AS A MAN THINKETH?
by Ivan Maddox
“As a man thinketh, so is he,” and “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” are misquotes of Proverbs 23:7.
The verse actually reads:
Proverbs 23:7.
7 For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he: Eat and drink, saith he to thee; but his heart is not with thee.
This verse is usually used to teach that you are a product of your thinking; you become what you think. However, reading this verse in its context makes it clear that it is speaking about nothing of the sort.
Proverbs 23:6-8.
6 Eat thou not the bread of him that hath an evil eye, neither desire thou his dainty meats:
7 For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he: Eat and drink, saith he to thee; but his heart is not with thee.
8 The morsel which thou hast eaten shalt thou vomit up, and lose thy sweet words.
This passage is talking about dealing with a man who has “an evil eye,” that is, a stingy man. The passage is talking about eating a stingy man’s food, but it also applies to borrowing a stingy man’s money, or borrowing his car. The warning in this passage is not to be deceived by his friendly attitude and his generous words. Instead, remember what kind of man you’re dealing with, and modify your behavior accordingly, because he’s keeping track of every little thing you’re getting from him, and he’s going to make sure that he gets every bit of it back, one way or another.
So what does this have to do with becoming what you think? Not a thing. This is a case where, because a verse sounds similar to something we believe or want to teach, we we don’t examine it too closely. Instead, we cite it as evidence and move on.
In the New American Standard, the passage reads this way.
Proverbs 23:6-8 (NASB)
6 Do not eat the bread of a selfish man,
Or desire his delicacies;
7 For as he thinks within himself, so he is.
He says to you, "Eat and drink!"
But his heart is not with you.
8 You will vomit up the morsel you have eaten,
And waste your compliments.
I want to take a look at the progression that is supposed to be taking place here, the transformation of the host from a generous, or at least neutral, man thinking stingy thoughts to a selfish man.
The warning in verse 6 gives us the first clue. The guest knows in advance that his host is a selfish man. Otherwise, the warning not to eat with such a man has no meaning. This means that the host did not start out in this passage as an outwardly generous man, or even an outwardly neutral man. He is, instead, a man who is known by others as a selfish man, presumably based on his actions in the past.
So why is this selfish man inviting you to dinner? This is the point of the passage! A man who you already know is selfish is doing something unselfish for you! It may or may not be a dinner. He may be offering to buy you a car. He may be offering you a raise. He may be giving you a gift. But whatever he is doing, it is out of what you already know is his character! And the admonition here is, ask yourself why!
His generous deed, you are warned, will be accompanied by generous words. That makes it tempting to take his actions at face value. But, you are warned, don’t do it! Remember the kind of man you are dealing with. He’s only going to give to you if he already knows that he is going to get back much more in return. He is not giving to you from his heart; he is setting you up for the kill. This meal, or whatever it was he gave you, will cost you so much that in retrospect you will wish you had never received a thing from him!
What we see in this passage, then, is not a progression at all, but rather a masking of intent. The passage is intended to snatch the mask off a fraud, to give the intended victim of his benevolence a fighting chance to get away before his trap is sprung.
The selfish man is a known selfish man in verse 6a. He puts on a mask of generosity in verses 6b-7, but the reader is warned that nothing has changed; he’s still the same selfish man he was in verse 6, as the reader will find out in verse 8, if he’s not careful!
The passage is not about how the stingy man became stingy; that is not addressed in any manner whatsoever in the passage. Rather, the passage is about avoiding the trap of a man acting out of character. The reader is being admonished to watch out for the ulterior motives of those who are ostensibly trying to do him good.
Lest we miss this important point, we need to recognize that this is the second time this point is being made in this chapter.
Proverbs 23:1-3 (NASB)
1 When you sit down to dine with a ruler,
Consider carefully what is before you,
2 And put a knife to your throat
If you are a man of great appetite.
3 Do not desire his delicacies,
For it is deceptive food.
In this passage, the person trying to do you good is not necessarily a stingy man; he is a ruler. Most likely, you are not able in this case to refuse the invitation. Here the warning is to be on your guard and to ask yourself: Why is the ruler inviting me to eat with him? Most likely, as in the case of the stingy man, it is because he wants something from you. Once again, this is likely to be an expensive meal if you are not careful.
Once again in this passage, there is no lesson about progression. What we are encouraged to look at is not some sort of transformation on the part of the ruler, but rather to look for his ulterior motives.
Our first priority in studying a passage is to determine as best as possible what it is saying literally.
II Corinthians 11:3 (KJV).
3 But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.
Eve, in the garden, was drawn away from what God had said literally, and ended up espousing and believing the opposite of what He had said. Determining first the literal meaning of what is said helps defend against being corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.
Once the literal meaning has been determined, we may certainly look for other ways to expand on it and apply it. Just like Proverbs 23:6-8 is not restricted to talking about a meal, it is also not restricted to talking about a stingy man. It is talking about someone acting out of character to do something good for you. This may, indeed, be the result of a Road to Damascus style change, but this passage warns us not to take things at face value, and exhorts us to look for ulterior motives. Proverbs 23:1-3 is not necessarily talking about a king; it may be talking about a boss, or someone else in power over you. The point is, someone in power over you is seemingly doing something good for you. That may, indeed, be all there is to it, but Proverbs exhorts you to keep your eyes open for ulterior motives.
If you notice, every time I extend the meaning of this proverb, I trace it directly back to the literal meaning of the proverb. That is deliberate on my part. I am not trying to come up with my own doctrine here; I am trying to understand both the literal meaning and the extended meanings and implications of what the proverb says.
Verse 7, if we don’t read it carefully, sounds like it might be talking about a man becoming on the outside what he thinks about on the inside. That makes it tempting to cite this verse to make that point. The point is true, but this verse is not at all about that, and it is misleading to teach that it is.
When I was in the eighth grade, my geometry teacher taught us that although one could bisect an angle using a compass, you could not trisect an angle that way. At the end of the class, I went up and handed him a piece of paper on which I had trisected a right angle with a compass.
The problem was that even though my answer was right, my method was wrong. Although it had produced a correct result with a right angle, with any other angle it produced a wrong result.
I am doing this study because I am concerned about Christians citing verses that sound like they are saying the thing they are being used to prove or support, when in reality they are saying nothing of the sort. In the case of Proverbs 23:3-6, there is not much ostensibly at stake, because the point being made is scripturally true, even without support from this passage. But again and again this method is used in places where the consequences are far more serious. If we are not careful when it doesn’t seem to matter very much, we will also not be very careful when the stakes are high.