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On July 1, 2021 By In Culture, Discipleship, Wisdom

Friend or Folly

Friendship is vital to our humanity. We desire friendship because we are created in the image of the Triune God who is eternally in friendship as Father, Son, and Spirt, and, like him, our mission can only be completed in a community of friendships. The mission God gave us in the beginning cannot be completed by an individual. We need friendships; from the friendship of marriage (cf. Song 5.16) to same-sex friendships to broader societal connections, we need friendships at various levels to complete what God has given us to do. It is not good for man to be alone. Friendships, therefore, are not an optional accoutrement to our humanity.

The drive to have friends is innate in everyone. We want connections, people with whom we can share life. We are broadly connected to all humans so that every person we meet is a friend. The command to “love your neighbor as yourself” in Leviticus 19.18 can rightly be translated, “love your friend as yourself.” There is a sense in which everyone is a friend with whom we are connected and to whom we owe our love. The Bible not only speaks of friends in this broad sense but also speaks of friendships of various degrees of intimacy. Friends of the king (for example, Job or Jesus in John 15) are his trusted advisors. A husband is the wife’s friend (Song 5.16). There are friends and there are friends.

While we owe a friendly duty to all those with whom we come in contact, we don’t share the same intimacy with all. Indeed, we must take care with whom we become close friends because of the way deep friendships shape us. Friendships involve an “entangling of souls.” The soul is our whole person animated before God and the world. Our lives get wrapped up with someone so that our emotions, will, mind, and heart are connected with the other. Jonathan’s soul was knit to David’s so that he loved him as his own soul (1Sm 18.1). That is a close friendship. In these types of friendships as we “share souls” with one another, we take on the characteristics of the other so that our mannerisms, speech patterns, desires, and the direction of our lives blend with the other person.

The entangling of souls can be good for us or bad for us. Paul proverbially tells the Corinthians, “Bad company corrupts good morals” (1Cor 15.33), recognizing this general principle. This is why Solomon and his wife direct their son to be careful about friendships from the start of his instruction (Pr 1.8-19). His son is to avoid the gang of young men who are unhinged from God’s wisdom. He is not to walk in the way with the wicked; he is to “avoid it; do not go on it; turn away from it and pass on” (Pr 4.14-15). He is to recognize Harlot Folly by the way she speaks and dresses and avoid her as well (Pr 7). Wisdom is to be called his “sister” and insight his close friend (Pr 7.4). He is to seek out Lady Wisdom for his intimate companion. He is to walk with wise men (Pr 13.20).

Some Christians out of misguided love and distortion of mercy might believe that the avoidance of entangling ourselves with the unwise, the rebellious, is selfish. However, Proverbs is quite clear in its directives, and its wisdom is embodied in Jesus himself. Jesus walked the way of wisdom and called others to join him. If they were willing to follow him, to join him in the way of wisdom, he was willing to be patient with them and help them along the way. However, he was willing to cut off relationships with those who did not want to walk or continue to walk with him. The rich young man who appeared to be a hot prospect for the kingdom turned away from Jesus’ call to walk in the way. Jesus didn’t run after him. At one time, after Jesus spoke about being the bread that came down from heaven, many quit following him. He turned to the Twelve and asked them if they would leave him as well. He was not deviating. He was willing to let them go if they didn’t want to continue in the way of wisdom.

As you choose friends, take care. They need to be on the same path of maturing in wisdom. You cannot save the undisciplined, slothful, angry, drunk and glutton, so don’t mix with them (Pr 22.24-25; 23.19-21). The sin magnet that is in you will be drawn toward the atrophy and disorder that characterizes them, and then you will be able to help no one. You will need someone to help you. Find friends who are walking in the way of wisdom and join them, encouraging one another, and so be saved from destruction and be productive in our common mission.

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On June 30, 2021 By In Books, Church, Discipleship, Theology

Kill Goliath and Save his Skull

Last week, our church hosted a Vacation Bible School that included the story of “David and Goliath” as one of the Bible stories. I was responsible for the “Bible story station” that introduced the characters, the meaning behind the story, and its application. Groups would spend twenty minutes with me and then return later in the day for ten minutes of reflection and prayer.

Our VBS theme’s package included scripted lessons that a leader could simply read with sample questions and ideas for applications for various age groups. Our materials were produced by the Methodist publisher Cokesbury and generally faithful to the Biblical story. They were also insightful about how to manage the attention of younger students, but like all modern children’s curricula – do not expect much from the child.

