The Boomerang Effect: Your Soul, Your Flesh Text: Proverbs 11:17
Introduction: The Inescapable Law of Returns
We live in an age that is desperately trying to repeal the law of gravity. Our culture is filled with people jumping off of high places, flapping their arms with sincere conviction, fully expecting that their good intentions will suspend the inevitable consequences. They believe they can sow thistle and reap figs, sow to the wind and not reap the whirlwind. This is the defining folly of modernity: the belief that we can detach actions from their consequences. We want sexual license without disease and relational wreckage. We want economic profligacy without bankruptcy. We want to mock God and yet live in a world that is orderly, meaningful, and just.
But the universe does not work that way because God did not make it that way. God is not mocked. The law of the harvest is as fixed and unalterable as the law of gravity. What a man sows, that he will also reap. This is not karma, which is some impersonal, pagan notion of cosmic balancing. This is the personal, covenantal administration of a righteous God. He has hardwired reality to operate according to His character. And this proverb before us today is a pithy, potent distillation of this very principle. It tells us that our dispositions, our fundamental attitudes toward others, do not terminate on them. They are boomerangs. They circle back and land squarely on us, for good or for ill.
The proverb sets before us two men, who represent two ways of life. There is the man of lovingkindness, and there is the cruel man. One deals bountifully with his own soul, and the other brings ruin on his own flesh. This is not just a nice platitude about being a decent fellow. This is spiritual physics. It is a revelation of how God has structured the world and how He governs it. To be merciful is the wisest form of self-interest. To be cruel is the most certain path to self-destruction. And we must understand this, not just as a general rule of thumb, but as a foundational truth that shapes our families, our churches, our communities, and our own souls.
The Text
"The man of lovingkindness deals bountifully with his soul, But the cruel man brings trouble on his flesh."
(Proverbs 11:17 LSB)
The Merciful Man's Wise Investment (v. 17a)
Let us first consider the man of lovingkindness.
"The man of lovingkindness deals bountifully with his soul..." (Proverbs 11:17a)
The key phrase here is "lovingkindness." The Hebrew word is hesed. This is one of the great covenantal words of the Old Testament. It doesn't just mean being nice or having warm feelings. Hesed is covenant faithfulness. It is loyal love. It is mercy and kindness that are steadfast and unwavering because they are rooted in a promise. When the Bible says that God is slow to anger and abounding in hesed, it means His love for His people is not fickle; it is anchored in the covenant He has made. So, the "man of lovingkindness" is not just a friendly chap; he is a covenant man. He is a man who understands his obligations to God and to his neighbor, and he meets them with a generosity that flows from a heart shaped by God's own hesed.
And what is the result of this covenantal mercy? He "deals bountifully with his soul." Notice the reflexive nature of the action. His kindness, his mercy, his loyalty to others, is actually an act of profound benefit to himself. He thinks he is watering his neighbor's garden, but he finds that his own is flourishing. He intends to bless another, and in the process, God blesses him.
How does this work? In several ways. First, there is the simple principle of reciprocity. "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy" (Matthew 5:7). God has woven into the social fabric the reality that generosity begets generosity. But it is more than just that. The man who shows mercy is conforming his soul to the character of God. He is becoming the kind of man God designed him to be. This brings an internal peace, a settled contentment, that the cruel man can never know. His soul is at ease because it is rightly aligned with its Creator. He is not twisted up with bitterness, resentment, or a grasping selfishness. He gives freely, and so his soul becomes large, expansive, and healthy.
Furthermore, he is laying up treasure in heaven. His acts of mercy are investments in eternity. But the proverb here is concerned with the present benefit. He deals bountifully with his soul. He is not just getting by; he is thriving. His mercy is not a tax he pays; it is a seed he sows, and the harvest is a robust, healthy, and joyful soul. This is true spiritual prosperity.
The Cruel Man's Self-Inflicted Wound (v. 17b)
Now we turn to the second man, the dark mirror image of the first.
"...But the cruel man brings trouble on his flesh." (Proverbs 11:17b LSB)
The cruel man is the opposite of the man of hesed. He is the man who is hard, sharp, and merciless. He operates on a principle of pure, short-sighted self-interest. He believes that by being ruthless, by taking advantage, by withholding mercy, he is getting ahead. He sees the merciful man as a sucker, a chump. He is the master of the zero-sum game; for him to win, someone else must lose.
