CRITICAL NOTES.—
Proverbs 10:17. Not, He is in the way, but “He is the way.” Erreth, causeth others to err.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF Proverbs 10:17
THE INFLUENCE OF EXAMPLE
We take here the rendering of all recent commentators as given in the Critical Notes, and understand the verse to set forth the truth that “no man liveth to himself.” His character is reproduced in others.
I. A good man is a way, because he is the means to an end. The way to the city is the road by which we reach it. The life of a holy man is a way to spiritual and eternal life, because it is the means by which men come home to God. If there were no good men in the world, there would be no means by which sinners could be brought from death unto life. Christ is pre-eminently “the way,” because His life is the great means by which men learn to know and to return to God. “No man cometh unto the Father but by Me” (John 14:6). The longer a path is trodden the more distinctly it proclaims itself as a way. So a good man becomes a more evident way the longer he lives. A good life is so distinct in its teachings that both sage and savage are compelled to admit its influence, and the longer it exerts its power for good the more pronounced it becomes. The Son of God has for ages been the way to life, and the longer He continues to be so the more distinctly is He seen to be the means to this end.
II. The conditions to be fulfilled in order to become a way of life.
1. The man must keep instruction. It is not enough to receive it. The Word of God must not only be heard, but must be remembered. The commandments of God must not only be received, but must be kept. “If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them” (John 13:17).
2. He must submit to discipline even when it takes the form of reproof. This is implied in the last clause of the verse, “He that refuseth reproof causeth to err.” The man who has attained a position in any profession, and has thereby become qualified to lead others, has done so because he has submitted to discipline even when it has been in the unpalatable form of reproof. Such a man can well exhort others to submit to that by which he has become fit to be their guide. Even the Son of God “learned obedience by the things which He suffered” (Hebrews 5:8).
III. An ungodly man injures others as well as himself. He not only wanders from the path himself, but he “causeth (others) to err.” We often hear it said of a godless man—of one “who refuseth reproof”—that “he is nobody’s enemy but his own.” This cannot be. It has been truly said that “nothing leaves us wholly as it found us. Every man we meet, every book we read, every picture or landscape we see, every word or tone we hear, mingles with our being and modifies it.” This being so, every man makes every man with whom he comes in contact better or worse, and as every good man draws others into the path of life, so every man who refuses to submit to Divine discipline drags others with him in the broad road that leads to destruction.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
St. Basil, answering the question, “With what mind anyone ought to receive the instructions of reproof administered unto him,” giveth this answer, “With the same mind that befitteth him who, being sick of some disease and troubled for the preserving of life, receiveth a medicine, namely, with the greatest desire of recovering his health.” For there is a way of life though a man be not sick but dead unto sin. And the hand that putteth into this way is instruction, and that which must keep us in the way is the keeping of instruction: for he that refuseth reproof erreth, erreth in refusing, erreth more by refusing.—Jermin.
This is the idea of other verses (11–13): that a man going to heaven blazes a path for others. He is a way. Others travel upon him in his prayers and in his example.—Miller.