READING FOR JULY 31, 2025: PROVERBS 13, TITUS 2, PSALM 74:12-23 PROVERBS 13 As with all the chapters from the Proverbs, the torrent of wisdom provided in this chapter makes it hard within the limited space of these reading guides to reflect sufficiently on all the topics raised. It is interesting to note that this chapter begins by discussing parental discipline: “A wise son accepts his father’s discipline, but a scoffer does not listen to rebuke.” In this case, it focuses on the role of the child responding to verbal correction. Toward the end of the chapter, we see a focus on the role of the father disciplining his son: “He who withholds his rod hates his son, but he who loves him disciplines him diligently.” While we don’t know in this case if the rod implies physical punishment (as Prov. 23:13 seems to say) or just guidance (as in “Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me”), we do know that the disciplineis to be applied in love and diligence.
Since the son receiving the discipline must accept and pay due attention to it, Solomon seems to be suggesting that the son must be at the cognitive stage of development of understanding what he did wrong and what he should do right going forward. The father needs to consider this in determining the kind of discipline that would most likely achieve this result. Factors mentioned involved in this determination include love and diligence—not anger and knee-jerk reaction. Might this diligence include searching the scriptures and researching best practices based upon empirical studies, as well as also not just letting bad behavior slide by because it is too unpleasant to address?
We do know from the Bible that all fatherly discipline will not be initially welcomed by those receiving it, so it is not up for a vote as to whether it happens: “’My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, Nor faint when you are punished by Him; For whom the Lord loves He disciplines, And He punishes every son whom He accepts.’ It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline. But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness. For the moment, all discipline seems not to be pleasant, but painful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterward it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness” (Heb. 12:5-11).
TITUS 2 Paul directs Titus to tell specific groups the behavior fitting with sound doctrine:
- To Older Men: Be moderate, dignified, self-controlled in behavior. Be sound in faith, in love, in perseverance.
- To Older Women: Be reverent, not a gossiper, not a substance abuser; teach young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, and subject to their own husbands.
- To Younger Men: Be sensible, do good deeds, be pure in doctrine, be dignified with speech.
READING FOR JULY 31, 2025 CONTINUED: TITUS 2, PSALM 74:12-23
- To Slaves/Employees: Be subject to their own masters, be pleasing and not argumentative; don’t steal, but show good faith.
- To Everyone: Deny ungodliness and worldly desires; live sensibly, righteously, and in a godly manner; look forward to seeing our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.
While there is certainly overlap in these various guidelines, the instructions are definitely targeted at each group. Group-specific differences seem to go in and out fashion much like clothing styles. Perhaps there’s wisdom in aligning our views of the differences to those given in the Bible. Paul, however, doesn’t give Titus any specific instruction to provide to young women. Guidelines to them are enfolded in guidelines given to older women, who are told to pass them along to younger women. Perhaps it would have been immodest for Titus to do this directly or perhaps the younger women would receive it better coming from older women.
Are all these guidelines weird to the general public? They should be. Paul said they are meant to differentiate Christians from nonbelievers, “to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, eager for good deeds.” Paul doesn’t want Titus to be apologetic in his directions: “These things speak and exhort, and rebuke with all authority. No one is to disregard you.”
PSALM 74:12-23 In the first part of this chapter, great emotion is spent describing the current crises Asaph is experiencing. Now Asaph starts to focus upon what he knows to be true about God from his study of the scriptures. He begins to relive all the works of God going back to creation, works he could have only known about through reading God’s word or hearing about from his elders. His problems seem to shrink when this larger reality is considered. God doesn’t want us to escape from difficult realities but to factor in the larger reality of His kingdom
Then when he returns in verse 18 to the current tormentors, he reframes them as totally mistaken and misguided for thinking they could possibly taunt such a great God. Do the forces of evil seem to be taunting God at the moment? Do we as God’s people feel ridiculed and afflicted? Maybe we are forgetting the larger reality of God’s kingdom. The worst part of such a crisis is not Asaph’s pain or ours but how God is being treated. Asaph says our best strategy is to praise God and ask Him to arise to plead His cause.