On Bite-Sized Lessons

Exercises like this always cause me to question how much of Sunday’s sermon is actually understood by my youngest congregants. The VBS curriculums seem to assume that children need everything delivered in such easily digested, bite-sized pieces. Perhaps this level of VBS is meant for children who may have never been to a church. But not even two minutes into my introduction of David and Goliath it was obvious that my group of eight and nine-year-olds were already very familiar with the details of the story—down to the number of stones that David collects. The study guide wanted me to focus on “facing bullies” and “overcoming adversity” but the kids had heard it all before.

Caught off guard, I went into “Rev. Clowney Mode” and thought I would pivot into teaching how Goliath’s downfall points to Christ. Now completely off script, I asked the students, “So what happened to Goliath next?” A few hands went up. One young man was so excited to share that I decided to ignore his impatient “I know! I know!” and call on him anyway. “David cut his head off!” For some strange reason, this scene wasn’t included in the coloring sheets and didn’t make it into any of the suggested drama skits for the day. Go figure.

And, “and then what happened?” I asked. The students looked at each other, shrugged, and back to me. Here I explained that King David eventually took the giant’s skull to Jerusalem, to be buried just outside of the Holy City of Jerusalem.

I asked them to consider Goliath a type of serpent, reminding them that “coat of mail” that we see described as his armor in 1 Samuel 17 is more akin to a breastplate of snake scales. I then asked them to remember the Garden of Eden and to consider the promises made to Adam and Eve after their expulsion, chiefly that a descendent of theirs was to crush the head of the serpent. I pointed out that in our Scripture reading, David’s stone “sunk” into Goliath’s head. David was Adam’s great-great (times thirty-five generations) grandson and he was well aware of the promises to his family’s line. He and all future generations would remember David as the son of Adam who had crushed the serpent with a stone to the head.

Yet David was only fulfilling part of that promise. David’s battle with Goliath was looking forward to when the Messiah would destroy the true serpent and undo mankind’s death curse. David anticipated this when he brought Goliath’s skull back to Jerusalem as a covenant sign of God’s future faithfulness. For the very place that David buries Goliath’s skull is to become the very same spot that Jesus is to be crucified: Golgotha.

David with the Head of Goliath, circa 1635, by Andrea Vaccaro

As James B. Jordan points out:

“Golgotha is just a contraction of Goliath of Gath (Hebrew: Goliath-Gath). 1 Samuel 17:54 says that David took the head of Goliath to Jerusalem, but since Jerusalem was to be a holy city, this dead corpse would not have been set up inside the city, but someplace outside. The Mount of Olives was right in front of the city (1 Kings 11:7; 2 Kings 23:13), and a place of ready access. Jesus was crucified at the place where Goliath’s head had been exhibited. Even as His foot was bruised, He was crushing the giant’s head!”

Biblical Horizons Newsletter No. 84: Christ in the Holy of Holies The Meaning of the Mount of Olives by James B. Jordan (April, 1996)

I had gone way off course from the VBS script. I was talking about burying a giant’s skull and Christ crucified, where the script had this as its closing reflection: “If you wonder how you can face challenges that might seem bigger than you, remember that with God you can find what you need to help you meet your challenges.”

Goliath Cross Skull

At reflection time they returned eager for more juicy details about David’s bloodlust, only for me to remind them of Christ’s present promises to conquer sin and that perhaps us miserable sinners are more like Goliath than David in the story. We deserve a stone to the head for our life of war against God. And like Goliath’s lifeless skull outside of Jerusalem, our only hope was the blood dripping down from the saviour on the cross.

On Practical, Relevant Preaching

The need for a “practical application” and the lure of relevance or accessibility has detached the Christian meaning of David versus Goliath from its place in the story of the Gospel. King David as a historical figure with a natural and spiritual lineage leading to Jesus is of no real consequence in the VBS version. While I have no doubt that this story also presents a great opportunity for character building in giving us examples of overcoming adversity, let’s not limit David to the realm of mere fable.

