Wise people store up knowledge,
But the mouth of the foolish is near destruction.
Proverbs 10:14 (NKJV).
You should change "gurus" when they have no longer provide a path to truth. Whether this is a pastor at your church, or someone who shares the same hobby or interests, you should humble yourself and learn as much as you can from their greater experience, but then you must move on.
Wisdom is not itself an action, it's the guidance behind action, and to grow in wisdom you must grow in knowledge so that you can see the patterns in your circumstance and align it to the wisdom and knowledge you've already gained.
Take the earlier portions of Proverbs, for example. If you were to take the information too literally, you'd think that all you need to do to avoid adultery is not walk down particular streets. While "red light" districts are an exception, the true knowledge isn't in the specifics of how the ignorant fool was ensnared, but that he could be ensnared at all and what behaviors would be used by the immoral woman to ensnare him.
Compare this to the old adage about "teaching a man to fish" versus "giving a man a fish". Wisdom is not about giving someone a fish, a single correct answer which, outside that specific problem showing back up again, is essentially useless. Wisdom is about teaching how to fish, teaching the underlying dynamics, the patterns, and growing in knowledge about how all these things can interact with each other to produce unique circumstances where universal truths are still applicable.
In this short passage, the contrast between the wise and foolish is in how they spend time, what it is that could define them. In our lives, we've been around people who talk too much, folks who run at the mouth and don't ever listen. That's the kind of fool being described, because if you persist in speaking, eventually you'll say something that will ensnare you somehow, and the probability of that happening increases the more ignorant you are.
We know this colloquially under the label "inappropriate". Talking about disbursement of inheritance at the memorial service, for example, might be seen as lacking tact. A fool would run off at the mouth and offend their family and generate antagonism out of their ignorance as to the appropriate time to discuss such matters.
It's in this fashion that the words a person uses cannot, by themselves, tell you everything. You need context, and that's where the "wise" who are gathering knowledge will be quick to listen and slow to speak, wisdom which shows up later in scripture.
The fool doesn't know about or doesn't care about the consequences of destruction that their tongue will bring upon them, but the wise will speak, and act, with prudence and intention.
Solomon is drawing attention to this dynamic in the contrast between the wise who could share the knowledge they've gained versus the foolish whose lips will bring destruction.
Any one "guru" will have some sample of truth, a finite collection of useful knowledge, and you will eventually hit their limit and need to continue your journey. With God there is no limit, but we are not really interacting directly with God, but with people who have interacted with God, and whose knowledge is filtered through their own life experiences and ponders.
To continue gathering knowledge, then, you need to learn from people who have had different experiences and combine that with what you've already learned to synthesize your understanding of the universal truths behind the specific occurrences, to find the patterns, to see them play out, and to practice identifying where you are in any one pattern.
You can't do that by talking all the time.You need to listen, to gather knowledge.
“It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.” - Mark Twain
Showing posts with label Bible. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bible. Show all posts
29.3.18
Daily Bible Study: Proverbs 3:31-35
Do not envy the oppressor,
And choose none of his ways;
For the perverse person is an abomination to the Lord,
But His secret counsel is with the upright.
The curse of the Lord is on the house of the wicked,
But He blesses the home of the just.
Surely He scorns the scornful,
But gives grace to the humble.
The wise shall inherit glory,
But shame shall be the legacy of fools.
Proverbs 3:31-35 (NKJV).
This passage reminded me of the quote attributed to Mark Twain which goes "Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience."
There are many ways to gain power in the material world, and when people have power over others the temptation is to exert that power to meet the ends and desires of whoever controls the power. Solomon starts us out by encouraging us not to be envious of those who use power to oppress.
You can't be an oppressor unless you have power, in the same way that an ant can't really oppress an elephant, let alone an entire herd of them.
It's natural, in reaction to oppression, to be tempted to mirror the oppressor, to not only seek to remove your bondage, but to chain them up and seek revenge of "equal measure" against them, to essentially become the oppressor yourself. This is what Solomon advises against.
Power attracts the corrupt, because we are born solipsistic, and will by our nature pursue any means by which that belief in our inherent deity can be confirmed. This is the heart of our "sin nature", in that to do any of that we must be first denying God the throne and constantly trying to fill the seat with anything else, whether ourselves or lesser demons who have made names for themselves in the various world religions.
I have no doubt that an "Allah" exists, or a "Shiva", or a "Jupiter", or a "Loki", and that they are finite spiritual beings which do wield power in this world as subordinates to the prince of this world. I have no doubt that humans in alignment with evil have been granted supernatural capability as a means of validating the "power" of those they serve.
I also know that many Christians can feel like God's power is almost never displayed in the same fashion, that there are many who would claim that "if God did X, then I would believe."
But the problem in that belief is akin to complaining that because the demons and lesser god-wannabe beings are making great sandcastles, that the God who created the sand is somehow denigrated, threatened, or overshadowed by what these finite creatures can accomplish with the sand that God created. Do you see the disparity in actual power being demonstrated?
To use another analogy, it's like complaining that the guy who brought the frozen water block that an ice sculptor then fashions into is "unnecessary", yet without his work, the ice sculptor can't do anything at all to manifest their desires.
It's this same dynamic wherein God is neither impressed or challenged by the smaller "miracles" and achievements of the fallen angels who rule this Earthly realm, nor why God would feel any need to offer a demonstration as a response, because anybody who is really paying attention, genuinely seeking truth, will discover this dynamic and adjust their loyalties to worship the one true God.
The perverse person will deny God's power in favor of that which glorifies themselves, and at any cost. There is no distinct course of actions, it's entirely about motivation and purpose, and those things are not always readily apparent.
Look at how the consequences of wisdom and foolishness are described as being in the future, not in front of us. In the short-term, it may very well appear that subscribing to "foolishness", acting on your own understanding and being wise to your own standards, produces a "good" result. The problem is that, even by chance, evil can find temporary success, and when empowered at all, evil can appear to be the "right choice".
The problem there is that "the end" has already been written. "Evil" loses, badly, it's not even a "fair fight". This is why God so regularly discourages revenge, not because seeking peace and justice in this life are not good things, but because the passion for revenge can distract you from glorifying God.
The temporary injustices we face may be corrected temporally by our hand, but they will all be judged between now and eternity, and even the secret deeds will be brought to light. Nobody escapes judgment, and the judge is a morally perfect being who cannot be in close relationship with any who do not share in that perfect holiness.
This is why the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on our behalf is so significant, so free, so undeserved, and so humbling. Even when we were in the midst of trying to replace God, a path of reconciliation, of eternal peace, was being cleared for us through the blood of Christ.
God favors those who glorify God, though not always by temporal means, and when you look at existence beyond the material, beyond the temporal and into the eternal, this makes sense, and provides sound reason for us to behave differently than those around us who may still be in rebellion with God.
We are not to pursue the same idols, to sacrifice to the fallen, the sinful, to repeat the patterns of depravity we see around us, even when they appear beneficial, for it gains us nothing. This does not mean that the specific actions we take are always going to be different, in that we are never to seek power or justice or responsibility or leadership or judgment with respect to temporal matters, as the oppressors do all of those things, but we are to pursue them to the glory of God.
We are purified not by our actions, but by the one whose glory we seek by those actions. God is capable, through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, to see that we are redeemed, cleansed from evil, our debts repaid. All the other gods are busy trying to deceive you into believing that any other path exists for salvation, in this life or the next. Their paths lead to destruction, to darkness, to eternal separation from God.
While we may not see the full effect of this in our temporal life, none will escape it in eternity. All paths do lead to God, to judgment day, but not all will have reconciled with God through the blood of Christ before their judgment begins, and no action on their part in this life to the glory of any but God will save them from damnation.
And choose none of his ways;
For the perverse person is an abomination to the Lord,
But His secret counsel is with the upright.
The curse of the Lord is on the house of the wicked,
But He blesses the home of the just.
Surely He scorns the scornful,
But gives grace to the humble.
The wise shall inherit glory,
But shame shall be the legacy of fools.
Proverbs 3:31-35 (NKJV).
This passage reminded me of the quote attributed to Mark Twain which goes "Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience."
There are many ways to gain power in the material world, and when people have power over others the temptation is to exert that power to meet the ends and desires of whoever controls the power. Solomon starts us out by encouraging us not to be envious of those who use power to oppress.
You can't be an oppressor unless you have power, in the same way that an ant can't really oppress an elephant, let alone an entire herd of them.
It's natural, in reaction to oppression, to be tempted to mirror the oppressor, to not only seek to remove your bondage, but to chain them up and seek revenge of "equal measure" against them, to essentially become the oppressor yourself. This is what Solomon advises against.
Power attracts the corrupt, because we are born solipsistic, and will by our nature pursue any means by which that belief in our inherent deity can be confirmed. This is the heart of our "sin nature", in that to do any of that we must be first denying God the throne and constantly trying to fill the seat with anything else, whether ourselves or lesser demons who have made names for themselves in the various world religions.
I have no doubt that an "Allah" exists, or a "Shiva", or a "Jupiter", or a "Loki", and that they are finite spiritual beings which do wield power in this world as subordinates to the prince of this world. I have no doubt that humans in alignment with evil have been granted supernatural capability as a means of validating the "power" of those they serve.
I also know that many Christians can feel like God's power is almost never displayed in the same fashion, that there are many who would claim that "if God did X, then I would believe."
But the problem in that belief is akin to complaining that because the demons and lesser god-wannabe beings are making great sandcastles, that the God who created the sand is somehow denigrated, threatened, or overshadowed by what these finite creatures can accomplish with the sand that God created. Do you see the disparity in actual power being demonstrated?
To use another analogy, it's like complaining that the guy who brought the frozen water block that an ice sculptor then fashions into is "unnecessary", yet without his work, the ice sculptor can't do anything at all to manifest their desires.
It's this same dynamic wherein God is neither impressed or challenged by the smaller "miracles" and achievements of the fallen angels who rule this Earthly realm, nor why God would feel any need to offer a demonstration as a response, because anybody who is really paying attention, genuinely seeking truth, will discover this dynamic and adjust their loyalties to worship the one true God.
The perverse person will deny God's power in favor of that which glorifies themselves, and at any cost. There is no distinct course of actions, it's entirely about motivation and purpose, and those things are not always readily apparent.
Look at how the consequences of wisdom and foolishness are described as being in the future, not in front of us. In the short-term, it may very well appear that subscribing to "foolishness", acting on your own understanding and being wise to your own standards, produces a "good" result. The problem is that, even by chance, evil can find temporary success, and when empowered at all, evil can appear to be the "right choice".
The problem there is that "the end" has already been written. "Evil" loses, badly, it's not even a "fair fight". This is why God so regularly discourages revenge, not because seeking peace and justice in this life are not good things, but because the passion for revenge can distract you from glorifying God.
The temporary injustices we face may be corrected temporally by our hand, but they will all be judged between now and eternity, and even the secret deeds will be brought to light. Nobody escapes judgment, and the judge is a morally perfect being who cannot be in close relationship with any who do not share in that perfect holiness.
This is why the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on our behalf is so significant, so free, so undeserved, and so humbling. Even when we were in the midst of trying to replace God, a path of reconciliation, of eternal peace, was being cleared for us through the blood of Christ.
God favors those who glorify God, though not always by temporal means, and when you look at existence beyond the material, beyond the temporal and into the eternal, this makes sense, and provides sound reason for us to behave differently than those around us who may still be in rebellion with God.
We are not to pursue the same idols, to sacrifice to the fallen, the sinful, to repeat the patterns of depravity we see around us, even when they appear beneficial, for it gains us nothing. This does not mean that the specific actions we take are always going to be different, in that we are never to seek power or justice or responsibility or leadership or judgment with respect to temporal matters, as the oppressors do all of those things, but we are to pursue them to the glory of God.
