Too Much Honey

The Bible often uses honey as an analogy. Typically it is a symbol of prosperity; several times it is even used as a picture of God’s Word. One chapter in Proverbs, however, references honey twice, but in a very different way. Proverbs 25:16 says, “Have you found honey? Eat only as much as you need, lest you be filled with it and vomit.” But the verse I really want to focus on comes later. Verse twenty-seven tells us, “It is not good to eat much honey; so to seek one’s own glory is not glory.”

These verses, placed so conveniently close together in the text, have got me thinking. How much of a good thing is too much? Clearly, the Bible is teaching here that indulgence results in our own downfall. Like an overabundance of honey, seeking our own glory destroys the thing we were out to get.

But there’s more to it than that. In the original Hebrew, the word for “seek” doesn’t mean simply “seek;” it has connotations that can make it mean “examine,” “study,” or “number.” So the writer is not merely warning against someone who is only out to get more glory, but he is also saying that we should not spend too much time thinking about their own “glory” or taking stock of their own accomplishments.

When we eat too much honey we get sick to our stomachs. That is the same effect that besets our souls when we think more of ourselves than we ought. So often we seek our own glory. We become caught up in our image or reputation. We refuse to be fools for Christ, forgetting that the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing. We lap up honey like it was water, and it has made us sick. It is time to finally stop researching ourselves. Enough is enough. There is one Glory, and it is God alone. If we seek any glory but His, we are looking to be filled by something that is actually causing the problem. We are getting sick off of honey.