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  • A Word to the Cunning – 2

    Cunning Defined

    NOUN

    1[MASS NOUN] Skill in achieving one’s ends by deceit.

    Thesaurus:

    [Nouns] cunning, craft; cunningness, craftiness; subtlety, artificiality; maneuvering; temporization; circumvention.
    chicane, chicanery; sharp practice, knavery, jugglery; concealment [more]; guile, doubling, duplicity (falsehood) [more]; foul play.
    diplomacy, politics; Machiavelism; jobbery, backstairs influence.
    art, artifice; device, machination; plot (plan) [more]; maneuver, stratagem, dodge, artful dodge, wile; trick, trickery (deception) [more]; ruse, ruse de guerre; finesse, side blow, thin end of the wedge, shift, go by, subterfuge, evasion; white lie (untruth) [more]; juggle, tour de force; tricks of the trade, tricks upon travelers; espieglerie; net, trap [more].
    Ulysses, Machiavel, sly boots, sly dog, fox, reynard; dodger, Artful Dodger [Dickens], smooth operator, sweet talker; Yankee; intriguer, intrigant; spin doctor, schemer [more].

    Cunning in Scripture

    You will be hard-pressed to find cunning as an adjective, verb or even a noun (such as the synonyms above), but the Bible puts forth many examples of cunning described by other more familiar words.

    Let me ask you this: look at the list above and what comes to mind? Do you see a face of someone in the news or a cunning person in your workplace? Perhaps you imagine the cunning cohort in politics who would just as soon stab someone in the back as tell the truth to the people.

    Sometimes cunning in the Bible is used to describe a specialized understanding of craftsmanship. After all, who today understands the complexity of the US elections or the craft of passing legislation no one understands? We look to the cunning businessman or woman of the world with both envy and disdain. How could they have become so cunning as to achieve their high success? What lies have they sold to millions who will elect them?

    The Hebrew word for cunning may be somewhat familiar, for it has many contexts.

    יָדַע yâdaʻ

    We find it from near the beginning: to know, learn to know, to perceive, to perceive and see, find out and discern,
    to discriminate, distinguish 2.

    The pivotal questions are: Who is the source of the knowledge? Is their word true or a well-crafted lie?

    “Consider the source’ was once a common-sense evaluation now given up to a retractable headline truism.

    Genesis 3:5-6

    For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.

    • What is the source?

    You will find the cunning one in verse 1:

    Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”

    Satan is darkness in the guise of light. The serpent seems to be for us, even an advocate for us against God. He fits as needed all the descriptions of cunning or crafty: subtle, shrewd, crafty, sly, sensible, prudent…

    ‘Did God actually say…?” Satan asks us time and time again?

    • Is the word truth or a well-crafted lie?

    For God knows that when you eat of it… you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw … that the tree was to be desired to make one wise…

    The command is questioned. Truth is suppressed and twisted into untruth. So how like God do you feel now? Is our knowledge of good and evil the answer to our eternal life? For satan claimed: ‘But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die.”‘ – Gen 3:4

    The question of proverbial wisdom is appropriately about the source:

    • Is it from God?
    • Is this Truth?
    • Or has Satan twisted fact into lies that may seem like truth?

    Proverbs include warnings of the cunning

    Solomon reminds us here of God as the source of truth.

    Proverbs 2:

    6 For the Lord gives wisdom;
        from his mouth come knowledge and understanding;
    7 he stores up sound wisdom for the upright;
        he is a shield to those who walk in integrity,
    8 guarding the paths of justice
        and watching over the way of his saints.

    …

    11 discretion will watch over you,
        understanding will guard you,
    12 delivering you from the way of evil,
        from men of perverted speech,
    13 who forsake the paths of uprightness
        to walk in the ways of darkness,
    14 who rejoice in doing evil
        and delight in the perverseness of evil,
    15 men whose paths are crooked,
        and who are devious in their ways.

    Why the warning against those cunning men and women who plan evil?

    I can think of several examples of those who sought to trap or use righteous men to achieve their goals. Among these are Ahab, king of Samaria making a pact with Jehoshaphat of Judah. 2 Chronicles 18 has a complex and cunning plot of two leaders described as doing what was evil in the sight of the Lord. 1 Kings 21 describes a plot of Jezebel, evil wife of evil King Ahab, cunningly taking the land of another man by a carefully laid out plan of deceit. Their purpose to rule puts them against God’s greatest Prophet of the Old Testament, Elijah.

    Another example of cunning appears in the early days of the New Testament church, one of another powerful leader of sorts, one of whom his disciples said, “This man is the power of God that is called Great.”

    More about his choice when confronted by the power of the Holy Spirit in our next word to the cunning.

    To be continued…

     

     

  • A Word to the Cunning

    A Word to the Wise

    We would typically think of the Proverbs of Solomon, or perhaps anyone else as being a ‘word to the wise.’ Although my introductory focus looks to the early thoughtful expressions of this oft’ quoted book, I direct your attention to those leaders of this day who seemingly ignore these time-tested nuggets of wisdom, candidates of cunning, men and women of questionable wisdom and little affinity for the guidance of God.

    Solomon was handed everything a leader could ask for from God or his own father, the conquering King David of Israel in this case. Solomon’s wisdom was sought out by other leaders during his reign in about 970–931 BC. We read his Proverbs and ought to heed his advice of Ecclesiastes written in his old age near to the time when Israel fell into division and ruin after the time of his death.

