Selective Protection
Guard your heart with all vigilance, for from it are the sources of life. Proverbs 4:23, New English Translation
In Simply Christian, NT Wright interestingly describes the collective reaction of the flesh to the Gospel. He likens its life-giving power to a natural spring, but he says humans are quick to restrict access to that spring. We put the force of culture to work, he says, sanctioning who can come, and who cannot.
Little wonder, because this sanctimonious tendency starts on an individual level with the half-application of Proverbs 4:23. We little need that Word's admonition that our hearts are fragile and need guarding. Childlike, joyous vulnerability is an ephemeral stage. We quickly figure out that others don't value our hearts as much as we do. We wall up the spring, we think, as a means to necessary self-protection.
By persevering grace, however, the Spirit over time keeps us reading. We forget, though, that the wise person guards his or her heart as a means to an end. We become so consumed with the rituals of self-protection and of spotting other people's wayward motives and calling it discernment that we tend not to OPEN our hearts.
God would not have it so. The Bible would not have it so. Proverbs from which this text comes would not have it so, pleading in many places for the reader to listen to and consider instruction that might be new. Involving even more risk, and joy, it seems Proverbial wisdom is often delivered in the context of relationship, father to son, literally or figuratively.
Rather than wall off the source of cleansing and renewal, we would develop actual discernment. We would, by grace, know what and whom to let in, AND what to keep out. We would, at any and every age expect God the Author of life to bring new invigoration to the hearts He created and then renewed at salvation.
In Simply Christian, NT Wright interestingly describes the collective reaction of the flesh to the Gospel. He likens its life-giving power to a natural spring, but he says humans are quick to restrict access to that spring. We put the force of culture to work, he says, sanctioning who can come, and who cannot.
Little wonder, because this sanctimonious tendency starts on an individual level with the half-application of Proverbs 4:23. We little need that Word's admonition that our hearts are fragile and need guarding. Childlike, joyous vulnerability is an ephemeral stage. We quickly figure out that others don't value our hearts as much as we do. We wall up the spring, we think, as a means to necessary self-protection.
By persevering grace, however, the Spirit over time keeps us reading. We forget, though, that the wise person guards his or her heart as a means to an end. We become so consumed with the rituals of self-protection and of spotting other people's wayward motives and calling it discernment that we tend not to OPEN our hearts.
God would not have it so. The Bible would not have it so. Proverbs from which this text comes would not have it so, pleading in many places for the reader to listen to and consider instruction that might be new. Involving even more risk, and joy, it seems Proverbial wisdom is often delivered in the context of relationship, father to son, literally or figuratively.
Rather than wall off the source of cleansing and renewal, we would develop actual discernment. We would, by grace, know what and whom to let in, AND what to keep out. We would, at any and every age expect God the Author of life to bring new invigoration to the hearts He created and then renewed at salvation.
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