Those who are kind benefit themselves, but the cruel bring ruin on themselves. Proverbs 11:17
“You want to double your riches, and without gambling or stock-jobbing? Share it; whether it be material or intellectual, its rapid increase will amaze you. What would the sun have been had he folded himself up in darkness? Surely he would have gone out?”
Julius Charles Hare (1796-1855), an English author, in Day’s Collacon, compiled and arranged by Edward Parsons Day (New York: IPPO, 1884) 804.
The book of Proverbs teaches us that kindness and generosity have a positive impact on us. Those who give them receive benefit and not to do so brings not a neutral outcome but ruin.
This benefit is not about prosperity gospel, that is, giving to get monetary gain. It’s about sharing the love and blessings we receive and discovering something in the process. Double the return. Our proverbial balance does not go down, it goes up.
When we share we don’t end up empty; in God’s abundant economy He enriches us. If we are kind to a person in the morning and at noon, we are not impoverished by dinner time but made better through the process.
Hare echoes this reminding us that even as the sun was made to give light; likewise, we were made to share. Not to do so is both living in darkness and causes us to lose rapid increase.