Proverbs 18:3 · World English Bible
Proverbs 18:3 Meaning When Wickedness Comes
When wickedness comes, contempt also comes, and with shame comes disgrace.
What does Proverbs 18:3 mean?
What the mind calls wickedness arriving from outside is really the coming of its own choice for fear, and contempt and reproach follow because they were always its companions. Where separation is chosen, judgment is already present, for the ego cannot look upon a world without ranking it, scorning some and shaming others, and calling the scorn justice.
From the Christian Psychology reading below.
Proverbs 18:3 through 1 lens
The same verse, read by one tradition.
Christian Psychology
CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY
Christian Psychology
What the mind calls wickedness arriving from outside is really the coming of its own choice for fear, and contempt and reproach follow because they were always its companions. Where separation is chosen, judgment is already present, for the ego cannot look upon a world without ranking it, scorning some and shaming others, and calling the scorn justice.
But none of this enters from beyond. It rises with the decision to see through the eyes of fear. The contempt a mind meets is the contempt it brought, and the reproach it feels is its own guilt returning. Choose the other teacher, and the wicked one that seemed to arrive is found to have been only a way of looking.
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Live Proverbs 18:3 today
- The next time your phone makes your chest tighten before you have even read the message, pause and name what you were already expecting. You brought that to the screen.
- Before you walk into the room with the person you find difficult, decide once not to go in looking for evidence. You will find whatever you go in looking for.
- On the commute, when the driver cuts you off and your whole body says they did that to me, try on the version where they are just late and frightened. Same event, different day.
What did you bring into the room, before anything in it had done a thing to you?
The same truth in other traditions
Buddhism · Dhammapada
All that we are arises from what we have thought. Speak or act from a troubled mind and trouble follows you like a wheel follows the ox.
Stoicism · Epictetus
It is not events that disturb people, but their judgments about events. The insult you felt was something you added.
Taoism · Zhuangzi
When the mirror is clean, it reflects without distortion. The grime you see on the world is often the grime on the glass.
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