Proverbs 3:5 _(with Proverbs 27:1)_ I. The precept, "Lean not unto thine own understanding" is one in which, with advancing years, we are well disposed to acquiesce. One who has grown older, and who has really profited by the experience of life, must often have found cause to revise his own judgme... [ Continue Reading ]
Proverbs 3:6 A characteristic of the Old Testament Scriptures, which results from the genius of the Hebrew language, is specially observable in the Book of Proverbs. Instead of the copious, versatile, precise, and in so many respects unrivalled, instrument which the Greek wields when expressing his... [ Continue Reading ]
Proverbs 3:7 I. The text may be paraphrased and expanded thus: God has taught you by various ways by your own experience and that of others; above all, by the warnings of conscience and the voice of revelation what is right and what is wrong. Do not set yourself above this teaching, or think to be... [ Continue Reading ]
Proverbs 3:11 I. Affliction acts as a dyke against the overflow of evil; it incessantly restrains and thrusts it back. Sin finds its limit in suffering; passion strikes against pain as a fatal bourne, where it perishes; lust is quenched in disgust; and death is there to say to the raging waves of o... [ Continue Reading ]
Proverbs 3:12 _(with 1 Corinthians 15:55)_ In the case of a saint, his afflictions and death fall to be considered: (1) as they have a respect to himself, and (2) as they have a respect to his neighbours and friends. I. As they have a respect to himself. (1) The design of a saint's afflictions may... [ Continue Reading ]
Proverbs 3:17 _(with John 16:33)_ I. Religion, regarded as a theory of a perfect state, is right in pronouncing itself a way of pleasantness and a path of peace. If a man could but walk perfectly in the way of religion he would be perfectly happy. But man is not born into an ideal state, into a pe... [ Continue Reading ]
Proverbs 3:32 I. Consider the intimacy between God and man implied in this promise. To whom is it that we open our confidence, and explain our most secret purposes and objects? It is not to the stranger, of whom perhaps we know nothing but his mere name and title; not to those who have already sligh... [ Continue Reading ]