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Ring of Truth provides 366 daily ‘proofs’ that the Bible is consistent throughout from Genesis to Revelation, and relevant for our lives today!
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Proverbs 1:7
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline.
There is no way I can adequately cover the Bible in a book like this and that is highlighted again by the Book of Proverbs.
There is so much wisdom here that I would be foolish to pretend I could in any way summarise it in a month, let alone in the time available to us. All I can really achieve is to whet your appetite to do extra-mural study.
The Book of Proverbs has 31 chapters, which is significant in itself. That means there is a chapter for every day of the month. Many people have found that in their devotional time, no matter what other Scriptures they read, they will always read a chapter of Proverbs and a Psalm. In one sense, the Book of Proverbs can be seen as ‘light’ reading in that each verse can stand on its own, and yet in another sense, each verse is very profound. As we start the Book, we find that most of the Proverbs come to us from the wisdom of Solomon. There are a few exceptions, which we will see later.
The first 7 verses are an introduction and an exhortation to seek wisdom, which flows through to verse 19. From verse 20, he appears to personify wisdom. This is very significant, as we shall see again later.
For now, I want to highlight our verse. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline.” This is in a way a great leveller. So often we want to discriminate and say, ‘Oh, that’s just for the unsaved.’
I remember living in Salisbury, England, where there was a putting green (a grass-based mini-golf) that we used to frequent for a bit of fun. Its condition was so poor that it was a great leveller. It didn’t matter whether we took ‘good’ golfers or rank outside amateurs – as the surface was covered with pine needles and tree roots, we all started even.
I believe this verse is as much a challenge to Christians as to those who have not yet taken that step. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.” Until we really appreciate, or get a true glimpse of the vastness of our God and His love, we will never revere Him and His Word as we should. That alone begins our journey into knowledge, let alone wisdom.
Knowledge is associated with the acquiring of facts; wisdom is making sense of those facts and applying them to the appropriate situation in our life experiences. Knowledge without a fear of God is worthless information. God wants all our ‘facts’ to ‘make sense’. They do so only as we see them in the context of an Almighty, All-powerful God of love who is not only interested in me, but also committed to help me reach my destiny.
The ‘fools’ (Christian or otherwise) are those who do not take time to study His Word and profit by it. They just want God to come and rescue them from every little challenge rather than grow and mature and become more and more like Jesus.
Do you want to live the life of an escapist “fool” or become a mature person of God?
We should always maintain a healthy respect for God and put our Biblical knowledge into practice. It’s a ‘Ring of Truth’! (See also Matthew 7:24-27; James 1:19-27.)
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