David and Goliath - Malcolm Gladwell

After all, popular authors have done much better than pastors with this self-help approach. For example, Malcom Gladwell parlayed the underdog notion of David and Goliath into a New York Times Bestseller back in 2015 when he connected this story to all sorts of character applications. Everything from the religious sacrifices of the French Huguenots to the jumbled but noble struggle of dyslexics. In Gladwell’s applications, the whole idea of the story was simple: what we saw as disadvantages in the small-statured shepherd boy, were actually his secret weapons against the Philistine giant. David had it in him the whole time, everyone else just couldn’t see it. Is this the message of Christ?

We must contend that the Holy Spirit did not include the battle with Goliath to add a Hebrew hero to the Aesopica. David’s battle must be more than a story for inspiring courage and spurring on self-development. We have not faithfully taught any passage of Scripture without connecting it to the story of Christ’s redemption. Or as Rev. Edmund Clowney put it, “Preachers who ignore the history of redemption in the preaching are ignoring the witness of the Holy Spirit to Jesus in all the Scriptures.”

Rev. Clowney was Professor Emeritus of Practical Theology at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, where he served for over thirty years, sixteen of those as president. He authored several books, including The Unfolding Mystery: Discovering Christ in the Old Testament.

Esoteric Speculations

Grounding our teaching in the story of Christ also prevents the fetishizing of obscure details in the Hebrew text. I was recently asked to lead a book study through Michael S. Heiser’s book The Unseen Realm. While leading the study, I quickly learned that the generation of men taught under “relevant preaching” styles had missed out on the necessary theological framework to hang the Old Testament narratives. They craved the order and structure The Unseen Realm offers. Unfortunately, Heiser’s book reads like he has just recently unlocked a secret code to understand the Bible through special ancient symbols and obscure language clues.

Speculations about Nephilim, angels, and giants creep in and have the power to wedge an artificial gap between our historical theology and our new pet passages. Men like Othmar Keel, Meredith Kline, and Gregory Beale have been offering us similar approaches to Biblical symbolism while staying within Nicene orthodoxy and the historic church. And of course, James Jordan offered a very accessible compendium of Biblical symbolism in his book Through New Eyes.

How much did Goliath’s armor weigh? Were his ancestors fallen angels? Did the giants survive the flood? Does new Philistine DNA evidence prove the existence of bronze-age giants? The depths of the Biblical text are inexhaustible, or as D.A. Carson put it in his book The Gospel as Center, “The Bible is an ever-flowing fountain…” but wild speculations detached from the story of salvation are not equal to seeing Christ in every passage of Scripture. To see Christ in every God-breathed passage is to drink from the living stream, while a desire for obscurity inevitably leads to the brackish waters of pseudo-scholarship based in the mysteries of pseudepigraphon and cliches of post-modern religious studies.

Teach Christ

There’s nothing foolish, redundant, or mediocre about Christ-centered preaching. Those who love the Lord will never tire of hearing how Christ is present on every page. Those who are far from him desperately need to hear him speak to every area of life. Let us never grow weary in taking captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. (2 Corinthians 10:5)

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On June 24, 2021 By In Discipleship, Family and Children, Wisdom

The Limited Power of Parenting

Any of us who have been parents for a while have felt the weight of responsibility and the sense of inadequacy that comes with the task. We don’t know enough. We’re going to make a mistake that destroys our child’s life. How can I know that I am doing this right? No matter how many children we have, we are ever learning so that the rearing of each child feels like an experiment.

This weight of responsibility and sense of inadequacy should keep us humble before God, seeking his wisdom from the Scriptures and others who have passed this way before. Even with all of our perceived or real deficiencies, as Christians, we should approach our parenting with confidence. We can do this because we know that when God entrusts children to us, he has given us a calling we can handle.

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On June 18, 2021 By In Discipleship, Men, Wisdom

Letters To Young Men: Discipline

People look for the shortcut. The hack. And if you came here looking for that: You won’t find it. The shortcut is a lie. The hack doesn’t get you there. And if you want to take the easy road, it won’t take you to where you want to be: Stronger. Smarter. Faster. Healthier. Better. FREE.

To reach goals and overcome obstacles and become the best version of you possible will not happen by itself. It will not happen cutting corners, taking shortcuts, or looking for the easy way. THERE IS NO EASY WAY. There is only hard work, late nights, early mornings, practice, rehearsal, repetition, study, sweat, blood, toil, frustration, and discipline. DISCIPLINE.

THERE MUST BE DISCIPLINE.

Discipline: The root of all good qualities. The driver of daily execution. The core principle that overcomes laziness and lethargy and excuses. Discipline defeats the infinite excuses that say: Not today, not now, I need a rest, I will do it tomorrow.

