Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Leithart

Home
Evangelical
Proverbs 22:3-11

Proverbs 22:3-11

Last updated on: September 7, 2017 at 12:03 am by Peter Leithart

Proverbs 22:3-11 2017-09-07T00:03:41+06:00 Peter Leithart

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

PROVERBS 22:3

Like many Proverbs, this one treats wisdom and prudence as a matter of foresight. The imagery is of a pathway along which the prudent and the foolish are walking. The prudent sees trouble/evil ahead, and avoids it, while the naïve simpleton keeps going, stumbles right into trouble, and pays for it.

The richness of the passage is heightened by allusions to the temptation and fall in Genesis 3. The word for “prudent” is the same word used for the serpent in Genesis 3:1, and the prudent man is said to hide himself, as Adam hid himself among the trees of the garden. The allusions to Genesis 3 go in opposite directions. On the one hand, Adam is the simpleton who does not see trouble coming and stumbles ahead and is punished. On the other hand, he seems to act like the prudent man in the fact that he hides himself from the punishment that he knows is coming. But Adam’s is not prudent hiding; there is hiding before evil comes – which is prudent – and there is hiding after evil has already happened – which is irresponsible. The hiding of the prudent is different, different in timing above all, from the hiding of an Adam or an Achan.

This verse also sheds light on Jesus’ exhortation to His disciples to be “wise as serpents.” To be “shrewd” as the serpent was means, in Proverbs 22:3, to avoid evil and hide away. This the serpent did, though in a perverse form. He hid his true intentions under a show of concern for Eve’s well-being. Again, there is hiding and there is hiding. There is the hiding of godly wisdom, which avoids evil; there is the hiding of satanic wisdom, the hiding of the serpent who was a deceiver from the beginning.

PROVERBS 22:4

The verse may be translated, woodenly, as “The end of humility and the fear of Yahweh – riches, honor, and life.” The word translated as “end” can mean “wages” or “reward,” but the first meaning is end. Reward is what comes at the end, what follows a process, what closes out a sequence. Humility and the fear of Yahweh have a telos, a built-in eschatology, a terminus ad quem. This is “reward” so long as we recognize that the reward is not extrinsic to the process that leads to it; the reward is “internal” to the process that it rewards, the natural climax.

Humility certainly includes humility before Yahweh, as this verse shows by connecting humility with the fear of Yahweh. But Proverbs is also clear that humility is humility before men – a willingness to take counsel, to hear rebuke, to suffer discipline from other human beings.

Humility and fear of God have a triple reward: riches, honor, life. We are reminded of the promise of Romans 2, that life and honor and immortality will be given to those who persevere in doing good. And the triple reward perhaps corresponds to the three gifts of the ark of the covenant – law, rod, and bread; which in turn perhaps link with the triple office of priest, king, and prophet.

It is worth noting again that the life of wisdom and fear endorsed the Proverbs is a life of fear of Yahweh. The Proverbs do not provide generic a-religious advice, but describe aspects of faithfulness to the living God.

PROVERBS 22:5

Thorns take us back again to Genesis 3, this time to the curses that Yahweh pronounces against Adam because of their sin. The earth will produce thorns, and as the Bible develops these thorns are typically thorny, clinging, painful human beings. Cain made life rough going for Abel, and finally ended his life altogether; thorny people, thorny rulers and parents, thorny elders – all of these make life challenging. Snares are also associated with people, especially in the Psalms, where the wicked lay snares for the righteous.

The Proverb says that these thorns and snares inhibit the progress of the “perverse.” The word can mean “deceitful, false,” and this Proverb warns that unfaithfulness in speech or conduct will make life difficult. The garden of the deceitful produces thorns and briars.

The solution is to guard oneself. The image is interesting. Guarding usually involves protection of another, or of a place. But the Bible speaks with some regularity about the need for self-guarding. As the Levites protected the sacred space of the tabernacle, so the wise will protect the sacred space of his own life to keep thorns and snares from finding a place there. Self-policing, self-protection is an essential Christian discipline, and the only way to achieve productive Christian living. Without self-policing of words, behavior, thoughts, we are liable to stumble into traps and have to tear our way through briars.

