Proverbs 19-22 There are people with integrity and those who are the scorners/scoffers. Maybe like me, you too struggle with these people. They draw my ire, and I find them to be despicable.
Now, sometimes as we read, we come across a pithy saying that tells us what God is really looking for in a person. He says scoffers bring about contention and strife, so drive them out! [Prov 22:10] and Prov 19:1 “Better is a poor person who walks in his integrity than one who is perverse in his speech and is a fool.” So we see the truth, but just as Jesus taught with examples, we also find teaching examples,
For example, King Ahab and his wife Jezebel were biblical characters that lacked integrity. They also were scoffers who scoffed at God. In sharp contrast was Naboth, the vineyard keeper, a poor man but a man of integrity. He lived next door to the palace, and he tended his land because it was his ancestral inheritance, and he would not relinquish it even for a penny—even to a king! It was not the money, but it all boiled down to integrity. But King Ahab wanted Naboth’s vineyard, so he stooped to deceit and murder to get it. God told Elijah to tell Ahab that He would bring disaster upon his ancestral line because of his sin of murder and his lack of integrity. He lacked the honesty of Naboth through and through.
The lesson for us is in the proverb: God looks for someone who exemplifies integrity, like Naboth. Am I a Naboth or King Ahab? OUCH!