What’s the hack? How do you become stronger, smarter, faster, healthier? How do you become better? How do you achieve true freedom? There is only one way. THE WAY OF DISCIPLINE. (Jocko Willink, Discipline Equals Freedom: Field Manual MK1-MOD1, Expanded Edition, 2-3, emphasis original)

Created in the image of the Divine Warrior (Ex 15.3; Ps 78.65), you are a warrior. This is the calling given to you by birth about which you have no choice. You are either a faithful or unfaithful warrior, but you are a warrior. Warriors have a mission. I wrote to you about your mission a while back. You can find those letters here and here. The only way to achieve the mission is through discipline. You want your disciplines to become habits, routines and automatic responses to given situations. However, no matter how ingrained your habits become, discipline will always be required. There will always be a pull toward sloth and, consequently, atrophy. You must resist this. You resist through discipline.

Discipline is training to accomplish a mission. This training involves the correction of wrong and unproductive behavior as well as strengthening your abilities to meet challenges to achieve the mission. The two are interrelated. You bring your mind, will, emotions, and body under control in order to direct them toward positive ends. Discipline is not done for discipline’s sake. We discipline ourselves for a purpose, a goal. These goals may be short-term goals with clear, measurable characteristics at a point in time (for example, a bench press 1RM or a certain amount of money earned), or they may be ongoing purposes that are measured by progress over time (for example, staying healthy or becoming a better husband and father). Whatever the nature of the goal, discipline is the process by which you achieve the goal. Discipline is the ability to maintain your focus, not allowing the extraneous and distracting to overcome you.

Discipline is a fight; a fight against a disordered self and creation that is resistant to change. But you are a warrior, called and equipped to fight this fight; to shape the creation into order. This fight begins with you: your body, your mind, your will, your emotions.

In good circumstances, discipline begins when you are children, imposed on you by your parents. Your mother and father are called as parents to train you, telling you what to say “no” to and what to say “yes” to. Parents are to drive foolishness–rebellion against God and his wisdom–from your hearts with the rod of correction and instruction in righteousness (Pr 13.24; 19.18; 22.15; 23.13, 14; 29.15). The calling of fathers and mothers is to set you in order, to arrange your lives according to God’s wisdom.

When you are young, discipline primarily comes from outside of you. But the goal of parenting is to train you in order that you might learn how to train yourselves. Hearing, seeing, and receiving wisdom through the rod and instruction were always aimed at you treasuring wisdom in your hearts so that you would see its beauty, desire it, and seek after it (Pr 2.1-5; 4.20-27). Progressively, as you grow older, you must fully own the responsibility of your mission and, therefore, the discipline to achieve it. This must be the case whether you had faithful parents or not. Sitting around wishing things had been different in your childhood, that you had parents who had trained you is a waste of time and energy. You can’t change the past. All you can do is deal with your present reality and work with what God has given you in his providence. Don’t sit there and mope and wallow in self-pity. You must take up the mission. That is still your responsibility. No one else can do it for you. Others can only give you wise counsel, but they can’t force you to walk in the way. If you do not learn how to discipline yourself, you will not escape discipline. No one can. You will either discipline yourself or you will be disciplined by others. You will mature in wisdom, growing in self-discipline, or you will be a fool and have situations and others beat you in the form of loss of jobs, relationships, criminal punishment, or in a myriad of other ways.

Self-discipline is key to accomplishing your mission. Indeed, self-discipline is a fundamental part of your mission. Remember, you are a plot of earth, created from the dust of the ground. From you will come either good fruit or thorns and thistles. Much of what determines what is produced is how you cultivate the soil. Before you can impose order on the world and make it productive, before you can be trusted with this greater responsibility, you must first learn how to handle what you have. If you can’t order your own person, how are you going to bring order to the world?

Self-discipline is freedom. It is the freedom from being controlled by outside circumstances as well as the whims of others. Even in unpleasant circumstances over which you have no control, you can still be free. Circumstances and people don’t dictate your attitude (cf. Phil 4.10-13). Self-discipline keeps you in control of yourself so that others can’t manipulate you. Those who lack self-control (literally, the ability to hinder one’s spirit/breath) are like cities broken into and left without walls (Pr 25.28). The lack of self-control, the ability to discipline yourself, leaves you vulnerable to attack by others.

