My Sunday School and Friday night Bible classes for men put in our church sponsored program by "invitation" from a judge dealing with their misdemeanors and felonies. Every 3 months the class recycles to have all new faces, an almost all new mixture of the scoffers to the already penitent. Our first project centers around studying Proverbs one chapter each meeting, for 31 meetings, then we go on to the NT. I always start off with this passage....
Proverbs 9:8-12 (KJV)
[SUP]8 [/SUP] Reprove not a scorner, lest he hate thee: rebuke a wise man, and he will love thee.
[SUP]9 [/SUP] Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be yet wiser: teach a just man, and he will increase in learning.
[SUP]10 [/SUP] The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.
[SUP]11 [/SUP] For by me thy days shall be multiplied, and the years of thy life shall be increased.
[SUP]12 [/SUP] If thou be wise, thou shalt be wise for thyself: but if thou scornest, thou alone shalt bear it.
So I explain to them, with their smirks and crossed arms, rolling eyes (yes, even among 20-50 year-olds acting like spoiled kids), etc. why they already hate me their teacher and don't know me. But I tell them they will get over that, to which the men that have been there on a 6 month assignment heartily affirm.
All ministers of the word are hated by the wicked. Jesus promised that for us because they hated him first. So verse 8 isn't a prohibition against
rebuking with the word, especially when some listening have gained some wisdom but are joined with the unlearned wicked also hearing, the latter not wanting to listen. I promise them they all will be wiser men by the end of proverbs.
Luke 17:3-4 (KJV) [SUP]3 [/SUP] Take heed to yourselves: If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him. [SUP]4 [/SUP] And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying, I repent; thou shalt forgive him.
There's no way to estimate how many men have confided that had their daddy been exposed to proverbs, then teaching them such wisdom, they strongly believe both their daddy and they would not have been criminals. No matter what a man has done, all are touched mightily by however much of Proverbs they learn.
