Connect360: Friends in High Places

• Lesson 12 in the Connect360 unit “The Search for Wisdom: Words to Live By” focuses on Proverbs 27:17.

I have never worked as a smith, but I have seen such on TV or in the movies. You have likely seen it, too, so you know that fashioning iron is a violent activity. There is a white-hot fire and there is the pounding of metal by some kind of sledgehammer. There is a deafening sound as metal crashes against metal. Sparks fly as the battering continues.

It is a difficult process requiring much work and determination. The smith continues to pound, however, knowing that the product is worth all his pains.

Our proverb used this imagery in describing human relationships. Specifically, the writer was entreating his Jewish family, those who believe in the one true God, to help one another become the best they can be. Sometimes that involves corrections and interventions that can be very difficult. Those corrections, however, when done in the Spirit of the Lord and according to the word of the Lord, are always the most loving thing we can do.

One of the worst lies the devil deceives us with sounds like this: If you love someone, you always support them no matter what. That idea is not biblical and is not of God.

Let us say for example that your 6-year-old likes to play in the street. You sit down your son and explain that the street is not safe. There are cars and trucks that travel those lanes, and they could hurt him. Your child says he will not go there anymore. A couple of days later, you find that same child in the street again. Let me ask you, what is the most loving thing you can do for that child? Knowing the possibility of injury or even death, a loving parent will do what is necessary to be sure that child will not continue to play in the street. Iron sharpens iron.

It was the Sabbath and Jesus, as was his custom, was at the local synagogue. He was asked to read the scroll of Isaiah and did so, saying: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:18–19). Then, knowing it would be controversial and yet also knowing he was the Way, the Truth and the Life, Jesus, with a heart filled with love for them all confessed: “Today, this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21).

This was a critically important iron sharpens iron moment. The Jews viewed the “Year of the Lord’s favor” as the beginning of the Messianic age. Those who were present and heard Jesus speak these words would have known that he was claiming to be the Messiah.

Notice their reaction. Most of them were greatly offended accusing Jesus of blasphemy. In fact, Luke tells us, “All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard [what Jesus said]. They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff” (Luke 4:28–29).

Jesus, however, loved them, so he was willing to confront their thinking and their hearts. They were not thinking rightly about their relationship with God. God’s Messiah was preaching to them about the kingdom of heaven and about forgiveness and salvation, but they had not been listening. Again, the most loving thing Jesus could do was to challenge them in their error. Iron sharpens iron.

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