The integrity of the upright will guide them,
But the perversity of the unfaithful will destroy them.
Riches do not profit in the day of wrath,
But righteousness delivers from death.
The righteousness of the blameless will direct his way aright,
But the wicked will fall by his own wickedness.
The righteousness of the upright will deliver them,
But the unfaithful will be caught by their lust.
Proverbs 11:3-6 (NKJV).
There's a phrase that's been cited, in the context of relationships, where "you're either growing apart or growing together", though the specific phrasing varies from one citation to another, and also exists in various contexts as well.
That said, the basic idea is that there is no "middle ground". There is no "neutral", no "cruise control", that you're either actively investing in a relationship or you're letting it stagnate and die out. We dance around this idea with other idioms like "familiarity breeds contempt".
We hate being forced to choose. We hate when we find ourselves in a circumstance where a choice must be made and we don't like any of the options we're offered. We want to think there's a "third way" that is somehow being hidden, that if somehow we twist words and try to come at the issue a different way that we'll find another option, another path to take which better suits what we want.
When it comes to righteousness, however, there's only two paths, despite moderns efforts to try and claim otherwise.
"Sin", you see, is not an objective existence, it's subjective, in that like the concept of "cold", it exists in a relationship to another concept. Temperature is a measure of heat, and one temperature may be described as "cold" compared to another, "cold" itself is just a relative term.
Likewise, "sin" is relative to God's perfect character attributes. The greater you lack alignment, the more sinful you are, and while all have fallen short, some do fall further than others and that is reflected in the consequences they face here in this life.
To deny God's attributes as "good" undermines "sin", and so modern philosophies have sought to undermine the definition of God, or to change it such that they can sit on the throne. The problem is that this attempt at regicide only leads to more sin. There is no righteousness to be found at the end of a path which included denying God's desires for our own behavior.
We can't "get there" by any other path, and since God is the standard, the one perfect example, everything else is simply a variation of failure. There are a nearly infinite number of ways to miss the mark, to still not be perfect, and so we cannot on our own overcome sin completely.
Righteousness is not of us alone, it's in our response to God and in how we reflect God's characteristics in our behavior. It's not us blazing a new path, it's us taking the one God has pleaded with us to take from the beginning.
In seeking God's desire for us in our choices, we will constantly be doubting our own inclinations, and learn about how we each fail on a consistent basis. This self-doubt is necessary to combat the sense of solipsism, the belief that we're all that exists and everything else is just the products of our own imagination.
We see this dynamic play out all the time where people will suggest that reality is not as is objectively seen, but that it is open to revision, subjective, and that their thoughts or their mind is the source of both the current states and any future states. In short, that they are viewing the objective reality, and that everyone else needs to recognize this truth.
It's never about really denying the existence of God, but changing who God is, or who gets to wear the name badge. It's never about destroying the throne, but changing who should sit on it.
It's always about trying to change the standard for comparison, never abolishing the need for a standard in the first place.
And it's in this that, because the standards we would set are always much lower than what God really is, we find ourselves consumed with wickedness because of our foolishness. We even double-down after the first wave of consequences may arrive, hoping that perhaps the consequences were just a fluke, a rarity that would not manifest again. Until it does.
This is why God, in respecting the choices that humans make, will gladly break you if it would lead to your salvation. To take away your health, your wealth, your family, whatever it is that distracts you from the most critical truth: you are not God.
This passage highlights that we can either set God as our standard, pursue righteousness, and find satisfaction on into eternity as all that is sinful is destroyed or judged, or we can be caught up in that judgment and experience eternal punishment for our infinitely ungrateful foolishness.
We are either set free from the consequences of sin by obeying God, or we are condemned by how we deny and rebel.
There is no third choice.
Showing posts with label Wickedness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wickedness. Show all posts
2.5.18
Daily Bible Study: Proverbs 10:11
The mouth of the righteous is a well of life,
But violence covers the mouth of the wicked.
Proverbs 10:11 (NKJV).
How many people have ever died for an ideal? Sacrificed their own lives in pursuit of some goal, some state of being?
Now, how many people have died for someone else's ideal? Sacrificed their own lives in pursuit of someone else's goal, someone else's state of being?
The contrast here is highlighted by Jesus Christ, who died for the sake of humanity, for the ideal of God to reconcile us in a way which we could never possibly do on our own.
The rest of us?
We only aspire to such sacrifices, or at least, we do so publicly. We want the social credit of being so loving, but without actually making the sacrifices that make such a response justified.
The wicked sell all sorts of paths to salvation. Get rich quick, get revenge on someone who wronged you, enjoy yourself and then skip out on the bills. Deny God and live in sin and resist the calling of the Holy Spirit in your heart, the true and only unforgivable sin.
In each case the sinner is taking action, and the actions are destructive. Adultery, fornication, murder, theft, all of them acts of aggression, justified in various ways, but all different types of violence.
In the original language, here are the various ways that the word "covers" is translated throughout the Bible in the NASB:
closed (2), clothed (1), conceal (1), conceals (8), cover (50), covered (51), covering (4), covers (20), engulfed (3), forgive (1), hidden (1), hide (2), keep (1), made a covering (1), overwhelm (2), overwhelmed (2), take refuge (1).
Notice the connotation, and apply it back to the passage. "Actions speak louder than words".
Where the wise speak and their words bring life, the wicked are silenced by their own actions.
Who cares about the "equality" in economic and social status if it requires the death of millions to sustain it?
Who cares about the "freedom" from parental burdens if it requires the murder of the unborn to attain it?
The wicked are quick with the tongue, but their feet and hands are quicker, and they sow only destruction in their path, hating all that is "good", all that is "wise", not being content to leave well enough alone and pursue their own ends, they must also seek validation from others to compensate for the nagging realization that they are terribly wrong and terribly damned and nothing they do can change that.
The immoral woman, referenced earlier in Proverbs, lured ignorant men in with empty flattery and wordplay like "honey". Desirable, lofty, something that one would want.
But to achieve such ends requires violence. It requires hostile, action be taken, and in due time no amount of empty rhetoric can distract from the natural consequences of those actions.
Be wary of the wicked, and in keeping company with them, for you cannot protect yourself from them with the same empty words that they use, but through the capacity for and strength to resist the violence they would seek to bring upon you to suit their ends.
