Proverbs 30:5
"Every word of God is tested; He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him"
The word tested is the word sarap which means smelt, refine, test. This means that God's Word has been purified and refined. One can have confidence in it. God has filtered out impurities in His Word. If someone was going to write something wrong in the Scriptures, then God made sure that did not get written. Some of my favorite passages in the Scriptures are where the author of a particular book says, “I wanted to write about… but I couldn't” or” I would like to tell you about this or that but I have to tell you about this other thing.” I believe that is evidence of God’s superintending hand keeping error out of the Scriptures.
Now there are areas where the Scriptures speak clearly and it is out of line with our culture. When the culture or value system of a particular people is out of line with the Scripture, it is the culture that is off and not the Scriptures. We can have confidence that God's Word is not wrong. It gives us a super-righteous position. Examples would be when our culture tells us that beauty or sexual aggressiveness in women is extremely desirable; and yet the proverbs say that beauty can be deceitful, but wisdom is more desirable in a wife. When our culture says that unborn children are not really human and can be discarded if they are an inconvenience, the Scriptures say that the unborn child is a fully valuable human life as when John the Baptist and Jesus in the womb were aware of each other's presence. When our culture says that money is the ultimate value and anything you can do to get it is okay; but the Scriptures say that the love of money is the root of all sorts of evil, and one should cease striving after wealth for certainly it makes itself wings. Also, the Scriptures say that the ultimate goals in all of life are relational goals not monetary goals.
We need to have ultimate confidence in the Scriptures to speak into our culture and help us put the values right.
He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him
This is a great verse because it says that when you do what the Scriptures tell you, you are then entering into a deeper relationship with God and seeking refuge in God from the destructive forces in the world around you.
God and His Word, when applied, are shields. They protect people from many of the consequences of wrong choices. The Scriptures have a self- limiting direction in their commands. They tell us when to stop doing something; when an action you might take goes too far. The Scriptures ask us to change our behavior and to be fully behind the protection of God. It also tells us that if we don't modify our behavior, we will be sticking out from behind the shield of God and could be hit by the flying shrapnel of the world we live in.
I am amazed at how often we do not want to limit our behavior in the ways that the Scriptures suggest because it runs counter to the cultural values that we have learned even though it is obvious that if we limited our actions in a particular way, we would limit our exposure to dangerous or difficult consequences.
God is stating a powerful fact that we need to pay attention to. Get behind His shield through living a life of applying the Scriptures and you will avoid many of the problems others experience. Our culture says that we should pursue fame, get-rich-quick schemes, sexual conquest, material possessions, power, freedom to do whatever you want. And yet the Scriptures tell us that these things do not produce what you think they produce. They are not shortcuts to the life you want but to a boatload of troubles. What you are really searching for is different and takes a different path to achieve.
Until tomorrow,
Gil Stieglitz