We are purified not by our actions, but by the one whose glory we seek by those actions. God is capable, through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, to see that we are redeemed, cleansed from evil, our debts repaid. All the other gods are busy trying to deceive you into believing that any other path exists for salvation, in this life or the next. Their paths lead to destruction, to darkness, to eternal separation from God.
While we may not see the full effect of this in our temporal life, none will escape it in eternity. All paths do lead to God, to judgment day, but not all will have reconciled with God through the blood of Christ before their judgment begins, and no action on their part in this life to the glory of any but God will save them from damnation.
28.3.18
Daily Bible Study: Proverbs 3:27-30
Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due,
When it is in the power of your hand to do so.
Do not say to your neighbor,
“Go, and come back,
And tomorrow I will give it,”
When you have it with you.
Do not devise evil against your neighbor,
For he dwells by you for safety’s sake.
Do not strive with a man without cause,
If he has done you no harm.
Proverbs 3:27-30 (NKJV).
This passage reminded me of Ananias and Sapphira, in that the deceitful games we play with resources that have been entrusted to us never reflect well on our motivations. If you owe someone something, and you have the capacity to give it to them, there is no "good" reason to withhold it from them, though plenty of "bad".
The difference between a high and low-trust society is significant, because behaviors are entirely different in each. In one the well being of others is considered along with personal gain, balancing them, where in the other personal gain is such a priority that even negative impacts on others do not offset the viability of a choice.
God desires a high-trust society for those who follow him, that people would deal openly and honestly with each other, that selfish motivations would be put aside, and that people would care about one another, both in the present and looking towards the future. The problem is that in a high-trust society, only those with good character will be content, happy.
Thus the crux of the problem: humans are born naturally crooked, inherently solipsistic, and naturally form low-trust societies, because without God's work in our lives "good character" never has a chance to reliably form. The patterns don't ever get truly etched in our hearts and minds, but become conditional tools used when it benefits us, and set aside when they don't.
The less the explicit influence of God has existed on a people, the more pronounced this dynamic is, with those whose rebellion against God being most open thus creating and living in the most cutthroat and selfish of neighborhoods. The people who instead align themselves to God build high-trust societies, as their priorities are not stuck in the material, but account properly for the supernatural.
In our modern world, there is much said about how to treat a "neighbor", who one's "neighbor" is, and the advances in technology have certainly skewed that understanding in a manner which is easy to exploit by those who are in rebellion with God, whether openly or in secret, and on a scope which is able to affect lives which, in Jesus' era, lived almost entirely disconnected, unrelated.
Especially with the Enlightenment's attempts at creating a "secular religion", complete with a set of moral guidelines, the emphasis has been on the avoidance of conflict and the self-sacrificial steps one can take to improve the lot of someone else. These are seen as the highest virtues, and while sacrifice is virtuous, charity a good thing, God does not place them in the same priority as to how the Christian faith is to be walked out.
God's primary concern, to put it bluntly, is that people repent and are saved from sin, not that they are comfortable and fed with a roof over their head. Look at the book of Job if you want to better understand the extent to which God "cares" about creature comforts, material possessions, and how their presence or absence should (or shouldn't) affect our ability to praise God.
Humans were created to glorify God, not ourselves, and when you look back in Genesis at the Tower of Babel, the hubris on display with regard to human accomplishment in seeking to obtain material salvation for ourselves, you will get the sense that God doesn't enjoy or entertain humanistic endeavors that run contrary to the glorification of God.
Even simpler still, this passage speaks to common decency, that if you are literally living next to someone, you should treat them well, because you both are part of the same "tribe", the same "nation", and you are living near each other for mutually beneficial reasons, so do not undermine the unity you would otherwise have for selfish reasons.
But this is an ideal, and while even the USA has experienced it before, in the past when neighbors were actually neighbors in this sense, that was before each household was treated as an individual country, each home a nation unto itself, fixated on distinction and individualism, and yet paying lip service to "community" through civic acts which held no real meaning in the grand scheme of things.
All of it brought about by our open rebellion against God.
In the USA, neighbors now plot evil and manifest it through votes, through lawsuits, and through social manipulation, through the twisting of scripture to align with the secular religious priorities, all working together to create and sustain the low-trust society we now exist in, where despite living next to you, your neighbor no longer is concerned about your safety, but will openly plot your demise, expecting that you're doing the same to them, any evidence to the contrary be damned.
In this light, while we should try to create and uphold a high-trust society, it is actually unwise to just apply wisdom blindly, to presume that because a choice or a path is wise under ideal circumstances, it is equally so when dealing with everything else. This does not mean the wisdom is invalid, or that it is not true or a noble and righteous ideal, just that God does not command the suicide of his followers as a means of declaring God's glory.
Treating those who are in rebellion with God as if they really are your neighbors, as if they are united with you in pursuit of glorifying God, you do not spread the Gospel, because implicit in your actions is the belief they are already saved, they just need to "walk in the faith".
In treating those in rebellion as if they are already saved, you only distract them from their need for salvation, and you burden them with living in repentance without the power of God.
People need salvation, neighbors who are united in their identity. Merely pretending you have that is not applying wisdom.
When it is in the power of your hand to do so.
Do not say to your neighbor,
“Go, and come back,
And tomorrow I will give it,”
When you have it with you.
Do not devise evil against your neighbor,
For he dwells by you for safety’s sake.
Do not strive with a man without cause,
If he has done you no harm.
Proverbs 3:27-30 (NKJV).
This passage reminded me of Ananias and Sapphira, in that the deceitful games we play with resources that have been entrusted to us never reflect well on our motivations. If you owe someone something, and you have the capacity to give it to them, there is no "good" reason to withhold it from them, though plenty of "bad".
The difference between a high and low-trust society is significant, because behaviors are entirely different in each. In one the well being of others is considered along with personal gain, balancing them, where in the other personal gain is such a priority that even negative impacts on others do not offset the viability of a choice.
God desires a high-trust society for those who follow him, that people would deal openly and honestly with each other, that selfish motivations would be put aside, and that people would care about one another, both in the present and looking towards the future. The problem is that in a high-trust society, only those with good character will be content, happy.
Thus the crux of the problem: humans are born naturally crooked, inherently solipsistic, and naturally form low-trust societies, because without God's work in our lives "good character" never has a chance to reliably form. The patterns don't ever get truly etched in our hearts and minds, but become conditional tools used when it benefits us, and set aside when they don't.
The less the explicit influence of God has existed on a people, the more pronounced this dynamic is, with those whose rebellion against God being most open thus creating and living in the most cutthroat and selfish of neighborhoods. The people who instead align themselves to God build high-trust societies, as their priorities are not stuck in the material, but account properly for the supernatural.
In our modern world, there is much said about how to treat a "neighbor", who one's "neighbor" is, and the advances in technology have certainly skewed that understanding in a manner which is easy to exploit by those who are in rebellion with God, whether openly or in secret, and on a scope which is able to affect lives which, in Jesus' era, lived almost entirely disconnected, unrelated.
Especially with the Enlightenment's attempts at creating a "secular religion", complete with a set of moral guidelines, the emphasis has been on the avoidance of conflict and the self-sacrificial steps one can take to improve the lot of someone else. These are seen as the highest virtues, and while sacrifice is virtuous, charity a good thing, God does not place them in the same priority as to how the Christian faith is to be walked out.
God's primary concern, to put it bluntly, is that people repent and are saved from sin, not that they are comfortable and fed with a roof over their head. Look at the book of Job if you want to better understand the extent to which God "cares" about creature comforts, material possessions, and how their presence or absence should (or shouldn't) affect our ability to praise God.
Humans were created to glorify God, not ourselves, and when you look back in Genesis at the Tower of Babel, the hubris on display with regard to human accomplishment in seeking to obtain material salvation for ourselves, you will get the sense that God doesn't enjoy or entertain humanistic endeavors that run contrary to the glorification of God.
Even simpler still, this passage speaks to common decency, that if you are literally living next to someone, you should treat them well, because you both are part of the same "tribe", the same "nation", and you are living near each other for mutually beneficial reasons, so do not undermine the unity you would otherwise have for selfish reasons.
But this is an ideal, and while even the USA has experienced it before, in the past when neighbors were actually neighbors in this sense, that was before each household was treated as an individual country, each home a nation unto itself, fixated on distinction and individualism, and yet paying lip service to "community" through civic acts which held no real meaning in the grand scheme of things.
All of it brought about by our open rebellion against God.
In the USA, neighbors now plot evil and manifest it through votes, through lawsuits, and through social manipulation, through the twisting of scripture to align with the secular religious priorities, all working together to create and sustain the low-trust society we now exist in, where despite living next to you, your neighbor no longer is concerned about your safety, but will openly plot your demise, expecting that you're doing the same to them, any evidence to the contrary be damned.
In this light, while we should try to create and uphold a high-trust society, it is actually unwise to just apply wisdom blindly, to presume that because a choice or a path is wise under ideal circumstances, it is equally so when dealing with everything else. This does not mean the wisdom is invalid, or that it is not true or a noble and righteous ideal, just that God does not command the suicide of his followers as a means of declaring God's glory.
Treating those who are in rebellion with God as if they really are your neighbors, as if they are united with you in pursuit of glorifying God, you do not spread the Gospel, because implicit in your actions is the belief they are already saved, they just need to "walk in the faith".
In treating those in rebellion as if they are already saved, you only distract them from their need for salvation, and you burden them with living in repentance without the power of God.
People need salvation, neighbors who are united in their identity. Merely pretending you have that is not applying wisdom.
27.3.18
Daily Bible Study: Proverbs 3:21-26
My son, let them not depart from your eyes—
Keep sound wisdom and discretion;
So they will be life to your soul
And grace to your neck.
Then you will walk safely in your way,
And your foot will not stumble.
When you lie down, you will not be afraid;
Yes, you will lie down and your sleep will be sweet.
Do not be afraid of sudden terror,
Nor of trouble from the wicked when it comes;
For the Lord will be your confidence,
And will keep your foot from being caught.
Proverbs 3:21-26 (NKJV).
Wisdom is not an answer, wisdom is the process to determine what the optimal answer really is. This idea is captured in the old idiom about "teaching a man to fish" contrasted twith "giving a man a fish".
Yes, a man who knows how to fish will have fish, but they won't need to rely on you in order to get it. Creating a relationship of dependency does solve the immediate need, but leaves them reliant on you the next time the problem comes up.
Ideally, when giving advice, we are not just giving answers, but trying to teach the method by which an answer could be found, so that we are not looked to indefinitely. While it may be ego-boosting for a while to be held in such high esteem by someone else, for them to trust that what you give them is good, but you will eventually run out of answers, and you will grow to resent the dependency as the other person's appearance grows to look more like that of a freeloader than anything else.
Humans are finite, and our ability to provide for others is in turn also limited, but it pains our ego to admit this when being the material savior for someone else feels so good. We enjoy being able to give answers, to be looked upon with such favor by others, but we are not wired to handle that kind of attention, to bear that kind of responsibility, for anyone else for a very long time.
Sure, parents do this for children, while the child is maturing and growing in even the capacity to understand process. You will have to "give your child a fish" for many years before you can "teach them to fish", but at some point your child will mature into an adult and will be expected to take care of themselves.
In our culture right now, people demonize "childish" things as a means of trying to stigmatize certain activities as not being appropriate for an "adult", but this misunderstands the nature of what a child is. A child does not make their own decisions, earn their own money, provision for a family, leave the responsibility of their parents. That there are activities a child does does not necessarily make them a child, it's the context of whether that's all they can do because they cannot be expected to do anything else.
For example, "adult coloring books" have regularly been maligned, yet as a way to spend time, how is that any worse than tending to a garden? Both are activities that work within existing constraints and yet allow the choices you make within those constraints to be an expression of the individual. Is anyone else going to hang up the finished product in a museum? No, but that's not the point of art in the first place. It's about expression of the self, not an attempt to garner praise from others.
