Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Proverbs 23:7
For as he thinketh in his heart, so [is] he: Eat and drink, saith he to thee; but his heart [is] not with thee.
7. thinketh in his heart ] Rather, reckoneth within himself, R.V. Not by his liberal words, “eat and drink,” but by the mercenary reckoning of his heart, which is calculating meantime and grudging the cost, is he to be estimated.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Thinketh – The Hebrew verb is found here only, and probably means, as he is all along in his heart, so is he (at last) in act.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Pro 23:7
For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.
The importance of a mans thoughts
1. A man is as his thoughts.
2. A man has control over his thoughts.
3. God helps him in the exercise of that control.
We are that really, both to God and to man, which we are inwardly. (Matthew Henry.)
Thoughts
I. The infinite importance of mens thoughts. This text, in counselling for a particular case, and bidding us test the sincerity of one who invites us, asserts a principle of wide application. You do not know a man until you know his thoughts. God knows him perfectly, because He knows his thoughts.
1. You cannot know a man merely by listening to his words or watching his actions. There is always more, and often better, in men than comes into expression.
2. The revelations of close and trustful friendships are revelations of the thoughts.
3. The claims of God reach beyond right action, and demand right thought. The law of God searches the secret intents of the heart.
4. The redemption that is provided includes in its scheme the sanctification of the very thought.
5. All sin is represented as springing up out of, and finding expression for, lust in the sphere of thought. Show, by appeal to Christian experience, the difficulty found in the restraining of thought. In the unrestrainedness of thought often comes to us the feeling and the mastery of sin.
II. The amount of control man has over his thoughts. If he had no control over them his moral responsibility would be gone. We cannot help the evil thoughts coming to us. We have control–
1. Over the material of our thoughts. The materials are the sum of past impressions. Thinking is the combining, comparing, and rearranging of the actual contents of the mind. We can direct ourselves away from the evil and towards the good. We can fill our minds with good suggestions and associations. Illustrate from going into scenes suggestive of vice; reading questionable or immoral books, etc.
2. Over the processes of thought. There may be the nourishing of the evil. There may be the swaying of the mind through the power of the renewed will, and with the help of the indwelling Spirit. Apply to wandering thoughts in the house of God. Do we make the mastery of such evil the subject of real effort?
III. The help God renders man in the exercise of such control. An attempt to regulate thoughts will bring the conviction of human helplessness. When a man has mastered conduct he cannot say that he has mastered himself. When he thinks he has mastered thoughts he will surely find that he needs to cry unto God, saying, Try me and know my thoughts . . . and lead me in the way everlasting. (Robert Tuck, B.A.)
The thoughts of the heart the best evidence of a mans spiritual state
The knowledge of ourselves is one of the most noble and excellent attainments in human life. He that knows himself stands fair for immortal felicity. Doctrine: The thoughts of mens hearts do evidence what their spiritual state is. These do ordinarily give the best and surest measure of the frame of mens minds. What thoughts, then, evidence the spiritual state of men? Not occasional thoughts. Not such as arise from strong convictions, that come on us suddenly. Not such as arise from apparent Divine desertions. Despairing thoughts are no sure evidence of the condition of souls. Not such as arise from violent temptations. Not such as arise from mens particular calling and manner of life. Not such as arise from attendance upon, and the performance of, religious duties. The religious discourse of others may produce pious thoughts in an unregenerate person. A man may read Gods Word and be yet far from the kingdom. So he may attend the preaching of the Word, and even pray, without having more than surface thoughts. Answering the question affirmatively, mention may be made of voluntary thoughts, such as the mind is apt for and inclines towards. Four qualifications must attend them if they are to be a complete rule and a perfect standard of trial. They must be natural, numerous, satisfactory, and operative. Let us each see to it that our thoughts be such as evidence us to be holy persons. Practise frequent, serious, and close examination. (Nathanael Walter.)
The heart-state
The body is not the man. Our bodies die. Neither are a mans words himself. Words are often used to conceal, to misrepresent, to counterfeit. Neither is it possible, universally, to discern the essence of character in action. What good man is there who has not again and again failed to do himself justice in his life? Often, on the other hand, actions are much more beautiful than the thoughts of the heart. The essence of human character is found in the heart. It is the disposition, it is the heart-state, which is the true man. This test of human character is a just one, for our life is a progress, is in the direction of the realisation of this heart-state. Action is but heart-expression. The heart-thought, or purpose, is the true man. Not only is human progress towards the realisation of this heart-state, but the separation of the man from this full expression and realisation of his inner desire is not a matter of his own choice or creation, and therefore cannot enter as an element into his character. The field open, covered by the human choice, is only this, present desire. It often happens that a man is to a certain extent kept under the power of religious truth who is in heart utterly disloyal to the Divine law. When the life differs from the heart the latter, not the former, must be regarded as the true man. Sooner or later the full coincidence between the external and internal is inevitable; the full expression of the heart is sure to come.
