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Mid-century illustration of a tree planted by a pool of water on a path

Proverbs 28:15 · World English Bible

Proverbs 28:15 Meaning As a Roaring Lion or a Charging

As a roaring lion or a charging bear, so is a wicked ruler over helpless people.

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What does Proverbs 28:15 mean?

The savage beasts prowling over the helpless are a picture of the ego set up as ruler within, and this is how fear governs when the mind hands it the throne. It rules by threat, roaring and ranging, keeping the mind convinced it is small and prey, forever menaced by a power it cannot appease.

From the Christian Psychology reading below.

Proverbs 28:15 through 1 lens

The same verse, read by one tradition.

CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY

Christian Psychology

The savage beasts prowling over the helpless are a picture of the ego set up as ruler within, and this is how fear governs when the mind hands it the throne. It rules by threat, roaring and ranging, keeping the mind convinced it is small and prey, forever menaced by a power it cannot appease. What seems to hunt from outside is the mind's own guilt given fangs and set loose in a mirror.

The poor are not weak by nature; they are only a mind that has forgotten its strength and so believes it can be devoured. When that mind chooses love as its teacher, the beast has nothing left to feed on, because there was never a real predator, only fear wearing the shape of one.

Roaring lion and ranging bear: the ego enthroned as ruler, fear governing the mind by threat and the appearance of a power that hunts it The poor people: the mind that has forgotten its strength and believes itself prey to what is only its own projected guilt

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Christian Psychology lens

Live Proverbs 28:15 today

  1. The next time dread shows up before you even open your phone, stop and ask what you are actually afraid of. Say it plainly to yourself, and watch how much smaller it gets once it has a name instead of a growl.
  2. With someone who makes you shrink, a boss, a relative, a voice in a group chat, hold onto the fact that you are talking to a person and not a predator. You can stay kind without handing them the throne.
  3. When you feel cornered at work and the panic says you are about to be eaten, put both feet on the floor and breathe out slowly. Then answer from the part of you that is not prey, even if your voice shakes a little.

What have I been treating as a threat that may only be my own fear wearing a face?

The same truth in other traditions

Buddhism · Dhammapada

The harm an enemy can do you is small beside the harm of an untrained mind. What rules you from inside outruns anything that threatens you from outside.

Vedanta

The rope on the path looks like a snake and the fear is entirely real, but the snake never was. When the rope is seen as rope, there is nothing left to be afraid of and nothing had to be killed.

Stoicism · Marcus Aurelius

Take away your judgment that you have been harmed and the harm itself goes with it. The power you fear is mostly the power your own opinion keeps lending it.

Mid-century illustration of Jesus teaching the crowd on a hillside above the sea

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