We thus can't get caught up denigrating what we think is "childish" and not turn around to provide wisdom to make better choices, and then leave people alone to make their own choices. That's adulthood, not a particular set of activities, but the ownership of choosing them and dealing with the consequences.
Generally children sleep well at night, but when they can't it's often because there is something which has scared them and they fear what will happen to them if they went to sleep. Sleeping is a time of great vulnerability, so the "monster under the bed" waiting till the child has fallen asleep to come out and eat them will prompt a child to consider never sleeping again. Their only choice is to avoid circumstances that might get them eaten because they don't know how to actually deal with the "monster under the bed" at all. They can only react to the problem, avoid it, but they can never solve it.
As children mature though, and begin to bear more weight on their shoulders, their thoughts are filled with more things to fear, and things which are even more real as well. Finances, relationships, politics, religion, so many other arenas to fight in and there's just not enough hours in the day to "get everything done". The teenager stays up late, not necessarily out of irresponsibility, but from the efforts to cope with something that has stirred their mind and it just won't settle.
You don't become an adult just because you spend time on certain activities, but because you face problems of every type and deal with them as best you can instead of avoiding them or leaving them for someone else to solve on your behalf. Wisdom and discretion are key to a "good night's rest" not because they give answers, but because they set you on a path towards finding the optimal solution to the problems you have, and in a lifetime of successive wise choices, your fear of both the known and unknown naturally subsides.
This is not because you have no concern for the possibility of negative circumstances, but because you have the tools necessary to deal with whatever problems you will face. When you have wisdom and discretion, when you have obedience to God, even in times of great trouble you can have peace in knowing that you are making the best choices you can with the resources and circumstances you are facing.
There's no need to be afraid, because with the Lord as your teacher, you are not powerless, you are not vulnerable and tossed about by life, but you are sure and steady in how you walk and can deal with whatever comes your way. You are given strength by God through your constraints and your weaknesses to survive and glorify God in both the midst of, and after passing through, difficulties in your life.
Keep sound wisdom and discretion;
So they will be life to your soul
And grace to your neck.
Then you will walk safely in your way,
And your foot will not stumble.
When you lie down, you will not be afraid;
Yes, you will lie down and your sleep will be sweet.
Do not be afraid of sudden terror,
Nor of trouble from the wicked when it comes;
For the Lord will be your confidence,
And will keep your foot from being caught.
Proverbs 3:21-26 (NKJV).
Wisdom is not an answer, wisdom is the process to determine what the optimal answer really is. This idea is captured in the old idiom about "teaching a man to fish" contrasted twith "giving a man a fish".
Yes, a man who knows how to fish will have fish, but they won't need to rely on you in order to get it. Creating a relationship of dependency does solve the immediate need, but leaves them reliant on you the next time the problem comes up.
Ideally, when giving advice, we are not just giving answers, but trying to teach the method by which an answer could be found, so that we are not looked to indefinitely. While it may be ego-boosting for a while to be held in such high esteem by someone else, for them to trust that what you give them is good, but you will eventually run out of answers, and you will grow to resent the dependency as the other person's appearance grows to look more like that of a freeloader than anything else.
Humans are finite, and our ability to provide for others is in turn also limited, but it pains our ego to admit this when being the material savior for someone else feels so good. We enjoy being able to give answers, to be looked upon with such favor by others, but we are not wired to handle that kind of attention, to bear that kind of responsibility, for anyone else for a very long time.
Sure, parents do this for children, while the child is maturing and growing in even the capacity to understand process. You will have to "give your child a fish" for many years before you can "teach them to fish", but at some point your child will mature into an adult and will be expected to take care of themselves.
In our culture right now, people demonize "childish" things as a means of trying to stigmatize certain activities as not being appropriate for an "adult", but this misunderstands the nature of what a child is. A child does not make their own decisions, earn their own money, provision for a family, leave the responsibility of their parents. That there are activities a child does does not necessarily make them a child, it's the context of whether that's all they can do because they cannot be expected to do anything else.
For example, "adult coloring books" have regularly been maligned, yet as a way to spend time, how is that any worse than tending to a garden? Both are activities that work within existing constraints and yet allow the choices you make within those constraints to be an expression of the individual. Is anyone else going to hang up the finished product in a museum? No, but that's not the point of art in the first place. It's about expression of the self, not an attempt to garner praise from others.
We thus can't get caught up denigrating what we think is "childish" and not turn around to provide wisdom to make better choices, and then leave people alone to make their own choices. That's adulthood, not a particular set of activities, but the ownership of choosing them and dealing with the consequences.
Generally children sleep well at night, but when they can't it's often because there is something which has scared them and they fear what will happen to them if they went to sleep. Sleeping is a time of great vulnerability, so the "monster under the bed" waiting till the child has fallen asleep to come out and eat them will prompt a child to consider never sleeping again. Their only choice is to avoid circumstances that might get them eaten because they don't know how to actually deal with the "monster under the bed" at all. They can only react to the problem, avoid it, but they can never solve it.
As children mature though, and begin to bear more weight on their shoulders, their thoughts are filled with more things to fear, and things which are even more real as well. Finances, relationships, politics, religion, so many other arenas to fight in and there's just not enough hours in the day to "get everything done". The teenager stays up late, not necessarily out of irresponsibility, but from the efforts to cope with something that has stirred their mind and it just won't settle.
You don't become an adult just because you spend time on certain activities, but because you face problems of every type and deal with them as best you can instead of avoiding them or leaving them for someone else to solve on your behalf. Wisdom and discretion are key to a "good night's rest" not because they give answers, but because they set you on a path towards finding the optimal solution to the problems you have, and in a lifetime of successive wise choices, your fear of both the known and unknown naturally subsides.
This is not because you have no concern for the possibility of negative circumstances, but because you have the tools necessary to deal with whatever problems you will face. When you have wisdom and discretion, when you have obedience to God, even in times of great trouble you can have peace in knowing that you are making the best choices you can with the resources and circumstances you are facing.
There's no need to be afraid, because with the Lord as your teacher, you are not powerless, you are not vulnerable and tossed about by life, but you are sure and steady in how you walk and can deal with whatever comes your way. You are given strength by God through your constraints and your weaknesses to survive and glorify God in both the midst of, and after passing through, difficulties in your life.
26.3.18
Daily Bible Study: Proverbs 3:19-20
The Lord by wisdom founded the earth;
By understanding He established the heavens;
By His knowledge the depths were broken up,
And clouds drop down the dew.
Proverbs 3:19-20 (NKJV).
It can be easy to forget that the Bible wasn't written by a single person in a singular effort, but that it is instead a collection of writings from various authors over a rather long period of time. The reason that I bring this up is that this little passage appears to be a non-sequitur of sorts, and while a bit jarring, squeezed right in between two longer writings on the value of wisdom itself, that's probably just the order that it was recorded.
We can still glean practical information from even a short passage like this.
The most obvious takeaway to me is that the design and operation of this world is not an accident. It was not the product of mere chance, and while the naturalistic probability of any certain event may be calculated, when you start to compute the odds of everything being just the way that it is, given all that it could be, and even on a naturalistic standpoint our existence becomes miraculous.
There is order in the world despite the regular appearance of chaos, and there is a reason that God arranged things in the order what we discover them to be in. Of great importance I think is noting that this was written long after The Fall. It is common to presume that the "curse of sin" extended from humanity to all of creation, but that ignores what scripture actually states.
This world, this reality, was never designed to last forever. God wasn't caught off guard by Adam and Eve's sin, nor does scripture indicate that the consequence for sin required God to create that which did not already exist, but that God would no longer protect humanity from that which God had already created, that humanity would have to struggle instead of being able to enjoy the benefits of being in direct relationship with God.
That pattern would be repeated by Israel, where God would remove protection from them when they disobeyed to motivate them to correct their behavior and return to God.
It is rather difficult to explain in what ways Adam and Eve would have been "perfect" and yet account for their behavior. The more perfect God's creation must be, the less intelligent, wise, or understanding Adam and Eve need to have been to explain why they gave it all up after such a simple deceit, and without any real coercion at all. This paradox is just one of the reasons that the assertion creation was "perfect" in any sense, instead of just "very good", is something I don't support.
When you parse the language back in Genesis, the original word "towb" most closely translates to "beautiful", and when you look across all the times it's used in the Old Testament, the connotation of perfect, of lacking flaws, does make sense when you understand that it is talking about beauty and not a moral or physical perfection.
Creation would also respond to God's interactions exactly as God intended, not just because God was acting, but because the systems were designed to work in a specific fashion and God's use of those systems as intended only speaks to the quality of the design.
That the natural world could exist and operate without constant intervention is not a denigration of God, in that it is always harder to create a system which can operate independently and without constant maintenance. Look at the difficulty in raising a child to become a "healthy" or "well-adjusted" adult.
This also does not exclude God from continuing to interact, to shape, to guide, but it would mean that God wouldn't be necessary to explain every interaction at every level of creation. God may be the root explanation for all the causes that produce an effect. Salt and chlorine can combine because of their electron patterns to make salt, and they can do so because God designed it that way, not because God wanted to combine them in that moment.
Reflect on this passage in that it is giving God credit for both the design and for how that design works, and to use that as part of the necessary humbling of oneself in order to pursue further knowledge.
When we are tempted to believe that we know more than God, we have a nearly infinite number of examples of things that we do not yet really understand, and yet God not only understood, but beautifully designed all of it.
I don't have to denigrate myself to understand how God's intellect so greatly exceeds anything I am capable of, and why understanding that is a necessary prerequisite for genuine humility.
Put differently, it is not that I know so little, as much as God knows so much more than I could ever imagine.
By understanding He established the heavens;
By His knowledge the depths were broken up,
And clouds drop down the dew.
Proverbs 3:19-20 (NKJV).
It can be easy to forget that the Bible wasn't written by a single person in a singular effort, but that it is instead a collection of writings from various authors over a rather long period of time. The reason that I bring this up is that this little passage appears to be a non-sequitur of sorts, and while a bit jarring, squeezed right in between two longer writings on the value of wisdom itself, that's probably just the order that it was recorded.
We can still glean practical information from even a short passage like this.
The most obvious takeaway to me is that the design and operation of this world is not an accident. It was not the product of mere chance, and while the naturalistic probability of any certain event may be calculated, when you start to compute the odds of everything being just the way that it is, given all that it could be, and even on a naturalistic standpoint our existence becomes miraculous.
There is order in the world despite the regular appearance of chaos, and there is a reason that God arranged things in the order what we discover them to be in. Of great importance I think is noting that this was written long after The Fall. It is common to presume that the "curse of sin" extended from humanity to all of creation, but that ignores what scripture actually states.
This world, this reality, was never designed to last forever. God wasn't caught off guard by Adam and Eve's sin, nor does scripture indicate that the consequence for sin required God to create that which did not already exist, but that God would no longer protect humanity from that which God had already created, that humanity would have to struggle instead of being able to enjoy the benefits of being in direct relationship with God.
That pattern would be repeated by Israel, where God would remove protection from them when they disobeyed to motivate them to correct their behavior and return to God.
It is rather difficult to explain in what ways Adam and Eve would have been "perfect" and yet account for their behavior. The more perfect God's creation must be, the less intelligent, wise, or understanding Adam and Eve need to have been to explain why they gave it all up after such a simple deceit, and without any real coercion at all. This paradox is just one of the reasons that the assertion creation was "perfect" in any sense, instead of just "very good", is something I don't support.
When you parse the language back in Genesis, the original word "towb" most closely translates to "beautiful", and when you look across all the times it's used in the Old Testament, the connotation of perfect, of lacking flaws, does make sense when you understand that it is talking about beauty and not a moral or physical perfection.
