Solomon Says

I remember (distantly, vaguely) being taught to ride a bicycle as a young child. My parents shouldered the burden of teaching me. I am glad I don’t remember in detail all the whining they had to put up with or the extra encouraging and cajoling they had to practice to get it to happen.

Don’t misunderstand. I desperately wanted to ride a bike, at least in theory. One of the few childhood tantrums I remember was over getting a bike. But getting one is not the same as being able to use a bicycle. And wanting to learn to ride feels different as a distant desire than it feels when you are wobbling on the unsteady seat, realizing that your father is about to remove his hands that are holding you up. You are going to have to pedal, steer, and stay upright on your own.

One of the most basic abilities a person must possess to have a chance of working with others and being productive is “self-control.” “A man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls” (Proverbs 25:28). According to Luke, the need for self-control was a basic feature of the Apostle Paul’s preaching (see Acts 24:25).

While my book is about what SOLOMON SAYS (Amazon, Kindle), sometimes it might be helpful to consider what his father, King David, sang.  And what he might have taught Solomon to sing. For example, God speaks through King David:

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you. Be not like a horse or a mule, without understanding, which must be curbed with bit and bridle, or it will not stay near you.

Psalm 32:8–9 ESV

Proverbs is made up of books—seven by my count. Though some split it in two, I think all of Proverbs 31 is an oracle by King Lemuel’s mother warning him about women and drink and encouraging him to value a godly wife.

I am not the only reader who has noticed that the books of Proverbs seem to begin and end on a similar not. Proverbs 1-9 is features exhortation to respond to the invitation of Lady Wisdom and spurn the seductions of Lady Folly, which parallels the exhortation to be faithful to the wife of one’s youth and resist the temptations of the adulterous.

I have, from youth, liked superhero stories, as well as other kinds of action hero stories. But I wonder to what extent some of them encourage something that might be accurately labeled “toxic masculinity.” A more precise label might be “strength privilege.”

Before I delve into the pop culture side of things, let’s establish that Proverbs is concerned with strength.

• “My son, if your heart is wise, my heart too will be glad. My inmost being will exult when your lips speak what is right” (Proverbs 23:15–16 ESV).
• “Be wise, my son, and make my heart glad, that I may answer him who reproaches me” (Proverbs 27:11 ESV)..

Proverbs shows a father finds joy and public vindication in the acquired wisdom of his son. In my book, Solomon Says (Amazon, Kindle) I write quite a bit of how Proverbs relates to Genesis. The first father-son relationship in the Bible is God’s creation of mankind. That may not seem obvious at first, from Genesis 1 and 2, but Genesis 5 gives us an interpretive key:

This is the book of the generations of Adam. When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them Man when they were created. When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth.

Genesis 5:1–3 ESV