The Book of Proverbs has its own headings. The first section began with “The proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king in Israel” (1: 1). There follows a long series of sub-sections each with a heading that addresses, “ My child.” Chapters 8 and 9 shift to an Ode to Lady Wisdom and what she has to offer. Chapter 10 begins again with, “The proverbs of Solomon,” which perhaps is a new collection of his sayings made by a different person than the first collection. In the current chapter the source shifts again at verse 17 where the subheading is: “The words of the wise.”
But, before we go there, let’s begin where this chapter begins.
22: 1-2. A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches,
and (good) favor is better than silver or gold.
The rich and the poor have this in common:
the LORD is the maker of them all.
Proverbs are constantly making comparisons: ‘this is better than that’. Maybe because we ourselves are constantly making comparisons: ‘I think that this grocery store has better selections and is a bit less expensive than the other one,” It works with friends and acquaintances, banks and coffee shops, pastors and politicians.
What is being compared in this couplet? Some other translations have ‘a good reputation’ instead of ‘a good name’. Indeed, in generations past, families were concerned about their good name, and if they had one, they lectured their children not to sully their name in the community. In recent times, corporations have become more concerned about their reputation.
Shin Ho Choi, a former doctoral student of mine, and I wrote an article about “Reputation Theory” which is a new branch of Business Management; however, we applied it to Church Growth. The research problem was, “Why are Protestant churches in Korea declining in membership?” The easy answers, like religiosity is in decline everywhere or Christianity is in decline in high tech secularized societies, just don’t work because recent studies show an increase in Catholic and Buddhist membership, but not Protestant churches.
Older people remember when the Protestant church was on their side, against the Japanese in World War II, against North Korea in the Korean War, then against run-away capitalism and right wing dictatorship in the 1960s and 1970s. But, after that, the Protestant church’s reputation began to slip.
Choi was able to conduct over 600 brief questionnaires with the younger generation as they gathered in the evenings, and soon the answer emerged. In Korea, several Protestant megachurches have had public scandals concerning their pastors. In addition, compared to Catholic and Buddhist adherents, Protestants are no longer seen to be doing good works in the community, and thus are suspicious that tithes and offerings do not flow back to the people in need. Protestants now rank behind Catholics and Buddhists in terms of being with the people and serving society’s marginalized people.
A good name is better than riches, because God made both the rich and the poor, and God can turn the tables, and make the poor rich and the rich poor. There is not room here to list the corporations that have lost their reputation and then found that a good name is difficult to restore.
Reputation theory also applies to Christianity in America. After World War II, Billy Graham and Carl F. H. Henry founded the magazine Christianity Today to partner with a movement called Evangelicalism. Evangelicals wanted to lift conservative Christianity out of the clutches of Fundamentalism. Evangelical Christianity was to be a thoughtful, enlightened, rational Christianity that still preached a Gospel message. And, it worked … for a while.
Yet during the Civil Rights Movement, some Evangelical Christians could be found supporting Racism and Segregation. By the 1980s and 1990s, some leading churches of the Evangelical movement were struggling to keep the lid on stories of sexual misconduct while still refusing to empower women in ministry. Now membership in Evangelical churches is on the decline.*
As the proverb says, In the end, a good name or reputation trumps wealth and power.
*See recent studies by the Pew Foundation. Then look at books by Tim Keller, Christine Wicker, and David F. Wells. Especially helpful is a new book by Tim Alberta titled The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism.