Proverbs 22:17-21 – The Word of God and believers

We live in an actively communicative world. Many voices are vying for our attention. Every day we have all kinds of messages hurled at us. We get them daily and weekly, at home, at work, at school, in church, and also in the world, in fact everywhere. They come through television, radio, newspapers, magazines, internet - Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and, etc. We are fed with all kinds of information, some are useful, some seductive, and many are needless. That’s why discernment is critical to a godly life. We need to be discerning and distinguish between those that we need and those that we must discard. There are many we need to walk away from and never to entertain them. There are those from the LORD that we need to pay attention so that we can draw closer to God, be guided into the right path and build great godly character to honour the LORD.

As people called into relationship with the LORD, we love Him dearly and want to pay attention to His voice of wisdom. And wise words always come from the LORD through His Word. There are stunts that we must adopt if we are to hear from Him, so that we can be built up in our spiritual stature. Proverbs 22:17-21 constitute a call to attentiveness. Verse 17 tells us to incline our ears and heart to hear His words. Our strongest passion in life is where our deepest desire stirs. When we truly love the Lord, we will have an inclination to hear what He wants to say to us. And in our over communicated world we can miss the voice of God if we lack attentiveness. To be attentive, we must not only hear with our ear, we must also keenly engage our mind in what we are hearing. In other words, we need to sift through all that we hear, analyse the supposition, question the assumption, go for the core and not the peripheral. It is the true knowledge of God that we must go for.

What are we to do with the Word of God? Verses 18-21 instruct us to take God’s Word seriously. We will find the experience pleasant when we apply and keep the principles of God’s Word. We need to keep the teaching within, meaning deep in the heart. And we must also be ready to profess it openly. They help us to live discreetly.

The Word, truly applied to life, will enable us to put our trust in the LORD. We will know how to stay confident in the LORD regardless of whatever may happen. Remember that our God is a personal God. He doesn’t just deal with us as a group, He often speaks to us as individuals. So we find the second part of verse 19 telling us that God’s Word can be a personal word to us. “…I have taught you today, even you.”  The word must be personally applied. And we must take heed to apply it immediately.

We believers of God are truly a privileged people. The whole counsel of God is now readily available to us in the Bible. In verse 20, we find a reference to the Written Word. The Bible is God’s written Word to us. We not only have Jesus the Living Word living in us, we have the Written Word to guide us, to give us counsel and provide true knowledge in the ways of God. There is a necessity to know the Word of God and to be deeply accustomed to it, so that we can be God’s reliable messenger. As His messengers to a lost world, our ability to communicate His truth accurately will show our competence as His ambassadors.