Proverbs 13:23-25

A poor man's little plot, worked hard and worked wisely, out-feeds a rich man's estate run carelessly. A little is made much by God's blessing and pains; much is made little by waste and bad judgment. The variable that matters is almost never the size of what you start with — it is the faithfulness and the judgment applied to it. True of fields, businesses, paychecks — and of grace: a small gift stewarded beats a large gift squandered, and the harvest of grace can wither into famine for want of tending.

The most resented verse in the chapter — so let it speak precisely, because it guards against two opposite ways of ruining a son.

First flank: neglect dressed up as kindness. The father who cannot bear to correct — who keeps the peace, buys the toy, looks away — calls it love. Call things by their right names: the verse calls it hate, because its root is not affection for the child but love of ease in the parent. The indulgence of our children has its root in self-indulgence; correction costs, and he won't pay. Scripture shows the bill arriving: Eli, whose sons "made themselves vile, and he restrained them not" (1 Samuel 3:13) — and the house fell. A child can be destroyed in a bed of roses as surely as anywhere else.

Second flank: temper dressed up as discipline. The rod in this verse is never rage. A big dog bites a little one that annoys him — what is that but animal? Discipline in a passion is just a large creature hurting a small one. The rod that loves is measured, deserved, explained, and grieved over: for a real fault, not a childish accident; in proportion — punishment beyond desert is punishment of innocence; never in anger; with the child convinced of the why; mixed with open commendation of everything done well. It is easy to use a rod. It is far from easy to use it well.

Hold the jeweler's picture: a master cutter receives a great rough diamond, studies its grain for weeks, then grinds — slowly, patiently, along the grain — until the stone blazes. Strike it carelessly and you shatter it; refuse to cut at all and it stays dull forever. Children are jewels — bright jewels. Neither strike them unskillfully, nor let them lie uncut. And "betimes" means early — the morning of life, while the twig still bends: if you who love him do not bend him while he is a child, the world that does not love him will break him after he is a man.

One more floor up, for every grown reader who is being disciplined right now by God: this verse is His own parenting explained. "For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth" (Hebrews 12:6). Chastening never makes you a son — sonship comes by faith in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:26) — but it proves you are one, and it is administered by a Father who cannot err, along the grain, in love, betimes.

The chapter closes at the table. The righteous man eats and is satisfied — enough for his need, not everything his eyes ever wandered over, and contentment makes it a feast: "I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content" (Philippians 4:11). The wicked man's belly wants — and it wants on any income, because his appetite is a chaos no abundance can fill: Ahab owned a kingdom and sulked over one neighbor's vineyard (1 Kings 21). Augustine prayed the verse's deepest layer: our heart is restless until it rests in Thee. Nature is content with little, grace with less — and the soul is content with nothing less than God.