    Proverbs 1:

    The proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel:

    2 To know wisdom and instruction,
        to understand words of insight,
    3 to receive instruction in wise dealing…

    A word to the wise:

    Note the description of words lacking in this 21st c. AD environment of political upheaval and note that Solomon’s own country would experience a division of purpose led by those who repeatedly would do ‘what is evil in the sight of the LORD.’

    …   in righteousness, justice, and equity;
    4 to give prudence to the simple…

    Wisdom eludes the unrighteous, prudence is hidden from the cunning.

    Roger Harned

    Justice and equity become perverted in the eyes of evildoers.

    Roger Harned

    Let the reader understand the proverbs of my own understanding, as instructed in the Lord from the wisdom of the Bible. Although Solomon’s Proverbs are directed toward “.. knowledge and discretion to the youth—” understanding is reward to those seeking the Lord’s will at any age.

    5 Let the wise hear and increase in learning,
        and the one who understands obtain guidance,
    6 to understand a proverb and a saying,
        the words of the wise and their riddles.

    7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge;
    fools despise wisdom and instruction.

    Proverbs 1 – excerpts

    22 “How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple?
    How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing
        and fools hate knowledge?

    24 Because I have called and you refused to listen,
        have stretched out my hand and no one has heeded,
    25 because you have ignored all my counsel
        and would have none of my reproof,
    26 I also will laugh at your calamity;
        I will mock when terror strikes you,
    27 when terror strikes you like a storm
        and your calamity comes like a whirlwind,
        when distress and anguish come upon you.
    28 Then they will call upon me, but I will not answer;
        they will seek me diligently but will not find me.
    29 Because they hated knowledge
        and did not choose the fear of the Lord,
    30 would have none of my counsel
        and despised all my reproof…

    Where is God?

    The fools ask too late; for we did not listen to the wisdom of the LORD when we walked in our own paths. We did not lead the people to worship the Lord with gratitude for our freedom nor did we acknowledge our blessings. We turned from the Lord and from righteousness, led astray by cunning leaders. Fools have followed fools and ignored the wisdom of the godly.

    When calamity falls upon us and we finally ask God ‘Why did this happen?’ will the silence of the Lord not be appropriate to a people with ears that will not hear the wisdom of the Lord?

    Are you open to receiving the wisdom of the Lord or do you rely on your own cunning?

    To be continued…

  • Parable of the Talents and Barns – 2

    Parable of the Talents and Barns

    Parable of the Talents (conclusion)

    Gunny sack24 He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, 25 so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.’ 26 But his master answered him, ‘You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed? 27 Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. 28 So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents. 29 For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. 30 And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

    Now consider the three servants. One shrewd servant managed his master’s 5 talents well, in fact not only doubling his investment over time but receiving an extra talent of the not-s0-shrewd servant who hid it away in a miserly manner. The servant who received three talents was also twice blessed. The foolish servant ends up with nothing. Furthermore, he ends up in hell.

    Think about your money. Is it your money? Or is it money God has provided for you?

    The parable of the talents seems to beg the question: Are you investing God’s resources wisely?

    Parable of the Barns

    In the parable of the barns we have a man who has invested well; in fact so well that he has need of more barns for his crops. He is rich, yet the man is as miserly with his crops as the man who buried the single talent of his master, that is just one bag of silver coins, in the ground. The rich man is ready to retire with all the holdings he has earned over his days of hard work.

    Luke 12:

    16 And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, 17 and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ 18 And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”’

    Did you know that the word ‘soul’ in Greek ψυχή the transliteration means psychē?

    What lesson does Jesus bring to the conclusion of this parable?

    Parable of the Barns (conclusion)

    And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”’ – Luke 12:19b

    20 But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ 21 So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”

    Shocking! This man had it all. And then he dies suddenly.

    Could it happen? Could it happen to you?

    Could you die suddenly before enjoying your earthly reward, the harvest of your many days of hard work?

    Parable of the Talents and Barns (conclusion)

    Perhaps you have missed a connection between these two parables of Jesus. Jesus does not connect these two parables, yet you may have missed a common thread. This thread has more than a shekel of value in both parables. It is more of an umbilical cord with the complexity of a talent.

    baby in womb
    280 days of life before light

    Man has about 280 days in the womb even before birth. Add about 18oo days to reach school age and maybe 4000 more until this man or woman is ready to save enough shekels to start farming or working for a master in your workplace.

    An eighteen year old will probably not note these shekels of days; but many years later the same man will think that he has earned something. He has accomplished something. She has become her own woman.

    They have invested their days to gain and built their barns with little consideration of those dependant days when God ruled over their universe.

    Many have forgotten when our very life and existence was inextricably tied to our mother. We have not honored our father, who gave his own talents and crops that we might thrive in our mother’s care and under his watchful eye.

    10 Talents

    1 talent = about 3000 shekels (75 lbs)

    A loving father raised you in his home for a shekel of days. When you were ready to grow on your own he gave you everything you needed for your household during the days until his return.

    Your loving father gave you twice the talents of some, perhap ten for your shrewdness and even eleven.

    The day of His return you do not know.

    The average life of a man is about 80 years, perhaps about 30,000 days. By the accounting of your days as shekels your lifespan may be, God willing, about 10 talents.

    Jesus said: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

    “But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. – Mark 13:31-32

    Man is like a breath;
    his days are like a passing shadow. – Psalm 144:4

    Will you build a barn or will you invest each shekel of your days from the Lord wisely?

    Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it. 

    – Ecclesiastes 12:7 KJV