For today, One Year Bible Online links here.
Those who are wise use words sparingly. There are several reasons for this. One of which is touched on in today’s passage: even a fool will seem wise if he doesn’t say anything. Another advantage of not saying everything that comes to your mind is that you have time to think over what you thought and polish your thought so that your wording is well chosen. Yet another reason to not say what comes to your mind is that by keeping silent and listening you may learn things which show you the error in your original thought before you speak.
There is one other point I would like to make. While it is true that a fool who keeps silent will be thought wise when they are not, a fool who keeps silent will gain wisdom by doing so (and is probably demonstrating that they have already started the process of ceasing to be a fool).
I will praise the Lord, He provides me with stability and a safe place to stand. He gives me the talents and training I need to accomplish the tasks to which He has called me. I am but a man, a human being of little consequence is this large and varied universe. Yet God cares for me. He cares for every single person.
I was going somewhere else with my thoughts on this psalm when I got to this point. I am not very significant when one looks at the universe, or even at the people of this earth. Despite my insignificance God cares for me. Not only does He care about me, He cares about every single person on this earth, no matter how insignificant we think they are. What does that mean for us? There is the obvious; if God cares about you (and He does), then you should not think of yourself as someone of no worth. If God cares about you, you are clearly someone of value. However, there is a more important thing for us to take from this; if we think that someone is not worth caring about, we had better re-examine our conclusion because God disagrees. He is a much better judge of a person’s value than we are.
When Paul arrived in Athens he got into a discussion with some philosophers there. It seems that they found his philosophy appealing, but balked at the idea of resurrection from the dead. One of Paul’s key points in his discussion with the philosophers of Athens was that they were spiritual in every way they could imagine, yet they acknowledged that something was missing. Paul’s message to the people of Athens is one we need to convey to those around us. No matter how spiritual people may be, if they have not come to know Jesus, something is missing. Most of them will realize this and seek to fill that void. The Christian message is that the Gospel provides the answer about what is missing. Once one truly comprehends the Gospel message one realizes that Jesus fills the missing place in all other spirituality.
Jehu killed Ahab’s son to become king over Israel. He killed all of Ahab’s family, fulfilling Elijah’s promise regarding Ahab. Jehu then proceeded to completely eliminate Baal worship in Israel. It is interesting that while Jehu recognized the evil in Baal worship, he did not recognize the evil in worshiping the golden calves which Jeroboam had set up.
