Wisdom's lens

TODAY'S SPECIAL: Proverbs 1-3; Psalm 148

TO CHEW ON: "The fear of the lord is the beginning of knowledge,
But fools despise wisdom and instruction." Proverbs 1:7

My first thought as I read this key verse at the beginning of Proverbs is 'worldview.' It seems that Solomon is saying that the knowledgeable, wise, educated-in-what-is-true person sees life through what we call a worldview of the fear of the Lord.

What is a worldview? Nancy Pearcey talks about it in her book Total Truth:

"... understanding how worldviews are formed, and how they guide or confine thought, is the essential step toward understanding everything else. Understanding worldview is a bit like trying to see the lens of one's own eye. we do not ordinarily see our own worldview, but we see everything else by looking through it. Put simply, our worldview is the window by which we view the world and decide, often subconsciously, what is real and important or unreal and unimportant" - Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth, Kindle Location 425.

What does it mean to have a 'fear of the Lord' worldview? Leslyn Musch describes it well in her "Truth-In-Action-Through Proverbs" article:

"Learning to walk in the fear of the Lord is learning to live in awe and reverence of God. It is foundational to our walk of faith. God is loving and full of grace and mercy, but He is also all-powerful, awesome, holy, righteous and sovereign over all things" - Leslyn Musch, New Spirit-Filled Life Bible, p. 842.

We can test whether or not we have a fear-of-the-Lord worldview by looking at the way we live our lives, and answering questions like:
- Who are we more concerned about pleasing, the people around us, or God?
- Which road do we choose when the path of following God splits from the path of pleasing self or others?
- On what do we spend our time and money?

Is it possible that we don't fear God as much as we think or say that we do?

PRAYER: Dear God, please open my eyes and inform my understanding in the things that offend You and please You. Help me to see where I am kidding myself, saying I fear You but living differently. Then help me to line up my attitudes and actions with the truths in the Bible. Amen.

MORE: Examples of Bible characters who feared / didn't fear God.

• DID: Nathan the prophet feared God as shown by his obedience to turn around and change his message to David when God told him he had said the wrong thing - 1 Chronicles 17:1-15.

• DIDN'T: David neglected to follow God's instructions when moving the ark, putting it on a cart instead of having the priests carry it on their shoulders in the way God had said. When a man touched the ark to steady it, he was killed - 2 Samuel 6:1-9

• DID: When the Jewish leaders told Peter and John to stop talking about Jesus and preaching in His name, they expressed their fear-of-God worldview clearly: "'We ought to obey God rather than man'" - Acts 5:29.

Can you think of more?

PSALM TO PRAY: Psalm 148

The Bible Project VIDEO: Proverbs (Read Scripture Series)






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Unless otherwise noted all Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. 

Eternally settled, exceedingly broad

TODAY'S SPECIAL: Psalm 119:81-96

TO CHEW ON: "Forever, O Lord,

Your word is settled in heaven....

Your commandment is exceedingly broad." Psalm 119:89,96

Asking one to accept the eternal verity of any set of facts or truths in our day of advancing knowledge and shifting values seems nervy. Yet that's what the psalmist declares here — the eternal certainty of God's word.

Contrast this with the way standards change all around us. For example, when I was growing up there was no whisper of the possibility of homosexual people marrying. Now you can lose your job if you take a stand against such marriages. That's only one example of others we could give.

In contrast to the shifting and changing of "truth" around us, God's words are "forever...settled in heaven." J. I. Packer says God's words to us "...are the index of reality. They show us things as they really are, and as they will be for us in the future according to whether we heed God's words to us or not" - Knowing God, p. 124.

The second verse I've picked to focus on says that God's words are also "exceedingly broad." Broad enough to speak to every aspect of life? I would say yes.