While we can dream of being so strong, in the end only God is infinite in this regard, which is why it took an act of God to provide a path of reconciliation, and it's only by acts of God that our hard hearts are softened to understand truth.
Do not resist the work of God, and do not look away from the violence caused by the wicked. Understand where it comes from and why, and flee from those who do evil in the name of doing good.
But violence covers the mouth of the wicked.
Proverbs 10:11 (NKJV).
How many people have ever died for an ideal? Sacrificed their own lives in pursuit of some goal, some state of being?
Now, how many people have died for someone else's ideal? Sacrificed their own lives in pursuit of someone else's goal, someone else's state of being?
The contrast here is highlighted by Jesus Christ, who died for the sake of humanity, for the ideal of God to reconcile us in a way which we could never possibly do on our own.
The rest of us?
We only aspire to such sacrifices, or at least, we do so publicly. We want the social credit of being so loving, but without actually making the sacrifices that make such a response justified.
The wicked sell all sorts of paths to salvation. Get rich quick, get revenge on someone who wronged you, enjoy yourself and then skip out on the bills. Deny God and live in sin and resist the calling of the Holy Spirit in your heart, the true and only unforgivable sin.
In each case the sinner is taking action, and the actions are destructive. Adultery, fornication, murder, theft, all of them acts of aggression, justified in various ways, but all different types of violence.
In the original language, here are the various ways that the word "covers" is translated throughout the Bible in the NASB:
closed (2), clothed (1), conceal (1), conceals (8), cover (50), covered (51), covering (4), covers (20), engulfed (3), forgive (1), hidden (1), hide (2), keep (1), made a covering (1), overwhelm (2), overwhelmed (2), take refuge (1).
Notice the connotation, and apply it back to the passage. "Actions speak louder than words".
Where the wise speak and their words bring life, the wicked are silenced by their own actions.
Who cares about the "equality" in economic and social status if it requires the death of millions to sustain it?
Who cares about the "freedom" from parental burdens if it requires the murder of the unborn to attain it?
The wicked are quick with the tongue, but their feet and hands are quicker, and they sow only destruction in their path, hating all that is "good", all that is "wise", not being content to leave well enough alone and pursue their own ends, they must also seek validation from others to compensate for the nagging realization that they are terribly wrong and terribly damned and nothing they do can change that.
The immoral woman, referenced earlier in Proverbs, lured ignorant men in with empty flattery and wordplay like "honey". Desirable, lofty, something that one would want.
But to achieve such ends requires violence. It requires hostile, action be taken, and in due time no amount of empty rhetoric can distract from the natural consequences of those actions.
Be wary of the wicked, and in keeping company with them, for you cannot protect yourself from them with the same empty words that they use, but through the capacity for and strength to resist the violence they would seek to bring upon you to suit their ends.
While we can dream of being so strong, in the end only God is infinite in this regard, which is why it took an act of God to provide a path of reconciliation, and it's only by acts of God that our hard hearts are softened to understand truth.
Do not resist the work of God, and do not look away from the violence caused by the wicked. Understand where it comes from and why, and flee from those who do evil in the name of doing good.
29.4.18
Daily Bible Study: Proverbs 10:6-7
Blessings are on the head of the righteous,
But violence covers the mouth of the wicked.
The memory of the righteous is blessed,
But the name of the wicked will rot.
Proverbs 10:6-7 (NKJV).
Life is not without struggles, whether you are in allegiance with God or still living in an unrepentant rebellion. The difference is in what significance those struggles play in your life, and thus how you will be remembered by those who hear tails of your exploits.
For the righteous, struggles are part of the path towards incremental refinement. Temptation is the warning that there is an area of weakness, a warning sign for an avenue for sin to manifest. This weakness is never going to go away completely because we are imperfect beings, and despite our efforts to convince ourselves otherwise, we can't conquer the desires of the flesh without help.
That's where the biggest contrast between the righteous and the wicked comes from, where we place faith. The righteous place their faith in God, in Jesus Christ, as their savior. The wicked place it in themselves, or some other temporal being of significantly more finite power. These beliefs then affect behavior, in the same way that placing a colored lens over a light will make it produce that color of light.
For the righteous, struggles are a stop along the way to a different destination, but for the wicked, the struggles end up defining them, being the end of their journey, because they put their faith in power which denies reality instead of aligns with it. The wicked see the struggle as something to avoid, and in so doing, they will not generate the strength, the inertia, to break through to the "other side".
As an example, if you have small children, they try your patience on a regular basis. They are difficult little solipsists who do not understand reality and will demand that you bend every rule in existence to keep them happy.
The wicked would rather just kill the child, or prevent its conception, and avoid the difficulty altogether because raising a child would distract them from more important achievements in this life. They're not wrong in that children do cost time and money which could otherwise be spent on whatever your heart desired, but it's a short-sighted and myopic view of existence.
Hedonism, by any other name, would still be just as selfish.
This also explains why the wicked are so often surrounded by death. Recently a child was left to die by medical professionals who refused to give the child back to the parents who had secured a means to try and treat their child. They weren't even allowed to try and fight to keep their child alive, they were told that they needed to just let him die and then move on.
Pray tell, how can anything else that comes from the mouth of someone who says that ever be heard? If someone has just told you that you have to accept death, that you cannot struggle, that you cannot expend resources as you see fit, but that you must submit to their higher authority and rule? These folks speak of "freedom" and "empowerment", and yet they must control and micromanage the lives of others to accomplish their goals.
Does it then make sense why the "mouth of the wicked" would be "covered by violence" if what they do and what they say to not match? Their words don't matter in contrast with their actions.
You see, the wicked want to be God. They mimic the relationship dynamics through laws and social manipulation in believing that if they can wrest control over someone else's life, then perhaps they can even one day overturn God's sovereignty over their own existence.
It's that very power they wield which ends up destroying them, because they keep gathering until it overcomes them. There is no point at which "ok I am close enough" ever crosses their mind, it's an all-or-nothing pursuit to become infinite.
This is why struggle refines the righteous and defines the wicked, both now and on into the future, because the "test of time" only makes the disparity all the more clear in hindsight.
But violence covers the mouth of the wicked.
