Proverbs 23:19-21 – Dealing with indulgence

Proverbs 23:19-21 is a call to live a life of temperance. It comes as a caution from a father imploring a son to listen earnestly. In reading these verses, there is a sense of urgency in the plea for us not to be indulgent.   

Ours is a hedonistic culture. Food and wines and all sorts of pleasure are readily available in our affluent nation. We are assailed with commercials from the newspapers, magazines, television, radio, internet, billboards, flyers and etc, beseeching us to live an indulgent life. Their advertisements shout so loudly, and many billboards downtown appear so glaringly, beckoning us to be indulgent. The blitz of commercial has tempted many to a point where some find it almost impossible to resist a self-seeking, pleasure-seeking life. As believers, it is needful all the more to take heed to the admonition of verses 20-21. This is a call not to be over-indulgent in wine and food.

Occasional social drinking and dining can help to build relationship. But when we over-indulge till wine and food become a compulsion in life, we will soon become a wine-bibber and a glutton. Wisdom dictates that we should be temperate so that we will not lose control and live a careless, thoughtless life. For a person who loses control over his life and becomes over-indulgent, will soon squander away his resources and end up in poverty. We must not allow anything to draw us away from God, much less an over-indulgent life. For it is only the weak that must thrive on indulgence.

In Philippians 4:5, we are charged to let our temperance, forbearance or moderation be known to all men. Colossians 3:1-3 exhort us to “… seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. And to “…set our minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For we have died, and our life is hid with Christ in God.”