The appeal to filial duty cannot here refer to disciple and teacher, but to child and parents. It does not stand as an isolated precept, but as underscoring the important one which follows. But a word must be spared for it. The habits of ancient days gave a place to the father and mother which modern family life woefully lacks, and suffers in many ways for want of. Many a parent in these days of slack control and precocious independence might say, If I be a father, where is mine honour?' There was perhaps not enough of confidence between parent and child in former days, and authority on the one hand and submission on the other too much took the place of love; but nowadays the danger is all the other way--and it is a very real danger.
But the main point here is the earnest exhortation of Proverbs 23:23, which, like that to the fear of the Lord, sums up all duty in one. The truth' is, like wisdom,' moral and religious, and not merely intellectual. Wisdom' is subjective, the quality or characteristic of the devout soul; truth' is objective, and may also be defined as the declared will of God. The possession of truth is wisdom. The entrance of Thy words giveth light.' It makes wise the simple. There is, then, such a thing as the truth' accessible to us. We can know it, and are not to be for ever groping amid more or less likely guesses, but may rest in the certitude that we have hold of foundation facts. For us, the truth is incarnate in Jesus, as He has solemnly asserted. That truth we shall, if we are wise, buy,' by shunning no effort, sacrifice, or trouble needed to secure it.
In the lower meanings of the word, our passage should fire us all, and especially the young, to strain every muscle of the soul in order to make truth for the intellect our own. The exhortation is needed in this day of adoration of money and material good. Nobler and wiser far the young man who lays himself out to know than he who is engrossed with the hungry desire to have! But in the highest region of truth, the buying is without money and without price,' and all that we can give in exchange is ourselves. We buy the truth when we know that we cannot earn it, and forsaking self-trust and self-pleasing, consent to receive it as a free gift. Sell it not,'--lot no material good or advantage, no ease, slothfulness, or worldly success, tempt you to cast it away; for its fruit is better than gold,' and its revenue than choice silver.' We shall make a bad bargain if we sell it for anything beneath the stars; for wisdom is better than rubies,' and he has been cheated in the transaction who has given up the truth' and got instead the whole world.'
