Proverbs 19:8 (NASV)
He who gets wisdom loves his own soul;
He who keeps understanding will find good.
At the end of Psalm 23 we read that those who follow after the Shepherd will have "goodness and mercy" follow them. In that favorite Psalm, goodness “follows” us. In this Proverb goodness is found by the one who gets wisdom and keeps understanding. In the Psalm we have goodness because we pursue the right One ... the good shepherd. In this Proverb you get goodness because you pursue Wisdom. Since 1 Corinthian 2 explains to us that Christ is Wisdom, we can see the harmony between this great Psalm and this theme of Proverbs. When we pursue wisdom and seek to keep understanding, we can be assured of goodness in our life. The first line states that we actually love our own soul (which is parallel to finding “good”). Searching and pursuing wisdom is only for those who are spiritually minded and want to build and support their soul. Those who hate their soul will seek folly. In Proverbs 18:7 we read that the fool “does” damage to his soul by his words.
Proverbs 18:7
A fool's mouth is his ruin,
and his lips are a snare to his soul.
Or, Solomon says:
Proverbs 19:3
When a man's folly brings his way to ruin,
his heart rages against the Lord.
The fool hurts their soul and rages (blames) God. But the wise do good to their soul, when they pursue Christ and the wisdom found in Christ. In our world today we are encouraged to "find ourselves." The problem with that philosophy is that when we find ourselves, we don't find Christ. We are suppose to be seeking Christ and the wisdom in Christ. When we do, we find that we "love" our own soul. A good self-image is really in the pursuit of Christ's image not our own image.
This does not mean all things will be good in our lives. We can refer to Job as an example. It does mean, however, that the things that MATTER will be good in our lives. The things that MATTER are eternal in nature. They are not of this world. God wants us to pursue His glory. We will, however, also be making better choices. Those choice will lead us down a better path than when we are foolish and reject Christ’s wisdom.
No comments:
Post a Comment