The Sacredness of Boundaries Text: Proverbs 22:28
Introduction: The War on Memory
We are living in a revolutionary age, but the revolution is not being fought with tanks in the streets. It is a revolution of the mind, a war on memory. The chief goal of our secular, progressive culture is to induce a society-wide amnesia. They want us to forget who we are, where we came from, and to whom we belong. A man who does not know his own history is a man who is easily manipulated, easily led, and easily enslaved. He is a man adrift, and a man adrift will grab onto any new thing offered to him, no matter how monstrous.
This is why our monuments are being torn down. This is why our histories are being rewritten with a sneer. This is why our children are taught to be ashamed of their heritage. The goal is to create a generation of historical orphans, unmoored from the wisdom of the past, so that they might be more easily catechized into the follies of the present. C.S. Lewis called this "chronological snobbery," the arrogant assumption that whatever has gone out of date is on that account discredited. Our age is drunk on this particular brand of arrogance. We think we are the pinnacle of human evolution, and that all our forefathers were either fools or villains. We are like a contemptuous cad, perpetually kicking down the ladders by which he climbed.
Into this chaos of erasure and rebellion, the Word of God speaks with a quiet, firm, and immovable authority. The book of Proverbs is intensely practical, and it gives us a piece of wisdom that is both profoundly simple and staggeringly relevant to our current cultural meltdown. It is a command that applies to property lines, but as we will see, it applies to much, much more.
The Text
Do not move the ancient boundary
Which your fathers made.
(Proverbs 22:28 LSB)
The Landmark and the Law
On the most basic level, this proverb is a straightforward prohibition against property theft. In ancient Israel, land was marked out not with sophisticated survey equipment and GPS, but with boundary stones. These were physical markers, rocks piled up, that said, "This is the line where the inheritance of the family of Reuben ends and the inheritance of the family of Gad begins." To move that boundary stone, even by a few feet in the dead of night, was to steal from your neighbor. It was a sin of the highest order because it was not just stealing dirt; it was stealing a family's inheritance, their livelihood, and their future.
This was not a mere suggestion. It was codified in the law of God. In Deuteronomy, the curse is pronounced with solemn gravity: "'Cursed be anyone who moves his neighbor's landmark.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen'" (Deuteronomy 27:17). This was a public curse, ratified by the entire congregation. To move a landmark was to invite the judgment of God upon your own head. Why was it so serious? Because the land was not ultimately theirs to dispose of. The land was a gift from God, allotted to the tribes and families by His sovereign decree. To move a boundary stone was to question God's distribution. It was to say, "God didn't give my neighbor enough, or He gave me too little." It was an act of rebellion against God's providential ordering of the world.
This is what we would call case law. The enduring principle is the Eighth Commandment: "You shall not steal" (Exodus 20:15). The specific application in an agrarian society was, "Do not move the ancient boundary." The principle abides today. We are not to defraud our neighbor in a real estate transaction. We are not to fudge the numbers on a tax form. We are not to engage in shady business dealings. We are to be men and women of integrity, respecting the property and rights of others because we recognize that all things ultimately belong to God, and He is a God of justice, not of theft.
The Fathers and Their Wisdom
But the proverb adds another layer. It says, "Do not move the ancient boundary which your fathers made." This is not just about the law; it's about heritage. It's about a proper, humble respect for the accumulated wisdom of those who have gone before us. The boundary was set by "your fathers." This assumes a baseline of piety, a gratitude for the legacy we have received.
Our modern mindset recoils at this. We are taught that tradition is a dead hand, stifling progress. We are told that every man must be his own Adam, creating his own values from scratch. But the Bible teaches the opposite. It teaches that we are part of a long story, a covenant that stretches across generations. We stand on the shoulders of our fathers. They cleared the fields, they dug the wells, they fought the battles, and they established the boundaries. For us to come along and cavalierly move those boundaries without compelling and righteous cause is the height of arrogance and ingratitude.
This does not mean that our fathers were infallible. Abraham lied about his wife. David committed adultery and murder. The Puritans had their blind spots. But the command is not to worship our fathers; it is to honor them. And honoring them means we do not discard their wisdom lightly. We assume, as a default position, that they had good reasons for putting the boundaries where they did. We give them the benefit of the doubt. We approach their work not with a hermeneutic of suspicion, but with a hermeneutic of gratitude.
This is the principle of covenant succession. God has promised to be a God to us and to our children after us (Genesis 17:7). He works through families and through generations. The faith is a heritage to be passed down. This means we have a solemn duty to receive that heritage, to guard it, and to pass it on to our children, intact. We are not free to reinvent the faith every Sunday morning. We are not at liberty to move the ancient landmarks of doctrine and worship that our fathers in the faith, standing on the Word of God, have established.
The Theological Landmarks
And this brings us to the most crucial application of this text. If it is a cursed thing to move a physical boundary stone that marks out a plot of land, how much more wicked is it to move the theological landmarks that mark out the very nature of God, the gospel, and the path of salvation?
Our fathers in the faith, through centuries of struggle, debate, and martyrdom, hammered out the great creeds and confessions of the church. The Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed, the Definition of Chalcedon, the Westminster Confession. These are the ancient boundaries. They are not inspired Scripture, but they are faithful summaries of inspired Scripture. They are the landmarks that tell us what is and is not the Christian faith. They draw the line between orthodoxy and heresy.
Theological liberalism is the project of moving these ancient landmarks. It always begins with a desire to be "relevant" to the modern world. It starts by saying, "Yes, we believe in the authority of Scripture, but we need to rethink what that means in light of modern science." That's the first stone being nudged. Then it says, "Yes, we believe Jesus is the Son of God, but the idea of a virgin birth is a stumbling block to modern people." That's the landmark being dragged a few feet. Before long, the resurrection is a metaphor, sin is an outdated concept, and hell is an embarrassment. The entire field has been stolen, and the church is left with a barren piece of ground that cannot save anyone.
This is why we must be a confessional people. The creeds are our boundaries. They protect us from the tyranny of the present moment. They connect us to the great cloud of witnesses. They remind us that the faith was not invented yesterday. When someone comes along with a "new" insight that just so happens to contradict two thousand years of Christian teaching, we can point to the landmark and say, "No. That is not our property. The fathers placed the boundary here, and on the authority of God's Word, we will not move it."
Conclusion: Stand and Defend
This proverb, then, is a call to be faithful conservatives in the truest sense of the word. Not in a stuffy, reactionary political sense, but in the sense of conserving the good deposit that has been entrusted to us (2 Timothy 1:14). We are stewards of a great inheritance.
First, this means we must respect the physical property and rights of our neighbors. We must be people of our word, honest in our dealings, and content with what God has given us. We must not steal, whether by force or by fraud.
Second, this means we must cultivate a deep and abiding respect for our heritage. We must teach our children the stories of our fathers, both in our own families and in the family of faith. We must honor their sacrifices and learn from their wisdom. We must reject the chronological snobbery that poisons our age and receive the past as a gift.
And finally, and most importantly, we must stand guard over the ancient landmarks of the faith. We must know our Bibles. We must know our creeds. We must be able to give a reason for the hope that is in us. When the theological innovators and the cultural revolutionaries come to move the boundaries, we must be ready to stand in the gap, to say with conviction and with love, "Thus far, and no farther." We do this not to be obstinate, but because these boundaries mark out the field where life is found. Within these boundaries is the green pasture of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Outside of them is a barren wasteland. The world wants to erase every line and blur every distinction, but our God is a God of order, not chaos. He has set the boundaries in their places. Our task is simple: Do not move them.