Hey, Bible readers. I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for the Bible Recap. Today, we tackle more of Solomon's Proverbs, and chapter 19 starts out with a lot of wisdom on relationships, including our relationship with God. I'll open with a confession. Beside 19:2 in my Bible, I've written TLC, exclamation mark in all caps in the margin. Those are my initials and my nicknames, so it's just my way of trying to call my attention to the fact that I struggle with this, particularly the second half of the verse. The whole verse says, Desire without knowledge is not good, and whoever makes hast with his feet misses his way. I've told you before that one of my old roommates used to say I do things fast and wrong. So when I read, Whoever makes hast with his feet misses his way, that's got my name written all over it. This is a reminder to me that I need to seek his guidance on instead of just forging ahead on my own. And the first half of the verse has a different level of beauty and truth to it. It says, Desire without knowledge is not good.

If you were in a relationship with someone who said they loved you but didn't want to know anything about you, wouldn't that seem really off to you? Wouldn't it make you really skeptical about their so-called love? It breaks my heart to see this thing in the church, where we have a relationship with God that is driven only by emotion and that has no actual knowledge of who God is. That's why I'm so glad we're in the word here. Every day that you open up your Bible and put your eyes on who God says he is, you're displaying the wisdom this verse calls us to. Verse three describes a common occurrence, not just in the world at large, but even within the church. It says, When a man's folly brings his way to ruin, his heart rages against the Lord. Have you seen this happen? Or maybe this has even happened to you? Often, when our sins lead to negative consequences, offenses, we blame God instead of ourselves. And he's so patient with us as we blame him and misunderstand him. Even while we're angry with him, he just keeps putting his true character in front of us and beckoning us to see the real him.

On a related note, verse 11 says, Good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense. What Solomon is describing here is God. God identifies himself as slow to anger. We first saw this in Exodus 34 when God told Moses his name, Because of Christ's death on the cross, our sins have been covered. And even though Proverbs isn't law, this shows us the great wisdom in being slow to anger and in being hard to offend. What things offend me? Are they related to my efforts to maintain my identity and sense of self-worth? God can be trusted to handle those things, and I can be freed up to love others who don't value me because that's what God has done. And I have the opportunity to image him to the world when I lay down my so-called rights and reputation like Jesus did. You're probably familiar with 1 Corinthians 13, the famous Love Chapter. One characteristic of love is that it isn't easily offended ended. In describing love, 1 Corinthians 13 is essentially describing God. God isn't irritable or resentful. He keeps no record of wrongs. That means if you are in Christ, God is not mad at you.

All your offenses have been paid for. As we're trying to live and walk in wisdom, chapter 20 points out how rare that is. Verse 15 says, There is gold and abundance of costly stones, but the lips of knowledge are a precious jewel. The lips of knowledge are a precious jewel. Jewels are precious because they're rare and beautiful and hard to come by. If diamonds grew on trees, their price point would drop dramatically. But because they're difficult to access and they're beautiful, they're valuable. So when you speak knowledge and wisdom to a foolish and simple world, your words are rare and beautiful. You're adding value and beauty to a space that desperately needs it. You can have a mouthful of diamonds without getting a grill. So store up wisdom. That doesn't mean we should become arrogant and seize every opportunity to sound smart. Because remember, this book reminds us over and over again about humility and about holding our tongues. Those reminders really help us hold our newfound knowledge in balance with wisdom. Charles Spurgeon said it like this, Wisdom is the right use of knowledge. To know is not to be wise. Many men know a great deal and are all the greater foolish for it.

There's no fool so great as a knowing fool. But to know how to use knowledge is to have wisdom. Chapter 21 speaks some wisdom to wives, women who hope to be wives, and any man in search of a wife. There are two passages that talk about desirable traits for a and these are obviously applicable to a husband as well. But Solomon rightly assumed that most of his readers in that day would be men, so it's natural that he's primarily writing to men. Verse 9 says, It is better to live in a corner of the house top than in a house shared with a quarrelsome wife. We also saw this back in 1913, which says, A wife's quarreling is a continual dripping of rain. Being quarrelsome or antagonistic or nitpicky, those aren't desirable traits in any relationship, much less the person you're binding yourself to for life. And 2119 reiterates this, but adds another dimension to it. It says, It is better to live in a desert land than with a quarrelsome and fretful wife. Fear is also an undesirable attribute. When we're ruled by fear, we live out of a scarcity mentality or a victim mentality, and we miss out on the beauty and freedom of what it looks like to trust God for provision and protection.

We close our fist around our non-negotiables, and it's exhausting first to us and then to everyone around us as well. That's not to say things aren't scary, but 1 Peter 3:6 paints a picture of what it's like to not fear the things that are frightening. It doesn't say that things aren't scary. It just reminds us to trust that we're eternally safe in the temporary storms. Even if you're committed to being single for life, we can still see the wisdom in asking God to eradicate those traits in us, because if they're not desirable in a relationship, they're not desirable in an individual individual. Today, my Godshot was in Proverbs 19:17-18, where God identifies himself with the poor. The verse says, Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will repay him for his deed. Where in Proverbs, Solomon has advised against lending money to people, not necessarily because of financial risk, but because of the potential relational risk. So this is an especially interesting thing for Solomon to say. But in addition to that, there are two important things to note when we read his words about lending money. First, Jesus talks about this in Matthew 5 and Luke 6, and he says not to lend, but to give.

That doesn't preclude making or taking loans. It just points out that the heart attitude that should be the foundation of it all is generosity. If you're interested in reading more about what the Bible says about borrowing or lending money, we'll link to a short article in the show notes. Second, when God has identified with the poor person in this proverb, where we're generous to the poor and freely give them something, God positions himself as the one who reimburses the giver. And the good news is, he usually pays in a different currency, the eternal kind, which is far superior. God is not only identified with the poor here, but he's also still mindful of the person who isn't poor and who's generous to the poor out of their surplus. He's attentive to the rich and the poor, the content and the needy. No one is beyond his love and attention and provision. He's attentive, he's generous, and he's where the joy is.

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