Creation would also respond to God's interactions exactly as God intended, not just because God was acting, but because the systems were designed to work in a specific fashion and God's use of those systems as intended only speaks to the quality of the design.
That the natural world could exist and operate without constant intervention is not a denigration of God, in that it is always harder to create a system which can operate independently and without constant maintenance. Look at the difficulty in raising a child to become a "healthy" or "well-adjusted" adult.
This also does not exclude God from continuing to interact, to shape, to guide, but it would mean that God wouldn't be necessary to explain every interaction at every level of creation. God may be the root explanation for all the causes that produce an effect. Salt and chlorine can combine because of their electron patterns to make salt, and they can do so because God designed it that way, not because God wanted to combine them in that moment.
Reflect on this passage in that it is giving God credit for both the design and for how that design works, and to use that as part of the necessary humbling of oneself in order to pursue further knowledge.
When we are tempted to believe that we know more than God, we have a nearly infinite number of examples of things that we do not yet really understand, and yet God not only understood, but beautifully designed all of it.
I don't have to denigrate myself to understand how God's intellect so greatly exceeds anything I am capable of, and why understanding that is a necessary prerequisite for genuine humility.
Put differently, it is not that I know so little, as much as God knows so much more than I could ever imagine.
25.3.18
Daily Bible Study: Proverbs 3:13-18
Happy is the man who finds wisdom,
And the man who gains understanding;
For her proceeds are better than the profits of silver,
And her gain than fine gold.
She is more precious than rubies,
And all the things you may desire cannot compare with her.
Length of days is in her right hand,
In her left hand riches and honor.
Her ways are ways of pleasantness,
And all her paths are peace.
She is a tree of life to those who take hold of her,
And happy are all who retain her.
Proverbs 3:13-18 (NKJV).
It's worth remembering that Solomon did not ask God for material gain, but wisdom. It's also worth "skipping ahead" to know that the material gain of Solomon due to his wisdom would also ruin him, that he would abandon "her" in the later stages of his life, and that he would regret that.
Based on some quick research, this may be supported in that some think the earlier chapters of Proverbs may actually have been written last, and so while Ecclesiastes goes into the "why", these first 9 or so chapters of Proverbs are the "what to do", sanitized of the "why" so as not to clutter the good advice with a regaling of his failures.
That makes sense, in that often times advice is given with the instruction first, and the explanation second. The instruction is the more important part of the advice, and the explanation merely comes in to offer a context, a background, in case the reader is not able to grasp the significance of the wisdom as offered, and stubbornly demands to know why things must be the way they are.
It's also worth noting that polygamy was common in this era, and so while we in our post-monogamous culture might find the concept of wisdom being treated like a woman a little odd, in Solomon's era, taking on another wife who had some great quality about her was a socially acceptable norm.
In giving advice to his son, who would likely be the next ruler of Israel, or at least in the line to do so, there would be many temptations to go after material gain. To gaze at the beauty of precious metals and rare gems, to engage in the collection of power and profit to enrich oneself. The other leaders of foreign nations would be doing this, and collecting unto themselves great earthy wealth.
Solomon is trying to draw a contrast that would later be echoed in advice regarding those who "seek first the Kingdom of God". In seeking material gain, you will find a path to destruction and strife. In seeking wisdom, you will find a path to peace and material gain.
There is a paradoxical vibe to this, that to get what you want you must first seek something else whose byproduct is what you want instead of seeking that byproduct itself. Yet we can see this dynamic in secular circumstances all the time.
People want the benefits of healthy living, but without the pursuit of proper diet and exercise. People want the lifestyle benefits of wealth, but without the decades of saving and working hard. People at 35 want the benefits of a healthy marriage, whether children or the mature relationship with their spouse, but without having spent their late teens through their 20's in marriage and raising kids.
We constantly want the benefits without the investment, and often times sin and temptation offer just that. What is adultery but the offer of sexual satisfaction without the commitment of marriage? What is greed by the offer of material satisfaction on a timeline that your efforts would not otherwise produce? What is lust but the desire for that which may very well be good on its own, and in due time, but you seek to find shortcuts and ignore the consequences of getting exactly what you want when you want it?
In this manner, Solomon is telling us that wisdom, and not any material gain, is what we should strive to find, to hold on to, to cherish in our lives because wisdom will not leas us astray, to our ruin. Do not pursue the byproducts of wisdom, the things which intend to compete with wisdom to bring us peace and satisfaction, as they simply cannot.
Simple advice, and later on in scripture we'll be able to understand why all the better.
And the man who gains understanding;
For her proceeds are better than the profits of silver,
And her gain than fine gold.
She is more precious than rubies,
And all the things you may desire cannot compare with her.
Length of days is in her right hand,
In her left hand riches and honor.
Her ways are ways of pleasantness,
And all her paths are peace.
She is a tree of life to those who take hold of her,
And happy are all who retain her.
Proverbs 3:13-18 (NKJV).
It's worth remembering that Solomon did not ask God for material gain, but wisdom. It's also worth "skipping ahead" to know that the material gain of Solomon due to his wisdom would also ruin him, that he would abandon "her" in the later stages of his life, and that he would regret that.
Based on some quick research, this may be supported in that some think the earlier chapters of Proverbs may actually have been written last, and so while Ecclesiastes goes into the "why", these first 9 or so chapters of Proverbs are the "what to do", sanitized of the "why" so as not to clutter the good advice with a regaling of his failures.
That makes sense, in that often times advice is given with the instruction first, and the explanation second. The instruction is the more important part of the advice, and the explanation merely comes in to offer a context, a background, in case the reader is not able to grasp the significance of the wisdom as offered, and stubbornly demands to know why things must be the way they are.
It's also worth noting that polygamy was common in this era, and so while we in our post-monogamous culture might find the concept of wisdom being treated like a woman a little odd, in Solomon's era, taking on another wife who had some great quality about her was a socially acceptable norm.
In giving advice to his son, who would likely be the next ruler of Israel, or at least in the line to do so, there would be many temptations to go after material gain. To gaze at the beauty of precious metals and rare gems, to engage in the collection of power and profit to enrich oneself. The other leaders of foreign nations would be doing this, and collecting unto themselves great earthy wealth.
Solomon is trying to draw a contrast that would later be echoed in advice regarding those who "seek first the Kingdom of God". In seeking material gain, you will find a path to destruction and strife. In seeking wisdom, you will find a path to peace and material gain.
There is a paradoxical vibe to this, that to get what you want you must first seek something else whose byproduct is what you want instead of seeking that byproduct itself. Yet we can see this dynamic in secular circumstances all the time.
People want the benefits of healthy living, but without the pursuit of proper diet and exercise. People want the lifestyle benefits of wealth, but without the decades of saving and working hard. People at 35 want the benefits of a healthy marriage, whether children or the mature relationship with their spouse, but without having spent their late teens through their 20's in marriage and raising kids.
We constantly want the benefits without the investment, and often times sin and temptation offer just that. What is adultery but the offer of sexual satisfaction without the commitment of marriage? What is greed by the offer of material satisfaction on a timeline that your efforts would not otherwise produce? What is lust but the desire for that which may very well be good on its own, and in due time, but you seek to find shortcuts and ignore the consequences of getting exactly what you want when you want it?
In this manner, Solomon is telling us that wisdom, and not any material gain, is what we should strive to find, to hold on to, to cherish in our lives because wisdom will not leas us astray, to our ruin. Do not pursue the byproducts of wisdom, the things which intend to compete with wisdom to bring us peace and satisfaction, as they simply cannot.
Simple advice, and later on in scripture we'll be able to understand why all the better.
24.3.18
Daily Bible Study: Proverbs 3:11-12
My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord,
Nor detest His correction;
For whom the Lord loves He corrects,
Just as a father the son in whom he delights.
Proverbs 3:11-12 (NKJV).
Love in the modern world carries largely an emotional connotation. Love is a feeling, an experience, something that you can find or lose just as easily. Love always carries a sexual undertone as well, and there is no real platonic dimension to it.
This can be quickly seen in how sexual orientations which are contrary to biological norms are rationalized because "they love each other". The platonic dimension doesn't exist.
Even within families, siblings, people say "love" but they can quickly grow uncomfortable using the term because of how frequently it is used in the sexual sense and not platonic.
What we call "love" today was previously called "lust", and that is an emotional experience, connected to sexual arousal, but lacking any of the higher concepts and ideals that were attached to "love".
"I love my kids/siblings" gets connected to incest.
"I love my buddies" gets connected with closet homosexuality.
"I love my mom" gets Oedipal.
Instead people default to "I love my family" in order to try and detach individual association and instead connect to an ideal, in effort to allude to the platonic dimension.
And sure, in certain social circles these are understood in the platonic sense, but those social circles are not what is on advertisements, lauded in movies and television shows, or written about in novels. Those social circles are not the popular ones, the ones which hold a place in the current media narratives.
If you do not understand that "love", as defined in the Bible and subsequently by God, is entirely platonic, and is devoid of sexual connotation, then passages like this one will be hard to understand. If you grew up in a family where "love" held the platonic understanding of commitment, of concern for welfare, of sacrificial intent to the betterment of another, then you won't have this struggle, but it's necessary to understand the culture you're witnessing to when you seek to spread the Gospel.
You don't change what "love" is or try to find some new term, but you're probably going to have to explain what I've just explained to someone who does not grasp the platonic understanding and instead defaults to the sensual.
Now, when you understand the platonic definition of love, that makes the remainder of the verse much easier to understand, and this one isn't all that complicated either. When God loves, he cares about our future, what we're growing into, and in seeking to guide and shape what we are becoming, God offers correction, discipline, direction to us that may be different than what we were already pursuing.
This is difficult to do for humans because we're so wrapped up in our own desires and ideals on what we should be doing that God's correction often feels counter-productive. God puts limits on us, restricts our freedom, and seeks to prune growth that we've had in our life that we were trying to nurture.
Our problem is that God already knows what is best for us, and does not always explain why something is to be done in a certain manner, or how it will benefit us in the long run. While helpful, explanations do not change or improve the direction that God provides, it only softens our hearts and makes obedience easier. Sometimes that ease becomes a crutch, where lacking an explanation, we feel justified in defying God's correction in our life.
Solomon is instructing us to not resist the correction and guidance of God, similar to how he had already extolled the discipline of one's father and the law of one's mother. The parents who care for their child will be concerned for the child's future, and will be seeking to prepare them for leaving the home and bearing the burdens of life on their own.
The parent who is invested in the life of their child will see areas of growth that are not beneficial, like a cancer on their child's life, and will seek to eliminate that before it destroys their child.
"You can't wear..."
"You can't watch or listen to..."
"You can't hang out with..."
"You can't marry..."
All of these are the parent's attempts to guide the life of their child towards greater success, and God does that for us on everything, not just becoming an adult, but being a complete human.
For this reason, when God puts a restriction on us, changes our direction, corrects our thoughts or actions, we should be thankful, not resentful, that we are so loved that God would care for our futures and try to guide us instead of just abandoning us, leaving us to stumble and fall alone our own wicked paths, convinced in our ignorance that we know what's best for ourselves.
Nor detest His correction;
For whom the Lord loves He corrects,
Just as a father the son in whom he delights.
Proverbs 3:11-12 (NKJV).
Love in the modern world carries largely an emotional connotation. Love is a feeling, an experience, something that you can find or lose just as easily. Love always carries a sexual undertone as well, and there is no real platonic dimension to it.
This can be quickly seen in how sexual orientations which are contrary to biological norms are rationalized because "they love each other". The platonic dimension doesn't exist.
Even within families, siblings, people say "love" but they can quickly grow uncomfortable using the term because of how frequently it is used in the sexual sense and not platonic.
What we call "love" today was previously called "lust", and that is an emotional experience, connected to sexual arousal, but lacking any of the higher concepts and ideals that were attached to "love".
