Proverbs 3:3-4 – Mercy and Truth

We now come to the second set of verses in Proverbs chapter 3, where he starts dealing with more specific topics. In these verses, his focus is on the twin virtues of mercy and truth:

Prov. 3:3-4      Let not mercy and truth forsake you;

Bind them around your neck,

Write them on the tablet of your heart,

And so find favour and high esteem

In the sight of God and man.

The combination of mercy and truth here is perhaps surprising when we think of how these things are viewed in our modern world. Mercy is seen as ‘being soft’ by letting people off the hook for the things they have done. Someone who is merciful is seen as having a soft touch; the sort of person you can walk all over and abuse, and yet they will always forgive you. We all like mercy to be extended to us, even when we battle to show it towards others. Truth, on the other hand, is considered to be a hard, black-and-white issue that is being increasingly rejected by the world. We hear arguments denying the very existence of truth as an objective fact – “It may be true for you, but not for me,” or, “There is no such thing as objective truth, it is just what we make of it.” People who stand for the truth and refuse to compromise are seen as stubborn and hard-headed; not the sort of person you really want to have around.

Yet, in verse 3, Solomon combines ‘soft’ mercy with ‘hard’ truth, as though these things go together naturally. Despite the world’s harsh treatment of the merciful, and vilification of the truthful, these two things do go together and their presence should be a mark of all Christians. Without truth, mercy loses its power, and without mercy, truth can be ineffective or even hurtful. They need to go together at all times. Let me explain by way of an illustration.

If you had committed a crime, but were entirely unaware of the law that made your action a crime, would you seek mercy from the judge? If the judge, who knows the law and therefore knows that you are a criminal, grants you mercy and forgives your crime, would you be grateful? Not likely. You would neither seek mercy, nor be thankful for it. However, your ignorance of the law does not absolve you of your crime automatically. The judge would be perfectly just in giving you a sentence or a fine that matches your transgression. In this case, your ignorance of the truth would send you to prison, or be grounds for a fine.

Suppose a friend of yours knew the law and watched you break it, without telling you that what you were doing is wrong. They knew that you would be hauled before a judge, and found guilty, but they did not lift a finger to prevent that from happening. Would you consider that person to be a true friend? I don’t think so. By withholding the truth from you at a critical moment, they allowed a course of events to start that would lead to your imprisonment or fine. If your friend told you the truth and warned you about breaking the law, then they would be showing mercy towards you, as they do not want you to fall foul of the judge.

Finally, consider a situation where you have committed a crime in ignorance, yet the police or the courts did not know about it. You then come into conflict with someone who out of vindictiveness digs through your life and finds this crime. Instead of alerting you to what you have done, and possibly giving you a chance to come clean before the court (thus getting a lesser sentence), this person goes straight to the court and reveals your crime. Alternatively, they tell all your friends and acquaintances about what you did, thus ruining your reputation. In all this, they told the truth – you are indeed guilty of a crime – but their actions were fuelled by hatred. This person used truth as a weapon to hurt you, and is most certainly not your friend!

Can you see how mercy and truth should be inseparable? These qualities are inseparable aspects of God. He is the truth, but He is also a God of mercy. As David declares: But You, O Lord, are a God full of compassion, and gracious, longsuffering and abundant in mercy and truth. (Ps. 86:15). The truth is that we have sinned against God by breaking His law, and for that the sentence is eternal separation from Him forever (a.k.a. hell). He does not alter the truth of His law, or declare evil to be good and wrong to be right, just to allow us into heaven. However, in His mercy He has found a just way to pay the price for our transgression against His law. The price was the death of His Son on the cross. In Him we find absolute truth and infinite mercy in perfect harmony.

Sadly, although God brings these two virtues together in unity, we as humans usually emphasize one at the expense of the other, as though they are incompatible. In liberal circles, the emphasis is very much on mercy, whilst truth appears to be non-existent. We must all just “love each other,” and try to bury the truth in the name of “peace”. Truth just gets in the way of all this overflowing, fake mercy and love. Christians who try to embrace these concepts, yet are aware of the truth revealed in the Bible are like the ‘friend’ above who watched whilst you unknowingly broke the law. They will “love” you straight to hell, and do nothing to stop your descent. A real friend would have enough mercy on the sinner to tell them the truth about their sin, in the hope that they might turn away from it before it is too late. That is a true display of mercy and love.

On the other extreme to liberalism, many conservative Christians maintain the truth to the detriment of mercy. They are self-righteous and proud about the truth they have, and are quick to condemn the “sinners out there” who are clearly so far from God. They don’t want to get too close to these sinners, or mingle with them in any way, just in case association with such dirty humans soils their purity. They like to use truth to hurt people – they gossip about the sin they saw someone else commit, thus exposing the sin in someone else’s life so that no-one notices their own sin. There were people just like this in Jesus’ day – the Pharisees, Sadducees, and other traditional religious leaders. He had some choice words for them: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like graves which are not seen, and the men who walk over them are not aware of them.” (Luke 11:44; see also Matt. 15:1-14; Luke 18:10-14).

In our Proverbs passage, Solomon urges the children of God to hold on to mercy and truth by binding them together: Let not mercy and truth forsake you; bind them around your neck. To bind something around your neck means to create a necklace of it. One of the characteristics of a necklace is that it is there for all to see. This is why some Christians choose to where a cross around their necks – to have a declaration of their faith in a place where everyone can see it. In the same way that a physical necklace is easy to see, so the combination of mercy and truth should be obvious to all who know us. They should be un-missable parts of our character. When we speak the truth, our motivation should be mercy. When we show mercy, we should not ignore or downplay the truth.

The next way we should keep these virtues is to write them on the tablet of your heart. This completely excludes religious hypocrisy. Mercy and truth should not be external things that we bring out and show off (especially in religious circles); they should be very real parts of who were are. The mercy that we show to others should be the product of real forgiveness from the heart. The truth that God reveals in His Word should drive us to prayer, as we realise how far short we fall from His perfect standard and how unworthy we are to judge others. Mercy and truth should have a permanent place in our hearts.

Finally, we come to the promised blessing that comes from maintaining mercy and truth: And so find favour and high esteem in the sight of God and man. Here we see that both God and man respond to a life that displays mercy and truth. We can understand why God would delight in His children who display His own characteristics in the world. By living this way, we shall one day hear the blessed words: “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Matt. 25:21).

Although God may reward us for our efforts, how can we expect favour and high esteem (i.e. respect) from wicked and sinful people? Truth is unpopular these days, and mercy is often abused and despised as weakness. Nonetheless, I believe that by sticking to these principles, we will win the hearts of some. It is hard to hate someone who tells you the truth in love (the parent of mercy). As you wear mercy and truth around your neck and in your heart (meaning that they are obvious and sincere), even your worst enemies will be robbed of accusations to use against you. Those who reject absolute truth may yet be won over by your mercy towards them. Those who abuse your mercy may yet be convicted by the truth that reigns in your life. May the Lord help us to bring these twin virtues into our lives and use them for His glory.