The memory of the righteous is blessed,
But the name of the wicked will rot.
Proverbs 10:6-7 (NKJV).
Life is not without struggles, whether you are in allegiance with God or still living in an unrepentant rebellion. The difference is in what significance those struggles play in your life, and thus how you will be remembered by those who hear tails of your exploits.
For the righteous, struggles are part of the path towards incremental refinement. Temptation is the warning that there is an area of weakness, a warning sign for an avenue for sin to manifest. This weakness is never going to go away completely because we are imperfect beings, and despite our efforts to convince ourselves otherwise, we can't conquer the desires of the flesh without help.
That's where the biggest contrast between the righteous and the wicked comes from, where we place faith. The righteous place their faith in God, in Jesus Christ, as their savior. The wicked place it in themselves, or some other temporal being of significantly more finite power. These beliefs then affect behavior, in the same way that placing a colored lens over a light will make it produce that color of light.
For the righteous, struggles are a stop along the way to a different destination, but for the wicked, the struggles end up defining them, being the end of their journey, because they put their faith in power which denies reality instead of aligns with it. The wicked see the struggle as something to avoid, and in so doing, they will not generate the strength, the inertia, to break through to the "other side".
As an example, if you have small children, they try your patience on a regular basis. They are difficult little solipsists who do not understand reality and will demand that you bend every rule in existence to keep them happy.
The wicked would rather just kill the child, or prevent its conception, and avoid the difficulty altogether because raising a child would distract them from more important achievements in this life. They're not wrong in that children do cost time and money which could otherwise be spent on whatever your heart desired, but it's a short-sighted and myopic view of existence.
Hedonism, by any other name, would still be just as selfish.
This also explains why the wicked are so often surrounded by death. Recently a child was left to die by medical professionals who refused to give the child back to the parents who had secured a means to try and treat their child. They weren't even allowed to try and fight to keep their child alive, they were told that they needed to just let him die and then move on.
Pray tell, how can anything else that comes from the mouth of someone who says that ever be heard? If someone has just told you that you have to accept death, that you cannot struggle, that you cannot expend resources as you see fit, but that you must submit to their higher authority and rule? These folks speak of "freedom" and "empowerment", and yet they must control and micromanage the lives of others to accomplish their goals.
Does it then make sense why the "mouth of the wicked" would be "covered by violence" if what they do and what they say to not match? Their words don't matter in contrast with their actions.
You see, the wicked want to be God. They mimic the relationship dynamics through laws and social manipulation in believing that if they can wrest control over someone else's life, then perhaps they can even one day overturn God's sovereignty over their own existence.
It's that very power they wield which ends up destroying them, because they keep gathering until it overcomes them. There is no point at which "ok I am close enough" ever crosses their mind, it's an all-or-nothing pursuit to become infinite.
This is why struggle refines the righteous and defines the wicked, both now and on into the future, because the "test of time" only makes the disparity all the more clear in hindsight.
26.4.18
Daily Bible Study: Proverbs 10:2-3
Treasures of wickedness profit nothing,
But righteousness delivers from death.
The Lord will not allow the righteous soul to famish,
But He casts away the desire of the wicked.
Proverbs 10:2-3 (NKJV).
Biblical interpretation is not an easy thing, in part because it wasn't written in a single "go", and often without a lot of commentary from the era of origin, so while we can find considerable amounts of commentary and veritable textbooks written about the Bible now, we can't make the text say something that it doesn't and claim that we're being honest about our scriptural interpretation.
Taken most literally, all by itself without any context of the rest of scripture, it is easy to see how this bit of wisdom is simply wrong. Wickedness does profit, in this life at least. There are many righteous souls that have died from starvation.
While there are hints as to a bigger context, "profit" being contrasted with death, if taken literally again this wouldn't make sense in that the righteous die just as frequently as the unrighteous.
Context and meaning then don't come from just this little passage by itself "versus the world", and helps to highlight how there are themes and patterns of wisdom given throughout scripture, and you have to actually have read all of scripture in order to start picking them up yourself.
You have to read and re-read and then learn something completely unrelated and come back and read it again from a different perspective. The scriptures aren't changing at any point, they're trying to say the same thing the whole time, but our capacity to perceive the truth that is presented is contingent, and it changes over time, so it's not that "new truths" were inserted for our benefit, but that they were there the whole time and we just didn't see them.
The "treasures of wickedness profit nothing" because in the end, everyone dies physically, though Solomon is likely referring not to physical death, but spiritual. This theme of death not being physical started way back in Genesis with the serpent asking Eve "Did God really say you would die?"
Immediately after eating the fruit, neither Adam or Eve physically died, so the death was not a physical one, but spiritual. In the same manner, while those familiar with this theme from scripture will automatically begin connecting the dots to the larger connotation, to the memetic quality of the passage, if you just took this by itself it would seem entirely easy to disprove and show to be complete foolishness.
The second portion of the passage even moreso, if you do not know that the "life" being discussed, the nourishment, is not the physical but the spiritual. For those who are righteous, even though the body may suffer and die, their spirit is alive and well, being tended to by God on regular basis.
I hammer on this because, on the surface, God seems to make many promises to those who follow and obey that translate to material gain or satisfaction. The "problem" is that the writers of scripture are accounting for "dimensions" of understanding beyond just what's literally written on the page. They're relying on folks at least grasping that there is complexity, subtlety, nuance.
Without diving into downright gnosticism, re-read the passage and think of it entirely in spiritual terms, in the terms of how you will spend eternity after judgement by God. Separate the physical and the spiritual and understand that the analogy, the similarity, is not meant to be taken literally, but to be taken figuratively in trying to demonstrate a deeper truth through a dynamic that we'd already be familiar with and could then pattern the dynamics of understanding after.
A secular example of this is drawing parallels between plumbing and electrical systems. If you are familiar with how water flows through pipes, the properties of water and whatnot, there are a great many details about electricity which are also understood, despite the fact that we cannot literally see or observe electricity doing these things in the same way that we could with plumbing.
It's the use of an observable dynamic to help understand a hidden one that works of a similar pattern.
In eternity, it won't matter if you were a king or a pauper, what God judges is not your material success but your spiritual success, how well you lived your life according to the perfect standards God has set. Obviously, we all fail to meet this high standard, so it's not in what we did that determines our inevitable fate, but what we did with the works of Jesus Christ.