But look at the shocking result. The man who is obsessed with his own gain "brings trouble on his flesh." The word for trouble can mean ruin, affliction, or to be made an outcast. And where does this trouble land? On his own flesh. The very thing he sought to preserve and pamper at the expense of others becomes the site of his own ruin. His cruelty boomerangs and savages him.
Again, how does this happen? The cruel man isolates himself. People learn to avoid him, to distrust him. His world shrinks. He is eaten from the inside out by his own bitterness, suspicion, and anger. The stress of a life lived in opposition to God's created order takes a physical toll. The word "flesh" here is significant. It points to his whole embodied existence. His cruelty poisons his relationships, his business dealings, his health, and his own mind. He is a man at war with the world, and consequently, he is a man at war with himself.
He thinks he is being a tough, hard-nosed realist. In reality, he is a fool who is sawing off the branch he is sitting on. He hoards his grain and it rots in the silo. He refuses to forgive, and the acid of his bitterness dissolves his own bones. He is cruel to his wife, and his prayers are hindered. He is harsh with his children, and they become embittered. He cheats his business partner, and his reputation is destroyed. In his every attempt to benefit himself through cruelty, he brings down a world of trouble upon his own head. He is his own worst enemy.
Soul and Flesh, Mercy and Christ
It is important that we see the parallel Solomon draws between "soul" and "flesh." The merciful man benefits his soul, the very core of his being. The cruel man troubles his flesh, his entire embodied life in this world. This is Hebrew parallelism, but it is also a profound statement about integrated human existence. You cannot separate your spiritual state from your physical, relational, and material life. They are all of a piece. A man whose soul is healthy and generous will see that health radiate out into his entire life. A man whose heart is cruel and twisted will see that corruption manifest in every area of his existence.
Our culture tries to tell us the opposite. It promotes a radical dualism. It says you can be a ruthless predator in the boardroom from nine to five, and then a loving family man on the weekend. It says you can live a life of sexual cruelty and exploitation and still have a healthy self-esteem. The Bible says this is a lie. You cannot compartmentalize your life this way. The cruelty will bleed over. The trouble you bring on others will eventually find its way home to your own flesh.
And this brings us to the ultimate fulfillment of this proverb in the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the ultimate man of lovingkindness, the perfect embodiment of God's hesed. He dealt bountifully, not with His own soul, but for the sake of ours. He was the ultimate merciful man, and yet, He was the one who took all the trouble of our cruelty upon His own flesh on the cross.
We were the cruel ones. We were the merciless ones. Our sin was an act of cosmic cruelty against a holy God. And by the logic of this proverb, we should have brought eternal trouble upon our own flesh. And we would have. But Christ stepped in. The cruel man brings trouble on his own flesh. But Christ, the merciful man, took the trouble of other's cruelty onto His flesh. He reaped what we had sown. "He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree" (1 Peter 2:24). He absorbed the boomerang. He took the full, destructive impact of our cruelty so that we, in turn, could receive the bountiful blessing of His mercy.
Conclusion: Sowing to the Spirit
Therefore, the application for us is not simply to "try harder to be nice." That is moralism, and it will fail. The application is to be so overwhelmed by the hesed of God in Christ that we cannot help but become men and women of hesed ourselves. We have been shown infinite mercy, and therefore we have no grounds to be cruel. We have been forgiven an infinite debt, so how can we refuse to forgive our brother his pittance?
To be a Christian is to be enrolled in the school of God's mercy. And in this school, we learn the profound truth of this proverb. We learn that to give is to receive, to forgive is to be forgiven, and to show mercy is the only way to have a healthy soul. When you are tempted to be cruel, to be sharp-tongued, to be unforgiving, to be selfish, remember this proverb. You are not just harming someone else. You are picking up a stone to throw at them, but that stone is tied to your own hand by an unbreakable cord. You are bringing trouble on your own flesh.
But when, by the grace of God, you choose the path of lovingkindness, you are sowing to the Spirit. You are aligning yourself with the grain of God's universe. You are not just doing good to others; you are doing good to your own soul. You are participating in the divine nature, and you will find that the mercy you show to others is the very medicine that heals you.