Truth will out

If you falter in a time of trouble, how small is your strength! Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering towards slaughter. If you say, “But we knew nothing about this,” does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who guards your life know it? Will he not repay everyone according to what they have done? Proverbs 25:10-12

Often when you read the Bible it’s necessary to immerse yourself in a passage and concentrate really hard. Other times it may be better to dip in almost at random and take from it whatever happens to strike you. I find this especially with Proverbs, a collection of mainly one-off sayings which, according to tradition, goes right back to King Solomon.

Some of the sayings rather make me smile – when, for example, we are told to eat honey (I like honey), or when grey hair is assumed to be a mark of a “righteous” person (if only!). But now and then you hit upon something that makes you sit still for a minute and do some serious thinking (something, I’m afraid, we tend not to be very good at).

Proverbs 24:10-12 recently had this effect on me. It’s a little cluster of verses that may or may not be connected and its meaning is not entirely clear. But it packs a punch, as they say.

Verse 10, “If you falter in a time of trouble, how small is your strength”, sounds like quite a severe rebuke.

One commentary suggests it is directed at “the quitter”, the weak person who gives up too easily. That may well be right, but it made me feel slightly uneasy too, for isn’t it a feature of our modern society that often people carry on past the point of reasonable perseverance and sink into exhaustion, “burn-out”, even severe mental health problems? Didn’t Jesus occasionally tell his disciples to “come apart and rest for a while”?

The Bible advocates perseverance, certainly – but it gives no comfort to the workaholic, or to the person who drives employees too hard. (Mental note to self: Always read with discernment!)

Then verse 11: “Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering towards slaughter”. Wow! What are we to make of that grim scenario! What kind of background is its setting? Two possibilities strike me: a country where despotism and tyranny rule; or a war situation, where law and order have broken down.

Whatever, it is in essence a call to notice victims of injustice – and not only to notice them, but to do something about them. This applies to many parts of our world today, but is surely a challenge to all of us, wherever we live. Christianity isn’t only about personal salvation; people may need “saving” in more than the ultimate sense.

It was verse 12 that really made me stop and think: “If you say, ‘But we knew nothing about this,” does not he who weighs the heart perceive it?” This is about pretending to be ignorant of some evil or injustice; in a phrase, turning a blind eye, or “keeping our heads down”.

I think that what particularly made me sit up and take notice was that I had been reading quite a meaty book about the Nazi horrors of the 1920s-1940s. Its focus was on the brave souls, some Christian, some not, who refused to turn a blind eye, while others – good and decent people enough, entirely “respectable” people – did exactly that: “We didn’t know! If we had known, of course we would have acted!”

The challenge was, But how could they not have known? Truth leaks out even in the most oppressive societies (think Russia today), and there were whole villages and towns just a few miles from a concentration camp where a literal smell of death hung in the air for weeks on end. Jesus warned his followers: “There is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, or concealed that will not be made known” (Matthew 10:26). The context is different, true; but this surely is a universal truth.

It's easy for us to talk, of course – me as I sit at my desk tapping out these words, you as you sit in the comfort of your home reading them. But it’s precisely that that made me sit up: Would I have been any better? I would like to think so, of course, but…

Many of those brave protesters lost their lives, while those who kept their heads down “saved” them – but at what cost?

And so verse 12 spells it out: “Does not he who guards your life know it? Will he not repay everyone according to what they have done?” There is to be a day of reckoning, and none of us will be able to run and hide.

As I said, I sometimes read Proverbs with a smile on my face. But make no mistake, these three verses wiped it off pronto.

Father, please forgive me for the times I have turned a blind eye to ugly truths which make me feel uncomfortable. Thank you that you are a holy, perfectly just God who sees and knows all things. Help me to live day by day in the light of your purity, whatever the cost may be, and to have a practical concern for those who are victims of evil and injustice. Amen.