Proverbs 6

1-5: It is better to be the banker and not the debtor's security! If you find yourself in debt, get out of it by all means: humble yourself to your neighbor (the friend you are securing) and encourage him to make right his debt.

This warning extends beyond the ideas of money. What if we vouch for our brother's character? We should again approach him in love and humbleness, begging that he correct his ways. It is also an implicit warning to be careful when we vouch for our neighbor. We have no control over his or her actions, but by securing his debt or his character, we somehow accept responsibility for his or her actions. We are incapable of any such control. We may be able to manipulate, bully, or force our neighbors hand, but this is not an action one would take within the agape of God and is also not true control. In fact, Solomon clearly paints the picture of how we should behave: in complete humbleness on our knees admitting that we do not control the situation and that our neighbor's debt is in his hands and that we have no power over it.

If our friend is behaving out of character we are not to approach him as a bully strutting our superiority and informing him how he should correct his ways. Nor should we be passive aggressive in our dealings. But instead we must approach him with love and humility and understand that we must first remove the plank from our eyes before we may ever hope to help him with the speck in his.