PROVERBS 22:6

The Hebrew says, cryptically, “Train a child in the mouth of his way.” It is famously ambiguous. Is this saying “according to his own desire (mouth)” and thus serving as a warning? Or is it a promise that if we set our children on a trajectory early in life, they will continue on the same trajectory into old age?

The ambiguity is possibly deliberate. Either way, the child is father to the man. If we train children in the ways of wisdom and godliness, the fear of Yahweh, we can hope for them to persevere in that way. On the other hand, if we leave them to what their own mouths desire, we can expect them to persevere in that pathway, stubbornly doing what they please to the end of their lives.

PROVERBS 22:7

Moderns resist hierarchy, but it is inevitable. There are always rulers and ruled; hierarchy and inequality are built into the world. One of the leading forms of hierarchy is one of wealth. The rich rule from on high, while the poor are low subordinates. Solomon is not making a value judgment about this; it is simply a fact of human life.

Money gives power – the power to purchase things and people’s time, the power to mold life into the image of our desires, the power to control and to avoid consequences. Wealth comes in various forms; it is not always monetary. But “wealth” of status or honor translates into power as well. It is not accident that we instinctively think of kings as “wealthy.” Wealth rules.

The second line gives a specific applicati
on of this universal reality. The lender is the rich, richer at least than the borrower in some respect, while the borrower is the poor. The lender thus rules the borrower, and the borrower is, to one degree or another, his slave. In Israel , of course, the debtor might literally become a slave if he is unable to repay.

The Bible never forbids debt as such. But it discourages it in various ways. Paul says that we should owe no one anything except the debt of love, and Paul also exhorts us to avoid submitting ourselves to slavery once we have been liberated in Christ.

Yet, Christ brings a great reversal of this Proverb. He who has no debts, who owes no man anything, became a debtor for our benefit, paying the price of our release from debt and slavery, becoming a slave to redeem slaves. So ought we to do to one another.

PROVERBS 22:8

Solomon uses agricultural imagery to describe realities of life. Like Paul and Jesus, he says that we reap as we sow. Our actions are always a kind of planting. We are always sowing seed that will come to fruition later on. If we sow righteousness, we will reap eternal life; if we sow iniquity, we reap “vanity,” that is to say, insubstantial nothing.

The image suggests that this connection of cause and consequence is a “natural” one. We can no more reap weight and glory by sowing sin than we can harvest barley after sowing broccoli. There is a natural connection between what we reap and what we sow.

The second line of this Proverb is obscure. The one who sows iniquity is still in view, and he now has a rod rather than seed. The point seems to be twofold: On the one hand, the man who sows iniquity will find that he reaps nothing, and will be furious in his frustration. On the other hand, his frustration will be ineffectual. He won’t have authority or power because he will have no wealth (v. 27), because he harvests nothing.

The Lord is the great sower, who sows the word of His righteousness and reaps abundantly. And his rod is not frustrated.

PROVERBS 22:9

The NASB translation doesn’t get the specific image of the Hebrew, which says “The good (of) eye he shall be blessed, for he gives from his bread to the poor.” Jesus uses the image of the “eye” when talking about wealth as well: “If you eye is clear, then is your body full of light” (Matthew 6). The eye is an organ of judgment in Scripture, and it is also therefore an organ associated with valuations, including valuations of wealth. In the context, Jesus is talking about setting our hearts on storing heavenly treasures, and the “dark eye” is associated with a false valuation of earthly treasure while the “clear eye” is associated with a right evaluation of heavenly and earthly treasures.

There is, again, a connection with Genesis 3. Adam and Eve had their eyes opened by eating from the tree of knowledge. In that context, the eyes are eyes of judgment and rule, the eyes of kings. By eating from the tree, they were elevated to a royal status for which they were ill prepared. But if we connect that thematic with Proverbs 22:9, we can conclude that part of the elevation to kingship is elevation to generosity. A king is one with a good eye – to discern between good and evil, and to give to those who are in need.

Part of having a “good” or “clear” eye is generosity, as this verse makes clear (and as Jesus also makes clear in talking about alms-giving). One with a good eye is one who casts a kind eye on the needy and poor. Solomon says, as Jesus does, that God repays generosity to the poor. Those with good eyes will be blessed.