Do we place our faith in their ability to save us, or do we place our faith in our own works, hoping that they'll be worth anything at all? Do we trust in the fruits of wickedness, of our denying the order that God has set in place, to attempt to pay our fare across the river into the afterlife ourselves, or do we instead give up all claims of glory to make much of Jesus Christ instead?
Our actions betray our allegiances, our priorities.
But righteousness delivers from death.
The Lord will not allow the righteous soul to famish,
But He casts away the desire of the wicked.
Proverbs 10:2-3 (NKJV).
Biblical interpretation is not an easy thing, in part because it wasn't written in a single "go", and often without a lot of commentary from the era of origin, so while we can find considerable amounts of commentary and veritable textbooks written about the Bible now, we can't make the text say something that it doesn't and claim that we're being honest about our scriptural interpretation.
Taken most literally, all by itself without any context of the rest of scripture, it is easy to see how this bit of wisdom is simply wrong. Wickedness does profit, in this life at least. There are many righteous souls that have died from starvation.
While there are hints as to a bigger context, "profit" being contrasted with death, if taken literally again this wouldn't make sense in that the righteous die just as frequently as the unrighteous.
Context and meaning then don't come from just this little passage by itself "versus the world", and helps to highlight how there are themes and patterns of wisdom given throughout scripture, and you have to actually have read all of scripture in order to start picking them up yourself.
You have to read and re-read and then learn something completely unrelated and come back and read it again from a different perspective. The scriptures aren't changing at any point, they're trying to say the same thing the whole time, but our capacity to perceive the truth that is presented is contingent, and it changes over time, so it's not that "new truths" were inserted for our benefit, but that they were there the whole time and we just didn't see them.
The "treasures of wickedness profit nothing" because in the end, everyone dies physically, though Solomon is likely referring not to physical death, but spiritual. This theme of death not being physical started way back in Genesis with the serpent asking Eve "Did God really say you would die?"
Immediately after eating the fruit, neither Adam or Eve physically died, so the death was not a physical one, but spiritual. In the same manner, while those familiar with this theme from scripture will automatically begin connecting the dots to the larger connotation, to the memetic quality of the passage, if you just took this by itself it would seem entirely easy to disprove and show to be complete foolishness.
The second portion of the passage even moreso, if you do not know that the "life" being discussed, the nourishment, is not the physical but the spiritual. For those who are righteous, even though the body may suffer and die, their spirit is alive and well, being tended to by God on regular basis.
I hammer on this because, on the surface, God seems to make many promises to those who follow and obey that translate to material gain or satisfaction. The "problem" is that the writers of scripture are accounting for "dimensions" of understanding beyond just what's literally written on the page. They're relying on folks at least grasping that there is complexity, subtlety, nuance.
Without diving into downright gnosticism, re-read the passage and think of it entirely in spiritual terms, in the terms of how you will spend eternity after judgement by God. Separate the physical and the spiritual and understand that the analogy, the similarity, is not meant to be taken literally, but to be taken figuratively in trying to demonstrate a deeper truth through a dynamic that we'd already be familiar with and could then pattern the dynamics of understanding after.
A secular example of this is drawing parallels between plumbing and electrical systems. If you are familiar with how water flows through pipes, the properties of water and whatnot, there are a great many details about electricity which are also understood, despite the fact that we cannot literally see or observe electricity doing these things in the same way that we could with plumbing.
It's the use of an observable dynamic to help understand a hidden one that works of a similar pattern.
In eternity, it won't matter if you were a king or a pauper, what God judges is not your material success but your spiritual success, how well you lived your life according to the perfect standards God has set. Obviously, we all fail to meet this high standard, so it's not in what we did that determines our inevitable fate, but what we did with the works of Jesus Christ.
Do we place our faith in their ability to save us, or do we place our faith in our own works, hoping that they'll be worth anything at all? Do we trust in the fruits of wickedness, of our denying the order that God has set in place, to attempt to pay our fare across the river into the afterlife ourselves, or do we instead give up all claims of glory to make much of Jesus Christ instead?
Our actions betray our allegiances, our priorities.
18.4.18
Daily Bible Study: Proverbs 8:12-21
“I, wisdom, dwell with prudence,
And find out knowledge and discretion.
The fear of the Lord is to hate evil;
Pride and arrogance and the evil way
And the perverse mouth I hate.
Counsel is mine, and sound wisdom;
I am understanding, I have strength.
By me kings reign,
And rulers decree justice.
By me princes rule, and nobles,
All the judges of the earth.
I love those who love me,
And those who seek me diligently will find me.
Riches and honor are with me,
Enduring riches and righteousness.
My fruit is better than gold, yes, than fine gold,
And my revenue than choice silver.
I traverse the way of righteousness,
In the midst of the paths of justice,
That I may cause those who love me to inherit wealth,
That I may fill their treasuries.
Proverbs 8:12-21 (NKJV).
Hate showed back up again, and it's useful to be reminded of the full measure of God's capacity to feel. Much emphasis has been placed on trying to make God attractive to the unrepentant by exemplifying the attribute of "love", but in so doing, and in the dilution of mixing with other world religions, Christians have forgotten that God does things like hate, or feel jealous, and that salvation is not just "nice", but is a necessary step to get off the path that will experience the wrath of God against sin.
Humans aren't intrinsically evil, but manifest it in their rebellion against God, and as such, there is a tangible difference between the ignorant sinner and the outright wicked, those who understand that they are doing wrong and may go so far as to take delight in it.
Now, note that wisdom is trying to explain how the riches she affords are longer-lasting and more satisfying than what evil brings. This is not denying that evil behavior can net one a reward at all, but instead that the cost for that evil behavior needs to be fully accounted for when making decisions.
How many times have you yourself thought or heard someone say that they'd "have done things differently" if they understood some aspect of the decision process that they previously undertook?
Time and again people want to believe that, in the budget they imagine they'll have from their ill-gotten gains, they'll be more than enough to repair any damage they've caused, or that they'll find some way to resolve problems that will, overall, still have left them with a greater surplus of resources to then expend than if they'd having done things the correct way, through application of wisdom and understanding.