1. Tendency is everything in the moral world.
2. Explain the different destinies of the Christian and un-Christian life.
3. Abstain from all judgment of your fellow-men.
4. Encourage those who are true and good at heart. (S. S. Mitchell, D.D.)
Thought the index of character
I. This is the Hebrew way of telling us in a casual word about feasting that a mans inmost thinking is the true index to his character. Talk is superficial. The lip gives a smiling welcome whilst a lofty disdain is in the heart. Mellifluous speech often comes from a malign spirit, whilst groanings that cannot be uttered are signs of a yearning supremely Divine. To the perfect ear of God, who catches the faintest quiver of hypocrisy in our devotion, and the lightest tone of insincerity in our song, our words justify or condemn us; but to our dull and insensitive organs they are unreliable signs, and our conclusions from them require to be corrected and qualified by the study of other data. We are, therefore, driven back upon the Hebrew teaching that a man is built up from within; that as he does his inward work–all his inward work–so he is in character, being, and power. He must be a whole man in his thinking in order to be to all intents and in all respects a man; for manly thinking, according to our ancient Scriptures, lies at the basis of manhood.
II. Christianity accepts and endorses this inward and broad basis of manhood, and employs its fact and revelation, impulse and inspiration, to secure a thorough regeneration of mans inmost life. It seeks to re-create him as a thinker, refuses to look on the mere scholar as the full man, and works on the Hebrew idea, lately re-announced by Emerson, that the true notion of manhood is man thinking; not man the victim of society and a mere thinker, or still worse, the parrot of other mens thinking–but man, thinking in his heart, with all his inward forces, conscience and will, fancy and emotion, hope and experience–thinking in the whole of him, and with the whole of him, and for the whole of him and his race, and so making speech the clear, full, and indivisible echo of his thought, and deed the visible garment of his inward life. God means us to be men, and He evokes the forces of an inward life by compelling us to wield the sword with our full strength against the enemy. For as a man battles for truth in his heart, so is he. Cowardly thinking makes a weak and poor life. Christ creates inward courage, heroic daring for reality and right, and renews the manliness of the world.
III. This is a thinking age. The sluggard intellect has received an unparalleled awakening, and thinking of nearly all kinds is proceeding with astonishing celerity and productiveness. The manliest thinking is done with the heart, i.e., with the whole of the inner forces of the life.
IV. Modern thinking, ignoring the Biblical rule, is smitten with the blight of cowardice, falls a victim to unreality, and lacks, notwithstanding its pride, Lutheran courage, holy daring, and self-devotion. Young men, do not be misled by the syren of a false peace. Truth is a prize to be won by strenuous battle with the shows and pretences of error, and the shock of downright attack with the foes of faith ought only to whet desire, quicken appetite, and concentrate your forces so that you may become masker of the situation. Give to your thinking the courage of the heart, the force of a resolute energy, the patience of an inflexible will, and as sure as you are true to your whole self God will be found of you in Christ Jesus, and become the sunshine of your life and the joy of your heart.
V. Another form of this mistake is that we expect too much to be done by mere thinking. Science thinks everything out, and we want to make all life scientific, and so we take out of it our personal trusts, and the subtle ministry of the reflex action of deeds on our thoughts. Convert thought-out truth into loyalty to Jesus Christ, and obedience to His laws. Courageous deed, following intrepid thinking, made the Reformation.
VI. No thinking is manly which fails to take adequate account of the force of intense moral enthusiasms. It is provable that only in the white heat of a glowing passion for an ethical goal have we the clearest vision of eternal fact.
VII. Again, the thinking that is of the brain only and not of the heart is in serious danger of passing over the unseen order and treating it as though it did not exist. It ignores the invisible forces which somehow or other, and from somewhere or other, undeniably find, move, and educate men.
VIII. But, above all things, do not let us be alarmed at any of the mistakes and mischiefs that cause disobedience to the Christian law of manly thinking. We need have no misgiving about the future. Man is essentially a thinker and a unit, and he must think towards unity, and truth, and perfection. Be his mistakes numberless, he cannot stop. He is made for God. God is his refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble; therefore, after every temporary eclipse, the Sun of Righteousness will break forth and reveal again the way to the Father. (J. Clifford, D.D.)
