Looking at today’s reading, and at tomorrow’s, we are going to get some more teaching on the topic of adultery for sure.  But we can take these teachings and use them beyond the topic of adultery, and that’s where my mind went as I was reading this morning, focusing on these 2 verses specifically:

27 Can a man carry fire next to his chest

and his clothes not be burned?

28 Or can one walk on hot coals

and his feet not be scorched?

You don’t have to be a Bible scholar to get something out of these 2 verses...and it goes back to something we were talking about recently called ‘guard rails’, and setting boundaries so as not to get close to the danger zone.  As we learned, there are sins where we can manage and eventually master the issue (more-or-less), and there are sins where we have no hope for mastery and which we must simply choose to flee in our lives.  Adultery is one of those sins according to the author.  I would say that I have learned that from my life as well...I lost my first wife to adultery.  I don’t believe it is because she is a bad person, and I recognize my responsibility as a husband and all of that...but the issue ultimately was that she put herself into a position where something that started small grew and grew and eventually all of the choices were bad choices.  Allowing yourself to have lunch with a person to whom you are attracted is a bad idea...it may sound innocent and you may be able to justify it to yourself as “lunch isn’t a bid deal”...but you know that there is a subtle urge for that lunch.  That urge isn’t a sin...that’s part of life.  The sin is having the urge and not having the wisdom to stop right then.  It is a lot easier to stop it then and to honor your spouse then.  It is a lot easier to FLEE that situation while there are still GOOD choices.  But when lunch leads to another lunch leads to a coffee to a quick drink after work...well, now all of the choices are getting to be bad choices.  Now there is something to break off with that person, and now you have a loss either way you turn.  That’s the way sin works...and that’s especially the way THIS sin, adultery, works.  And you are a fool if you think you are able to play with this fire and not get burned, in the words of our writer today.

Flee...that’s the wisdom here.  Just flee.  Wisdom isn’t being able to withstand temptation.  Wisdom is having both the understand of when to flee AND the courage to do it.  This is an place where integrity overlaps wisdom.  That’s the takeaway today...just flee this sin and don’t play with this fire at all.