"I love my kids/siblings" gets connected to incest.
"I love my buddies" gets connected with closet homosexuality.
"I love my mom" gets Oedipal.
Instead people default to "I love my family" in order to try and detach individual association and instead connect to an ideal, in effort to allude to the platonic dimension.
And sure, in certain social circles these are understood in the platonic sense, but those social circles are not what is on advertisements, lauded in movies and television shows, or written about in novels. Those social circles are not the popular ones, the ones which hold a place in the current media narratives.
If you do not understand that "love", as defined in the Bible and subsequently by God, is entirely platonic, and is devoid of sexual connotation, then passages like this one will be hard to understand. If you grew up in a family where "love" held the platonic understanding of commitment, of concern for welfare, of sacrificial intent to the betterment of another, then you won't have this struggle, but it's necessary to understand the culture you're witnessing to when you seek to spread the Gospel.
You don't change what "love" is or try to find some new term, but you're probably going to have to explain what I've just explained to someone who does not grasp the platonic understanding and instead defaults to the sensual.
Now, when you understand the platonic definition of love, that makes the remainder of the verse much easier to understand, and this one isn't all that complicated either. When God loves, he cares about our future, what we're growing into, and in seeking to guide and shape what we are becoming, God offers correction, discipline, direction to us that may be different than what we were already pursuing.
This is difficult to do for humans because we're so wrapped up in our own desires and ideals on what we should be doing that God's correction often feels counter-productive. God puts limits on us, restricts our freedom, and seeks to prune growth that we've had in our life that we were trying to nurture.
Our problem is that God already knows what is best for us, and does not always explain why something is to be done in a certain manner, or how it will benefit us in the long run. While helpful, explanations do not change or improve the direction that God provides, it only softens our hearts and makes obedience easier. Sometimes that ease becomes a crutch, where lacking an explanation, we feel justified in defying God's correction in our life.
Solomon is instructing us to not resist the correction and guidance of God, similar to how he had already extolled the discipline of one's father and the law of one's mother. The parents who care for their child will be concerned for the child's future, and will be seeking to prepare them for leaving the home and bearing the burdens of life on their own.
The parent who is invested in the life of their child will see areas of growth that are not beneficial, like a cancer on their child's life, and will seek to eliminate that before it destroys their child.
"You can't wear..."
"You can't watch or listen to..."
"You can't hang out with..."
"You can't marry..."
All of these are the parent's attempts to guide the life of their child towards greater success, and God does that for us on everything, not just becoming an adult, but being a complete human.
For this reason, when God puts a restriction on us, changes our direction, corrects our thoughts or actions, we should be thankful, not resentful, that we are so loved that God would care for our futures and try to guide us instead of just abandoning us, leaving us to stumble and fall alone our own wicked paths, convinced in our ignorance that we know what's best for ourselves.
23.3.18
Daily Bible Study: Proverbs 3:9-10
Honor the Lord with your possessions,
And with the firstfruits of all your increase;
So your barns will be filled with plenty,
And your vats will overflow with new wine.
Proverbs 3:9-10 (NKJV).
Short passages can contain a lot of complexity to unpack, but this one isn't one of those. The wisdom here is very simple, and while I might throw a slightly different perspective on it, it all still flows thematically with what has already come in Proverbs before it.
First, I'll note that the word for "honor" is "kabad or kabed" and while there are some other meanings, this particular one, just simply "honor", obviously fits the best, though you can get a sense for how those other definitions fit via the phrase "weighing a decision."
Of the three other times this particular phrase is used, two of them are in reference to "honoring your father and mother".
The reason I bring that up is that the modern concept of a tithe, of the sacrifice to God, is sometimes framed in that we're just stewards of God's resources, they aren't really "ours", and so returning them to God is more like putting something back in a "Lost and Found" for God.
Historically, for Israel, the sacrifices they made had a more formal purpose. For one, they were necessary as part of showing contrition to God. Secondly, the sacrifices made were provision to the Levites who spent time in the maintenance and operation of God's temple, and so would not have the capacity to also tend to fields and livestock.
This responsibility fell on all of the Levites as well, and so they relied on the offerings to God from the other tribes to sustain them. While it might seem like it's trivializing the nature of the responsibility, God's temple was rather like a kitchen, with the sacrifices regularly being "for a sweet aroma to the Lord", and the instructions on preparation of the sacrifices looking startlingly similar to that of a modern cooking recipe. While the actual acts held much more significance as part of the rituals for Israel, it doesn't detract from the fact that the regular sacrifices were part of an established order, an agreement, between God and Israel, and that it served multiple purposes at the same time.
Also, that God likes good cooking, but I digress.
After Jesus' death and resurrection, those who place their faith in him become a temple themselves, literally. The New Testament refers to the body of the believer as the new temple for the Holy Spirit to dwell in.
If honoring God under the "old" covenant included making sacrifices to the pleasure of God and those who were tending to God's temple, and for the maintenance and upkeep of the temple itself, while the specific actions taken to "honor God" would change with the "new" covenant, why would the heart of what God desired in that sacrifice, through humility, to change?
God designed the reality we exist in, and it is not accidental that when we are in harmony with the creator, we can find harmony with the created, and in turn disharmony with that which is in rebellion with God's order. Obedience to God produces abundance and wealth because God designed the mechanisms by which abundance and wealth could exist in the first place. This is why the commands of God are rarely ever arbitrary, or without both spiritual and physical purpose.
God is good, so God's commands are also good, and so while the struggles we face won't get any easier, the fruits of our labor are increased when we honor God through what we have and what we gain. Our abundance is not to our own benefit alone, but a demonstration of the goodness and greatness of the God we worship and obey, and how we respond reflects who we worship, who we honor.
In the same manner that we honor our father and mother by taking heed of their rules and laws on our lives as children in growing up to become adults, so God also places burdens, constraints, and demands on us in maturing as humans, created in the image of God, for the express purpose of bringing glory to God. It seems paradoxical, but when we live under this limitation, when we sacrifice to God's glory from what we have wrought with our own efforts, God glorifies us in return with blessing and favor.
What we earn, what we have, is genuinely ours to decide what to do with, but the entire system in which that gain, let alone existence itself, is possible belongs to God, and we can either keep what we have reaped and thus experience the entirety of our reward, or we can honor God and experience even more.
And with the firstfruits of all your increase;
So your barns will be filled with plenty,
And your vats will overflow with new wine.
Proverbs 3:9-10 (NKJV).
Short passages can contain a lot of complexity to unpack, but this one isn't one of those. The wisdom here is very simple, and while I might throw a slightly different perspective on it, it all still flows thematically with what has already come in Proverbs before it.
First, I'll note that the word for "honor" is "kabad or kabed" and while there are some other meanings, this particular one, just simply "honor", obviously fits the best, though you can get a sense for how those other definitions fit via the phrase "weighing a decision."
Of the three other times this particular phrase is used, two of them are in reference to "honoring your father and mother".
The reason I bring that up is that the modern concept of a tithe, of the sacrifice to God, is sometimes framed in that we're just stewards of God's resources, they aren't really "ours", and so returning them to God is more like putting something back in a "Lost and Found" for God.
Historically, for Israel, the sacrifices they made had a more formal purpose. For one, they were necessary as part of showing contrition to God. Secondly, the sacrifices made were provision to the Levites who spent time in the maintenance and operation of God's temple, and so would not have the capacity to also tend to fields and livestock.
This responsibility fell on all of the Levites as well, and so they relied on the offerings to God from the other tribes to sustain them. While it might seem like it's trivializing the nature of the responsibility, God's temple was rather like a kitchen, with the sacrifices regularly being "for a sweet aroma to the Lord", and the instructions on preparation of the sacrifices looking startlingly similar to that of a modern cooking recipe. While the actual acts held much more significance as part of the rituals for Israel, it doesn't detract from the fact that the regular sacrifices were part of an established order, an agreement, between God and Israel, and that it served multiple purposes at the same time.
Also, that God likes good cooking, but I digress.
After Jesus' death and resurrection, those who place their faith in him become a temple themselves, literally. The New Testament refers to the body of the believer as the new temple for the Holy Spirit to dwell in.
If honoring God under the "old" covenant included making sacrifices to the pleasure of God and those who were tending to God's temple, and for the maintenance and upkeep of the temple itself, while the specific actions taken to "honor God" would change with the "new" covenant, why would the heart of what God desired in that sacrifice, through humility, to change?
God designed the reality we exist in, and it is not accidental that when we are in harmony with the creator, we can find harmony with the created, and in turn disharmony with that which is in rebellion with God's order. Obedience to God produces abundance and wealth because God designed the mechanisms by which abundance and wealth could exist in the first place. This is why the commands of God are rarely ever arbitrary, or without both spiritual and physical purpose.
God is good, so God's commands are also good, and so while the struggles we face won't get any easier, the fruits of our labor are increased when we honor God through what we have and what we gain. Our abundance is not to our own benefit alone, but a demonstration of the goodness and greatness of the God we worship and obey, and how we respond reflects who we worship, who we honor.
In the same manner that we honor our father and mother by taking heed of their rules and laws on our lives as children in growing up to become adults, so God also places burdens, constraints, and demands on us in maturing as humans, created in the image of God, for the express purpose of bringing glory to God. It seems paradoxical, but when we live under this limitation, when we sacrifice to God's glory from what we have wrought with our own efforts, God glorifies us in return with blessing and favor.
What we earn, what we have, is genuinely ours to decide what to do with, but the entire system in which that gain, let alone existence itself, is possible belongs to God, and we can either keep what we have reaped and thus experience the entirety of our reward, or we can honor God and experience even more.
22.3.18
Daily Bible Study: Proverbs 3:1-8 (NKJV)
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?
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?
21.3.18
Daily Bible Study: Proverbs 2:16-22
To deliver you from the immoral woman,
From the seductress who flatters with her words,
Who forsakes the companion of her youth,
And forgets the covenant of her God.
For her house leads down to death,
And her paths to the dead;
None who go to her return,
Nor do they regain the paths of life—
So you may walk in the way of goodness,
And keep to the paths of righteousness.
For the upright will dwell in the land,
And the blameless will remain in it;
But the wicked will be cut off from the earth,
And the unfaithful will be uprooted from it.
Proverbs 2:16-22 (NKJV).
Wisdom is spoken of like a woman, and when contrasted to the results of a relationship with an immoral woman, the choice to anthropomorphize wisdom as a woman makes a bit more sense. Solomon is a king, his son is a prince, and as a result of the naturally high social status he would attract attention from women of all types despite personality flaws.
The dynamic of his affections being competed for by various companions would be intimately familiar, as well as the requirement to teach what he should be looking for in those relationships.
Yet if you look at the flaws of the immoral woman, you'll notice a similarity between her and the stereotype of the "modern man". The regular, run-of-the-mill, often "creepy", modern man who is likely presumed to be obsessed with some pastime people think he should have left in his childhood.
This is not accidental, as the modern man has been told for many decades that he is to act more like a woman, to deny God's calling in his life, to deny God's design in creating him as a man, that the result of these denials would create "equality" between men and women in the material sense, and finally that they would then increase their mating success as well.
The problem is that men are inherently idealistic about relationships with women, and women are inherently pragmatic about relationships with men, but nobody wants to admit this to themselves, let alone in the public discourse. What this means is that for the same reason men sing love songs, write poetry, and make total fools of themselves over women, they would fall prey to the empty flattery of an immoral woman pretending to be the one who can satisfy these fantasies for him.
The reality is that she just sees him as a means to an end, and his ideals are only fodder for mundane conversation, and as soon as he has lost whatever status or wealth that can be made of use to her, she'll immediately jump ship and start looking for a replacement, if she wasn't already entertaining one in secret. The modern divorce rate is between 40-50%, but how often is that paired with the fact that almost 70% of divorces are also initiated by wives?