Self-discipline or self-control, however, leaves the walls up to guard you against the enemy. You are to be a walled city, a plot of earth with boundaries that protect you from the outside and allow you to move freely inside in order to accomplish your mission. Freedom is not life without limits. Freedom is the ability to be what you were designed to be. You are not free to be a woman, for instance. There are boundaries, walls that must be recognized.

Discipline begins, then, with self-knowledge. You must know who you are and what you were designed to do. (Again, refer back to the “Mission” letters.) You must recognize your limits and work within them to maximize your potential. Knowing your boundaries aids you in determining your focus, keeping you from setting your eyes on the ends of the earth (Pr 17.24), thinking you can be whatever you want. You are wasting your time and energy on worthless pursuits if you don’t discipline yourself to stay within your God-given boundaries.

God sets broad boundaries for men and women and, then through his providence, he sets specific boundaries on each individual that range from physical ability to the place you are born in the world to the intellectual resources with which you have to work. Your limits must be tested to discover what God may have hidden. “It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; it is the glory of kings to search a matter out.” (Pr 25.2) You have to test the limits of your strength physically, mentally, and emotionally. Sometimes this will result in injury, pain, and frustration, but then you know your limits. You back off and re-focus.

As Jocko alluded to in the opening quote, there is no hack, no shortcut, and no magic formula to self-discipline. You know who you are and what your mission is. Everything that contributes to the accomplishment of that mission you say “yes” to. Everything that doesn’t contribute to the accomplishment of that mission you say “no” to.

“It’s just not that simple.” Yes, it is. The concept of discipline is simple. It’s the practice of discipline that is difficult. It is difficult to say “no” to what you want to do at the time. I have dealt with many people through the years who, when it came right down to it, just don’t want to do what is necessary to get the results they desire. They want to keep doing what they are doing with different results. They will whine, complain, and moan, not because the answer is complicated, but because the work is difficult. The way you overcome this is just do what is necessary; tell your body what it will and will not do. Paul, speaking about self-discipline, says this to the Corinthians,

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. [Note the mission] Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified. (1Cor 9.24-27)

You tell yourself what you will and will not do. As Jocko says in another part of his book Discipline Equals Freedom, “’How do I get tougher?’” Be tougher. ‘How can I wake up early in the morning?’ Wake up early. ‘How can I work out consistently every day?’ Work out consistently every day.” (12) When people say, “Well, I’m just not motivated,” all they are saying is, “I don’t feel like doing it.” Part of discipline is doing what you don’t feel like doing because it is the right thing to do and contributes to your goal. The farmer doesn’t want to weed the garden all the time. The athlete isn’t always motivated to lift and run. A husband is not always excited about going to a job. A father is not always thrilled about dealing with disobedient children. You don’t feel like praying or reading the Scriptures. You’re tired. You don’t want to deal with it. If you let these feelings dictate what you do, if you let your “lack of motivation” determine your goals, it will be like a creeping disease. “A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come on you like a robber and want like an armed man” (Pr 6.10-11; 24.33-34). Your lack of discipline–slothfulness–will rob you of your goals.

Your emotions must not be what trains you. You must stay focused on the prize. Proverbs deals quite extensively with emotions, especially anger. A man given to anger is one who lacks self-control; he is controlled by his circumstances. He believes his anger demonstrates power. It doesn’t. It demonstrates weakness. His outbursts of anger reveal a feeling of loss of control and helplessness. He is trying to regain control of the situation through force. We feel powerful when we’re angry because it gives us tremendous focus. However, not being able to control our anger, while giving us focus, causes us to lose perspective. Not being able to control your anger will cause you to act foolishly (Pr 14.17, 29) and stir up strife (Pr 15.18). There will be stiff penalties to pay for uncontrolled outbursts (Pr 19.19). However, a man slow to anger is “better than the mighty; and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city” (Pr 16.32). Anger itself is not evil. Jesus was angry (Mk 3.5). God is a God of wrath. There are times to be angry. But anger must be under control and serve the mission. The difference between sinful, unproductive anger and proper anger is discipline, keeping anger within boundaries and focused on righteous ends. It must be made a servant and not allowed to be the master.

While Proverbs focuses much on anger, the same could be said for other emotions as well. They must be servants. They must be made servants to your mission. Discipline is able to keep focus through the emotions, give them proper expression, while always keeping them under control.

