Proverbs 30:1-6
(1) The words of Agur the son of Jakeh, even the prophecy: the man spake unto Ithiel, even unto Ithiel and Ucal,
(2) Surely I am more brutish than any man, and have not the understanding of a man.
(3) I neither learned wisdom, nor have the knowledge of the holy.
(4) Who hath ascended up into heaven, or descended? who hath gathered the wind in his fists? who hath bound the waters in a garment? who hath established all the ends of the earth? what is his name, and what is his son’s name, if thou canst tell?
(5) Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him.
(6) Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar.
When our kids were young, around that age when they were becoming aware of the things around them, one of the most fun things to do was to rediscover the world through their eyes. Sometimes, we’d go to a place where my wife and I had been plenty of times but it was new to the kids and when they saw it, it was exciting and wonderful. Seeing things that way, made familiar places new to us too.
Agur, the writer of Proverbs 30, encouraged his readers to approach God’s Word with that same child-like wonderment. He was not ignorant of the answers to his questions; he was encouraging his readers to always approach the Word of God like it was brand new, take it at face value and admire its purity, and not to add to it either with our own interpretations or with the contempt that can come with familiarity.
When we come to a familiar passage, we shouldn’t tune out with the attitude “I’ve read this a hundred times before.” Instead, we should come to those passages and read them again like it’s the first time, or at least approach them as friends we haven’t seen in a long time. Even if nothing is new, it should warm our hearts that nothing has changed. But it also shouldn’t surprise us when we approach God’s Word that way that we actually learn something new and exciting.
Grace in Waves 