flirting with death. It is no mere detour from the best path but, in the fullest sense, a dead-end.”141 The father who is exhorting his son here asks him to give him his heart. Even better, we should ask the Lord, “Give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name” (Psalm 86:11).

  Where have you seen in your life or someone else’s life that behavior affects and shapes beliefs?

  Prayer: Father, it is true that as I believe, so will I live. But it is also true that as I live, so will I believe. If I act in love and faithfulness toward you, I sense love from and to you growing in my heart. So provoke me, by your Spirit, to ever obey and serve you regardless of my state of mind or emotions. Amen.

  KNOWING OTHERS

  Friendship

  June 13

  One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. (18:24)