Read Proverbs 17:16–20
Questions from the Scripture text: What does the fool have the opportunity to obtain (Proverbs 17:16a)? Then why doesn’t he (verse 16b)? When does a friend love (Proverbs 17:17a)? For what times is a brother particularly born (verse 17b)? What does it show about a man if he pledges himself as another’s surety (Proverbs 17:18)? What does a man who loves transgression actually love (Proverbs 17:19a)? What is a man seeking if he exalts his gate (verse 19b)? What can’t the crooked-hearted one find (Proverbs 17:20a)? Into what does the crooked-tongued one fall (verse 20b)?
Why isn’t love enough? Proverbs 17:16–20 looks forward to the midweek sermon. In these five verses of Holy Scripture, the Holy Spirit teaches us that love, without wisdom, isn’t even loving.
This section is the second of three that are introduced by a “fool” saying (Proverbs 17:10, Proverbs 17:16, Proverbs 17:21). In this case, the section diagnoses the various problems with the heart of a fool. He has an unteachable heart (Proverbs 17:16), an incompetent heart (Proverbs 17:17-18), and a crooked heart (Proverbs 17:19-20).
The unteachable heart has the opportunity to learn wisdom, represented in the “purchase price” of Proverbs 17:16a. But he has no heart to receive, accept, submit to, or apply the teaching. The defect is not in his access but in his attitude.
The incompetent heart wishes to be that loving friend, who helps in affliction (Proverbs 17:17), but he is literally “lacking heart” (Proverbs 17:18a, where NKJ says ‘understanding,’ the word is ‘heart.’). He doesn’t understand that it is not loving to become surety for someone who is not able to be surety for himself. If it is foolish to give him what he needs, then it is foolish to become guarantor for him to borrow it. But many hearts that are easily moved are unlovingly incompetent.
Finally, the crooked heart may think that it “loves,” but what it actually loves is transgression, which means that strife is its inevitable outcome. He exalts his own door over his neighbor’s (Proverbs 17:19b), which is a path not to strength in adversity but destruction in peacetime. His is that crooked (more literal than NKJ’s ‘deceitful’ in Proverbs 17:20a) heart which flatters itself that it is seeking good, but it doesn’t find that good. What it is actually seeking is destruction (Proverbs 17:19b), and it falls into evil (Proverbs 17:20b)—not just immorality, but harm.
We live in a world where people say things like “love is enough,” and “why can’t we all just love?” But love is not enough. Without wisdom, without the fear of the Lord, love isn’t even love.
What is a situation where you have been tempted to “love” in a way that this passage says isn’t loving?
Sample prayer: Lord, thank You both for loving us, and for teaching us the pitfalls of “loving” foolishly. Please give us the fear of You that is the beginning of wisdom, and make our hearts to be teachable, skilled, and sincere, so that our love will be genuinely loving, we ask through Christ, AMEN!
Suggested Songs: ARP14 “Within His Heart the Fool Speaks” or TPH400 “Gracious Spirit, Dwell with Me”