The modern man invests himself emotionally into the immoral woman, and tries to be like her, in hopes that by mimicking her, she would be comfortable and stay with him. This doesn't really work because the behavior patterns he is trying to copy are a fitness test put on by her to determine whether the man in front of her is actually a suitable mate or not. They are a ploy, a scheme, and so in failing to see past this, he fails the test and is significantly downgraded in value.
This is why the seduction of the immoral woman is cited by Solomon as being so damaging, because the ruinous results of such relationships are evident all around us. Even men who survive are still marred by that relationship, changed forever by it.
When a divorce occurs and resources are split up, families broken, homes torn apart, that is a damage which cannot be recovered from. It can be survived and you can rebuild, but even that is still just a reaction to the original relationship. It never ceases to be a part of the context of that man's life.
To stay on the path of wisdom means to see through flattery and deceit to the truth of a relationship, in the case of this passage, to see beyond the words of the immoral woman to know what the realities are, and making decisions based on truth and reality instead of idealism. This is difficult for a man who has not courted wisdom, who has not pursued her, and has not internalized the truths she shares.
To pursue wisdom is to shun the tempting lies of foolishness. The righteous will build a legacy in honesty and truth. Fools will be betrayed by their empty ideals and left with nothing. Do not be a fool.
From the seductress who flatters with her words,
Who forsakes the companion of her youth,
And forgets the covenant of her God.
For her house leads down to death,
And her paths to the dead;
None who go to her return,
Nor do they regain the paths of life—
So you may walk in the way of goodness,
And keep to the paths of righteousness.
For the upright will dwell in the land,
And the blameless will remain in it;
But the wicked will be cut off from the earth,
And the unfaithful will be uprooted from it.
Proverbs 2:16-22 (NKJV).
Wisdom is spoken of like a woman, and when contrasted to the results of a relationship with an immoral woman, the choice to anthropomorphize wisdom as a woman makes a bit more sense. Solomon is a king, his son is a prince, and as a result of the naturally high social status he would attract attention from women of all types despite personality flaws.
The dynamic of his affections being competed for by various companions would be intimately familiar, as well as the requirement to teach what he should be looking for in those relationships.
Yet if you look at the flaws of the immoral woman, you'll notice a similarity between her and the stereotype of the "modern man". The regular, run-of-the-mill, often "creepy", modern man who is likely presumed to be obsessed with some pastime people think he should have left in his childhood.
This is not accidental, as the modern man has been told for many decades that he is to act more like a woman, to deny God's calling in his life, to deny God's design in creating him as a man, that the result of these denials would create "equality" between men and women in the material sense, and finally that they would then increase their mating success as well.
The problem is that men are inherently idealistic about relationships with women, and women are inherently pragmatic about relationships with men, but nobody wants to admit this to themselves, let alone in the public discourse. What this means is that for the same reason men sing love songs, write poetry, and make total fools of themselves over women, they would fall prey to the empty flattery of an immoral woman pretending to be the one who can satisfy these fantasies for him.
The reality is that she just sees him as a means to an end, and his ideals are only fodder for mundane conversation, and as soon as he has lost whatever status or wealth that can be made of use to her, she'll immediately jump ship and start looking for a replacement, if she wasn't already entertaining one in secret. The modern divorce rate is between 40-50%, but how often is that paired with the fact that almost 70% of divorces are also initiated by wives?
The modern man invests himself emotionally into the immoral woman, and tries to be like her, in hopes that by mimicking her, she would be comfortable and stay with him. This doesn't really work because the behavior patterns he is trying to copy are a fitness test put on by her to determine whether the man in front of her is actually a suitable mate or not. They are a ploy, a scheme, and so in failing to see past this, he fails the test and is significantly downgraded in value.
This is why the seduction of the immoral woman is cited by Solomon as being so damaging, because the ruinous results of such relationships are evident all around us. Even men who survive are still marred by that relationship, changed forever by it.
When a divorce occurs and resources are split up, families broken, homes torn apart, that is a damage which cannot be recovered from. It can be survived and you can rebuild, but even that is still just a reaction to the original relationship. It never ceases to be a part of the context of that man's life.
To stay on the path of wisdom means to see through flattery and deceit to the truth of a relationship, in the case of this passage, to see beyond the words of the immoral woman to know what the realities are, and making decisions based on truth and reality instead of idealism. This is difficult for a man who has not courted wisdom, who has not pursued her, and has not internalized the truths she shares.
To pursue wisdom is to shun the tempting lies of foolishness. The righteous will build a legacy in honesty and truth. Fools will be betrayed by their empty ideals and left with nothing. Do not be a fool.
20.3.18
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.
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.
19.3.18
Daily Bible Study: Proverbs 2:1-9
My son, if you receive my words,
And treasure my commands within you,
So that you incline your ear to wisdom,
And apply your heart to understanding;
Yes, if you cry out for discernment,
And lift up your voice for understanding,
If you seek her as silver,
And search for her as for hidden treasures;
Then you will understand the fear of the Lord,
And find the knowledge of God.
For the Lord gives wisdom;
From His mouth come knowledge and understanding;
He stores up sound wisdom for the upright;
He is a shield to those who walk uprightly;
He guards the paths of justice,
And preserves the way of His saints.
Then you will understand righteousness and justice,
Equity and every good path.
Proverbs 2:1-9 (NKJV).
There's going to be a lot of repetition in Proverbs, and the entire Bible, on various topics, which is expected given the internal coherence of scripture. Wisdom is always held in high esteem, always a treasure worth seeking, and yet also something which God is happy to bestow on all that seek it.
Remember back to the first chapter of Proverbs, that you cannot seek to obtain what you already have, and so unless you are God, there will be many things for you to learn, thus why the pursuit of wisdom starts with you not being God, and having reverence for God. Here the reader, or listener, to Solomon's wisdom is encouraged to not just seek wisdom with a lackadaisical apathy, but to pursue wisdom with great passion.
Compare this to the student who is searching out a topic they have found interesting. They won't just haphazardly consume new learning, they'll search it out, their hunger for more driving them forward against difficulties that they face along the way.
How does this hungry student treat teachers who bring forth more topics to devour? How does the learner respond to one who feeds their hunger?
This is why the pursuit of wisdom produces understanding of not just wisdom, but the heart of God, out of the gratitude and appreciation for the investment God is happy to make in those who have humbled themselves and sought truth. Again, that humility is not mere denigration, but awareness of the role that you or I play as the student, as the learner, as the one still in need of refinement, and God's role in growing us to satisfy his purposes in our lives.
The process is intentional, and wisdom often proves itself counter-intuitive to our natural desires, so our passion not only helps retain our focus when external distractions come along, but also help us overcome internal motivation problems, because to live in wisdom often means denying what we think we want to get what we truly need. It takes everything we've got to stay focused on God, and we can't do that while also being dismissive of the importance of what God offers through wisdom.
And treasure my commands within you,
So that you incline your ear to wisdom,
And apply your heart to understanding;
Yes, if you cry out for discernment,
And lift up your voice for understanding,
If you seek her as silver,
And search for her as for hidden treasures;
Then you will understand the fear of the Lord,
And find the knowledge of God.
For the Lord gives wisdom;
From His mouth come knowledge and understanding;
He stores up sound wisdom for the upright;
He is a shield to those who walk uprightly;
He guards the paths of justice,
And preserves the way of His saints.
Then you will understand righteousness and justice,
Equity and every good path.
Proverbs 2:1-9 (NKJV).
There's going to be a lot of repetition in Proverbs, and the entire Bible, on various topics, which is expected given the internal coherence of scripture. Wisdom is always held in high esteem, always a treasure worth seeking, and yet also something which God is happy to bestow on all that seek it.
Remember back to the first chapter of Proverbs, that you cannot seek to obtain what you already have, and so unless you are God, there will be many things for you to learn, thus why the pursuit of wisdom starts with you not being God, and having reverence for God. Here the reader, or listener, to Solomon's wisdom is encouraged to not just seek wisdom with a lackadaisical apathy, but to pursue wisdom with great passion.
Compare this to the student who is searching out a topic they have found interesting. They won't just haphazardly consume new learning, they'll search it out, their hunger for more driving them forward against difficulties that they face along the way.
How does this hungry student treat teachers who bring forth more topics to devour? How does the learner respond to one who feeds their hunger?
This is why the pursuit of wisdom produces understanding of not just wisdom, but the heart of God, out of the gratitude and appreciation for the investment God is happy to make in those who have humbled themselves and sought truth. Again, that humility is not mere denigration, but awareness of the role that you or I play as the student, as the learner, as the one still in need of refinement, and God's role in growing us to satisfy his purposes in our lives.
The process is intentional, and wisdom often proves itself counter-intuitive to our natural desires, so our passion not only helps retain our focus when external distractions come along, but also help us overcome internal motivation problems, because to live in wisdom often means denying what we think we want to get what we truly need. It takes everything we've got to stay focused on God, and we can't do that while also being dismissive of the importance of what God offers through wisdom.
18.3.18
Daily Bible Study: Proverbs 1:28-33
“Then they will call on me, but I will not answer;
They will seek me diligently, but they will not find me.
Because they hated knowledge
And did not choose the fear of the Lord,
They would have none of my counsel
And despised my every rebuke.
Therefore they shall eat the fruit of their own way,
And be filled to the full with their own fancies.
For the turning away of the simple will slay them,
And the complacency of fools will destroy them;
But whoever listens to me will dwell safely,
And will be secure, without fear of evil.”
Proverbs 1:28-33 (NKJV).
There is such thing as "running out of time", as "too late" when it comes to choices you make in this life. Even if you later learn what you were supposed to have done differently, you cannot go back in time and "try again".
You get one shot and after that you've set history and every action you take will exist in the context of that decision having been made the way it was. This is why understanding that your life matters, that your decisions carry weight you may not ever understand, is so important.
Think briefly of the chain of decisions that were made by the people which led to Pontius Pilate taking the station he had, and being in it when Jesus was brought before him. For Pilate to have been in the position he was, with no more or less authority than he had, it relied on scores of decisions prior to him ever being born.
The establishment of Israel, the founding of Rome, the specific laws to which the expansion of Rome would follow, the resistance (or lack thereof) in Israel to Roman rule, all of these things were driven by human choices, and at each choice someone could have accepted or rejected wisdom. A different choice would have resulted in a different outcome, yet in concert all the decisions up to that point produced that interaction, and then even it would play a supporting role in what came after.
Wisdom is not mandatory to survive. You can live without it, and especially if you are lucky, you may even think you're better off without it. Take note in this passage that rejecting wisdom does not occur in a vacuum, there are consequences and they at the superficial level, appear to be desirable as well.
Who wouldn't want to be filled to the full with their own fancies? Who doesn't want to get what their heart desires? How is this supposed to be a "negative" outcome for ignoring wisdom?
For the same reason that the United States of America is dealing with school shootings, near 40% of the population is obese, divorce rates are 40-50%, and so on, what we fancy is rarely good for us, whether in the physical or philosophical sense. We crave unintelligibly, not understanding the consequences of our choices, only that satisfying them makes us feel good in that moment.
Thus why wisdom is so valuable, and so universal, because it provides a reliable mechanism by which we can distinguish between healthy choices and poor ones. We have the option of making good choices, or making bad choices and hoping we learn enough not to repeat the same mistake again.
Why would anyone insist on inviting destruction upon themselves through bad decisions to "learn" when the knowledge they seek is available already if they'd just accept it? Such stubbornness is not a sign of intellectual enlightenment, but of a deep immaturity and blind arrogance.
Make good choices the first time, and then build upon that, instead of constantly going back and trying to re-make a poor decision to get a better result.
They will seek me diligently, but they will not find me.
Because they hated knowledge
And did not choose the fear of the Lord,
They would have none of my counsel
And despised my every rebuke.
