This Proverbs is very obviously written for a son as a warning against adultry.   In reading this, two thoughts come to mind from what is written.  Before getting into that though, just a general comment - it seems like adultry is becoming so commonplace now.  It almost seems like affairs and divorces are losing their ‘shock factor’ in our society.  That is a terrible thing.  I am honestly not sure where affairs and adultry are actually more common now, or if this is just something where we are just hearing about it more...I don’t know.  Either way though, it is tragic to see the erosion of the marital union like that.  And, to be fair, there are far more marriages that are just agreements and relationships, where the relationship is obviously not really there, and the husband and wife are just too proud to actually go through the motions of divorce, or where they are just in it for the kids...and I guess that’s slightly better than divorce, but I don’t know; if it is better, it is by the narrowest of margins.  I think the biggest tragedy would be if marital relationships are materially worse than they have been historically, and I don’t know the stats behind that.  What families need, what kids need, and what we each need individually is a vibrant husband-wife relationship.  There are a myriad of benefits for all associated parties when that is in place.  The point isn’t to ‘stay married’, but to have a relationship that is flourishing.

At any rate, looking at this reading, one thing that is clear is that the author would suggest the son FLEE from this sin.  There are two types of sins in general terms - those we can manage and those we can master.  I would argue that we can just about train ourselves out of certain sinful behaviors by way of habit.  For instance, eating terrible food that is bad for my body is a behavior that I (personally) can pretty much master.  The way I am wired, when I am engaged in physical activity and exercise, when I am working ahead on meal planning and cooking, when I am involved in grocery shopping...I really don’t find it hard to eat well.  That is something I am just about master.  But this issue of adultery, especially for men, this is really more of an appetite issue, and it is really not something men can master.  We are made by God in a way that precludes us from mastery in this area.  This is an area of life we’d be better to simply flee, to run for the hills, to avoid being in a position where we even have to exercise our ability to resist temptation.

The second idea that comes to mind is, assuming there are areas of life where we want to apply this kind of fleeing strategy, we need to build appropriate hedges.  The Jewish traditions offer some great examples of this.  Jesus was mad at the Jews man times for honoring their own traditions and holding them up as ‘law’ when God clearly gave the REAL Law to Moses.  But what the Jews would do is see a Law that God gave and they would set a standard that got them in trouble before they were close enough to actually breaking God’s Law.  It was like a guard rail on the highway, an artificial boundary that stops a car from hitting the actual danger, the ditch off of the side of the road.  Similarly, in our lives, we can construct guard rails for our behavior that shield us from getting into a place where we even have to face the temptation that we are scared we’ll fall pray to...if you just have a rule that you don’t get alone in an office, a room, a car, or anywhere, any time, with a member of the opposite sex, then you basically preclude yourself from getting into an adulterous situation.