It is significant that the Proverb says that the man with a good eye gives “from” his bread, or as the NASB says “some of his bread.” That might sound less than fully generous: Why doesn’t he give it all away? Is Solomon endorsing a residual selfishness? I think instead we should view this as a description of hospitality. What happens to the rest of the bread? The man with a good eye consumes it, but consumes it along with the poor. The picture is of a man eating bread, confronted by a poor man, who gives part of his bread to the poor man. Hospitality, not unilateral dispossession, is the biblical ideal. Those who have should give to those who don’t have, but they give in such a way that they share the goods together . To put it another way, the economic reality of charity is part of the larger “social” reality of fellowship. The Table (like Jesus’ table during His lifetime) is the model.

PROVERBS 22:10

Scoffers are haughty and mock at all that is right and good. As mockers, they cause strife, and as long as there are mockers about the strife will not cease. Conflict is the inevitable result when there’s someone in the community who’s always snorting at the leaders, flouting the rules, tearing down what is good, using the acids of irony to eat away at the foundations. On a smaller scale, this happens in families, when parents get away with mocking children or children parents or children children. It can happen on a cultural scale, when a people develops habits of irony and scoffing.

Solomon says that expulsion is the only solution. A mocker may be rebuked, but Paul says that the time for rebukes comes to an end. We don’t rebuke forever and ever. At some point, the only solution to mockery is to guard the community from the mocker by getting rid of him.

PROVERBS 22:11

Purity of heart doesn’t refer to a purity that is completely inward. Rather, purity of heart refers to the unalloyed devotion of the heart. The term comes from the sacrificial and cleanliness system of Israel . Pure gold is gold that isn’t contaminated by other baser metals; a pure sacrifice is one that is without blemish. A man who is pure in heart is one who is devoted to obedience to Yahweh, who fears Him above all. His devotion to Yahweh is not mixed with compromise or worship of idols.

Jesus says on a number of occasions that there is a direction connection between the he
art and the tongue. Out of the treasures of the heart the mouth speaks. Solomon says the same. A man with a pure heart speaks words of grace. This doesn’t mean that he speaks soft words. It means that his words edify, build up, because they express the devotion of his heart. He is not a yes-man, whose words are always “nice.” Jesus’ words were not always “nice,” but they were always full of grace, intended to and effective in building up His hearers.

Solomon says that a man of pure devotions, whose lips speak out the purity of his heart, will be a king’s friend. A king’s friend is an advisor to the king, not merely a king’s pal. Jesus calls the disciples king’s friends in this sense; they know what the King is doing, and they have the privilege of offering their advice to Him. We are all king’s friends, privileged to offer our words to King Jesus in prayer.

Solomon certainly has earthly kings in view, and the same principle holds. Who gets the ear of King Jesus? Whoever is pure of heart and speaks words full of grace. Who gets the ear of the king? Whoever is devoted, honest, straightforward, full of edifying speech. The way to political authority is not compromise, but faithfulness.

Bible - OT - Proverbs

Previous Post

June 19, 2008

Fixed past?

