Proverbs 1:23: I don’t get it!

[Wisdom says:] “If you turn at my reproof, behold, I will pour out my spirit to you; I will make my words known to you.”
-Proverbs 1:23

I am a SEINFELD fanatic. I’ll admit it: I have a problem.

I have seen every episode at least four times. It’s true. Some episodes I have seen ten or more. I have all the DVDs and it’s fairly regular that I will put one in and watch a few episodes. A few years ago, when I was more into television than I am now, I watched at least two episodes a day on late night television.

I’m not suggesting this as a great idea, just telling you the truth. Since I became a Christian, my priorities have shifted away from SEINFELD more and more, but I still love the show.

All of that to say this. When I am with my SEINFELD-loving friends, we will often quote lines from the show and laugh. Constantly we are doing this. And if someone is around us who doesn’t really know SEINFELD that well, he’s going to be lost. It’s an inside joke.

We have our inside jokes, something that requires special understanding to even get. The Bible is sort of like that.

Let me put it another way. I can read medical charts for the most part, because I’ve been trained to, being in insurance. If you give me a mechanic’s notes about my car, I’ll understand less of it. Give me the schematics to a microchip, and I’m lost. I do not have the training or understanding to even begin.

The Bible is like that too.

You can read the Bible and learn a great deal. People all over the world and throughout history are doing so. You can get the basic gist of things. But you’re not going to understand the depth of it until you have the right training. Just like I can only glean a little if you told me how my engine works, much of the teachings of the Word may be lost on you without something important.

No, it’s not a decoder ring or special knowledge. It’s the Holy Spirit.

1 Corinthians 2 is a wonderful discussion of this. In verse 14, Paul writes, “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.”

It’s like someone who has never seen SEINFELD trying to make sense of the conversations I have with my friends. It’s like me trying to build a microchip from scratch using only a diagram of one. Not going to happen.

Furthermore, the Spirit drives us to seek the Word. 1 Peter 2:2-3 tells us to “long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation, if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord” (NASB).

I find it rather humorous when non-Christians try to tell me what the Bible says about things. They usually butcher it, saying some nonsense like the Bible promotes slavery or something like that. They do not understand, because they do not have the eyes to see it. But it also worries me when I find Christians who do not read it. If you have the Spirit, untold depths are awaiting you in these pages.

It is the Spirit that moves a man to God, not that man himself. The Spirit does it, because a man cannot even understand that much of God to want to do that. But when the Spirit prompts, suddenly certain truths will become evident, that everyone has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and that no one is righteous enough to enter heaven on his own.

But the Bible tells also of the greatest truth of all, that Christ came and died so that we can be united with God. Has the Spirit taught you the truth of yourself, that you are not good enough to reach Him alone? If so, then turn away from your old ways and look to the truth of Christ. You deserve death because of your sins, but He died in your place. Now you can take His righteousness and walk in His truth.