Righteousness Exalts a Nation

SERMON SUMMARY

Proverbs assumes that human beings are shaped by the company they keep and by the common goals and the way of life they share with others (14:7). Therefore, when God renews the people, they will have “one heart and one way” (Jer 32:39).

Shared commitments animate a people in a common way of life and create communities, some good and some bad. The question of individual identity is always a question of community, from family and church, school and business, all the way up to nation and state. Communities create the paths we walk.

In the ultimate order of things, goodness and right prevail over wickedness and wrong (14:19). For Proverbs, the most important difference among people concerns, not their wealth or

social status, but their moral-religious character (see Commentary on 14:21).

All human groups, whatever their size, can be characterized in terms of their spiritual-moral behavior (14:33). In the bare-bones language of Proverbs, such behavior is simply righteous or sinful. Since the Lord is creator of the universe (3:19-20), this saying applies not just to Israel, but to all nations, which are subject to God’s standards for human conduct (Amos 1:3-2:16).

A nation is a unit. But in a nation as large and diverse as the United States, good and moral people are easily tempted to distance themselves from segments of the nation they consider violent or sinful. About this problem, M. Scott Peck wrote:

“Any group will remain inevitably potentially conscienceless and evil until such time

as each and every individual holds himself or herself directly responsible for the behavior of the whole group – the organism – of which he or she is a part.

We have not yet begun to arrive at that point.”

M Scott Peck, People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil