Insightful Musings on the Scripturesby
Ray Sparre, NU class of '67
Ray has a wealth of experience as a Husband, Father, Pastor, Missionary, and student of the Word. He believes and practices his faith where the rubber meets the road. You'll find his writings to be practical, insightful, and grounded in a truly Christ-centered world view.
Below are links to a printable daily Bible reading guide which Ray has followed, and an archive of all his daily devotional writings for 2010 and 2011.
| Daily Reading Guide | 2011 Devotion Archives | 2010 Devotion Archives |
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19 April 2011
Proverbs 19
Focus: “It is not good to have zeal without knowledge, nor to be hasty and miss the way.” Proverbs 19:2.
It’s not difficult to find ZEAL. It’s all over the place. You’ll find it in abundance at a soccer match, in a dog show, surrounding a football game, on the ski slopes, along a good fishing stream, on the battlefield, in a meeting of creative entrepreneurs, and in a discussion about politics or religion.
I figure that a good synonym for ZEAL would be ENTHUSIASM—which can escalate into PASSION. And I would reason that an appropriate synonym for KNOWLEDGE would be PURPOSE. Doesn’t that add expanded meaning? This is definitely a recurring theme, but it helps to return to the fundamental thesis declared in the first chapter in order to connect dots and get the equation figured out. “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline” (Proverbs 1:7). So essential KNOWLEDGE, or an accurate sense of PURPOSE does not even make it to first base without regard for the KNOWLEDGE GIVER and PURPOSE MAKER--God. Without this overarching frame of reference, all we really have is a bunch of ZEAL about zeal, ENTHUSIASM about enthusiasm, and PASSION about passion.
I know what it’s like to oversee a youth group on a hike. There have been times when some of the young bucks in the group surge ahead of the leader, wanting to be first, or show their strength and speed. I’ve known some cases of this kind of HASTY ZEAL WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE to cause them to MISS THE WAY, taking wrong turns, and ending up last rather than first.
When we place the FOCUS VERSE along side Jesus’ words in John 14:6 we have an explosion of meaning. Approaching it from this angle, can you imagine anything more unfortunate than to be surrounded with data and miss TRUTH?—to be living and fail to connect with LIFE?—to be traveling the road of time and miss the WAY? Jesus claimed to be the fulfillment of it all. I, for one, believe this TRUTH is true.
“Even a live wire is not really live unless it has a good connection.”