Thought
The capacity of thinking is a most wonderful thing. Here lies mans supremacy ever all the visible world about him. All great undertakings, the glorious enterprises of men for mens salvation, were once only thoughts. The character of a mans thoughts determines the character of his life. His actions are inspired from within. Every product of the soul, whether it be an action or a purpose, is first a germ. Sin lies in the soul in germs–in germs as well as in actions. The moral success of life consists in killing evil thoughts in the germ. There are few purer and richer pleasures in this world than the enjoyment of sweet thoughts, happy thoughts, holy thoughts. The heart determines our everlasting destiny. A heart without holiness never shall see the Lord. Christ is the only purifier of the heart. (Theodore L. Cuyler, D.D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
As he thinketh in his heart, so is he: you are not to judge of him by his words, for so he professeth kindness, as it follows; but by the constant temper of his mind, which he hath fully discovered to all that know him by the course of his life.
His heart is not with thee; he hath no sincere kindness to thee, but inwardly grudgeth thee that which he outwardly offers to thee.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
For as he thinketh in his heart, so [is] he,…. He is not the man his mouth speaks or declares him to be, but what his heart thinks; which is discovered by his looks and actions, and by which he is to be judged of, and not by his words;
eat and drink, saith he to thee, but his heart [is] not with thee; he bids you eat and drink, but he does not desire you should, at least but very sparingly; it is only a mere compliment, not a hearty welcome.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
THE INFIDELS CREED
Pro 23:7
MR. INGERSOLLS Chicago publishers, in a prelude to the printed lecture, What Must I Do in Order to Be Saved? spoke of their apostle of infidelity as a theological iconoclast. They were evidently supposing him to have no sympathy with religious creeds; to be engaged in their utter demolition. But their mistake presently appeared when Mr. Ingersoll set up his own idol of a religious system in the very pantheon he promised to depopulate. But we have known better men than the Colonel ever was to decry creeds in one breath, and tell you in the next what you must do in order to be saved. It must seem indeed to be the rule that creed-haters are the most creed-bound. Let us examine the skeptics creed. Robert G. Ingersoll was a fit representative of infidelity, and so we employ him in illustration all through this discourse. These are Mr. Ingersolls own words:
People say to me What do you propose in place of Christianity? Well, in the first place, I propose good-fellowshipgood-fellowship, good friends all around. * * I believe in the gospel of cheerfulness, the gospel of good nature * * in the gospel of good health. * * I believe in the gospel of good living. * * I believe in the gospel of good clothes. * * I believe in the gospel of good houses. * * I believe in the gospel of intelligence, in the gospel of education.
* * I believe in the gospel of justice, that we must reap what we sow. I do not believe in forgiveness, and I believe, too, in the gospel of liberty, of giving to others what we claim. * * My gospel of health will prolong life. My gospel of intelligencemy gospel of lovingmy gospel of good fellowship will cover the world with happy homes. My doctrine will put carpets upon your floors, pictures upon your walls. My doctrine will put books upon your shelves, ideas in your mind. My doctrine will relieve the world of abnormal monsters, born of the ignorance of superstition. My doctrine will give you health, wealth and happiness. That is what I want. That is what I believe in.
Our texts read, As he thinketh in his heart, so is he, and Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God, because many false prophets are gone out into the world.
Let us examine the creed of this prophet of infidelity.
THE GOSPEL OF GOOD FELLOWSHIP
If Mr. Ingersoll had stopped with saying, I believe in the gospel of good-fellowship, the Christian world would have joined in the applause.
Good-fellowship is a Christian doctrine. But Christianitys definition of good-fellowship is widely removed from the Colonels definition. According to the first, good-fellowship is the fellowship of good men. Christianity says, Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers, for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness, and what communion hath light with darkness, and what accord hath Christ with Belial, or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? Wherefore come ye out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing.
Christianity says: Evil communications corrupt good manners.
The Colonel defines good-fellowship as good friends all around. No matter what we believe, shake hands and say, Let it go. There is your opinion, this is mine. Let us be friends.
We never saw that idea of fellowship fully carried out but once, and that was when with some Christian men we visited the slums in Chicago.
In the saloons, gambling-dens and brothels, they believed in that sort of fellowship. No matter about your opinion, if only you are a hale fellow. The friendliest folks in this world are also its vilest human vultures.
Mr. Ingersoll illustrates his idea by saying, I like a man that has got good feeling for everybody. One man said to another, Will you take a glass of wine? I dont drink. Will you smoke a cigar? I dont smoke. Maybe you will chew something. Let us eat some hay? I dont eat hay? Well then, good-bye; you are no company for either man or beast.
