A devotional thought presented originally to Swift Current Men’s Prayer Breakfast, Thursday 04 June 2015. Presented to Riverside Cafe, Toronto, 10 August 2016.
Read
Proverbs 1:1-7
What
does this mean? Does this mean that we are supposed to be timid from terror?
No, it doesn’t. Yir’ah, the word translated fear hear probably most
approximates the English word ‘deference’: Deference is not absent of fear but
it more precisely refers to extreme, practical respect.
I have
witnessed deference firsthand in courtrooms among other places. You would be
surprised at how quickly a person removes his hat or turns off her cell phone
with just one sideways glance from that judge. I have seen people talking big
outside the courtroom and then a moment later I have seen them inside bowing
quickly to the authority and power of the courts. I have seen even your most
law-abiding citizens who are in court to assist someone else and who know the
judge quite well – when they are addressed by the judge - immediately defer to
her position. This deference is not entirely without fear. Our courtrooms are
probably one of the best parallels to the emotions that accompany yir'ah
in contemporary western society.
But
there is more: When we love someone we don’t want to fail him or her. When we
serve someone we don’t want to let him or her down. When we love and serve
someone we want to do everything we can for them because we love them. This is
also a component of yir’ah fear. It is this fear of the Lord that keeps
us holy. It is this fear of the Lord that causes us to follow the rest of the
wisdom put forth in the book of Proverbs. It is this love, respect, and fear of
the Lord that is the beginning of wisdom; for only when we have this real love
for and intense desire to serve the Lord that we can possibly be wise enough to
serve Him. If we want to be wise it must begin here. It must begin with an
intense love for the Lord. Deference, the fear of the LORD is the beginning of
wisdom.
What
is wisdom then? Wisdom is knowing how to survive in this world. It is an
understanding of how the world works. The Bible and Proverbs are not books of
do’s and don’ts randomly or otherwise generated to organise a society or to
earn our way into heaven. The Scriptures were given by inspiration of God, and
they only constitute the Divine rule of Christian faith and practice (TSA d.1).
The Scriptures explain to us the mystery of how and why the world works. The
more we read them the more we know about God, just like the more time we spend
with God, praying and reading His Word, the more we know Him.
As we
read through Proverbs, we notice that indeed each proverb is a brief glimpse
into the reality that is our life. These are words to live by as is the whole
canon of Scripture but we can only really understand this when we really do
love the LORD with all our heart, mind, body, and soul, when we love our
neighbour as ourselves (Lk. 10:17; cf. Dt. 6:5, 11:13, 30:16, 30:20) and when
we honestly do have a healthy deference, yir'ah, a fear of the LORD,
because the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom.
www.sheepspeak.com
[1] Based on the sermon by Captain Michael Ramsay, Proverbs 1:7,
9:10: Yir’ah, The Fear of the LORD. Presented to Nipawin Salvation Army, 17
May 2009 and Swift Current, 27 May 2012. On-line: http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.ca/2009/05/proverbs-17-910-yirah-fear-of-lord.html
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