The fixation on "doing it my way" is a self-destructive one, yet it comes naturally to us. We want to be the ones that define terms, that can be held responsible, to have ourselves exalted and held high for what we have accomplished.
Paradoxically, when Jesus sought only to glorify God through his life, his sacrifices earned him the highest exaltation possible. Yet even without Christ as an example, the dynamic was readily apparent.
Make much of wisdom, and you will find greatness, because you are aligned with the nature and rules of this reality and the creator who oversees it.
Make little of wisdom, and you will find destruction, because you are aligned against the nature and rules of this reality and the creator who oversees it.
Some will only ever bend a knee because they've been forced, their arrogance and hubris so completely consumes them. At no point can they comprehend that they'd have all they desired, and even more, if they submitted their thoughts to the guidance of wisdom and understanding instead of relying on their own unrefined instincts.
This is why God hating those who do evil carries no condemning connotation, because it is not simple ignorance that God hates, but evil, wickedness, the intentional rejection of wisdom, of understanding, the entirely wasted life of a person in seeking only to exist as contrarian to God.
God hates that because even existence itself is a gift. None of us deserved it, earned it, can repay God even that, let alone cover the debts we incur through our sin. You can read the latter portions of Job to see how God reacts when Job starts declaring that Job should never have been born in the first place.
Wisdom benefits in perpetuity where evil does not. Make decisions and consider more than your immediate sensational response.
And find out knowledge and discretion.
The fear of the Lord is to hate evil;
Pride and arrogance and the evil way
And the perverse mouth I hate.
Counsel is mine, and sound wisdom;
I am understanding, I have strength.
By me kings reign,
And rulers decree justice.
By me princes rule, and nobles,
All the judges of the earth.
I love those who love me,
And those who seek me diligently will find me.
Riches and honor are with me,
Enduring riches and righteousness.
My fruit is better than gold, yes, than fine gold,
And my revenue than choice silver.
I traverse the way of righteousness,
In the midst of the paths of justice,
That I may cause those who love me to inherit wealth,
That I may fill their treasuries.
Proverbs 8:12-21 (NKJV).
Hate showed back up again, and it's useful to be reminded of the full measure of God's capacity to feel. Much emphasis has been placed on trying to make God attractive to the unrepentant by exemplifying the attribute of "love", but in so doing, and in the dilution of mixing with other world religions, Christians have forgotten that God does things like hate, or feel jealous, and that salvation is not just "nice", but is a necessary step to get off the path that will experience the wrath of God against sin.
Humans aren't intrinsically evil, but manifest it in their rebellion against God, and as such, there is a tangible difference between the ignorant sinner and the outright wicked, those who understand that they are doing wrong and may go so far as to take delight in it.
Now, note that wisdom is trying to explain how the riches she affords are longer-lasting and more satisfying than what evil brings. This is not denying that evil behavior can net one a reward at all, but instead that the cost for that evil behavior needs to be fully accounted for when making decisions.
How many times have you yourself thought or heard someone say that they'd "have done things differently" if they understood some aspect of the decision process that they previously undertook?
Time and again people want to believe that, in the budget they imagine they'll have from their ill-gotten gains, they'll be more than enough to repair any damage they've caused, or that they'll find some way to resolve problems that will, overall, still have left them with a greater surplus of resources to then expend than if they'd having done things the correct way, through application of wisdom and understanding.
The fixation on "doing it my way" is a self-destructive one, yet it comes naturally to us. We want to be the ones that define terms, that can be held responsible, to have ourselves exalted and held high for what we have accomplished.
Paradoxically, when Jesus sought only to glorify God through his life, his sacrifices earned him the highest exaltation possible. Yet even without Christ as an example, the dynamic was readily apparent.
Make much of wisdom, and you will find greatness, because you are aligned with the nature and rules of this reality and the creator who oversees it.
Make little of wisdom, and you will find destruction, because you are aligned against the nature and rules of this reality and the creator who oversees it.
Some will only ever bend a knee because they've been forced, their arrogance and hubris so completely consumes them. At no point can they comprehend that they'd have all they desired, and even more, if they submitted their thoughts to the guidance of wisdom and understanding instead of relying on their own unrefined instincts.
This is why God hating those who do evil carries no condemning connotation, because it is not simple ignorance that God hates, but evil, wickedness, the intentional rejection of wisdom, of understanding, the entirely wasted life of a person in seeking only to exist as contrarian to God.
God hates that because even existence itself is a gift. None of us deserved it, earned it, can repay God even that, let alone cover the debts we incur through our sin. You can read the latter portions of Job to see how God reacts when Job starts declaring that Job should never have been born in the first place.
Wisdom benefits in perpetuity where evil does not. Make decisions and consider more than your immediate sensational response.
6.4.18
Daily Bible Study: Proverbs 5:21-23
For the ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord,
And He ponders all his paths.
His own iniquities entrap the wicked man,
And he is caught in the cords of his sin.
He shall die for lack of instruction,
And in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray.
Proverbs 5:21-23 (NKJV).
It feels obvious saying this, but God is not "tricked" or "fooled" by anything we do, especially not in the way that the people around us can be, because their perceptions are limited. There is no hiding anything from God, or surprising God, or anything like that.
In the nature of creation we see that God designed the systems of our existence knowing full well that Adam and Eve would fall. While God desired that humanity remain in relationship, God knew that wouldn't last. Why I say it in that manner is reflected in the stance I take on the balance between God's sovereignty and human agency, or free will.
The label is "Molinist", and essentially it sits between the much better known "Calvinism" and "Arminianism". Despite Luis being a contemporary of John and Jacobus, the doctrines that he put forth to explain the balance of sovereignty and free will were dismissed despite providing the most coherent interpretation of scripture be actually balancing sovereignty and free will instead of enslaving the one to the other as the two more prominent stances often do.
For those who are entirely unfamiliar with the terms, Calvinists emphasize the sovereignty of God at the cost of free will, and Arminians emphasize the free will of humans at the cost of the sovereignty of God, and while there are more details that are worth understanding, this is the most important one to understand right now. The next most important thing to understand is that each is supported by scripture, and as you might now guess, passages that support one undermine the other, and vice versa.