No wonder the Colonel disliked such a man. He would be poor company for the intemperate and unclean, and no company for a beast. Ingersollian society had no place for him. If he had only been willing to drink and smoke, his fellowship would have been acceptable. If he had only been willing to eat some hay, the Colonel would have stood in the same stall with him, in the perfect peace of his gospel of good-fellowship. The sober, clean, manly man is the only one that Ingersoll would exclude from the circle of his friends. Every one to his choice. But some of us can get on better without liquor, or tobacco, or hay, than we can with the company who use them all.
THE GOSPEL OF CHEERFULNESS
The Colonel says, I believe in the gospel of cheerfulness, the gospel of good nature, in the gospel of good health. Let us pay some attention to our bodies and our souls will take care of themselves.
Is it healthy to drink? Is it healthy to smoke? Is it healthy to eat hay? Are not health and cheerfulness dependent rather on sobriety and decency, and dishes more delectable even than the filthy weed or salted straw?
A creed is good for nothing aside from conduct. Does infidelity believe in the gospel of good health? How many free dispensaries or hospitals has it endowed? How many gymnasiums has it built? Our churches have constructed multitudes of them. Where are those of Mr. Ingersoll and his associates?
A man may say, I have works. But we answer, Show me thy faith, without thy works. And we will show thee our faith by our works… Thou believest that there is one God, thou doest well, the devils also believe and tremble. But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?
Christianity believes in health and conserves it; in cheerfulness and produces it; but Christianity cannot join in the song of the swine which would take care of the body while neglecting the soul.
It is the philosophy of Epicurius which our brother Bob tried to dig from a foul grave and foist afresh on the public. It was the old heresy of the gullet against which Paul wrote to the Philippians, saying of such, They are the enemies of the cross of Christ whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things. Christians do not honor the body less, but they do esteem the soul, the immortal part, the more.
THE GOSPEL OF GOOD CLOTHES AND HOUSES
I believe in the gospel of good clothes. I believe in the gospel of good houses, says infidelity.
Yes, for itself. In a swallow-tail coat for a Sunday night, lecture at one dollar a head to the dummies that heard him. But what about clothes and houses for the other fellow? A cur believes in the gospel of good houses for himself, but he is not concerned whether his neighbor canine freezes, or no. A South-down sheep believes in the finest wool for himself, but he is not disturbed because the Mexican dog, who may guard him against the wolf, is naked.
Christianity, to the contrary, believes in a coat for the other fellow, and enjoins upon us, if we have two coats to give one to the man who has none. And Christianity says, better than bread, or clothes, is the life, Be not anxious for your life, what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink, nor yet for your body what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat and the body than raiment?
Good clothes and good houses are great conveniences and comforts, but in nowise are they essential to happiness or holiness. The noblest man that ever lived had no house of His own. Jesus of Nazareth had not where to lay His head, and as for fine dress, He never wore any. In the Russian department of the Worlds Fair Art Gallery in 1894, I saw a picture of Christ that greatly impressed me. The face of the Christ was the same that old masters have put on canvass for centuries; but the dress, instead of being the conventional garment of Christs time, was a plain suit such as a Russian peasant wears to-day. About Him stood a group of country folk, some of whom were sick, all of whom seemed poor, but the plainest coat in that crowd, Christ wore.
At first sight, this picture offended me; on further study, it filled me with the thought that Christ came not to receive, but to give; not to strut, but to save, and cloth was not essential to His inexplicable labor of love. In His judgment, the getting of fine houses and clothes might be at the cost of character, as with Dives; while to be homeless, unsheltered and suffering, would not shut one out of Heaven, as it did not Lazarus.
THE GOSPEL OF EDUCATION
I believe in the gospel of intelligence; in the gospel of education. The school-house is my cathedral, and the universe is my Bible. That is a big sentence, but windy. Infidelity has contributed very little to this cathedral, and has not turned the first page of that Bible. For every dollar that infidelity has ever contributed to education, Christianity has given millions; and for every day that infidelity has spent in studying the universe, we have those who have spent years in studying the sacred Scriptures, and they have come out the more cultured of the two.
But, infidelity says, Give us intelligence, and a man will find out in a little while that he cannot steal without robbing himself. But have our big thieves been brainless men? Are our bank ex-presidents and cashiers, on their way to Canada or Mexico tonight, with filled pockets of filched coin, uncultured men? Are they short in book learning? Not much! But they are short of the grace of God. Where is the evidence that infidelity believes in education?
Who educated Mr. Ingersoll himself, except his Christian parents? and what University is a monument to the benevolence of unbelief?
THE GOSPEL OF JUSTICE
Another article of the Colonels creed was, I believe in the gospel of justice, that we must reap what we sow. I do not believe in forgiveness, but in the same lecture he quotes from the Bible, Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy approvingly, shouting, Good, and repeats the reading and adds a little louder, Good. In the same lecture, he says, I dont destroy the promise, If you will forgive others, God will forgive you.
