July 5

Jul 5 - Today from Proverbs 5 we look at verse 13

“I would not obey my teachers or listen to my instructors.”

In our modern world, illiteracy is often the root cause of ignorance and poverty. Education has proven to be a very critical factor in addressing poverty in many third world cultures. The ability to read opens vast resources of knowledge and enables peoples to stay relatively current with procedures and opportunities available to better their standards of living. In many instances we can excuse the illiterate cultures for their ignorance and poverty, and should be motivated to correct it through providing resources to educate their people. But there is no excuse for those who have open access to education. There is no excuse for the student, who after sitting in the classrooms of educators for years, emerges ignorant of the subject matter being taught. Our verse today reveals the reason that student remains ignorant – it was a matter of the will. In all of the choices facing him in his formative years, receiving instruction was low on the priority list.
Although the context of this passage refers specifically to warnings against sexual impurity, the principle can be applied to all moral instruction. The application of the human will has to do with their personal values system. Values asks the question, “What is important?” The more importance one places on a subject or a matter, the higher it is on the values list. When two or more choices emerge in any given situation, the person will choose that which is highest on the values list. When the ‘flesh’ is in control, the self-serving and self-satisfying choices go to the top of the list. When the heart is in control, that which pleases God and serves to meet the needs of others rise to the top of the values list. The teachers and instructors in this verse are those who instruct in wisdom and moral integrity. The student who ordered his values according to the flesh ‘would not’ obey or listen. Moral integrity wasn’t as important to him as was self-gratification. It was not until the end of his life that the student began to understand just how short life is, and how fruitless and empty self-serving ways are in light of it. Instead of fulfillment, all he is left with is regrets.
Values are not evidenced by what we are able to repeat from the moral instructors, they are evidenced by our actions. What we choose to do indicates what is most important to us. Where are your values today?