Day 130, Year 1

Proverbs Teach Us Discernment

“The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel: To know wisdom and instruction, To discern the sayings of understanding.” (Proverbs 1:1-2 NASB)

The above word “proverb” is mashal in Hebrew, and refers to “aphorisms, parables, or sentences of ethical maxims,” originally with a sense of superiority in mental action. The word “discern” in the second verse in Hebrew is biyn, which is one of the meanings of “understanding.” “Understanding,” binah in Hebrew, refers to “the faculty, object, or act of understanding and discernment.” It could be said that the Proverbs in the Bible are meant to teach people to discern the truly useful standard of discernment. We need a standard of discernment to distinguish right from wrong, good from bad, etc. Different cultures or faiths have various standards. So, what is the best standard for believers? How could we evaluate different standards? One of the answers lies in the Proverbs, and the book contains a lot of worldly wisdom leading us to God’s ones.

The Proverbs include words of God’s wisdom and provide excellent standards for judging what is good or bad, right or wrong, etc. And those who are familiar with the book and the four Gospels might discover certain contradictions within. For instance, the Proverbs state that one of the rewards for the righteous from God is wealth (Proverbs 15:6). This message is not only absent from the New Testament, but could even be said to suggest the opposite—Jesus always invites the rich to sell all they have and follow Him. When believers see such conflicts, we would certainly follow the teachings of Jesus. From this, we could clearly see that there might occasionally be contradictions between different teachings within the Bible. In such cases, we need godly wisdom to discern the best teaching. Generally speaking, the teachings in the New Testament surpass those in the Old Testament.

Discernment in life is not always simple for many people. But broadly speaking, if we repeatedly make similar mistakes, it might indicate a certain problem within our internal standard of discernment. At such times, we need to step back and examine whether the standards we have been holding onto are flawed. During this process of reflection, it is vital to seek God’s help and illumination to identify what we have done wrong and how we could change accordingly. We need to ask His Spirit to guide our amendments step-by-step. In general, believers of any culture could refer to the best discernment standard from the Biblical Israelites to establish a living attitude of advancing in wisdom.

Reflection questions:

1) Overall, do you understand the wisdom and standard of discernment in the Proverbs? Do you need further improvement on them?

2) When you encounter problems with discernment, do you tend to take a step back and re-examine the standard you have been persistently holding onto? Through these reflections, do you find it easier to understand and adopt God’s standard of discernment?