“If you are wise, you are wise for yourself;

if you scoff, you alone will bear it.” (Proverbs 9:12, English Standard Version)

“Whoever heeds instruction is on the path to life,

but he who rejects reproof leads others astray.” (Proverbs 10:17, English Standard Version)

Have you ever noticed how proverbs, ancient or modern, tend to travel together in pairs.  Nevertheless, these pairs go in opposite directions.

“Look before you leap” is balanced (or contradicted?) by “He who hesitates is lost.”

“A stitch in time saves nine” is countered by “Don’t cross a bridge until you get to it.”

So much for modern parables.  What about the proverbs in the biblical Book of Proverbs?  The same dynamics are present.

The classical example of this phenomenon occurs in Proverbs 26:4-5.

Answer not a fool according to his folly,

                        lest you be like him yourself.

            Answer a fool according to his folly,

                        lest he be wise in his own eyes. (Proverbs 26:4-5, English Standard Version)

The two verses that lead off this post, Proverbs 9:12 and 10:17, make very different points.  Proverbs 9:12 states that wisdom and foolishness are personal choices with personal consequences.  Here, the Scripture emphasizes the personal character of our life choices.

Proverbs 10:17, on the other hand, turns a spotlight on the fact that our choices do affect other people.  The first half of the verse uses the metaphor of a path.  “The one who guards instruction is on the path of life.”  A hearer or reader of this proverb might suspect that the second half of the verse would say something like, “. . . but the one who rejects instruction is on the path of death.”

However, that is not what the verse says.  Instead, it says, “. . . but whoever ignores correction leads others astray.”  The King James Version has “. . . but he that refuseth reproof erreth.”  This ignores the fact that the Hebrew verb for “errs” is in the hiphil, or causative, stem.  The one who refuses correction (reproof) doesn’t simply suffer himself.  He also causes other people to suffer.

Go back for a moment to the first part of the verse, which speaks of “the path to life” that those who heed instruction travel.  Think about that metaphor for a moment.  Paths are meant for walking.  But there are paths, and then there are paths.

My wife and I went for a short walk the other day at a park near our house where we had never gone for a walk before.  There were several different paths, some paved, some grassy, and some muddy due to the rains we had been having.  All the paths were inviting, but I did not want to get muddy, so we stayed away from those paths.

All the paths in the park had been made by people.  They were also made broader and deeper from people walking those paths.  We may assume that a path is fine, just because others have tramped along it.  Not necessarily.

One of the paved paths my wife and I walked down ended at a steel gate that opened upon a main road.  As far as we could see, the path did not go on across the road.  We retraced our steps.  Fortunately, no one had followed our lead.

Whose lead are you following today?  Who will follow your lead?  We’re all in this thing called Life together.