Yet instead of seeking to find a way to harmonize interpretation coherently, scholars from both schools of thought tend to create "new rules" to interpret scripture such that when the Bible says something, you now have to reference a "decoder ring" of sorts to understand what scripture is really trying to say, even if the new interpretation appears to contradict the explicit words used in scripture.
You might be wondering what this has to to with Proverbs, so I'll digress for a moment. If what a man (or woman) chooses to do is not really their choice, then they do not own the moral significance of the choice, nor the consequences that come from the result of a choice they did not make. Is a puppet capable of defying the puppeteer? This passage in Proverbs is discussing the consequences of wickedness, so understanding who is really responsible, given that God knows what will be done and "ponders all his paths", helps explain the how in this piece of wisdom given to us by Solomon. Now, back to the task at hand.
Some examples of scripture that must be twisted one direction are Revlation 22:17, 2 Corinthians 4:4 and 5:15, and 2 Peter 3:9.
Verses that must be twisted the opposite direction are like Ephesians 1:4 and 1:5, 2 Thessalonians 2:13, and 2 Timothy 1:9
In each set, who is responsible when it comes to salvation is painted differently, who responds and why isn't quite the same, and you can see how, emphasizing either God's sovereignty or human free will, you end up with an inconsistent interpretation of scripture. Instead the two must be balanced, and that's where Molinism comes back into play, and thus how it ties directly to this passage in Proverbs.
Molinism posits that in addition to the two types of knowledge most theologians recognize, that there is a third "in the middle" of those two. The first recognized set of knowledge is of all that could be, all the possibilities that God could manifest. The second recognized set of knowledge is all that will be, given that what will occur is a subset of the creation of God, so God being outside creation there is no reason God won't know this. The third, the posited set of knowledge, is that God knows what would happen under different circumstances.
"Middle knowledge" is that God knows accurately what choices you would freely make with your own judgment under a given set of circumstances, even if those circumstances are entirely hypothetical and never actually manifest.
Anecdotally, we express this type of knowledge when we are familiar with someone and accurately predict how they will react in a circumstance. Finishing each other's sentences, or even phrases like "I knew you'd say that" are evidences of this in our lives, but is there ever a scriptural support for this phenomenon?
Yes, and out of Jesus' own mouth as well. Is there ever an explicit reference to the knowledge that Jesus is tapping into when making such a claim? No, but the word "trinity" does not appear in scripture either, and yet few have issues with the use of the term to describe a philosophical concept that is relevant to doctrine.
So, why the huge detour down this path in order to support this verse?
If God knows what you would do, then God could put you in the appropriate place and time in history such that your choices, whether in obedience or rebellion, would still be yours, but the outcome of your choices could still be known and accounted for in God's overall plan for out material existence.
In essence, what it means is that before the creation of our reality, God could compare all the possibilities, determine which of them brought God the most glory, and then seek to manifest exactly that specific series of events, all without needing to coerce people to make any decisions, because God, knowing us better than we even know ourselves, knew what choices we would make and how the flow of the narrative of our existence would continue on because of those.
In this fashion, God could also design the mechanisms of existence to always have an appropriate response, such that both materially and eternally, the choices we made would have been ours, and so God's punishment of sin and justice is no longer a mockery, a game of puppets, actors, being punished for just playing the part God gave them.
This is how the wicked can be caught up in their sin, not because God is constantly scrambling to find some way to give evildoers their comeuppance, but because God already knew of the choices that would be made, and so can orchestrate the natural flow of humanity to achieve God's ends even if through means which God could not, at any level, be responsible for (sin).
Sin does not have a tangible existence, but is like a shadow, a relative concept like "cold" which exists to explain the absence of something else. A shadow cannot exist without light, and "cold" does not make sense unless there is "warm" to compare it to, "cold" just being a smaller quantity of "heat".
Likewise, creation was ordered by God to function in such a way that reflect God's nature, but gave the capacity for existence of "less holy", "less perfect", "less God". Sin is Godlessness, running contrary to both God's nature, and the nature of the creation of God. While Satan does rule, and seeks to promote evil, a lack of holiness, a lack of moral perfection, this is but an attempt to pervert and corrupt an existing creation, not a new creation, an opposing force to God.
In the same fashion that, while appearing to have material success, Satan's defeat has already been declared, been understood, and likewise the sins of man may grant a temporary appearance of success, of "winning the battle" against God, but it always comes at a cost which entirely destroys all that was gained through wickedness.
For one example and then I'll wrap this up, the greedy are never satisfied, their lust growing ever stronger, there is no "enough" for them, despite everything that they gain, they cannot see it, and their lives do not really change, they continue to behave as if they'd really gained nothing at all. Eventually even the power they have gathered unto themselves runs out and all they had gained is lost, and to the dust they were made from do they return. Their avarice, their attempts to gain freedom from God is successful, but only in damning them to an eternal bondage without hope of reconciliation.
Solomon is telling us that there is no sin for which there are no consequences, and that for the measure of our investment in foolishness, so will we find ourselves distanced from God, whether now or in eternity.
Pursue God, pursue wisdom, retreat from temptation, and you will not die alone, lost in darkness, isolated from God. It's our choice to make, and God will respect it, judge us for it, whether we chose obedience or rebellion.
And He ponders all his paths.
His own iniquities entrap the wicked man,
And he is caught in the cords of his sin.
He shall die for lack of instruction,
And in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray.
Proverbs 5:21-23 (NKJV).
It feels obvious saying this, but God is not "tricked" or "fooled" by anything we do, especially not in the way that the people around us can be, because their perceptions are limited. There is no hiding anything from God, or surprising God, or anything like that.
In the nature of creation we see that God designed the systems of our existence knowing full well that Adam and Eve would fall. While God desired that humanity remain in relationship, God knew that wouldn't last. Why I say it in that manner is reflected in the stance I take on the balance between God's sovereignty and human agency, or free will.
The label is "Molinist", and essentially it sits between the much better known "Calvinism" and "Arminianism". Despite Luis being a contemporary of John and Jacobus, the doctrines that he put forth to explain the balance of sovereignty and free will were dismissed despite providing the most coherent interpretation of scripture be actually balancing sovereignty and free will instead of enslaving the one to the other as the two more prominent stances often do.
