Campfire Scripture: A campfire, a manly Bible verse, a billy boiling and a starry night sky. Yep.

Book Author and Date:

More brilliant wisdom from Solomon the wise. The majority of his proverbs were compiled during the first half of his reign and then compiled into the book of Proverbs by king Hezekiah between 715-686 B.C.

Tags:

Wisdom, Caution, Reflection.

Context:

The context with wisdom proverbs is self contained. More importantly however, is that the nature of poetry in ancient Israel was the parallelism.

The two lines in each verse, or ‘couplet’, complimented each other. The second either served as a contrast, or to bolster the point of the original. This can help add a little extra context or meaning to the text.

The two verses above are both examples of a contrast (obviously).

What I Reckon:

One thing I see all the time, is a lack of confidence in what Christians believe. The same ignorance that promotes ‘blind faith’ often (but not always) goes hand in hand with a total lack of confidence in what one believes, which is so ironic, but sadly not surprising.

There is nothing unbiblical about expecting at least a minimum amount of evidence and rationality when it comes to inquiries concerning Christianity and the Bible. This is true both of the critics of Christianity, and those within the faith. Always be willing to listen and hear people out, but never just accept everything everyone hears on their word.

Learning to reflect critically on everything you hear is a habit that takes time and deliberate practise. Paradoxically, the best way to increase confidence in your faith, is to approach its truth with caution. When I say caution I don’t mean with trepidation, but with a commitment to put it to the test.

The apostles consistently demonstrated that Christ was the fulfillment of the OT scriptures, this was their proof that He was the one who came to free the world from sin. They had no problem convincing people with solid arguments that what they were saying was true. People who were skeptical of this, were often convinced by these arguments. If people just accepted it all without looking at the evidence and arguments, then they could have just as easily believed anything.

This passage makes it clear that if we don’t approach knowledge claims with caution, we risk falling into any old heresy or falsehood, or even just plain unbelief.

References

All Campfire Scripture passages are taken from the New American Standard Bible, unless otherwise stated.

John MacArthur, 2006, The MacArthur Study Bible,  New American Standard Bible (1995 edition).