Proverbs 11 Summary - 5 Minute Bible Study
Proverbs 11 Short Summary:
Proverbs 11 continues the short proverbs of Solomon that began in chapter 10. Solomon’s proverbs are recorded in Proverbs chapter 10 through chapter 29. These proverbs are typically short and concise statements of wisdom for the medication of the reader.
Proverbs 11 Summary
DEFINITIONS:
Balance (11:1) – A balance is a scale used to determine the price of something at the market.
Integrity (11:3) – Being trustworthy, honest, and holding oneself to a high moral standard.
Treachery (11:6) – Betraying someone’s trust.
Discretion (11:22) – Behaving in a way that shows you respect yourself and the principles of virtue and honor.
HIGHLIGHTED PROVERBS:
PROVERB #1:
Proverbs 11:1 – “A false balance is an abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is His delight.”
When we go to the grocery store, we often pay for fruits and vegetables by weight.
If you are the grocery store owner, God knows whether your scale is accurate or if you’ve tampered with it to charge customers more than you should.
From this we learn that God is present with us in all our interactions with people, no matter how small, and He expects us to be honest in everything we do.
Being dishonest with others is a big deal to God, He calls it an “abomination.”
Can you think of any areas of your life where you take advantage of others, even if only in small ways?
PROVERB #2:
Proverbs 11:17 – “A man who is kind benefits himself, but a cruel man hurts himself.”
Being a kind person often requires personal sacrifice. It requires a person to think about others not just themselves. A
person who is kind goes out of their way to help other people. They care about other people’s feelings.
Kindness is often selfless, but it’s not without benefit to the person showing it. Solomon says a kind person benefits themselves.
Through their selfless kindness, they receive the affection of others, and the recipients of their kindness will be more likely to extend kindness back to them as a result of having received it.
Additionally, the kind person’s soul is benefited by mimicking its Creator.
In contrast, a cruel person may think they are benefiting themselves by thinking only of themselves, but in the long-term they actually hurting themselves and corrupting their souls.
PROVERB #3
Proverbs 11:22 – “Like a gold ring in a pig’s snout is a beautiful woman without discretion.”
This proverb reminds us of Lady Folly (Proverbs 7-9). She is beautiful and attractive, but she is to be avoided, because her beauty is a mask for her ugly heart.
A gold ring is beautiful, but it loses its beauty when you put it in a pig’s nose.
In English we have a similar expression, “It’s like putting lipstick on a pig.”
A woman may be beautiful, but if she lives without discretion, if she behaves in a way that shows she doesn’t respect herself and the principles of virtue and honor, her beauty is wasted, and it cannot make up for her tasteless lifestyle.
True beauty in the eyes of God and in the eyes of wise men is more than skin deep.
You don’t want to be like a cup that is clean on the outside but dirty on the inside. No matter how clean a cup may be on the outside, nobody wants to drink from it if the inside is full of dust and dirt.
