Consume This Proverb Responsibly

A preview of September's email-only article.

Justin Aikin

Every month I publish an exclusive article for my email subscribers. (If you'd like to join the club, fill out the form below. It's free!)

In this month's subscriber email we're looking at how to respond when faith becomes inconvenient.

Here's how the article starts:

I love passages like Proverbs 3. The verses are uplifting and optimistic. They offer a clear path for peace, health, and prosperity.

Yet read in isolation, these verses set the reader up for disillusionment. Without proper context, life's messiness might cause one to question God. The inevitable bumps in the road will test one's faith, pushing the Proverb-reader further from the Creator.

Specifically, examine verses like verse 16 in which Solomon seems to promise that those who embrace wisdom will become wildly rich and full of youthful exuberance. He wrote, "Long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honor." Wisdom, personified as a woman, will bring wealth and longevity to those who embrace her.

This is, of course, generally true.

Those who sow wise seeds will reap its benefits. Those who are wise in managing money will become wealthy. Those who live with integrity will receive honor from their peers. Those who exercise and eat right will feel better and live longer.

Usually.

The fittest people still become ill. Costly accidents or expensive medical bills still bankrupt the best money managers.

 

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2 Disparate Manifestations of God's Love for Us

You can't have one without the other.

Juliane Liebermann

You've probably heard the adage, "God is love," culled both from experience of those with deep relationships with him and from popular Scripture passages such as, "God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him" (1 John 4:16).

The saying is true.

God is the essence the love—a perfect, unconditional, and consuming love. Yet the effects of this quality manifest themselves in diverse ways. This is to be expected since God's love is deep and consuming; it touches all aspects of our lives. Sometimes the implications of this quality are confusing because of our shallow and shortsighted understanding of the term.

Proverbs 3:9-12 highlights two very different ways God shows his love to us: