“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16: 11)
Growing Dominion, Part 136
“By humility and the fear of the Lord are riches, and honour, and life” (Prov. 22:4).
Because we have all learned our Gnostic catechism responses, our tendency is to immediately spiritualize the lesson. By humility and the fear of the Lord are spiritual riches, spiritual honor, and spiritual life. If a more earthy-minded exegete were to offer the position that “riches” frequently means “cash,” we would all look at him as though he had sullied our minds with the thought.
But the book of Proverbs is a book by a father teaching his son how to live and manage his affairs in this life. And in this life, to live in a humble and God-fearing way brings riches, honor and life. Now this is a proverbial statement, meaning that it is generally true, not that is universally true in every instance. To assume distributive universality is to make the mistake of Job’s comforters, or of the disciples when they assumed that blindness had to be the result of sin. Nevertheless, proverbs are generally true. Just as industrious workers generally get on better than lazy ones, so devout and humble merchants generally do better than those who like to cut corners, whether spiritual or earthly.