The Diagnosis of All Quarrels Text: Proverbs 13:10
Introduction: The Universal Malady
The world is full of fighting. This is not a controversial observation. Husbands and wives quarrel in the kitchen. Politicians bicker and snipe in the halls of power. Nations rattle their sabers and march to war. Churches split over the color of the carpet. The internet is a perpetual motion machine of outrage, a digital colosseum where everyone has a thumb, and it is almost always pointed down. From the grand scale of geopolitical conflict to the petty squabbles over the remote control, our world is a noisy, contentious place. And when we are honest, our own hearts are not tranquil gardens of peace either.
The question is, why? The modern world has a thousand different answers, all of them shallow. We are told conflict comes from economic disparity, from systemic injustices, from a lack of education, from poor communication skills, or from psychological trauma. And while some of these may be the occasions for strife, they are never the ultimate cause. They are symptoms, not the disease. They describe the shape of the wound, but not the dagger that made it.
The book of Proverbs, being the word of God, is not interested in shallow diagnoses. It goes straight for the taproot. It does not offer us a five-step program for conflict resolution or a therapeutic technique for managing our anger. It gives us a divine diagnosis, a single, profound, and universally applicable truth that explains every quarrel that has ever been. And if we have ears to hear it, it provides the only possible path to the cure.
This proverb is a diagnostic tool of immense power. It is a spiritual MRI for the soul of a man, a family, a church, or a nation. When you see a fight, any fight, you can hold this verse up to it, and it will reveal the hidden pathology. It is a perfect lens that brings the microscopic, infectious agent of all human conflict into sharp focus. And what is that agent? It is not misunderstanding. It is not a clash of personalities. It is not a difference of opinion. It is pride.
The Text
With arrogance comes only quarreling,
But with those who receive counsel is wisdom.
(Proverbs 13:10 LSB)
The Inevitable Fruit of Arrogance (v. 10a)
The first clause of our text is a blunt and absolute declaration.
"With arrogance comes only quarreling..." (Proverbs 13:10a)
The Hebrew word for arrogance here is zādôn. It means insolence, presumption, pride. It describes the man who is puffed up, who has an inflated view of his own importance, his own opinions, his own rights, and his own agenda. This is the man who is wise in his own eyes. And the text tells us that the only thing, the only thing, that this attitude can produce is quarreling. The word "only" is emphatic. Strife is not an occasional byproduct of pride; it is its necessary and inevitable offspring. Pride is the seed, and contention is the harvest. Always.
Think of it this way. The arrogant man walks through the world with his elbows out. He is spiritually top-heavy. He believes reality ought to arrange itself around him. His opinions are not just opinions; they are self-evident truths. His desires are not just preferences; they are moral imperatives. His feelings are not just emotions; they are the supreme court of the universe. When such a man bumps into another person, which is inevitable in a world full of other people, a quarrel is the only possible result. Why? Because to disagree with him is not a matter of intellectual difference; it is a personal affront. To inconvenience him is not an accident; it is a declaration of war. To correct him is not helpful; it is an act of insolent rebellion against his sovereign self.
The proud man cannot be contradicted because his identity is fused with his opinions. An attack on his ideas is an attack on him. He cannot yield in an argument because yielding would be an admission of inferiority. He cannot forgive an offense because his sense of justice is centered on his own violated honor. Therefore, where you find pride, you will find strife as surely as you find smoke where there is fire. This is true in a marriage, where two proud people insist on their own way. It is true in a church business meeting, where proud men cannot bear to have their proposals voted down. It is true between nations, where national pride refuses to back down from a confrontation.
James asks the same question and gives the same answer: "What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?" (James 4:1). Those warring passions are the lusts of pride. The desire to be right. The desire to be respected. The desire to be in control. The desire to win. That is the fuel for every fire.
The Mark of Wisdom (v. 10b)
The second clause presents the glorious antithesis. It shows us the only way out of the boxing ring of strife.
"...But with those who receive counsel is wisdom." (Proverbs 13:10b)
If pride is the root of all quarreling, then its opposite, humility, is the root of all wisdom. And how does this humility manifest itself? The text is very specific. It is seen in those who "receive counsel." The Hebrew here means to be well-advised, to take advice. The wise man is a teachable man. He is not a man who knows everything, but a man who knows that he doesn't know everything.
This is the fundamental difference between the wise man and the fool. The fool, stuffed with arrogance, is unteachable. Proverbs says, "The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice" (Proverbs 12:15). The fool's mind is a closed system. No new data can get in, especially if that data comes in the form of correction or rebuke. The scorner, who is the fool in his graduate studies, hates the one who corrects him and will not go to the wise (Proverbs 15:12).
But the wise man has a completely different posture. His ears are open. He understands that he is a finite, fallible creature. He knows that he has blind spots. Therefore, he actively seeks out and receives counsel. He is not threatened by correction; he is grateful for it. He understands that "Faithful are the wounds of a friend" (Proverbs 27:6). He would rather be corrected and wise than be affirmed and a fool. This is humility in shoe leather.
This is why wisdom and peace are found together. The man who can receive counsel is a man who can live at peace with others. When there is a disagreement, he does not immediately assume that he is right and the other person is a moron. He is capable of listening. He is capable of considering that he might be wrong. He is capable of changing his mind. He is capable of saying, "You have a point. I hadn't thought of that." Such a man is an agent of peace wherever he goes. He defuses arguments before they begin because he is not invested in the project of being infallible.
The Gospel Diagnosis
This proverb is not just good, practical advice for getting along with your neighbors. It is a profound statement about our relationship with God. The ultimate pride, the primordial arrogance, is the sinner's declaration of independence from his Creator. It is the creature telling the Potter that he knows better. This is the sin of Adam in the garden. He rejected the clear counsel of God, "You shall not eat," because he arrogantly believed he could be as God, determining good and evil for himself.
The result of that pride was not just a quarrel with Eve, but cosmic strife. Man was now at war with God, at war with himself, at war with his neighbor, and at war with creation. All the quarreling we see in the world is just the aftershock of that first act of insolent pride.
And this is why the gospel is the only answer to the problem of strife. The gospel is the death of pride. The cross is where God definitively resists the proud. To come to Christ, you must first do what the proud man hates most. You must admit you are wrong. Utterly, completely, damnably wrong. You must abandon all trust in your own wisdom, your own goodness, your own righteousness. You must stop talking and start listening. You must, in short, receive counsel. You must receive the testimony of God concerning His Son.
And what is that counsel? That you are a sinner deserving of wrath, and that Jesus Christ is the only Savior who died for your pride and rose to give you a new heart of humility. To become a Christian is to stop arguing with God and to finally, gratefully, receive His counsel. It is to be made wise unto salvation.
And this is a lifelong project. The Holy Spirit is given to us to mortify the pride that remains in our hearts. Every time you are tempted to quarrel with your spouse, every time you feel that hot rush of indignation when you are corrected, every time you refuse to listen to the wisdom of your elders in the church, you are seeing the remnants of that old Adamic arrogance. And the call of the Spirit is to repent of that pride and to walk in the humility of Christ, who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but humbled Himself.
Do you want peace in your home? Do you want unity in your church? Do you want wisdom in your life? Then you must put to death the arrogance that produces only strife. And you must cultivate the humility that receives counsel. This is the path of wisdom, the path of peace, and the path that was paved for us by the Lord Jesus Christ.