Proverbs 13:18 – Poverty and Shame to the Foolishly Wise

Do you know any know-it-alls? Chances are you couldn’t throw a rock from any street corner without hitting a few. Maybe (gasp) you’re a know-it-all? Sure it’s fun pretending like you know more than everyone else, and you might even believe it, in which case you’ve REALLY got your work cut out for you. God thinks it’s important to receive instruction from wise mentors your entire life. And, no, we don’t know this because we’re really, really smart. We actually learned it from the Book of Proverbs, verses 13:18 to be precise, which reads as follows.

“Poverty and shame shall be to him that refuseth instruction;
but he that regardeth reproof shall be honored.”

So what do these particular verses from King Solomon, regurgitating a telegraph from God, have to do with business by the Bible? Nothing, if you want to live your life in poverty and shame. Did you get that first part – poverty? Poverty doesn’t simply mean you thought you knew more than the stock market and took chances on a few risky trades that went bad. The concept of poverty goes much deeper than that. Below is a good summary definition taken from the Princeton database.

“The state of having little or no money and few or no material possessions.”

Poverty is serious business and likely a prodigious fall from where you currently sit. Then throw a big helping of shame on top and you have a good approximation of what it feels like to think you know it all. The strange thing is that it is usually the utter fools who think they’re tapped into the pipeline to wisdom. The truly wise are smart enough to realize how miserably short they fall on the scale of knowledge and, instead, decide to lean on God, the true source of all wisdom in the universe.

We were put here to engage in the process of learning from wise mentors our entire life. Wisdom from your elders or those with experience or who have spent years in the pursuit of knowledge is a precious commodity, and God doesn’t look kindly upon those who spurn it. On the other hand, the second part of Proverbs 13:18 tells us that if we show the ability to get past our own foolishness, honor awaits. And the funny part about listening and learning from those with knowledge to share, is that we make better business decisions and probably wind up wealthier as a result.

The Solomon Success Team

Flickr / Shahnawaz Sid