Agur asks the Lord to provide him with his needs so that two scenarios would be avoided. First, he does not wish to be tempted to steal through poverty. Second, he does not wish tempted to deny his need for God because of his riches. And the balance of the Christian life is to receive from God’s hand whatever shape his providential distribution of wealth may take. The riches of eternal life and reconciliation to God received in Christ are of far more worth than any material blessings of this life.
I have not done many devotional studies as part of this blog but not too long ago I was reading through Proverbs. As often happens, in reading through a text that I had read many times before, I was struck by something new. Proverbs 30:7-9 says:
“7 Two things I ask of you; deny them not to me before I die: 8 Remove far from me falsehood and lying; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me, 9 lest I be full and deny you and say, ‘Who is the LORD?’ or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God.”
This proverb is perhaps unique in that it is a prayer directed to the Lord, a request from a person who has a living faith to the God who sanctifies him. It is by no means intended to be the exclusive prayer of the saint, but it does show the importance of two qualities in the Christian life which are often neglected.
The Importance of Honesty
The proverb directs the believer to ask God to make him an honest, truth-telling person. Perhaps it is overly simplistic to note that this exhortation has to be made. However, the fact that the prayer is offered points out the Christian may still be tempted with, and fall into, dishonesty. As a result, the proverb makes an appeal to the Lord that He would work in the Christian what he is unable to accomplish on his own. The prayer of the proverb is that he be kept from “falsehood and lying.” But why is truthfulness so significant to the Christian?
The Bible teaches that Jesus is the embodiment of the truth (John 14:6), while the devil is the father of lies (John 8:44). Since the Bible calls believers to imitate the Lord (Ephesians 5:1) and since Jesus attributes the lies of the Pharisees to the fact that they are children of the devil (John 8:44), the issue of truth telling is very closely related to spiritual parentage. In fact, speaking the truth is so important that God includes it as part of the Moral Law, summarized in the Ten Commandments. The ninth commandment specifically deals with honesty.
In the Westminster Shorter Catechism’s explanation of the ninth commandment it summarizes its function as “maintaining and promoting of truth between man and man.” That means its intention goes beyond telling the truth in a court of law. Verses like Proverbs 30:7 bear that out as it is addresses removing falsehood and lying in a more general sense.
Falsehood can have an obvious meaning, but there is a sense in which we can actually use the truth to promote falsehood. An example would be gossip. Gossip is a truthful communication of facts for a false end. Of course, falsehood is also the communication of what is not true. An example would be slander. In slander false information, or maybe information that is only partially true is shared. Both gossip and slander show up in Christian circles. The proverb exhorts Christians to ask God to turn them away from those things. However, the more obvious meaning about falsehood deals with lying.