For those who are entirely unfamiliar with the terms, Calvinists emphasize the sovereignty of God at the cost of free will, and Arminians emphasize the free will of humans at the cost of the sovereignty of God, and while there are more details that are worth understanding, this is the most important one to understand right now. The next most important thing to understand is that each is supported by scripture, and as you might now guess, passages that support one undermine the other, and vice versa.
Yet instead of seeking to find a way to harmonize interpretation coherently, scholars from both schools of thought tend to create "new rules" to interpret scripture such that when the Bible says something, you now have to reference a "decoder ring" of sorts to understand what scripture is really trying to say, even if the new interpretation appears to contradict the explicit words used in scripture.
You might be wondering what this has to to with Proverbs, so I'll digress for a moment. If what a man (or woman) chooses to do is not really their choice, then they do not own the moral significance of the choice, nor the consequences that come from the result of a choice they did not make. Is a puppet capable of defying the puppeteer? This passage in Proverbs is discussing the consequences of wickedness, so understanding who is really responsible, given that God knows what will be done and "ponders all his paths", helps explain the how in this piece of wisdom given to us by Solomon. Now, back to the task at hand.
Some examples of scripture that must be twisted one direction are Revlation 22:17, 2 Corinthians 4:4 and 5:15, and 2 Peter 3:9.
Verses that must be twisted the opposite direction are like Ephesians 1:4 and 1:5, 2 Thessalonians 2:13, and 2 Timothy 1:9
In each set, who is responsible when it comes to salvation is painted differently, who responds and why isn't quite the same, and you can see how, emphasizing either God's sovereignty or human free will, you end up with an inconsistent interpretation of scripture. Instead the two must be balanced, and that's where Molinism comes back into play, and thus how it ties directly to this passage in Proverbs.
Molinism posits that in addition to the two types of knowledge most theologians recognize, that there is a third "in the middle" of those two. The first recognized set of knowledge is of all that could be, all the possibilities that God could manifest. The second recognized set of knowledge is all that will be, given that what will occur is a subset of the creation of God, so God being outside creation there is no reason God won't know this. The third, the posited set of knowledge, is that God knows what would happen under different circumstances.
"Middle knowledge" is that God knows accurately what choices you would freely make with your own judgment under a given set of circumstances, even if those circumstances are entirely hypothetical and never actually manifest.
Anecdotally, we express this type of knowledge when we are familiar with someone and accurately predict how they will react in a circumstance. Finishing each other's sentences, or even phrases like "I knew you'd say that" are evidences of this in our lives, but is there ever a scriptural support for this phenomenon?
Yes, and out of Jesus' own mouth as well. Is there ever an explicit reference to the knowledge that Jesus is tapping into when making such a claim? No, but the word "trinity" does not appear in scripture either, and yet few have issues with the use of the term to describe a philosophical concept that is relevant to doctrine.
So, why the huge detour down this path in order to support this verse?
If God knows what you would do, then God could put you in the appropriate place and time in history such that your choices, whether in obedience or rebellion, would still be yours, but the outcome of your choices could still be known and accounted for in God's overall plan for out material existence.
In essence, what it means is that before the creation of our reality, God could compare all the possibilities, determine which of them brought God the most glory, and then seek to manifest exactly that specific series of events, all without needing to coerce people to make any decisions, because God, knowing us better than we even know ourselves, knew what choices we would make and how the flow of the narrative of our existence would continue on because of those.
In this fashion, God could also design the mechanisms of existence to always have an appropriate response, such that both materially and eternally, the choices we made would have been ours, and so God's punishment of sin and justice is no longer a mockery, a game of puppets, actors, being punished for just playing the part God gave them.
This is how the wicked can be caught up in their sin, not because God is constantly scrambling to find some way to give evildoers their comeuppance, but because God already knew of the choices that would be made, and so can orchestrate the natural flow of humanity to achieve God's ends even if through means which God could not, at any level, be responsible for (sin).
Sin does not have a tangible existence, but is like a shadow, a relative concept like "cold" which exists to explain the absence of something else. A shadow cannot exist without light, and "cold" does not make sense unless there is "warm" to compare it to, "cold" just being a smaller quantity of "heat".
Likewise, creation was ordered by God to function in such a way that reflect God's nature, but gave the capacity for existence of "less holy", "less perfect", "less God". Sin is Godlessness, running contrary to both God's nature, and the nature of the creation of God. While Satan does rule, and seeks to promote evil, a lack of holiness, a lack of moral perfection, this is but an attempt to pervert and corrupt an existing creation, not a new creation, an opposing force to God.
In the same fashion that, while appearing to have material success, Satan's defeat has already been declared, been understood, and likewise the sins of man may grant a temporary appearance of success, of "winning the battle" against God, but it always comes at a cost which entirely destroys all that was gained through wickedness.
For one example and then I'll wrap this up, the greedy are never satisfied, their lust growing ever stronger, there is no "enough" for them, despite everything that they gain, they cannot see it, and their lives do not really change, they continue to behave as if they'd really gained nothing at all. Eventually even the power they have gathered unto themselves runs out and all they had gained is lost, and to the dust they were made from do they return. Their avarice, their attempts to gain freedom from God is successful, but only in damning them to an eternal bondage without hope of reconciliation.
Solomon is telling us that there is no sin for which there are no consequences, and that for the measure of our investment in foolishness, so will we find ourselves distanced from God, whether now or in eternity.
Pursue God, pursue wisdom, retreat from temptation, and you will not die alone, lost in darkness, isolated from God. It's our choice to make, and God will respect it, judge us for it, whether we chose obedience or rebellion.
1.4.18
Daily Bible Study: Proverbs 4:10-19
Hear, my son, and receive my sayings,
And the years of your life will be many.
I have taught you in the way of wisdom;
I have led you in right paths.
When you walk, your steps will not be hindered,
And when you run, you will not stumble.
Take firm hold of instruction, do not let go;
Keep her, for she is your life.
Do not enter the path of the wicked,
And do not walk in the way of evil.
Avoid it, do not travel on it;
Turn away from it and pass on.
For they do not sleep unless they have done evil;
And their sleep is taken away unless they make someone fall.
For they eat the bread of wickedness,
And drink the wine of violence.
But the path of the just is like the shining sun,
That shines ever brighter unto the perfect day.
