Skip to main content

The Prudent Keep Their Knowledge To Themselves?


The prudent keep their knowledge to themselves, but a fool’s heart blurts out folly. (Proverbs 12:23)
He said to them, “Therefore every teacher of the law who has become a disciple in the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old.” (Matthew 13:52)
          I have problems with this today’s passage from Proverbs. As I see it, there is no use in having knowledge that one is unwilling to share with someone else, especially if that information might benefit that person in some ways. In fact, I use the passage from Matthew as part of my mission statement. My mission is to love the Lord my God with all of my heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love my neighbor as myself by bringing out treasures old and new – by collecting and sharing information. The way I see it, I have nothing of value that I can give other than information and ideas. (Referring back to yesterday’s post, that may not be TRUE, but I believe it.) Keeping my knowledge to myself seems hateful and selfish to me. I could have also shared a verse from Ezekiel saying that if someone sins, and we say nothing, we will be judged. 
          The comparison suggests to me (maybe it’s wishful thinking) that the answer isn’t that we should all keep our big mouths shut and never say anything to anyone beyond “Good morning” and “pass the salt.” The fool’s heart blurts out folly. Keeping in mind that for the people at the time this was written, the heart represented the will, not the pitter patter of emotions, one idea comes to mind. Someone once told me that you never tell people your “go up” goal, but you always tell people your “give up” goals. For some reason, they seemed to think that people will discourage your attempts to do better, but in pointing out your failures in giving something up, they’ll actually help you give it up. I’m not sure he was right, but I also remember sitting in the lunch room being lectured on how I needed to have bigger goals by a man half my age who proclaimed that he was going to – I forget just what he was going to do, but it was big. I remember thinking something along the lines of, “Yeah, well, we’ll see what happens after you’ve been cheated and beaten up a few times when all your dreams have turned to ash….
          It reminds me of another passage, Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. (James 4:13-14) When it comes to the heart’s boasting, we should definitely be prudent and let our deeds do the talking, rather than the mouth.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The List

              Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,   through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;   perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. (Romans 5:1-5)           Think about it. We have been justified. At least, we could be justified if we stopped insisting that our justification be based on our merits. We have peace with God, or could have peace if we stopped throwing temper tantrums. We have gained access into grace i...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meditations of the Heart

  May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm19:14)           As I started writing this post, I noted that the meditations of my heart are all over the mental landscape, from a hub where eight superhighways come together to a lunar or nuclear landscape. Do you see my error? The moment I read the word meditation , I think about thoughts. But what’s described here is the meditations of our hearts ; our wills.           While the meditations of our minds may be all over the place, the meditations of our wills tend to be a little more stable by the time we are adults. We no longer tend to want to pursue the ten separate careers we did in any given day as children. Part of this is humble acceptance of reality. We come to understand that we can’t do it all. I think another part of it is disappointmen...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Way, The Truth, and The Life

              Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me . (John 14:6)           If “I am the gate of the sheep…I am the good shepherd” from chapter 10 is a double whammy, this verse is a triple whammy. And its first victim is the notion that any other so-called god was acceptable or the same as Jesus. He, and He alone is the way, the truth, and the life, and the only way to get to the Father. There is no other Savior, or Redeemer, according to Jesus. Now, to be fair, other religions will claim that their religion or god(s) are the only way. That is the nature of gods and of religions. If this and that are equally good and agree on what’s necessary, then this and that are the same thing, so there’s no need to from the other to one. If that’s the case, then why speak against the other or promote the one? There’s a song I’ve been listening to i...
Post a Comment
Read more