Was the Colonel forgetful of his former faith, or was this the license of rhetoric? No forgiveness; eternal, inexorable, everlasting justice. That is what I believe in, and if it goes hard with me, I will stand it, he said. And his printed lectures report that he used to join in the laughter that followed.
Well, there are some things that can be best laughed about before they come to pass. If infidelity has any risibles, that it cannot control, it is better to let them off before the final judgment.
You know the story of the Irishman, who, seeing a mad bull playing ball with a man, had to hold his sides, the scene was so funny. After a little the infuriated beast turned on Pat, and tossed him into the air, and landed him on the further side of a neighboring fence. As he hobbled homeward, he said to himself, Faith, Im glad I had my laugh when I dade, or I would na a had it at all. And when the final judgment has come, the man who has mocked God and refused His mercy, may well remember the days of pleasure, for they will have passed.
I noticed in the papers of a certain Monday morning, a sermon which practically denied the power of God, or the willingness of God to forgive a poor sinful man and save, what the preacher was pleased to style, the fag end of a life. But that sermon to the contrary, we are happy to know that the Scriptures of the living God teach such a thing as possible, and even as certain to those who seek it. The thief on the cross had the fag end of life left, and there was little of it; and yet on him Christ had mercy, because he asked it; and His Word is, If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness, and the peace of the present for me, exists solely in the fact that I believe in the forgiveness of God. The prospect of my future in His presence, and in the holy heavens, rests alone in the offers of mercy that come to me out of His Word. And I do not believe that earths best mother is as willing to forgive her wayward, prodigal children, as Gods Son is ready to have mercy upon the men that ask it.
Dr. Chapman used to tell us, that in Philadelphia, a young man belonging to one of the better families left home, and by his wayward conduct, disgraced his father and finally broke his heart. He went to Baltimore, and from there to Washington, and thence no one knew where, but after months of wandering, he decided to return. He was ashamed to meet the members of his family, but he knew that if he entered the house at mid-night, there was one who would hear and let him in. No sooner had he put foot there, than the door swung open and the sweet mother received him in silence, without a word of reproach, but with many demonstrations of affection. The next morning, for very shame, he did not come to breakfast, but she sent his meals to him. The third day he was descending the stairway when his elder brother, a physician, said, Edward, mother is dying. She had been suddenly stricken and was anxious to see him. He made his way into her room, and seeing that she was near the end, he kneeled beside her bed and sobbed, Oh, mother, can you, will you forgive me my sins? and with her last departing strength, she drew him close to her, and put her feeble lips to his ear and said, My dear boy, I would have forgiven you long ago, if you had only accepted it.
That is a picture of God with a love that is infinite, and a pity beyond description, and a willingness to forgive that is like Him, as like no one else. He waits tonight to accept you and cleanse you. Will you come?
Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley
CONVICTIONS AND CHARACTER
Pro 23:7
THE man referred to in our text is one who had invited guests to his table, and was serving them with all the outward appearances of hospitality, whilst inwardly purposing their ruin and planning to execute his spite. Solomon calls attention to the well-known fact that men may act a dual part, pretending the good and hoping all the while to gain some unholy advantage by hypocrisy. He would warn us against that courtesy which hides away criminal intent; and he seeks to shield the credulous from the snare of human huntsmen by calling attention to the latent thought as the last, though silent, expression of the real design. For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.
And yet we see no reason why we should not bring from this text the greater, broader principle which the sentence so perfectly expresses, namely: the relation of creed to conduct. Every one must admit that a certain relation exists, and that our text defines that relation perfectly. If there can be such a thing as a man thinking always one way and acting always in ways diverse from his purpose, then who could describe the horror of the heart in which such a battle between purpose and prosecution was going on. No, even as our text says, As he thinketh in his heart, so is he, and that is true of both the worst and the best among us. Our creed determines our conduct.
I employ the word creed in the original and rightful sense of that term. I intend by it, that opinion, or circle of opinions, which an individual is found to be entertaining. I am sorry that this good word, creed, has been so associated in ecclesiastical speech that it is today an offensive term, in the judgment of many most excellent men. Use it in whatever sense you may; there comes with its utterance an offensive breath. It is the breath of a past age in which the limitations put upon thought by men who were ignorantly bigoted, and pretenders to infallibility, fairly prevented progress in study, and left religion, science and literature stupid, falling into rottenness and decay. I do not wonder that men say of such creeds, they shall not shape my faith, nor determine my conduct, nor circumscribe the realm of my research.