The way of the wicked is like darkness;
They do not know what makes them stumble.
Proverbs 4:10-19 (NKJV).
Wisdom, to some extent, doesn't really change your future as much as it changes the probability of specific futures coming to pass. Being wise won't change many of the choices you'll face, but it will change how the outcome of those decisions plays out.
Humans don't live in a vacuum either, where the decisions we make affect only us, and we are the only ones privy to the details going into the choice that needs to be made. Our choices do have an impact on those around us, and those same people can often be witness to what prompted a choice, as well as the choice we've made through our actions.
Solomon tells us that the wicked both promote their own evil, as well as not understanding what it is that causes them to fail. Anecdotally we've all known people like this, who keep making the same mistakes, who keep nosing into other people's lives, and who complain endlessly about how unfair their life circumstances are. These people do not see the connection between their actions and the consequences, as if the two are not connected.
This is a big part of wisdom, that action and consequence be connected and visibly so. When one makes a choice, we need immediate feedback to help refine the decision making process for the next time a decision of that nature comes up. When we don't have that feedback, it becomes very difficult to say whether the choice was "good" or "bad" at all, and whether what followed was a result of the decision that was made or some other unseen decision made by someone else whose consequences we just happened to fall into.
This is why Solomon discusses the "path of the just" being a light, because if you can see the connections, if you are examining and inspecting, then there is a feedback loop wherein continuous good decisions reinforces the boldness and confidence in making further decisions, and this becomes apparent not just to you, but to those around you.
For better and for worse.
If one is accustomed to walking in darkness, what is the natural response when a light shows up, especially unexpectedly? We wince, we cover our eyes, we try to protect ourselves from the light. If this new light causes a convicting shadow to fall on your life, if the good decisions of others made by wisdom start to expose how poorly your own decisions are, the immediate response is almost never a positive one.
This is why the wicked cannot rest, and why they try to find comfort in not knowing why anything happens, nor having any of the connections between what they do and the result made known, because they wish to persist in their ignorance, to take the easy path which avoids growth and humility, to instead be consumed by anger and envy at the source of light, exposing their own darkness.
"Misery loves company" and "honesty is the best policy" are two phrases that help capture some of the feeling in this passage. Wise choices bring positive outcomes to those who adhere to them, and wicked choices bring negative outcomes to those who adhere to them, but again notice that the wicked to not make this connection, they do not understand that their wickedness is what besets them, and so they continue in it, believing that their redemption is just around the corner.
Things will be different "this time".
While the wise cannot insulate themselves from the wicked, they can make the best choices in how to deal with the circumstances they face, and that includes when their paths cross with the wicked. There will be a disparity, both in the choices made and the understanding of the downstream impact of those choices, but those are not a "bad thing", they're the natural consequence of wickedness or wisdom.
Pursue wisdom and understanding, reject the ignorance of wickedness.
And the years of your life will be many.
I have taught you in the way of wisdom;
I have led you in right paths.
When you walk, your steps will not be hindered,
And when you run, you will not stumble.
Take firm hold of instruction, do not let go;
Keep her, for she is your life.
Do not enter the path of the wicked,
And do not walk in the way of evil.
Avoid it, do not travel on it;
Turn away from it and pass on.
For they do not sleep unless they have done evil;
And their sleep is taken away unless they make someone fall.
For they eat the bread of wickedness,
And drink the wine of violence.
But the path of the just is like the shining sun,
That shines ever brighter unto the perfect day.
The way of the wicked is like darkness;
They do not know what makes them stumble.
Proverbs 4:10-19 (NKJV).
Wisdom, to some extent, doesn't really change your future as much as it changes the probability of specific futures coming to pass. Being wise won't change many of the choices you'll face, but it will change how the outcome of those decisions plays out.
Humans don't live in a vacuum either, where the decisions we make affect only us, and we are the only ones privy to the details going into the choice that needs to be made. Our choices do have an impact on those around us, and those same people can often be witness to what prompted a choice, as well as the choice we've made through our actions.
Solomon tells us that the wicked both promote their own evil, as well as not understanding what it is that causes them to fail. Anecdotally we've all known people like this, who keep making the same mistakes, who keep nosing into other people's lives, and who complain endlessly about how unfair their life circumstances are. These people do not see the connection between their actions and the consequences, as if the two are not connected.
This is a big part of wisdom, that action and consequence be connected and visibly so. When one makes a choice, we need immediate feedback to help refine the decision making process for the next time a decision of that nature comes up. When we don't have that feedback, it becomes very difficult to say whether the choice was "good" or "bad" at all, and whether what followed was a result of the decision that was made or some other unseen decision made by someone else whose consequences we just happened to fall into.
This is why Solomon discusses the "path of the just" being a light, because if you can see the connections, if you are examining and inspecting, then there is a feedback loop wherein continuous good decisions reinforces the boldness and confidence in making further decisions, and this becomes apparent not just to you, but to those around you.
For better and for worse.
If one is accustomed to walking in darkness, what is the natural response when a light shows up, especially unexpectedly? We wince, we cover our eyes, we try to protect ourselves from the light. If this new light causes a convicting shadow to fall on your life, if the good decisions of others made by wisdom start to expose how poorly your own decisions are, the immediate response is almost never a positive one.
This is why the wicked cannot rest, and why they try to find comfort in not knowing why anything happens, nor having any of the connections between what they do and the result made known, because they wish to persist in their ignorance, to take the easy path which avoids growth and humility, to instead be consumed by anger and envy at the source of light, exposing their own darkness.
"Misery loves company" and "honesty is the best policy" are two phrases that help capture some of the feeling in this passage. Wise choices bring positive outcomes to those who adhere to them, and wicked choices bring negative outcomes to those who adhere to them, but again notice that the wicked to not make this connection, they do not understand that their wickedness is what besets them, and so they continue in it, believing that their redemption is just around the corner.
Things will be different "this time".
While the wise cannot insulate themselves from the wicked, they can make the best choices in how to deal with the circumstances they face, and that includes when their paths cross with the wicked. There will be a disparity, both in the choices made and the understanding of the downstream impact of those choices, but those are not a "bad thing", they're the natural consequence of wickedness or wisdom.
Pursue wisdom and understanding, reject the ignorance of wickedness.
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