For the month of October, we are answering the challenge John Goldwater, pastor of Christ Community Church in Grenada, MS, laid out — the #DailyWisdomChallenge. Each day, we are going to read through a chapter of Proverbs corresponding to the day of the month.
This fits with what we have studied in Colossians, specifically Colossians 3:1-2, namely that we should seek “the things that are above, where Christ is” and set our minds like a thermostat “on things that are above, not on things that are on earth”. Imagine what a month meditating on God’s Word daily can do for us.
Won’t you join us on this #DailyWisdomChallenge and set your minds on Christ?
Proverbs 7 begins with the imagery of a father speaking to his son. It is a beautiful picture of God the Father speaking to His children about His purpose in giving wisdom in His word, specifically in the proverbs. This advice is given in five different phrases.
The first advises keeping God’s “words” and treasuring up His “commandments”. This calls back to the language of Proverbs 2:1 that tells the son that if he received his father’s words and treasures his father’s commandments (and listens to them and understands them), then he “will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God” (Proverbs 2:5). God does not repeat things in His Word accidently like we do when we forget. No, God is reiterating this and repeating for emphasis that we may listen to His words, keeping them in our hearts and treasuring them, recognizing their eternal value and present-day importance.
The second advises to “keep [the father’s] commandments and live”. This is not a means of earning God’s favor or working for His eternal life. No, this is God the Father reminding His children that He knows best. We saw how the adulterous woman’s anti-wisdom is an example of not keeping God’s commandments in Proverbs 5. Her “feet go down to death”, and “her steps follow the path to Sheol” (Proverbs 5:5). God’s commandments lay out paths that lead to life, and following in that Way exhibits the life He has put within those He saves.
The third advises to “keep [the father’s] teaching as the apple of your eye”. This is wisdom I have to ask God to guard my heart with. Many believers fall into the trap of preferring our favorite popular teachers (whether writers or preachers) and trusting them without checking God’s teaching in His Word. We will fly to their writings or broadcasts like moths to a flame. It is the teaching of God’s Word that is to be our favorite, and this is a good reminder that believers have God Himself as a teacher — His Spirit surely being closer than any page or podcast — who will be truest to His Word (John 14:26, 16:13; 1 Corinthians 2:12-13). That phrase “apple of your eye” means the choicest fruit that draws our attention and whets our appetites. May God’s Word and His teaching be our favorite with His Spirit being our go-to teacher.
The fourth and fifth work together: “bind them on your fingers; write them on the tablet of your heart”. We need to keep God’s Word on our minds, and that takes effort. I got a text from my friend Keisha showing how she had written the memory verse from the 10:00a Bible Study at Christ Community written on her bathroom mirror. I remember one particular time of intense persecution in a previous ministry assignment when my wife Candice had taken a dry-erase marker and written Scripture on the glass doors and some of the windows, reminding me that I belonged to Christ and those who came to the house to attack that we were in the care of God Almighty. We need to keep the Word so much in our focus that it might as well be strings tied to our fingers to jog our memories, but the image is much more powerful because writing on the tablets of our hearts is God’s work.
The new covenant Jesus ushered in tells us that God will put His law in our minds and write it on our hearts (Jeremiah 31:33, Hebrews 8:10). That’s good news! It is good news because we don’t have to be sons resting on how well we can obey. No, we get to be sons and daughters of God who are adopted into His family and filled with His Spirit who gives the strength to listen and obey and moves our hearts — those same hearts on which He wrote His commandments — to follow Him!
Just Keith Harris 