My son, do not forget my law,
But let your heart keep my commands;
For length of days and long life
And peace they will add to you.
Let not mercy and truth forsake you;
Bind them around your neck,
Write them on the tablet of your heart,
And so find favor and high esteem
In the sight of God and man.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding;
In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He shall direct your paths.
Do not be wise in your own eyes;
Fear the Lord and depart from evil.
It will be health to your flesh,
And strength to your bones.
Proverbs 3:1-8 (NKJV).
This section of Proverbs contains an oft cited passage that, by itself, is used to dismantle competency. "Lean not on your own understanding" and "Do not be wise is your own eyes" together, but without the context of the prior two chapters of Proverbs, sound very condemning in the general sense regarding knowledge and wisdom, and help underpin the modern strain of anti-intellectualism that has resurfaced as a reaction to the secular philosophies that have become popular.
This passage is not talking about all understanding, nor all wisdom. This is understood if you pay attention to what we are commanded to do, and not just what we aren't. Look at how we are to "acknowledge" God, the original word being "yada", is associated with "to know" and is translated as the following in other verses: acquainted, aware, becomes known, bring forth, cared, chosen, clearly understand, cohabit, comprehend.
The connotation becomes a continuation of the prior chapter's advice regarding knowing your place, and recognizing that you still have much to learn. It does not mean you will never rely on what you do know, just that you must always keep in mind your place as the perpetual student of a perfect God.
This is echoed in "Do not be wise in your own eyes", in that we are not to be using an internal standard for comparison. This is not about refusing to be recognized as wise, or denying that you have gained wisdom, but not using your own understanding and perception of wisdom, being humble and self-aware of your limitations and your strengths, and then moving forward with decision making.
By themselves these verses seem to condemn the individual who seeks to learn wisdom and apply it in their life as if a person can't do that, can't internalize truth, and that's where the anti-intellectualism rears its head. Instead of learning scripture, the Bible is treated as a search engine and all that a "Christian" needs to do is be good at using the search engine. At no point do the truths need to be etched in their heart or contemplated because the truths are contained in the Bible, and since we'll "always have the Bible", there is no concern in learning what it actually says and becoming another container of truth yourself.
Memorizing scripture, and not just where to find it, is important because you may not have a literal access to the Bible at all times. Perhaps you are a missionary in a hostile culture? Perhaps you are poor and destitute without a roof over your head? Perhaps you are enslaved to some harsh master who does not let you possess anything? Perhaps you are a prisoner of war in some foreign country?
Christianity is just as real and valid in those circumstances, absent the Bible itself, as it is with it present, because Jesus Christ is the center, not the Bible. You can pursue God without the Bible, though it gets incredibly more difficult, because the signal-to-noise ratio outside scripture is so terrible and not at all in your favor for being able to discover genuine truth.
It still happens, and thus why many prominent religions will share a tenet or doctrine or teaching with Christianity on one topic, but then completely disagree on another.
The earlier portion of the passage is about making that external truth "yours". It's not about changing it, but changing yourself to align with it. It's about swapping out what you would have considered "wise" for what God considers "wise". It's about taking the external truth and inscribing it on your heart and in your mind so that God's motivations become yours. This isn't about you becoming God, but becoming more like God in how you think, how you behave, and how you make decisions.
We are to pattern ourselves after God, we are to take what God says is wise and repeat it to ourselves and live it out in our lives and preach it to all who will listen. That is the heart of this passage, not a perpetual self-deprecation, a false piety where we constantly defer to God in a manner which makes our own walk, our life, and out interactions entirely irrelevant to those around us.
If the truth does not live in us, how are any to begin to understand we've found it?
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