Disciplines of the body will aid you in disciplines of the mind. Body and mind are integrated. The rod can drive foolishness from the heart (Pr 22.15) and “blows that wound cleanse away evil; strokes make clean the innermost parts” (Pr 20.30). There is a connection between bodily pain and the discipline of the heart/mind. Physical pain trains. When you are a child, physical pain comes through the rod. (And if you grow up to be a fool, then the rod will continue to be used; Pr 26.3.) As you grow older and self-discipline, you learn how to inflict pain on your own body. Whether it is the pain of sleep deprivation, physical exercise, eating certain foods and avoiding others, or other areas, physical pain in many forms is a part of discipline. No pain. No gain. Pain is a part of life. Like anything else, it will be your servant or your master. You will either inflict on yourself, using it as a servant, or others will inflict it upon you as your master.

Some will speak of “spiritual disciplines” over against or distinguished from disciplines of the body. Though the category of spiritual disciplines can be helpful in some ways, I am cautious about using the phrase. Spiritual disciplines, especially in our time, tend to be understood as set over against physical disciplines. Weight-lifting is a physical discipline. Reading the Scriptures is a spiritual discipline. One deals with your body while the other deals with the immaterial part of you and your relationship with God. Where this dichotomy is present, the thinking is wrong. As mentioned earlier, blows that wound cleanse away evil. The rod drives foolishness from the heart. The Scriptures know nothing of these divisions. Weight-lifting is a spiritual discipline, and reading the Scriptures is a physical discipline. Training my body, bringing it under control, and keeping it as healthy as I am able, sharpens my mind with which I love God (Mt 22.37). Reading the Scriptures involves my physical body. We are not compartmentalized creatures. Everything we do must contribute to our mission of bringing order to our lives and the creation around us. This includes prayer, reading/hearing the Scriptures, caring for our bodies, as well as other disciplines. You are not fulfilling your mission if you are well instructed in the Scriptures but you neglect to subdue your body. Neither are you fulfilling your mission if you seek to subdue your body but neglect being instructed in the Scriptures. Every discipline contributes to the mission.

The benefits of discipline are numerous. Here are a few. Discipline reduces anxiety. Because you have a focus, you know who you are and what you are doing, you are not being pushed and pulled by every whim that comes along. Anxiety is created when you feel that you are out of control. Discipline doesn’t allow what everyone else thinks and demands of you to control you.

Discipline cultivates strength. The more you practice something, the better or stronger you become. This is true, of course, with physical exercise. The more the muscles fight resistance, the more they grow to adapt to the stress. The same is true mentally and emotionally. The more you discipline yourself, the tougher you become. The more you face your fears with disciplined behavior because they are obstacles to your goals, the more you will overcome them and the stronger you will be the next time.

Discipline makes you productive. The disciplined farmer who goes through the daily grind eventually sees fruit. When you employ positive disciplines in your life, disciplines governed by your God-given mission, you will see results; they may not be immediate, but you will see results.

Discipline yourself. You are a warrior. Discipline is the path to victory and freedom. Discipline yourselves to receive wisdom by listening to good counsel, not being arrogant. Discipline yourself physically to maintain a healthy body and sharp mind. Discipline your minds through reading and listening to that which contributes to your mission. Discipline your emotions, making them your servants. Discipline yourself so that you may be free.

For Christ’s Kingdom,

Pastor Smith

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On June 10, 2021 By In Discipleship, Theology, Wisdom, Worship

A Heart For Wisdom

Approaching the book of Proverbs as a superficial “how-to” manual for relationships can be tempting. The practical wisdom saturates the pages. Those in the field of behavioral psychology could benefit greatly from reading Proverbs. Solomon gives us disciplines to employ that lead to productivity and long-term happiness. We are also given behaviors to avoid that are destructive. So, if we are not careful, we can read Proverbs like one might read Atomic Habits by James Clear, 12 Rules for Life by Jordan Peterson, or Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin. These books (and other books like them) have much to commend them, but they aren’t Proverbs.

Proverbs is not merely a manual for superficial techniques. At the heart of the wisdom of Proverbs is the matter of the human heart. The wisdom that God requires of us runs deeper than a mere manipulation of our situations to turn things to our benefit. The wisdom that God calls for is wisdom that captivates the heart.

