the Fourth Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Day by Day Devotional - Year 5 of 5
Proverbs 22:17-29
In this new section of Proverbs, Wisdom no longer expresses itself in maxims consisting of balancing couplets and uses direct exhortations like those in ch. 1-9. It is a waste of time to speak to someone who is not listening. Before any teaching, the young disciple is invited to incline his ear and to apply his heart to these "excellent things" (v. 20; cf. Philippians 1:10), to make these his subjects of meditation and conversation. But what is the aim of this instruction? Firstly, it is to bring the disciple to put his trust in a known God; then to place at his disposal a "certainty", in other words, truths by which he will be able to test all other knowledge. Finally it is to encourage him to tell forth himself the "words of truth" (vv. 17-21).
The warnings which follow have a negative character. Stop at v. 28 — "Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set" (cf. Proverbs 23:10). Many people find that the spiritual foundations, on which believers of previous generations have lived happily and which are approved by God, are too narrow. "Warning: Danger", this verse calls out to them. Besides, if we wander into the different fields of this world we inevitably neglect the one which has been kept for us and the one where the Lord is to be found (cf. Psalms 16:6).
