David Bahn – Reflections

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These devotions are part of the Follow the Word Bible reading program at St. John Lutheran Church in Cypress, Texas. This year we are reading through the Scriptures together, listening for how God speaks through his Word day by day. I hope you will join me on this journey.

Today’s readings are Proverbs 22-24, Psalm 139.

Proverbs 23:1-7

When you sit down to eat with a ruler,
    observe carefully what is before you,
² and put a knife to your throat
    if you are given to appetite.
³ Do not desire his delicacies,
    for they are deceptive food.
⁴ Do not toil to acquire wealth;
    be discerning enough to desist.
⁵ When your eyes light on it, it is gone,
    for suddenly it sprouts wings,
    flying like an eagle toward heaven.
⁶ Do not eat the bread of a man who is stingy;
    do not desire his delicacies,
⁷ for he is like one who is inwardly calculating.
    “Eat and drink!” he says to you,
    but his heart is not with you.

Imagine interviewing for a very high position in your company. The final step involves dinner with the president of the company and his wife. Several others are there. The wine is flowing. The food is exquisite. The atmosphere feels intoxicating in more ways than one. Another glass of wine? Dessert? A pour of expensive cognac?

Do you understand what it means to “put a knife to your throat” (Proverbs 23:2)?

Proverbs uses startling language to make an important point: exercise self-control. Know where the danger lies. Slow down. Enjoy the evening, but do not let appetite – for food, drink, approval, or advancement – master you. Maybe you stop at one glass of wine – perhaps even less. Maybe you leave a bit of that Wagyu beef on your plate. You quietly keep your wits about you while others indulge.

Will you get the job? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Maybe the chairman of the board is impressed by your poise, discretion, and restraint. Maybe not. Perhaps they expect you to drink with the best of them and navigate the world of power and privilege with ease.

But Proverbs invites us to ask a deeper question: Whose approval matters most? It is easy to hunger not only for fine food and drink, but also for recognition, advancement, and the notice of powerful people. Yet there is One whose notice matters more than any CEO or chairman of the board.

You may never impress the chairman. But you may learn to live in a way that seeks what pleases the King of the Universe.

That does not mean earning his approval. We cannot gain God’s favor through self-control, wisdom, or integrity. Yet by his grace, fully shown in Jesus, we already stand in his favor through faith. Freed from chasing the approval of others, we learn to seek what pleases him. As Paul says, “we make it our aim to please him” (2 Corinthians 5:9).

Jesus said that “wisdom is justified by her deeds” (Matthew 11:19). That seems an appropriate commentary on this passage and, in many ways, the whole book of Proverbs. Wisdom is not merely learning restraint or landing the high-powered job. It is learning where true wisdom is found: to fear, love, and trust in the LORD above all things.

That kind of wisdom will stand you in good stead whether you become CEO of a multi-billion-dollar company, a Sunday School teacher, or a Pioneer Boys leader. And whether the world notices or not, you live before the eyes of the One who, by grace in Christ, has already made you his own.

Click here, or on the image below for the Bible Project Video on Proverbs