Therefore they shall eat the fruit of their own way,
And be filled to the full with their own fancies.
For the turning away of the simple will slay them,
And the complacency of fools will destroy them;
But whoever listens to me will dwell safely,
And will be secure, without fear of evil.”
Proverbs 1:28-33 (NKJV).
There is such thing as "running out of time", as "too late" when it comes to choices you make in this life. Even if you later learn what you were supposed to have done differently, you cannot go back in time and "try again".
You get one shot and after that you've set history and every action you take will exist in the context of that decision having been made the way it was. This is why understanding that your life matters, that your decisions carry weight you may not ever understand, is so important.
Think briefly of the chain of decisions that were made by the people which led to Pontius Pilate taking the station he had, and being in it when Jesus was brought before him. For Pilate to have been in the position he was, with no more or less authority than he had, it relied on scores of decisions prior to him ever being born.
The establishment of Israel, the founding of Rome, the specific laws to which the expansion of Rome would follow, the resistance (or lack thereof) in Israel to Roman rule, all of these things were driven by human choices, and at each choice someone could have accepted or rejected wisdom. A different choice would have resulted in a different outcome, yet in concert all the decisions up to that point produced that interaction, and then even it would play a supporting role in what came after.
Wisdom is not mandatory to survive. You can live without it, and especially if you are lucky, you may even think you're better off without it. Take note in this passage that rejecting wisdom does not occur in a vacuum, there are consequences and they at the superficial level, appear to be desirable as well.
Who wouldn't want to be filled to the full with their own fancies? Who doesn't want to get what their heart desires? How is this supposed to be a "negative" outcome for ignoring wisdom?
For the same reason that the United States of America is dealing with school shootings, near 40% of the population is obese, divorce rates are 40-50%, and so on, what we fancy is rarely good for us, whether in the physical or philosophical sense. We crave unintelligibly, not understanding the consequences of our choices, only that satisfying them makes us feel good in that moment.
Thus why wisdom is so valuable, and so universal, because it provides a reliable mechanism by which we can distinguish between healthy choices and poor ones. We have the option of making good choices, or making bad choices and hoping we learn enough not to repeat the same mistake again.
Why would anyone insist on inviting destruction upon themselves through bad decisions to "learn" when the knowledge they seek is available already if they'd just accept it? Such stubbornness is not a sign of intellectual enlightenment, but of a deep immaturity and blind arrogance.
Make good choices the first time, and then build upon that, instead of constantly going back and trying to re-make a poor decision to get a better result.
17.3.18
Daily Bible Study: Proverbs 1:20-27
Wisdom calls aloud outside;,
Popular are the universal ideas that God's efforts will eventually bring all into reconciliation, that God doesn't "give up" on anyone, despite almost all the drama and excitement in the Old Testament with Israel coming from God having turned away from them, given up on a generation (or many) and only after their sins have been punished sufficiently does God return them to a place of favor and begin working with them again as they draw closer to God.
There will be no innocent people in hell, and God has already, through Jesus Christ, done all the work necessary to reconcile mankind to himself. Like wisdom, salvation is a gift, not of works or specific applications, but a universal offer, a universal opportunity, though the hardness of many people's hearts out of envy and hatred of God will not allow them to accept it.
In the same manner then that wisdom turns away from those who reject her, how she adds insult to injury, realize this is not a trait unique to wisdom, but is a reflection of the heart of God to mock and to belittle those who would not humble themselves but would instead defiantly claim that they are gods or that their gods are more powerful.
God is content to take people at their word, to not treat boastful declarations in some sort of divine sarcasm, and this gets back to why wisdom is so important, and calls out to everyone, and why the alleviation of consequence is so damaging to an individual.
The decisions you make in this life matter, whether within the context of this life in regard to wisdom, or in the context of eternity with salvation. Do not believe that your actions are not unnoticed. Do not think you've gotten away with anything. Do not believe that there will always be someone to save you from your sin.
Reconcile to God, through faith in Jesus Christ. Listen to wisdom, and take her lessons to heart and apply them. You life matters, now live like you understand that.
She raises her voice in the open squares.
She cries out in the chief concourses,
At the openings of the gates in the city
She speaks her words:
“How long, you simple ones, will you love simplicity?
For scorners delight in their scorning,
And fools hate knowledge.
Turn at my rebuke;
Surely I will pour out my spirit on you;
I will make my words known to you.
Because I have called and you refused,
I have stretched out my hand and no one regarded,
Because you disdained all my counsel,
And would have none of my rebuke,
I also will laugh at your calamity;
I will mock when your terror comes,
When your terror comes like a storm,
And your destruction comes like a whirlwind,
When distress and anguish come upon you.
To say something real quick on the topic, I am not going to spend a lot of time right now on the genders amidst advice. Why Solomon is providing this wisdom to his "son" and why wisdom is personified as "she" are not irrelevant topics, but they are not my focus right now, unless there's something gender-specific given as instruction or command (like with fathers and mothers).
The next time I pass through this scripture may be different, but that's well into the future.
Now, wisdom can be loosely connected to "common sense" in that you do not need an advanced degree in anything to start grasping what it offers and start applying it to your life. Where finite element analysis is somewhat more difficult, the multi-variable vector calculus often left to computers, and the material physics that it draws from in practical application are all a bit more esoteric in contrast, wisdom is universal in its application.
Whether you are an erudite or a dirt farmer, or even without any dirt to claim as your own, wisdom calls to you and is a worthwhile companion. There is no discrimination, no limits, no barriers to entry, and thus the scorn against those who reject wisdom is given justification.
If you are offered knowledge without any cost to you, and you still reject it, the traditional response to to leave you to the consequences and hope you learn through them. In our modern context, great effort is expended to eliminate the negative consequences of bad decisions, from the sympathy expressed over "bad luck" to the active efforts to eliminate the lesson from making a bad choice (shotgun weddings, abortions, divorces, etc), we have bought into the idea that people should only learn voluntarily, and that when people refuse to learn, we adjust the system to accommodate them instead of watching them hit the wall and, dazed and confused, reach out for help.
Much of the wisdom in the Bible does not preach infinite patience.
Even God, in both the Old and New Testaments, describes that at a certain point people are given over to their desires and they will bear the full cost of their sin and God will not remove it from them.
The next time I pass through this scripture may be different, but that's well into the future.
Now, wisdom can be loosely connected to "common sense" in that you do not need an advanced degree in anything to start grasping what it offers and start applying it to your life. Where finite element analysis is somewhat more difficult, the multi-variable vector calculus often left to computers, and the material physics that it draws from in practical application are all a bit more esoteric in contrast, wisdom is universal in its application.
Whether you are an erudite or a dirt farmer, or even without any dirt to claim as your own, wisdom calls to you and is a worthwhile companion. There is no discrimination, no limits, no barriers to entry, and thus the scorn against those who reject wisdom is given justification.
If you are offered knowledge without any cost to you, and you still reject it, the traditional response to to leave you to the consequences and hope you learn through them. In our modern context, great effort is expended to eliminate the negative consequences of bad decisions, from the sympathy expressed over "bad luck" to the active efforts to eliminate the lesson from making a bad choice (shotgun weddings, abortions, divorces, etc), we have bought into the idea that people should only learn voluntarily, and that when people refuse to learn, we adjust the system to accommodate them instead of watching them hit the wall and, dazed and confused, reach out for help.
Much of the wisdom in the Bible does not preach infinite patience.
Even God, in both the Old and New Testaments, describes that at a certain point people are given over to their desires and they will bear the full cost of their sin and God will not remove it from them.
Popular are the universal ideas that God's efforts will eventually bring all into reconciliation, that God doesn't "give up" on anyone, despite almost all the drama and excitement in the Old Testament with Israel coming from God having turned away from them, given up on a generation (or many) and only after their sins have been punished sufficiently does God return them to a place of favor and begin working with them again as they draw closer to God.
There will be no innocent people in hell, and God has already, through Jesus Christ, done all the work necessary to reconcile mankind to himself. Like wisdom, salvation is a gift, not of works or specific applications, but a universal offer, a universal opportunity, though the hardness of many people's hearts out of envy and hatred of God will not allow them to accept it.
In the same manner then that wisdom turns away from those who reject her, how she adds insult to injury, realize this is not a trait unique to wisdom, but is a reflection of the heart of God to mock and to belittle those who would not humble themselves but would instead defiantly claim that they are gods or that their gods are more powerful.
God is content to take people at their word, to not treat boastful declarations in some sort of divine sarcasm, and this gets back to why wisdom is so important, and calls out to everyone, and why the alleviation of consequence is so damaging to an individual.
The decisions you make in this life matter, whether within the context of this life in regard to wisdom, or in the context of eternity with salvation. Do not believe that your actions are not unnoticed. Do not think you've gotten away with anything. Do not believe that there will always be someone to save you from your sin.
Reconcile to God, through faith in Jesus Christ. Listen to wisdom, and take her lessons to heart and apply them. You life matters, now live like you understand that.
16.3.18
Daily Bible Study: Proverbs 1:10-19
My son, if sinners entice you,
Do not consent.
If they say, “Come with us,
Let us lie in wait to shed blood;
Let us lurk secretly for the innocent without cause;
Let us swallow them alive like Sheol,
And whole, like those who go down to the Pit;
We shall find all kinds of precious possessions,
We shall fill our houses with spoil;
Cast in your lot among us,
Let us all have one purse”—
My son, do not walk in the way with them,
Keep your foot from their path;
For their feet run to evil,
And they make haste to shed blood.
Surely, in vain the net is spread
In the sight of any bird;
But they lie in wait for their own blood,
They lurk secretly for their own lives.
So are the ways of everyone who is greedy for gain;
It takes away the life of its owners.
Proverbs 1:10-19 (NKJV).
Associations matter. This is "common sense", we have old idioms about "rotten apples" and how far "apples fall from the tree". And yet how we behave often denies this truth, as if who we are is not influenced by who we spend time with, and what we spend time doing with those people.
On the way to a youth group in college, a passenger in my car commented during a conversation that he wouldn't want to get "caught with the wrong crowd." It struck me as terribly ignorant because Jesus was constantly "caught with the wrong crowd", and it became a significant point of consternation between he and the religious elites of his day.
So how do we reconcile that who we spend time with affects us, and yet not isolate ourselves completely when people sin and make mistakes?
Described in this passage is a recommendation to avoid joining in with "sinners" in their sin, and that's the key, that's the subtlety you need to grasp.
Jesus spent time with sinners, but did not sin. So likewise does Solomon instruct us not to partake in sinful activities, in this case regarding greed. While the thieves are, at the surface level, robbing from someone else, what they're really stealing from is themselves, their soul. They seek gains which are not theirs, to feed a hunger which only God can satisfy, and so their greed will consume them.
When our hearts belong to God, when we are obedient to God's commands, we will run afoul of those around us whose loyalties are to lesser beings, as the gods of this world are flushed with envy and hatred for God's power and position in existence. We are to remain loyal to God, to follow the path God has set before us, and not to be distracted by the goals of the mortals among us and their suicidal idolatry.
Does this mean you'll be walking your path "alone"? Well, you may not have many other people on that path, but when you are reconciled to God, you are never truly alone at all. God is not an impersonal being, a definition in a book, but a living mind, a supreme sentience, and cares for the fates of those in his flock.
You do not need to break association with sinners just because they've sinned or will sin, otherwise Jesus would not have ever come to bear witness to us of the salvation that would be afforded by his blood. You need to refuse to partake in their sin, to instead walk in righteousness, and trust God to provide you the strength to resist such temptations.
Do not consent.
