Proverbs 3

Bible Passage: Proverbs 3

Proverbs 3 has quite many wise sayings (total 35 verses) and I shall not try to act wise to put a theme to the whole chapter. I shall just share on a few verses that stands out to me.

v.1        My son, do not forget my law, But let your heart keep my commands.

Whether Solomon was writing as himself or from the perspective of God speaking to him (as a son) in verse 1, I am not sure. But there is one word that keeps catching my attention – the law.

In the past month, I have heard this word interpreted in 3 different ways by 3 different kinds of Christians. One was by a Jewish christian who believes in keeping the Mosaic law, the second was a “new-age” christian who believe that there is no law of God but only love, and the third being myself, TJC believers, who stands somewhat in the middle of the two.

From the Bible, God always wanted His people to remember and keep His law. 

“O that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments always, that it might be well with them, and with their children for ever!”                                   Deuteronomy 5:29

“Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away.”                   Matt 24:35

We emphasize on keeping the commandments of Jesus Christ, which is a fulfilment of old testament laws and establishing a better covenant, but I can imagine someone who has always been following the Old Testament keeping of the laws may not easily accept how the law has transcended.

But now the greater crisis to me is how a huge number of so-called Christians who swing to the other extreme to think that there is no law they need to keep and all the sins they do are unintentional and they can blame it on their weakness and the devil and therefore cannot be held guilty. They have thrown away everything the Bible said, ignored all the history of how the world and the Israelites were punished, and separated the God of the Old Testament from Jesus of the New Testament. In reality, most of them do not know what the Bible writes at all, because of their huge misconception of how love covers everything, they have also thought that reading the Bible is not necessary to work out their salvation with fear and trembling.

One of the all time favorite verses from Prov 3~

v. 5-6    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.

Trusting God is trusting in His words and His promises, His righteousness and His judgement. When you trust in the person do you not trust in what he says? Do you only remember promises of blessings but not words of warnings? If we are selective in our hearing, we will be indeed guilty of leaning on our own understanding.

v.7        Do not be wise in your own eyes; Fear the LORD and depart from evil.

The fear of God gives man true wisdom, just as we have read from Eccl 12. True fear of God will make one read His word and be careful to keep it. It is a lie to say you love God but do not fear Him.

The second part of the chapter talks much about the value of wisdom. It uses the pronoun “she” to describe wisdom and how “she” affects the world.

v.17-18 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.

We have read about the two kinds of wisdom in the book of James (shared by previous writers). Indeed true wisdom gives life to those who have it and to those around the wise. Demonic wisdom is self seeking and gives the opposite of life – death!

Maybe a way to judge if we have wisdom is whether we are giving life and joy and peace to those around us or causing them distress and degeneration.

The third part of the chapter consists of a series of proverbs that starts with “Do not”.

The one that stands out to be is in v.27

v.27      Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due,
            When it is in the power of your hand to do so

What do you think is doing good to others? It can be showing love by giving care and concern, doing charitable deeds, and to me, the best good to do is to share the gospel of Christ with those who do not know Him.

I believe that if one truly feels that the knowledge of Christ is good news (gospel), very very good news, so good it is better than sharing one won a jackpot, or scored 100% in a game or test, or a great sale with the best deals, one will not find it difficult to preach the gospel. Unfortunately the reception of such good news may not be as we wish, because a lot of people may not understand or want to listen to the gospel as they think they are already having a good enough or better deal in life. But that should not affect how we ourselves view the goodness of the Word, unless we begin to lose confidence of how good it is after people’s responses that seem to make it sound not that great.

If not, then we should seize every opportunity to preach, when we are given the power to do so.

In Singapore, we have many opportunities to equip ourselves with the word of God.  There are many systematic ways the church has set up to help members learn about the Word of God. There are many assisting materials such as publications and books. There are always courses for us to sign up for to enrich ourselves in the Word. The government does not prevent us from sharing our faith with the people around us. Indeed we have the power in our hand. But the question is whether we have the power over our own fear and getting out of our comfort zone to speak for God?

May God help us.