Next Post

June 20, 2008 Why Obama Won’t Win

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category 1 Corinthians 1-2 Samuel 1968 Abelard Abortion Abraham Acedia AD 70 Adam Smith Addiction Advent Advertising Aeneid Aesthetics Africa African Christianity African Church African religion Age Aging Agriculture Airline industry Alabama Alasdair MacIntyre Albania Alcohol Allegory Alms Alternative Medicine Ambrose America American Christianity American culture American economy American Evangelicals American Foreign Policy American history American Literature American Military American Politics American Religion American Revolution Anagogy Analytic Philosophy Anamnesis Ancient Egypt Ancient Greece Ancient history Ancient Near East Ancient Religion Angels Anglican Church Anglicanism Animism Anointing of the Sick Anselm Anthropology Anthropomorphism anti-Catholicism Antiquities Antonio Lopez apocalypse Apocalyptic Apocalyptic language Apostles Creed Aquinas Archeology Architecture Arianism Aristotle Ark of the Covenant Art Art History Ascension Aseity Assurance Athanasius Atheism Athens atonement Attention Attributes Augustine Austin Farrer Authority autonomy Avant-garde Awe Bach Ballooning Balzac Banking Bankruptcy Baptism Baptists Baseball Basketball Bavinck Beatitudes Beauty Behavioral Economics Being Benedict XVI Benjamin Benjamin Franklin Beowulf Berkeley Bernie Sanders Bertrand Russell Bestiary Bible Bible - criticism Bible - NT Bible - NT - 1 Corinthians Bible - NT - 1 John Bible - NT - 1 Peter Bible - NT - 2 Corinthians Bible - NT - 2 Peter Bible - NT - Acts Bible - NT - Colossians Bible - NT - Ephesians Bible - NT - Galatians Bible - NT - Gospels Bible - NT - Hebrews Bible - NT - James Bible - NT - John Bible - NT - Jude Bible - NT - Luke Bible - NT - Mark Bible - NT - Matthew Bible - NT - Paul Bible - NT - Philippians Bible - NT - Revelation Bible - NT - Romans Bible - NT - Thessalonians Bible - NT - Timothy Bible - OT Bible - OT - Amos Bible - OT - Chronicles Bible - OT - Daniel Bible - OT - Deuteronomy Bible - OT - Ecclesiastes Bible - OT - Esther Bible - OT - Exodus Bible - OT - Ezekiel Bible - OT - Ezra-Nehemiah Bible - OT - Genesis Bible - OT - Habakkuk Bible - OT - Hosea Bible - OT - Isaiah Bible - OT - Jeremiah Bible - OT - Job Bible - OT - Joel Bible - OT - Jonah Bible - OT - Joshua Bible - OT - Judges Bible - OT - Kings Bible - OT - Lamentations Bible - OT - Leviticus Bible - OT - Malachi BIble - OT - Micah Bible - OT - Nehemiah Bible - OT - Numbers Bible - OT - Pentateuch Bible - OT - Proverbs Bible - OT - Psalms Bible - OT - Ruth Bible - OT - Samuel Bible - OT - Song of Songs Bible - OT - Torah Bible - OT - Zechariah Bible - OT - Zephaniah Biblical Law Biblicism Billy Graham biography Biology Biololgy Biotechnology Blasphemy Blindness Blog news Blogging Blogroll Bloomsbury Group Bob Dylan Body Body symbolism Boethius Boko Haram Bonhoeffer Book of Common Prayer Books Botany Boundary Brexit Britain British History British Politics Bruce Springsteen Buddhism Bureaucracy Burial Business C. S. Lewis C. S. Peirce Calendars Caliphate Calvin calvinism Camille Paglia Canon Capitalism Cappadocians Carl Schmitt Catholic Social Teaching Catholicism Catholicity Causation cemeteries Cervantes Charism Charismata Charity Charles Dickens Charles Hodge Charles Simeon Charles Taylor Charles Williams Chaucer Chermistry Chess Chesterton Chiasm children China Chinese Exclusion Act Chivalry Chopin Chretien de Troyes Christendom Christian Democracy Christian reconstruction Christianity in Britain Christianization Christmas Christology Chronology Church church and state Church architecture Church Calendar Church history Church of England Church Year Cicero Circumcision Cities City of God Civil Religion Civil Society Civil War Civility Classical Theism Classics Climate Change Clothing Coleridge Colloquy of Marburg Colonialism Color Comedy Comenius Commodity Communio Communism Community Comparative religions Computer Science Confederacy Confessionalization Conflict Congregations consciousness Consecration Conservatism Constantine Constitution consumerism Contra Faustum Conversion