Daily Bible Study: Proverbs 6:6-11

Go to the ant, you sluggard!
Consider her ways and be wise,
Which, having no captain,
Overseer or ruler,
Provides her supplies in the summer,
And gathers her food in the harvest.
How long will you slumber, O sluggard?
When will you rise from your sleep?
A little sleep, a little slumber,
A little folding of the hands to sleep—
So shall your poverty come on you like a prowler,
And your need like an armed man.

Proverbs 6:6-11 (NKJV).

We often think of your intellect, our ability to choose other than our base instincts, as being an intrinsic bonus to our existence, that because we are not bound by our instincts we are necessarily superior to mindless creatures, such as the ant.

Yet Solomon wants to take our thoughts into a different direction.

The ant does what it is supposed to do, and without coercion, because the ant is not distracted by the pursuit of pleasure, by the arrogance of believing that "there will be more time later" to prepare. The instincts of the and are so highly refined that self-destructive behaviors are gone. The ant just works and works and works and does not question this.

Humanity was created to glorify God, though through a different means than any other creature. Where the natural world speaks to God's power through reflection of God's designs, God's heart for the process of creation itself, both of the beautiful and the unique, humanity was to demonstrate God's glory in a manner which held more significance: choice.

People are unique in that we are not coerced into the glorification of God in this life. We are given license to live how we choose, and while God does provide a baseline influence on everyone, some will reject God and some will accept this influence.

God does not want us to be mindless, shuffling through the rituals and marching in lockstep with some moralistic dogmas. Our purpose is not to be perfect, but to be refined, and to submit to that refinement process. To do that, however, we must focus our attention to deny and escape from the distractions that the ant can so easily avoid by nature.

This is the significance of the worship that humans provide to God, that we come to understand the infinitely great gift of existence we have been granted, and that we live in a way which we choose, and that our choices reflect alignment with God. We don't do this on our own, either, as God is quick to offer help to those who cry out earnestly and in good faith. How God answers will not likely be in the manner we expect, but God is not dead.

The sluggard that Solomon speaks of is not only ungrateful for their existence, they believe that prudence in behavior is not required in order to sustain their own existence. They believe, according to the lies they'd been told, that the effort expended is simply "not worth it". We see this mindset today, assisted greatly by the numerous social and political safety nets available for those who fall.

We can even witness how some will willingly give up their future, who will enslave themselves to the will of another, merely to avoid having to bear any burdens of responsibility for themselves. To not need to overcome their own weaknesses, but to submit to someone else who can do it for them.

Solomon pleads with the lazy, the indolent, to not leave their fates to chance. It's possible that, even having not stored up, not having prepared, that dumb luck would keep someone alive. That they ended up being in the right place at the right time, and that they would be saved despite their irresponsible behavior.

But luck is indifferent to those it looks upon, and always runs out for each of us, and we never know exactly when that will be. Only those who have not relied on luck will be prepared to face the circumstances before them with any real confidence.

Solomon is also giving this advice as a warning to even those who heed it, in that those who have been lazy, who haven't prepared, are the first to become predators when their needs are no longer satisfied. The expectation to maintain their lives will not be based on reason or effort, but merely on the fact that they are now hungry and you possess the capability to feed them, so whether they are justified or not, you will become their target.

Like a chain reaction, the hunger of the sluggard causes them to strike out, to create hunger in others from whom they steal, and this does not even begin to speak of the hunger for justice when people have been wronged out of the selfish ignorance of others.

Do not be the lazy person, and protect yourself from those who are lazy, do not feel pity for them, they have brought upon them the fate that they now attempt to renounce. Time and again we deceive ourselves into thinking that "oh, if they just knew better, then they'd act differently."

Because the truth is that we always know, and knowledge is not the problem. We are not ignorant to the sins we commit, we are only more convinced of our own craftiness to try and avoid the consequences than we are in the surety of the consequences we will face.

Choose God, choose to commit to the only master whose desire is to help you overcome your own self-destruction so that you can satisfy your true purpose. Choose the one in whom there is only good, who will not merely absorb the glory we give greedily, but who will reward and bless us, whether in this life or the next, for our obedience, for our alignment, for our choice to deny the distractions.

It's your choice.

Bible Study: Proverbs 2:10-15

When wisdom enters your heart,
And knowledge is pleasant to your soul,
Discretion will preserve you;
Understanding will keep you,
To deliver you from the way of evil,
From the man who speaks perverse things,
From those who leave the paths of uprightness
To walk in the ways of darkness;
Who rejoice in doing evil,
And delight in the perversity of the wicked;
Whose ways are crooked,
And who are devious in their paths;

Proverbs 2:10-15 (NKJV).

One of the rants I made on twitter a little while ago was about the usefulness, but not necessity, of the Bible. This passage echoes the sentiment as to why, in that when truth is internalized, cherished, retained, then how you act will be an outpouring of that.

In the "heat of the moment" you may not have a Bible handy. Or the internet, to look something up. The truths in the Bible are necessary, but the Bible itself is just a container. If all you do is pick stuff up, gander at it, marvel at it, and then put it back, then you are not understanding God's desire for you in reading scripture.

The purpose of reading scripture is to etch it into your mind, to not just experience it, but to know it and be able to share it and the understandings of it without it being present.

Think of it this way: how hard is it for you to describe attributes of a friend that you've had for a long time?

The longer you've known someone, the better you can get at predicting how they'd react in a given circumstance. While there are surprises sometimes, humans are terrible at behaving outside a pattern, and so once you learn someone's patterns, you know them in an intimate and personal way that informs how you communicate with them, the kinds of things you try to do with them, or even just which topics are good or bad.

So it is the same with the Bible and God, and us. The Bible is our second-most direct means by which the truth of God can be known, and through studying the Bible we are to grow in understanding of God's nature and heart for us in the same way that spending time with a friend does the same.

This is why the Bible is useful, but not necessary, because the Bible isn't the goal, God is, and the Bible is just the most reliable tool we have to communicate those truths. Sometimes those truths are made implicit in historical accounts, sometimes explicit in allegory or parable, but they are all working together to pain a coherent picture of God that enriches our relationship with God.

We do not hold the Bible in high esteem because it's the Bible and God inspired it, but because of what the Bible says about God. In some ways, the dynamic in which Jesus Christ humbled himself and yet was exalted by God is seen in how the Bible is handled, in that while it can be easy to see it as a single book, nobody sat down one day and said "hey lets write stuff about God."

The Bible was written over a period of time and contains the most accurate descriptions of God's actions and God's nature that we can get outside direct revelation (such as what Saul, not yet Paul, experienced on the road to Damascus). Studying the Bible is important, not for the Bible's sake, but because the result of studying the Bible aligns us with God.

Were we perfectly aligned, the Bible wouldn't be needed. After this life, in the next, I don't know what purpose, what role the Bible will play, when we have direct access to God and Jesus Christ to experience and enjoy them without barrier or hindrance. The Bible's value then would be greatly diminished, because why read about someone when you could just talk to them instead?

Wisdom is a subset of God's knowledge, of God's nature, and studying wisdom, gathering knowledge, is just as much a part of "becoming more like God" as the behavioral changes we make given what we newly understand.