The period is past in which the creed that came of mere tradition is to be accepted as true. At the coming of Christ, it would appear from Scripture, men had almost ceased to think at all for themselves. The learned among the Jews pursued a policy in study which furnished the most striking contrast with that employed at Athens, the great center of secular learning. Of the Athenians it is said, They spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing. Of the masters in Israel it might have been said with equal emphasis, They spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell or hear some old thing. Geikie in his Life and Words of Christ, refers to this influence which tradition held, in words that seem strange indeed to the methods of our age, saying, As in the case of the Brahminical theocracy of India, that of Judea attached more importance to the ceremonial precepts of its schools than to the sacred texts on which they were based. Wherever Scripture and tradition seemed opposed, the latter was treated as the higher authority. Phariseeism openly proclaimed this, and set itself, as the Gospel expresses it, in the chair of Moses, displacing the great law-giver.
It is a greater offence, says the Mischua, to teach anything contrary to the voice of the Rabbis, than to contradict Scripture itself * *. The Bible was like water, the traditions, likewise the commentaries on the traditions, like spiced wine. When Jesus came, he wrought along revolutionary lines. It would have been vastly more popular to have agreed with the fathers, and rehashed the old things. But traditions then were too remote from the truth for Christ to accept, indorse and teach them. So he was ever and again astonishing his hearers by swinging out on some new line of truth, by bringing to light the long neglected, yet loftiest, principles of right, by contradicting even what the most noted Rabbis had received from hoary tradition and were repeating with religious fervor. Men were amazed at his boldness and said, He teaches with authority, and came demanding, By what authority sayest Thou this?
There is always more or less of tradition in religion. Men have heard from some speaker what pleased them, and they are as vigilant in its defense as they are earnest in protecting the inspired Word. In fact, they are sometimes more ardent far in arguing for that faith which has been handed down by some favorite teacher than they are in defending the truth, fresh-read from the sacred text. There is no surer way for an individual thinker to bring against himself carping and the cruellest criticism than to announce as his faith what clashes with the existing opinions of some people. Men do not turn into the Scriptures to see who may be right, the innovater, or the fathers against whom he has run, but unsheath their daggers and start at once at the breast of him who dares to speak the truth which causes the old creed to crumble.
At this point advanced (?) thinkers have always had my sympathy. While I cannot accept their conclusions, I have no right as a Christian, and as one who wishes for himself untrammeled liberty in study, to deride the motive and impeach the purpose of him who studies the same sacred text, and seeks the same illumination, and yet is forced to another conclusion. It seems to me that most revolutionary doctrines, if they half-approve themselves to our sense of the right, are worthy our calmest consideration. They may contain the very logic, which, like the Masters speeches, is calculated to establish that which we should hold as the Word of the Lord, and sift out that which we have only brought from the traditions of men.
Some people seem to think that in order to pay proper respect to the fathers, we must go on forever repeating their thoughts and defending their faiths. On the other hand we would do violence to their sense of right, if we saw in their systems of faith, deficiencies, and left them without the needful correction.
There used to prevail in some Eastern countries, the custom of burying the living kindred with the dead. He who holds to all that has been taught, asking no questions, seeking no light, effecting no progress, has consented to share the fathers theological grave. We repeat, the period has passed in which men only ask, What has been said upon this subject, or what has been taught touching this doctrine? The time has come when teachers everywhere should ask other, What ought now to be said? What can now be truthfully taught? and then go out to propagate that Gospel which they read from the Word of the Lord. He who does that will have a creed which must shape his own conduct and is most apt to affect for good, the behaviour and opinions of his hearers.
Again, when we speak of creed and conduct, we do not intend by creed, that creation of partisan council, or dogma of fallible popes, or even the confessions of faith formulated by renowned Presbyteries.
Ours is not a time in which mere ecclesiasticism determines the limits of a mans faith. That fallacy has never recovered from Luthers exposition of the truth. When a man, in the close of the nineteenth century and in Protestant America, stands forth to inform the world what the ritualistic churches have taught, and demands of us an assent to their every utterance, whether Scriptural or not, we seem to hear a voice from an age long since dead, and one which we had ardently hoped was buried out of sight. At every such a speech, the truly Protestant Christian is both amazed and amusedamazed at the credulity which can accept the decisions of men whose minds were only medium and whose characters were not always above reproach; amused at the extravagance of asking men to defend and practice the decrees of their fellows, when God has already spoken, and His speech is an open page.
