Can a man carry fire next to his chest and his clothes not be burned? –Proverbs 6:27
I’ve always found it interesting that Solomon wrote that line. Solomon apparently thought he was an exception to the rule. He carried fire next to his chest and it caused his whole kingdom to crumble. I considered this question awhile back, when I asked how old Solomon was when he wrote Proverbs. I still hold this position:
Yet I am increasingly convinced that Solomon was actually younger or middle aged when he wrote Proverbs 5-7. Given Solomon demise later in life this is absolutely shocking and serves as fitting warning to us. What all of this means is that Solomon—much like many of us—thought he was an exception to the rules. He knew full well that he was holding fire to his chest, but he thought he wouldn’t have gotten burned.
Bruce Waltke makes the point well:
“If one should ask, ‘If Solomon is the wise author, how could he have died such a fool?’ let it be noted that he constructed his own gibbet on which he impaled himself—that is, he ceased listening to his own instruction. Spiritual success today does not guarantee spiritual success tomorrow”.
The point I’m making today isn’t about Solomon and our own need to obey the Scriptures. Rather I want to think about this in the context of parenting. I fear that our media habits might be holding fire to the chest of our children. And I also think our generation is just arrogant enough to think they’ll not get burned by it.
In his excellent and eye-opening book, The Purity Principle, author Randy Alcorn compares consumption of suggestive media to taking a little bit of arsenic. We wouldn’t even think of having our children peering through a window to watch the newly-wed neighbors making out in a car. We’d shut the curtains and shield them from such a thing. It’s a fire we recognize would burn them. But why do we suddenly think because it’s mediated between a television screen instead of a window that they will not be burned?
It’s not my goal to give any sort of hard and fast rules that I think you ought to abide by. I don’t think the issue here is a ratings system. It’s just a simple question. Are we setting our children up for failure? Are we teaching them how to play with fire and expecting they won’t get burned?
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