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On June 3, 2021 By In Discipleship, Theology, Wisdom, Worship

The Fear of the Lord

No other subject in Scripture is so fundamental and pervasive yet so misunderstood and confusing as the fear of the Lord. Throughout Scripture, we are encouraged and commanded on numerous occasions to fear God. Ecclesiastes 12.13 says that fearing God and keeping his commandments is the whole duty of man. The opening and possibly the controlling theme of Proverbs is, “The fear of Yahweh is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and discipline” (Pr 1.7). But then we hear in 1John 4.18 that “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.” The one command we hear possibly more often than any other is “Fear not.” We need not even go across the Scriptures to see this paradox. Exodus 20 has it all in one passage:

Now when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people trembled, and they stood far off and said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, lest we die.” Moses said to the people, “Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin.” (Ex 20.18-20)

 “Do not fear” because God has come to test you “that the fear of him may be before you.” Do not fear because God wants you to fear. Any first-time reader is confused. So, are we to fear, or are we not to fear? Yes. Just as with anything else in Scripture (or in any other literature for that matter) we must understand the different senses and contexts in which “fear” is used.

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On May 27, 2021 By In Discipleship, Wisdom

Taking Responsibility For Wisdom*

Solomon, principally addressing his son(s) (1.8; passim), states his purpose for writing Proverbs in his opening lines:

To know wisdom and discipline, to understand words of understanding,

to receive discipline in wise dealing, in righteousness, justice, and equity;

to give prudence to the simple, purposive knowledge to the youth (1.2-4, translation mine)

Proverbs is a catechism for princes, kings-in-waiting, to teach them how to fulfill their God-given mission of creating, building, and arranging the world-house that will be a dwelling place for God and his people. This is the dominion project given to the man from the beginning. To complete this project, he needs wisdom, the ability to understand relationships; what is good and evil, what is appropriate and inappropriate; how people relate to God, one another, and the non-human creation. Wisdom is the indispensable helper that will aid him in building the world-house so that it is good; that is, so that it fulfills its created purpose. Wisdom is skillful in relationships.

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On May 20, 2021 By In Discipleship, Wisdom

The Spirit of Wisdom

At the Ascension, the Father’s pleasure with the Son was declared as he was highly exalted and given a name above all names: Lord of the world. He is creation’s king to whom all authority over heaven and earth has been given. He proved his ability to handle this position through his obedience, so the Father granted him this rule (Phil 2.6-11). Jesus now rules, making judgments of life and death for the world so that the world will take the shape of heaven; so that God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven.

Jesus has … Jesus is … wisdom. Wisdom understands relationships, how things and people are supposed to fit together to form what is good, true, beautiful, and productive. Jesus knows how the world is supposed to be arranged; individual lives, families, societies, international relationships, architecture, gardens, and all other aspects of this world. He knows how heaven is to relate to the earth, how men and women are to relate to one another, and how it all fits together for the world’s ultimate purpose. He understands what is right(eous). Because of this, he is fit to be king, the lord of the world.

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On May 6, 2021 By In Church, Discipleship, Wisdom

Wisdom’s Work

Yahweh by wisdom founded the earth;

by understanding he established the heavens;

by his knowledge the deeps broke open,

and the clouds drop down the dew.

~Proverbs 3.19-20

You were created to work. Work is not the result of the fall. Arduous, frustrating, unfruitful work is the result of the fall, but work itself is not. The need to work is not bolted onto some “pure essence” so that it can be happily discarded one day. We are workers because we are the image of God. God is a worker, therefore, we are workers. The opening lines of Scripture reveal God as a worker: “In the beginning God created….” For six days he separates and brings back together, he forms and fills the unformed and unfilled. He works.

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On May 1, 2021 By In Culture, Discipleship, Wisdom

Get Wisdom

Life is pretty simple when you’re young. Everything is laid out for you. There are clear rules to follow and very little responsibility. Of course, in your younger years, you think that you have the weight of the world on your shoulders. However, you don’t think much about your purpose in life and how things are supposed to work. Your mind is on your next meal, game, or homework assignment. The extent of thinking about purpose might be, “Why do I have to take Algebra? How is that going to be useful?” but beyond that, you’re probably not thinking too much about “the meaning of it all.”

The older you become, however, the more you have to think about how life is supposed to work and its meaning. You begin asking questions, searching. What are you looking for? Wisdom. You are looking for wisdom. Where do you find it?

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