A young fellow came into my room not long since, whose home is under the shadow of a famous Theological School. After, he was convinced that I wouldnt give an order for the books he was selling, he launched out upon the theological sea. He asked me why I didnt do this and that, and said the book of common prayer taught these duties. I responded by asking him why he didnt get baptized? He said he didnt believe in my baptism! I opened my Bible and began reading him such passages as Mat 3:5-6; Mar 1:9; and Rom 6:4. He said, Those references dont amount to anything. My church teaches differently! I asked him where his church got the right to teach differently. He replied, We are the Apostolic church and surely it knows what is right! I asked him what evidence he had that his was the Apostolic church. He replied, All history proves it. I asked him to be a little more definite and reminded him of a vast deal of history that never so much as heard of his church. Then he said, Every student of the church fathers knew the truth of their claim of Apostolic succession. I asked him which one or ones of the church fathers taught it. He said, All of them. But, I said, give me the name of one of them.
Poor fellow, in his confusion, he had forgotten them all. After lecturing him to my hearts content on the folly of assertions which he could not defend and the foolishness of a faith which swallowed fallible utterances without testing their degree of truth by the Revelation of God, I gave him the names of the most prominent fathers, and told him to use them hereafter and not appear so green. He went away saying, Mr. Riley, I know I have made a fool of myself, but I know the creed of my church is right.
All that reminds us of Moodys anecdote which he relates of a man whom he asked what he believed. The fellow replied, I believe what my church believes. And what does your church believe? continued Moody. It believes what I believe, replied the man.
The man who can be satisfied with such a faith is almost as credulous as the witty Irishman, who is reported to have been piloting a company of travellers through the most interesting institutions of his native land. In one building he showed the distinguished gentlemen a number of relics and related to them the traditions associated with each. Finally, he brought to one of the men a skull, saying as he passed it to the visitors hand, The skull of St. Patrick. Oh, said the visitor, as he received the distinguished bones and began a close study of them.
Shortly afterward the Irishman was on the ground a second time, bowing as before and offering to the man a much smaller head, and explained, Here, your honor, is the skull of St. Patrick when he was a boy.
I am fully persuaded that; over-credulity has dragged into mens minds almost as much of hurtful error, as scepticism itself has effected in the lives of men. For my own part, I hail the dawning of the age of investigation. Except a man be able to give a reason for the faith that is in him, his creed will not be apt to greatly affect his conduct. It is one thing to subscribe ones name to a system of theology wrought out by others; but to live out a poor fragment of theology which you yourself have brought from Gods Word is another thing, and a vastly better thing.
This sermon was suggested to me by an editorial in which the writer employed these words, What startling contradictions, what bewildering paradoxes, do we often find in mens opinions and conduct. It is said of the most Christian King, Louis 15th, whose life was one long orgie, that he was strictly orthodox in his religious belief. The victims of his vile pleasures were carefully instructed in the Catholic faith. While he was wallowing in every pollution, he was anxious to keep his harem free from the heresies of the Jansenists.
It will be a good day for the world when men learn that such creeds have not the strength of a spiders web to hold men back from hell! I sometimes think they will prove to be only the net in which Satan shall take captive the souls of silly men. The bottomless pit is the place for creeds that do not improve mens conduct.
Some people may be asking, What need of creeds at all? I answer, The question is a wild one. So long as men think, creeds must exist, for a mans thought is a mans creed. If the question is more far-reaching and intends to ask after the denominational creeds of Christendom, I say, They exist for a like reason. Men have learned that great companies of them bring from Gods truth substantially the same ideas. In that fact they find a needed basis for organization and most effective service to their common Lord.
If any man thinks the principle upon which the churches act in this matter a wrong one, let him attempt to form a bank-stock company, to inaugurate a building and loan association, a perfect business corporation of any sort, by putting together a score of men, each of whom holds another business opinion from that of any of his proposed partners. If that stock doesnt sell at fifty percent below par before a year has passed, then the parties will either dissolve their relations or the world will witness the eighth wonder.
So, neither can a church or denomination exist whose members hold such diverse and diverging opinions, that all becomes religious wrangle. Those men, who are today worrying the brethren in their respective denominations, with their irregular opinions, could learn a lesson on good behaviour from the Baptist clergymen who from time to time have dissented from the fundamental principles which their churches bring from Gods Word. Until lately scarce a man of them all but played the part of a Christian gentleman, and learning that he was not in sympathy with our views of truth, stepped down and out, seeking more congenial relations for his own work, and saving the church the painful disturbance that his continued stay would have worked. Toy, Behrends, Pentecost Hague and Bridgeman all went and we wished them so well as to hope for them a re-discovery of the truths they had lost.
But the value of knowing what your church believes, my friend, is to be measured by the influence which that faith exerts on your conduct. As the late Dr. Northrup so strongly said, in his address at Cin, There are worse heresies in these last days than heterodoxy of doctrine. They are the heresies of conduct. James discusses that subject when, in his Epistle, he says, What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can such faith save him? If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body, what doth it profit? Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone (Jas 2:14-17).
