Proverb Parable Prodigal

When a Proverb becomes a Parable

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So much is lost to many in this generation, due to their desire to protect themselves from what they misunderstand or perceive as a threat to their freedom. I speak in regard to their primitive understanding of the Law and its role in the life of the New Covenant believer. This is only exacerbated through poor teaching. So many things Paul said are read & only understood on a surface level without any thought to the duplicity it creates throughout the rest of the New Testament, not to mention scripture as a whole.

If every favorable reference to the teachings & life guiding principles of the Old Testament were removed from the New, along with all lead in & out material written solely for those references, what would remain of the New Testament would be an exceedingly brief number of pages filled with loose & disconnected thoughts.

The body of the New Testament contains about 5,000 verses, and many estimates place the quotes, references & allusions to the Old Testament to be between 2,000-4,000. That is a serious amount of material to remove!

I say this because I believe many do not even read the Old Testament & those that do, often miss where these exact words, thoughts, teachings or illustrations are mentioned in the New Testament & I believe that is precisely what happened with Proverbs 28:7.

If Jesus was not referencing this passage in His parable of the prodigal, it would be quite surprising indeed!

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Hope person source

The Person of Hope, the Source of Hope

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Today we continued our study on faith, by taking a slightly deeper dive into what faith serves to support which is our HOPE.

In the Bible, Hope is defined as a favorable expectation… the opposite of which would be fear or dread. Both are anticipations of future realities which are not yet realized. The differences being their source AND the fact that Biblical hope is favorable whereas fear is obviously negative.

Traditionally, biblical hope is understood as that which we can rightly expect from God and this is ascertained from His Holy word.

There IS however another source of Hope – it still originates from God, but it comes from what he have learned of God and His character over time. King David serves as a tremendous example of this and so today we referenced several Psalms as well as Samuel which provided scriptural proof that such is a valid, if not an even more valuable source of Hope in the life of a believer because it is rooted in relationship!

An example of this is when David faced Goliath with his Faith FIRMLY supporting his expectation of God’s intervention. He said to Saul, “The Lord Who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear WILL deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.”

It wasn’t pride, it wasn’t presumption, it was a favorable expectation in his God BASED upon His deliverances in the past!

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Scrutinize praise proverbs 27

It is Wisdom to scrutinize Praise!

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Tonight’s chapter in Proverbs is one of the simplest we have yet encountered. Its wisdom ranges from just solid common sense and good advice to instruction which is both practical and well thought through.

Nearly the whole chapter is worded so clearly, that other than some simple commentary on a per verse basis, there are only two verses which I felt needed any real study. These are verses 9 and 21. 

Verse 9 is just a simple clarification and personal disclaimer whereas verse 21 does offer more than one possible meaning regarding scrutinizing praise. So I felt as if we would benefit from spending a little time on it.

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Surrender Trust

Love, Respect, Surrender & Trust towards God

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This week we picked up where we ended last week, using both a trail that came into my life, to attack the word I taught two weeks ago as well as the words of Jesus and Moses regarding loving the Lord our God!

In the end we saw a “general pattern” which begins with love for God, which naturally leads to RESPECT for God, which promotes SURRENDER towards God which gives way to TRUST in God.

While this is a somewhat “mechanical” progression, it is also deeply relational.

I hope this teaching blesses you as it not only illustrates how faith develops in the heart but also how we express this trust in the person of the Holy Spirit as He carries out His mission of revealing Christ TO us, forming Christ IN us and revealing Christ THROUGH us!

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