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Friday, February 14, 2014

Pastoral Pings (Plus) ~ The Knowledge and Wisdom that Begin with Fear


“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.”[1]
“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.”[2]
“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding. His praise endures forever!”[3]

          One way that we see the fulfillment of, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge,” is that, when people turn from their self-defending pride, and humble themselves before the LORD in reverence and awe, their minds are opened, and they suddenly begin to understand things that never made any sense to them before. They begin to gain knowledge of things that were hidden to them, things their eyes were blind to seeing, all because they have come to the place where God’s thoughts matter more than what anyone else thinks.

          As soon as the human heart surrenders to the Divine Spirit, the mind of man opens up like a rose blossom to the warm light of the sun. Understanding comes flooding in, because blindness and death are driven out. The snow-cover that hid the rose bush in wintery ignorance gives way to life-giving light that brings it to be what it was created to be.

          When the apostle Paul was explaining why he was preaching in the name of Jesus Christ, he told people about his life-changing encounter with the Living God. In a moment he went from pridefully persecuting the church Jesus was building, to humbly repenting of his sin and receiving this Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior.

          As he described his life-mission from that moment on, he explained how God had told him what his life would be about. He quoted Jesus as saying that his assignment in the kingdom of heaven would be: “to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.”[4]

          This opening of people’s eyes would happen the same way it did to Paul. First pride would be confronted, and people would face their poverty of spirit that made them hopelessly bound to judgment and condemnation because of their sin. Then people would call out, “…what must I do to be saved?” (Acts 16:30), indicating that they were humbly acknowledging that salvation was required or they would be under God’s righteous judgment against their sin forever.

          When people then repented of their sin, and confessed faith in Jesus Christ, their eyes that had been closed by pride were opened by grace. They turned from darkness to light; they were delivered from the power of Satan into the care of God; they experienced the forgiveness of their sins, and they found that God had reserved a place for them among the people of God who shared the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.[5]

          The famous gospel song, Amazing Grace, contains this beautiful stanza:

‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved.
How precious did that Grace appear, the hour I first believed.[6]

          John Newton had lived a rough life in the ignorance of sin, but had later come into the saving gift of the gospel of Jesus Christ. As he wrote about the amazing grace of God in saving “a wretch like me”, he understood that it was this grace that first taught him to have the reverent fear that is the beginning of knowledge and wisdom, and this same grace that relieved all his fears of death, judgment, and condemnation. The reverent fear of God brought him into the knowledge and wisdom of the gospel whereby he understood that all other reasons to fear had been banished by the amazing grace of God through the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

          The fear of the LORD that begins our journey into knowledge and wisdom is as available to us today as it was to that sinful slave-trader John Newton more than a couple of centuries ago. Oh yes, and to that sinful, religious hypocrite who once persecuted Jesus and his Church, and later came to fear the LORD with such reverence that his knowledge and wisdom of Christ continues to bless the world through his share in the sacred Scriptures of the word of God.

          From my heart,

          Monte

 

© 2014 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.)



[1] Proverbs 1:7
[2] Proverbs 9:10
[3] Psalm 111:10
[4] Acts 26:18
[5] Ephesians 4:3
[6] ©Public Domain. Composed by John Newton. Originally published in 1779.

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