Sunday, 27 May 2007

Sunday School Class Proverbs 23:12 How does one successfully make the acquisition of instruction and knowledge a life-long pursuit?

Choruses: I love you with the Love of the Lord; I love you Lord; Micah 6:8; Lord Prepare Me

Scripture reading: #667

No Vespers tonight – enjoy the holiday with your family

Wednesday evening 7 – bring your ‘give-away’ items to the fellowship hall

Don't be overly righteous nor overly wise. 

Ecclesiastes 7.8 The end of a matter is better than its beginning, and patience is better than pride. 9. Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit, for anger resides in the lap of fools. 10. Do not say, "Why were the old days better than these?" For it is not wise to ask such questions.

11. Wisdom, like an inheritance, is a good thing and benefits those who see the sun.  12. Wisdom is a shelter as money is a shelter, but the advantage of knowledge is this: that wisdom preserves the life of its possessor. 13. Consider what God has done: Who can straighten what he has made crooked?

14. When times are good, be happy; but when times are bad, consider: God has made the one as well as the other. Therefore, a man cannot discover anything about his future. 15. In this meaningless life of mine I have seen both of these: a righteous man perishing in his righteousness, and a wicked man living long in his wickedness.

16. Do not be overrighteous, neither be overwise-- why destroy yourself? 17. Do not be overwicked, and do not be a fool-- why die before your time? 18. It is good to grasp the one and not let go of the other. The man who fears God will avoid all extremes.

19. Wisdom makes one wise man more powerful than ten rulers in a city. 20. There is not a righteous man on earth who does what is right and never sins. Piety and humility are frequently mistakenly thought to be the same thing. However, one leads to Godliness and the other is anything but Godly.

Let me share with you a portion of scripture that intrigues me: (N.I.V.) Ecclesiastes 7:18b The man who fears God will avoid all extremes. 20. There is not a righteous man on earth who does what is right and never sins.

That sort of flies in the face of almost everything descended from the English Reformation. Piety has been equated with Godliness for hundreds of years.

Actually, any Biblical quest for understanding humility will take one away from piety. Likewise, any objective look at piety will take one to Ecclesiastes 7:20 - and that can only lead to seeing piety as just so much hypocrisy.

Since, as the Apostle Paul noted in Romans chapter 7, it is impossible to always do what is right and never sin - I am brought to the practicality of (N.I.V.) Ecclesiastes 7:16 Do not be over-righteous, neither be over-wise-- why destroy yourself? 

The reality of a person is hidden, swallowed up, by the image that a person assumes when consumed with piety. The reality of that 'overly righteous and overly wise' individual is destroyed, replaced by a phony shell that becomes insufferable to those around him. 

And, indeed, “The end of a matter is better than its beginning, and patience is better than pride.” Ecclesiastes 7.8