If they say, “Come with us,
Let us lie in wait to shed blood;
Let us lurk secretly for the innocent without cause;
Let us swallow them alive like Sheol,
And whole, like those who go down to the Pit;
We shall find all kinds of precious possessions,
We shall fill our houses with spoil;
Cast in your lot among us,
Let us all have one purse”—
My son, do not walk in the way with them,
Keep your foot from their path;
For their feet run to evil,
And they make haste to shed blood.
Surely, in vain the net is spread
In the sight of any bird;
But they lie in wait for their own blood,
They lurk secretly for their own lives.
So are the ways of everyone who is greedy for gain;
It takes away the life of its owners.
Proverbs 1:10-19 (NKJV).
Associations matter. This is "common sense", we have old idioms about "rotten apples" and how far "apples fall from the tree". And yet how we behave often denies this truth, as if who we are is not influenced by who we spend time with, and what we spend time doing with those people.
On the way to a youth group in college, a passenger in my car commented during a conversation that he wouldn't want to get "caught with the wrong crowd." It struck me as terribly ignorant because Jesus was constantly "caught with the wrong crowd", and it became a significant point of consternation between he and the religious elites of his day.
So how do we reconcile that who we spend time with affects us, and yet not isolate ourselves completely when people sin and make mistakes?
Described in this passage is a recommendation to avoid joining in with "sinners" in their sin, and that's the key, that's the subtlety you need to grasp.
Jesus spent time with sinners, but did not sin. So likewise does Solomon instruct us not to partake in sinful activities, in this case regarding greed. While the thieves are, at the surface level, robbing from someone else, what they're really stealing from is themselves, their soul. They seek gains which are not theirs, to feed a hunger which only God can satisfy, and so their greed will consume them.
When our hearts belong to God, when we are obedient to God's commands, we will run afoul of those around us whose loyalties are to lesser beings, as the gods of this world are flushed with envy and hatred for God's power and position in existence. We are to remain loyal to God, to follow the path God has set before us, and not to be distracted by the goals of the mortals among us and their suicidal idolatry.
Does this mean you'll be walking your path "alone"? Well, you may not have many other people on that path, but when you are reconciled to God, you are never truly alone at all. God is not an impersonal being, a definition in a book, but a living mind, a supreme sentience, and cares for the fates of those in his flock.
You do not need to break association with sinners just because they've sinned or will sin, otherwise Jesus would not have ever come to bear witness to us of the salvation that would be afforded by his blood. You need to refuse to partake in their sin, to instead walk in righteousness, and trust God to provide you the strength to resist such temptations.
15.3.18
Daily Bible Study: Proverbs 1:8-9
My son, hear the instruction of your father,
And do not forsake the law of your mother;
For they will be a graceful ornament on your head,
And chains about your neck.
Proverbs 1:8-9 (NKJV)
There are at least three controversial concepts in just this very short passage that show up regularly in the Bible, some in obvious ways, some more overtly. They are:
1) A father and mother do different things.
2) Your father and mother both do important things.
3) Constraints make you better, not worse.
The reason these are controversial is that the postmodern philosophies embraced by popular culture in at least the United States rejects all three of these things, and for a litany of reasons, all of which boil down to rebellion against God's order. Let's take them one by one.
1) A father and mother do different things.
In this passage, the father instructs. The word used in the original language is "musar", which is associated with "discipline, chastening, correction". For those who don't know, while the English language has a very large vocabulary, ancient languages often did not, and so the same word would have multiple meanings along a theme. You can see how those three concepts are reflected in "instruction", and yet there is a little something missing. To help explain, let's look at what the mother does.
For the mother, the word in the original language is "torah", which is associated with "direction, instruction, law". Can you see how these two different words are very close, but hold a different connotation? The father's role is active, where the mother's role is passive.
The one who prescribes the law does not necessarily enforce it, or provide the corrective action when it has been broken. When you look at the results of sexual dimorphism in physiology, or even in the stereotypes of the past found behind phrases like "just you wait till your father gets home", you can see how the dynamic of similar but distinct roles comes into play.
2) Your father and mother both do important things.
That leads us into the next part, where scripture is very clear that both dad and mom have different roles to play in a healthy family. Both are necessary. You can't have a healthy family without one or the other, and we've plenty of both anecdotal and verified data to show what happens when you try to raise children without one or the other.
This is where the idea of "equality" comes into play, in that people have a hard time understanding that disparate roles can have equal value. We often view the outcome as the criteria for determining "equality", or the difficulty in achieving a task, and so if the inputs or outputs are subtle or hard to see, it "feels" like there is an inequality in value because there is an inequality in those inputs and outputs.
Having worked in manufacturing environments for over a decade, I can explain in great detail that when your responsibility is to avert possible problems in the future, it becomes very tough to explain how the specific steps you've taken prevented an issue from manifesting. In the same manner, if a mother provides instruction to her children and they listen and obey, it can be deflating and anti-climactic, but this should not diminish the importance of her role in shaping that outcome.
This is why, much later on in the New Testament, Paul would emphasize that husbands bestow honor on their wives in understanding. While a father may get a lot of visibility in his more active role, and it will be more physically challenging, that does not make the role of the wife less important, and so husbands are to recognize this and adjust their behavior towards their wife to reflect this.
3) Constraints make you better, not worse.
This is one of the common and presumably paradoxical claims made throughout the Bible, and yet it speaks to a truth we can understand and see in everyday circumstances. A garden which is not tended to will become overgrown and filled with weeds. A building which is not mended will crumble and fall. A company with an unlimited budget will still somehow bankrupt itself and collapse.
If you do not guide a process intentionally, the results are based entirely on chance. So often we hear people discuss "freedom", as if it is an inherently desirable concept, that lacking constraints people would make better decisions and not be "held back" by restrictions on their behavior.
Yet the reality is that those restrictions produce refinement. The garden which is tended to will produce good fruits and aesthetic beauty. A building which is tended to will stand for generations. A company that learns to live with little resources will become efficient instead of wasteful.
A child whose behavior is directed will mature, and the restrictions which chafed them as a child will instead become the very mechanism by which their true value can manifest. When you meet someone who displays discipline, you don't see the restrictions, what you see is the resulting refinement that discipline brought about in that person.
This is why Solomon describes the teaching and correction of your father and mother in such favorable terms, because the result of that understanding and obedience will bring results that will be plainly obvious to those that are around you, in the same manner that there is an obvious difference between one who is finely ornamented and one who is not.
Embrace the constraints on your behavior that your father and mother put in place and held you to and do not be tempted to presume that they did so out of cruelty, but out of genuine love in order to help refine you into something better.
And do not forsake the law of your mother;
For they will be a graceful ornament on your head,
And chains about your neck.
Proverbs 1:8-9 (NKJV)
There are at least three controversial concepts in just this very short passage that show up regularly in the Bible, some in obvious ways, some more overtly. They are:
1) A father and mother do different things.
2) Your father and mother both do important things.
3) Constraints make you better, not worse.
The reason these are controversial is that the postmodern philosophies embraced by popular culture in at least the United States rejects all three of these things, and for a litany of reasons, all of which boil down to rebellion against God's order. Let's take them one by one.
1) A father and mother do different things.
In this passage, the father instructs. The word used in the original language is "musar", which is associated with "discipline, chastening, correction". For those who don't know, while the English language has a very large vocabulary, ancient languages often did not, and so the same word would have multiple meanings along a theme. You can see how those three concepts are reflected in "instruction", and yet there is a little something missing. To help explain, let's look at what the mother does.
For the mother, the word in the original language is "torah", which is associated with "direction, instruction, law". Can you see how these two different words are very close, but hold a different connotation? The father's role is active, where the mother's role is passive.
The one who prescribes the law does not necessarily enforce it, or provide the corrective action when it has been broken. When you look at the results of sexual dimorphism in physiology, or even in the stereotypes of the past found behind phrases like "just you wait till your father gets home", you can see how the dynamic of similar but distinct roles comes into play.
2) Your father and mother both do important things.
That leads us into the next part, where scripture is very clear that both dad and mom have different roles to play in a healthy family. Both are necessary. You can't have a healthy family without one or the other, and we've plenty of both anecdotal and verified data to show what happens when you try to raise children without one or the other.
This is where the idea of "equality" comes into play, in that people have a hard time understanding that disparate roles can have equal value. We often view the outcome as the criteria for determining "equality", or the difficulty in achieving a task, and so if the inputs or outputs are subtle or hard to see, it "feels" like there is an inequality in value because there is an inequality in those inputs and outputs.
Having worked in manufacturing environments for over a decade, I can explain in great detail that when your responsibility is to avert possible problems in the future, it becomes very tough to explain how the specific steps you've taken prevented an issue from manifesting. In the same manner, if a mother provides instruction to her children and they listen and obey, it can be deflating and anti-climactic, but this should not diminish the importance of her role in shaping that outcome.
This is why, much later on in the New Testament, Paul would emphasize that husbands bestow honor on their wives in understanding. While a father may get a lot of visibility in his more active role, and it will be more physically challenging, that does not make the role of the wife less important, and so husbands are to recognize this and adjust their behavior towards their wife to reflect this.
3) Constraints make you better, not worse.
This is one of the common and presumably paradoxical claims made throughout the Bible, and yet it speaks to a truth we can understand and see in everyday circumstances. A garden which is not tended to will become overgrown and filled with weeds. A building which is not mended will crumble and fall. A company with an unlimited budget will still somehow bankrupt itself and collapse.
If you do not guide a process intentionally, the results are based entirely on chance. So often we hear people discuss "freedom", as if it is an inherently desirable concept, that lacking constraints people would make better decisions and not be "held back" by restrictions on their behavior.
Yet the reality is that those restrictions produce refinement. The garden which is tended to will produce good fruits and aesthetic beauty. A building which is tended to will stand for generations. A company that learns to live with little resources will become efficient instead of wasteful.
A child whose behavior is directed will mature, and the restrictions which chafed them as a child will instead become the very mechanism by which their true value can manifest. When you meet someone who displays discipline, you don't see the restrictions, what you see is the resulting refinement that discipline brought about in that person.
This is why Solomon describes the teaching and correction of your father and mother in such favorable terms, because the result of that understanding and obedience will bring results that will be plainly obvious to those that are around you, in the same manner that there is an obvious difference between one who is finely ornamented and one who is not.
Embrace the constraints on your behavior that your father and mother put in place and held you to and do not be tempted to presume that they did so out of cruelty, but out of genuine love in order to help refine you into something better.
14.3.18
Daily Bible Study: Proverbs 1:1-7
The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel:
To know wisdom and instruction,
To perceive the words of understanding,
To perceive the words of understanding,
To receive the instruction of wisdom,
Justice, judgment, and equity;
Justice, judgment, and equity;
To give prudence to the simple,
To the young man knowledge and discretion—
To the young man knowledge and discretion—
A wise man will hear and increase learning,
And a man of understanding will attain wise counsel,
To understand a proverb and an enigma,
The words of the wise and their riddles.
And a man of understanding will attain wise counsel,
To understand a proverb and an enigma,
The words of the wise and their riddles.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge,
But fools despise wisdom and instruction.
But fools despise wisdom and instruction.
By definition, God is omniscient, or "all-knowing." If you were God, it would be impossible for you to learn anything new. Solomon corroborates this premise in "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge." Since none of us mere mortals is God, Solomon can be quite comfortable presuming that everyone reading this will need to start with the correct perspective on their relationship with God.
In a way, you can look at this as "if you aren't humble, you can't learn", which is something that makes sense even in a secular context. While humility is commonly associated with self-deprecation, I would argue it's more accurately about self-awareness. Yes, being humbled will look like deprecation if you're being taken down a few pegs, being removed from the throne of God, admitting your faults and failures and ignorances and so on, but this is not to just put you down, but to put you in your proper place, to strip away the prideful deceit about what you think you are so you can make peace with what you really are.
To grow, to learn, we have to start by accepting that there is something we don't understand, that we are not God, and that God is worthy of our fear, our reverence, our awe.
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