Nancy Pearcey says:

"To say that Christianity is the truth about total reality means that it is a full-orbed worldview. The term means literally a view of the world; a biblically informed perspective on all reality. A worldview is like a mental map that tells us how to navigate the world effectively. It is the imprint of God's objective truth on our inner life....God's word becomes a set of glasses offering a new perspective on all our thoughts and actions" - Total Truth, p. 23,24

Whether we are aware of it or not, each one of us has a worldview. Let's be watchful that ours is based on the truth of God's eternally settled, exceedingly broad word.


PRAYER: Dear God, thank You for Your word. Help me to study it, understand its implications for my life, and then apply it in obedience. Amen.


MORE: Thinking Christianly

"'Thinking Christianly' means understanding that Christianity gives the truth about the whole of reality, a perspective for interpreting every subject matter. Genesis tells us that God spoke the entire universe into being with His word — what John 1:1 calls the Logos. The Greek word means not only Word but also reason or rationality, and the ancient Stoics used it to mean the rational structure of the universe.

Thus the underlying structure of the entire universe reflects the mind of the Creator. There is no fact/value dichotomy in the scriptural account. Nothing has an autonomous or independent identity, separate from the will of the Creator. As a result, all creation must be interpreted in light of its relationship to God. In any subject area we study, we are discovering the laws or creation ordinances by which God structured the world" - Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth, p. 34.

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Unless otherwise noted all Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Word-directed living

TODAY'S SPECIAL: Psalm 119:121-144

TO CHEW ON: "Direct my steps by Your word

And let no iniquity have dominion over me." Psalm 119:133

The decision to take direction for our steps — our living — from God's word is a crisis, one-time, turn-in-a-new-direction decision, and a daily decision as we face everyday life.

It's easy to say, yes, I will love my neighbour and forgive my enemy, for example, when all my neighbours are sweet and my enemies are laying low. But try living in a tight suburban cul-de-sac or townhouse complex where neighbours are everywhere. When their kids are playing ball hockey right beside your flower beds, or doing skateboard tricks on the newly laid asphalt, or playing loud music at all hours, or swearing at you when you're on council and it's your responsibility to enforce common property rules, then to direct your steps by God's word becomes a very real moment-by-moment decision. How easy it is to rationalize that its principles are fine in theory but in practice...?

Nancy Pearcey talks about the challenges of living by the truths in the Bible in her book Total Truth:

"For the nonbeliever sitting in the naturalist's chair, all that exists is a closed system of natural causes. The very definition of what counts as knowledge is limited by naturalism and utilitarianism. But for the believer sitting in the supernaturalist's chair, the natural world is only part of reality. A complete perspective includes both the seen and the unseen aspects of reality. Christians are called not merely to assent intellectually to the existence of both parts of reality but also to function practically on that basis. Day by day, they are to make choices that would make no sense unless the unseen world is just as real as the seen world....


It means we sometimes act in ways that seem irrational to those sitting in the naturalist's chair, who see only the physical world. It means we do what is right even at great cost, because we are convinced that what we gain in the unseen realm is far greater than what we lose from a worldly perspective" - p. 361.

When we live by God's word, we acknowledge the reality of that "unseen realm." We live by faith that the kingdom of heaven we've been exploring for the last few days is real and that there are values beyond getting our way, winning the argument, appearing to come out on top, and getting revenge.


PRAYER: Dear God, please make me aware of how Your word applies to my circumstances, and then help me to have the courage, faith, and humility to live by it. Amen.

MORE: More Pearcey:

"Sadly, many Christians live much of their lives as though the naturalist were right. They give cognitive assent to the great truths of Scripture but they make their practical, day-to-day decisions based only on what they can see, hear, measure, and calculate. When confessing their religious beliefs, they sit in the supernaturalist's chair. But in ordinary life, they walk over and sit in the naturalist's chair, living as though the supernatural were not real in any practical sense, relying on their own energy, talent, strategic calculations. They may sincerely want to do the Lord's work, but they do it in the world's way — using worldly methods and motivated by worldly desires for success and acclaim" - Nancy Pearcey in Total Truth, p. 36