Proverbs 18:15 Commentary and Bible Study

Notice the word ‘heart’ in the first part, and the ‘ear’ in the second part. So the innermost person wants knowledge and in practical terms we make sure we do the listening and hearing to acquire knowledge. For the promotion of fellowship and relationships, you do need to be always learning. Christian people should be particularly good learners in every field. You should be learning all the time, even outside the spiritual realm. Current affairs, what is going on – don’t let it all sail by you. You need to be following life and events. And then spiritual things, doctrines, and experiences of the Lord’s people in the Lord’s work. Because if you are not, then you have got no conversation, you have got no material with which to interact with other people. You become a dull person. The little motto, ‘Use it or lose it’, applies to this if the mind is not engaged with the things around us. We are to be interesting people and able to interact. I don’t say that we should be learning the kind of thing that a worldling may learn who seems to have a head ever absorbing knowledge of meaningless entertainment celebrities and their lives, and superficial and nonsensical material, but we are to be always learning. If you stand still, you are not an interesting person; you have nothing to contribute; you have nothing to say. So always be taking note. You won’t overcrowd the brain; the brain is wonderfully elastic and can absorb an immense amount of material, and needs to. And if you stop absorbing, then you become dull, and we want all to be like those very elderly people you come across whose eye is always bright and whose minds are as sharp as razors, and pick up everything. Fellowship needs this, learning of course most of all Christian things.And I mean learning not just adding, because speaking for myself there’s all sorts of things I am constantly aware of that I know, but I know them very imperfectly. Then you read more and you hear more and you put into better shape the things you thought you knew. But there were aspects you didn’t know, you didn’t understand. You had a slightly misshapen view of it. So it is not just a matter of acquiring, it is a matter of improving the concepts you hold and what you understand. It is vital for fellowship, it is vital for relations, to be somebody who has something sensible, and profound, and worthwhile, and engaging, and helpful to talk about, so we are ever learning. Have you got a book on the go, always? Something stimulating, spiritual, and even broader in your reading?