For more information, contact Admissions - 800.847.8255 or. Geneva College is a Christ-centered academic community offering over 115 traditional undergraduate majors and programs to help students serve wholeheartedly and faithfully in their life's work. As God’s people continually discover, His Word is ever new, revealing fresh understanding with each reading, like a brook with new water that flows past us every second. The Book of Proverbs itself is a part of that brook, giving better understanding of human and divine ways than psychologists, sociologists, or economists can manage. God’s words are like a running brook, clear and transparent as they flow from their spring, enlightening all who hear. You've removed mountains since I've made you mine and you called me by choice. The wellspring of wisdom in the proverb is God Himself, speaking through His prophets, and in these last days, through His Son Jesus Christ. Just a short time ago these deeper waters seemed inviting and in. The social “sciences,” therefore, cannot even begin to approach the objectivity of physics and chemistry. Social scientists must reckon with their own not fully understood prejudices and wishes, while at the same time they try to study people, whose thoughts and motives are like deep waters. Here is where the social sciences differ from the natural sciences as twilight differs from sunlight. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked who can know it? (Jeremiah 17:9).” Even those who want to know themselves are puzzled, as the Apostle Paul confesses: the good he would do, he does not, and the evil that he does not want to do, he does (Romans 7:14-24). The inscription at the Greek oracle at Delphi exhorted suppliants, “Know yourself,” but we can’t know ourselves because self-deceit clouds self-understanding. The Bible, in fact, teaches that people do not know even themselves well. Early in His ministry, adoring crowds outside Jerusalem followed Jesus, but John notes, “Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people, and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man (John 2:24-25).” Jesus uniquely knew what people were thinking deep within, and while we do not, Solomon warns us that there are depths beneath another’s words that we can’t see. Only the naïve take everyone’s words at face value, and the Book of Proverbs scorns the naïve. I will follow the NIV’s interpretative rendering.Īs deep waters hide what lurks beneath them, a person’s words may hide his thoughts as well as reveal them. Translations in the King James tradition, like the ESV, bring the Hebrew seeming lack of clarity into English, leaving the reader to try to grasp its meaning. “A person’s words can be a source of wisdom, deep as the ocean, fresh as a flowing stream (Today’s English Version).” “The words of the mouth are deep waters, but the fountain of wisdom is a rushing stream (New International Version).” The TEV interpretation teaches that people’s words are a source of wisdom the NIV with its “but,” hints at a contrast between the deep and perhaps deceitful words of a person and the reliability of God’s ever-fresh words. The point of this proverb is unclear, as comparing two other translations reveals. Bill Edgar, former chair of the Geneva College Board of Trustees, former Geneva College President and longtime pastor in the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America (RPNCA) Jesus said, "I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand" (John 10:28).Biblical Wisdom Proverbs 18:4 – The words of a man’s mouth are deep waters the wellspring of wisdom is a flowing brook.īy Dr. He is with us when we walk over rough ground as surely as He is with us "beside still waters" (Psalm 23:2).
He promised to be with us always (Matthew 28:20).
Jesus, the Good Shepherd, is with believers at all times (John 10:11, 14). David trusted the Lord to protect him, just as a shepherd protected his sheep from any attacking animals. The staff was a long, lightweight pole with a curved end-a crook-that the shepherd used to move, count, and examine the sheep at evening when they returned to the fold.īoth the rod and staff were used as weapons to protect the sheep. The rod was a cudgel: a short, thick, heavy stick similar to what modern people might call a baton or mace. He addresses the Lord as "you," whereas in the peaceful places he called the Lord "he."Ī shepherd in Bible times carried a rod and a staff to protect his sheep.
David explains his lack of fear because "you are with me." It is interesting to observe that the "shadow of death" drew David closer to the Lord. David could walk through a dark ravine, perhaps even death, fearlessly, because the Lord walked with him.
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