Any system of faith that can be lawfully brought from Gods truth must have as one of its first and most fundamental principles, the doctrine of the necessity of a regenerate nature. But a man might give that first place in the formulated statement of his doctrine, and yet be as far from living like a man made over by Gods Spirit as the East is from the West.
I was reading one day, when I came upon a sentence from Carlyle, in which he said, Cheerfulness was a prime necessity to success and was a mans duty as well. We ought to smile at the world as we walk its paths. Why didnt he do it then? we ask. Why didnt he conform his conduct to his creed? Why did he live and speak as pessimistically as if God was dead?
And so the people who look to us as Christians, judge of what we believe by the way in which we behave. That is the best way to show your faith, to illustrate your faith, to impress your faith upon others: Live it out. One day of regenerate living goes farther toward establishing that doctrine of Scripture, than a subscription to all the creeds of Christendom could do, no matter how much they emphasized that article of the faith.
Again, repentance must enter into all creeds brought from Scripture.
But it isnt the mere article on the printed page. It is that change of mind and revolution of thought that will effect another and a holier life. I believe in his repentance who brings forth its fruit in godliness and obedience.
When Frederick Charrington of East London repented, nobody was in doubt of itnot so much because he told them that he believed in repentance, but because he showed them the fruits of that experience.
Mr. Hughes in his work, Social Christianity, says of Charrington, When he was converted to God, as a brewer, he started a Bible-class. One day it occurred to him that it was very inconsistent that he should try to reclaim with a Bible-class on Sunday the men who were made drunk with his beer on Saturday. Thereupon, without hesitation, that brave young man, for the sake of Christ and the human race, sacrificed 80,000.
Be willing to give up your ungodly associates, and have quenched your unholy passions and appetites, and sacrifice your unholy gain, my friend, and you have the creed that I want for the Church.
Again, any creed that is Scriptural must contain an article touching a mans willingness to obey God.
But the only way for a man to get that article in the creed of life is to have and exercise the spirit of obedience. Paul got up from the place whereon his old creed had been shattered by a voice from Heaven, saying, Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do? That was the beginning of a new creed, which was to be co-extensive with conduct. That creed cost him his life at last, because he both purposed and performed. He might have silently held to all his ideas and passed through the world unmolested. But death in Gods service was preferred by him, above the silent ease to which the devil tempted him.
So, my friend, if you only say that Obedience is better than sacrifice, and go right on disobeying God, refusing to confess Him before men as He requires, refusing to put Him on in baptism as He requires, refusing to come out from the world and be separate as He demands, refusing to show your love for Him by keeping His commandments as He tells you you must do, then dont be deceived into thinking that somehow you will escape His wrath and enter Heaven.
The time will come when every disobedient soul shall know the truth to which Walter Scott gave utterance when drawing his last breath. His son-in-law was at his bed-side and Scott looked into the face of the young man from whom he was about to part for all of time, and so he said, Be a good man, Lockhartbe a good man. Nothing else will give you any comfort when you come to lie here.
So, my friend, whatever your creed, get one that is truthful, For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he. There is a beautiful legend about one of the early saints, Hymelin, that when he was dying, all the church-bells in town began ringing in the sweetest
Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley
(7) For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.He is not really friendly and hospitable, as his words would imply, but he grudges every morsel thou takest, calculating its cost.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
v. 7. for as he thinketh in his heart, so is he,
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
Pro 23:7 For as he thinketh in his heart, so [is] he: Eat and drink, saith he to thee; but his heart [is] not with thee.
Ver. 7. For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he. ] Mens cuiusque is est quisque: – The man is as his mind is; or as he thinketh in his heart, so he speaketh. He cannot so dissemble, but that soon he blurts out some word, or shows some sign of his sordid disposition. Some read it thus: For as he grudgeth his own soul, so he will say unto thee, Eat, drink, &c. As he starves his own genius, and cannot afford himself a good meal’s meat, so be grudgeth at his guests whom yet he bids welcome. Christ doth not so. Son 5:1
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
thinketh, &c. = estimates himself.
heart = soul. Hebrew. nephesh.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
as: Pro 19:22, Mat 9:3, Mat 9:4, Luk 7:39
Eat: Jdg 16:15, 2Sa 13:26-28, Psa 12:2, Psa 55:21, Dan 11:27, Luk 11:37-54
Reciprocal: Jdg 16:10 – now tell me 2Ch 1:11 – this was Pro 10:20 – the heart Pro 24:9 – thought Dan 11:24 – forecast his devices Luk 14:1 – they