The sting of sending a sluggard: Preaching a single verse from a chiasm in Proverbs

by Dan Phillips

I'm coming to the end of preaching the first ten chapters of Proverbs verse by verse, hoping to help my folks be able to win any ¿Quien es mas macho? competition among pastors. Well, that, and other things.

So as I shared, Duane Garrett helped me see that the last section of the chapter (10:19-32) breaks down into a chiasm. That helped me a lot in figuring out how to preach it. First, I preached on the first four verses, focusing on speech; then on the next four verses, dealing with security. So much for Section A and Section B.

But what to do with the single, lone verse making up Section C? What of verse 26, dealing with Sloth?

Obviously, there were three main honest choices (skipping it is not an honest choice):

1. Group it with the preceding section, on security.
2. Group it with the following section on, once again, security.
3. Preach it all by its lonesome.

At first glance it made the best sense to pick 1 or 2... except when I thought about it. It would either be, "This about security, and this about security, and this about security, and this about security... oh, and a thought about the sluggard." Or it would be "A thought about the sluggard. Now, to four verses about security."

Against the law? Immoral? Heretical? No; but awkward. And not really doing justice to the genius and intents of Solomon, nor to those of the inspiring Spirit.

But could this single verse bear the weight of a whole sermon? I'd already preached very emphatically on the sluggard from chapter 6; what to add? It is a moral crime to make the Bible boring. How to avoid that?

I also was pressed by the fact that Solomon had emphasized this verse. He was the one who did a cluster on speech, a cluster on security; then a mirror-cluster on security and a mirror-cluster on speech — and put that one long verse on sending a sluggard in the middle. Wasn't he emphasizing it?

So, out of respect for Solomon (and the Spirit who inspired him), I looked more closely, prayed, thought, listened closely to my smarter friends. And it came to me.

At first read, it seems painfully simple, to the point of banality. No one likes smoke in his eyes or acidic drink on sore gums, and it's like that to send a sluggard. Sending sluggard = bad. Got it. Thanks.

But as I've said before, every time Solomon seems banal it's a signal to look closer.

So: why did Solomon pick vinegar and smoke, and why a sluggard? Why not vinegar and smoke, and a fool, for instance? What's special about a sluggard?

Then I started realizing: as a rule, nobody wants smoke, and nobody wants sour wine (which is what "vinegar" usually means in the Bible). In the first case, what one really wanted was fire; and in the second, a nice drink of sweet, refreshing wine. Ah, but ouch and yuck, instead he got smoke stinging his eyes, and acidic sour wine stinging his gums. What a disappointment. What a failed promise. What a letdown...

And there it was. The sluggard specializes in being a disappointment, a letdown. He majors in staring opportunity in the face, and taking a nap, or manufacturing excuses, and otherwise letting it go to ruin.

And that's bad enough when it's only himself he effects (which, strictly, is never); it's worse when it's my message, or my job that he's letting go to ruin.

That seen, it all opened to me. The first application of this proverb, and a host of other applications: to Solomon, to Israel, to Christ, and to each and every one of us.

And there I had a scorcher of a sermon.

The key was respecting the text and its signals, and seeing the mind of God revealed in its formation.

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