Coriolanus Cormac McCarthy Cosmology Cosmopolitanism Council of Trent Counter-culture Counter-insurgency Courage Courtly love Covenants Crafts Craftsmanship Cranach Creation Creativity Creator-creature Credit Crime Crime and Punishment Crisis Critical scholarship Criticism Cross Cubism Cultural theory Culture Culture War Dance Daniel Dennett Dante Darwin Dave Eggers David David Foster Wallace David Hume David Jones Deadly sins Death Debt Dechristianization Decolonization Deconstruction Defoe Deja vu Democracy Denis de Rougemont Denominationalism Derrida Descartes Developmental psychology Devils Diocletian Discipleship Disenchantment Disgust Diversion Diversity Divine energies Divine Impassibility Divine Simplicity Divine Warrior Doctrine dogma Dominion Donald Trump Dostoevsky Douglas Campbell Douglas Farrow Dreams Dualism Durkheim Dystopia E.M. Forster Early Christianity Early Modern Europe Easter Eastern Europe Eastern Orthodoxy Ecclesiology Ecclesiology Economics Economy Ecumenism Eden Edgar Allan Poe Edmund Spenser Education Egypt Election Elites Emergence Emma Emotion Empire England English History English Reformation Enlightenment Entertainment Entrepreneur environmentalism Envy Epic Epiphany Episcopals Epistemology Epistles Equality Erasmus Ernst Kantorowicz Eros Eschatology Eternity Ethics Eucharist Europe Evangelicalism Evangelicals and Catholics Together Events Evil Evolution Exile Face Fairie Queene Fairy Tales Faith family Family and Marriage Fantasy Farming Fashion Fasting Fatherhood Fear Femininity Feminism Fertility Fetishization Feud Feudalism Feuerbach Fiction Figs Film Finance Finland Fire Flag Flags Flannery O'Connor Flood myths Folly Food football Foreign Affairs Foreign Policy Foreknowledge Forgiveness Foucault Fracking France Francois Mauriac Franz Rosenzweig free will Freedom Freedom of God French Revolution Freud Funerals Future G. K. Chesterton Gambling Gaming Gay Marriage Gender gender identity Genealogy Geography George Berkeley George Eliot George Herbert; Poetry George Romanes Gerald Manley Hopkins Germany Gethsemane Gift Gifts Giorgio Agamben Global Christianity Global economics Globalism Globalization Glorious Revolution Gnosticism God's sovereignty Gods Goethe Golf Good Friday Gospel Gospels Gothic Gothic architecture Grace Grammar Gramsci Gratitude Greek Literature Greek Philosophy Greek Religion Greek Science Gregory of Nyssa Guillermo del Toro H. Richard Niebuhr Haiku hair Hamann Hamlet Handicap Handles Hands Hans Urs von Balthasar Happiness Harold Bloom Harper Lee Harvest healing Heaven Heavenly treasure Heavenly treasure Hebrew Bible Hebrew language Hegel Heidegger Hell Hellenism; Judaism; Revelation Henri de Lubac heresy Herman Dooyeweerd Hermeneutics Herod Heroic Heroism Hesiod Hidegard of Bingen Hierarchy Hieronymus Bosch Historicism Historiography History History - Early Modern History - Middle Ages Hoaxes Hobbes Holiness Holy Saturday Holy Spirit Home Homeless Homer Homosexuality Honor hope Horror Hospitality Housing Hugh of St. Victor Human Rights Humanism Humor hylomorphism Hymns Hypocrisy. Iago Iconoclasm Identity Ideology Idleness Idolatry Iliad Images Imagination Immigrant churches Immigrant Religion Immigration Imperialism Improvization Imputation Incarnation Incest India Individualism Indonesia Inequality Inerrancy Infant Baptism Infant mortality Infanticide Ingratitude Innovation Inspiration Institutions Insult Intellectual History Intellectuals Intelligent Design International Politics Internet Intimacy IQ Iran Iran-Iraq War Iraq Ireland Irony Islam Islamic State Islamism Ismail Kadare Israel Ivan Illich J. Gresham Machen J.N. Figgis Jacob Jacques Lacan James Bond James Jordan James Joyce James KA Smith James Wood Jane Austen Jane Jacobs Jealousy Jed Perl Jeff Koons Jeroboam Jesus Jewish War 66-70 AD Jihad Johann Georg Hamann Johannine Epistles John Ashbery John Behr John Bunyan John Calvin John Donne John Frame John Howard Yoder John Knox John Milbank John Milton John Owen John Rawls John Ruskin John Stuart Mill John the Baptist John Webster John Wesley John Williamson Nevin Jonathan Edwards Jorge Luis Borges Joseph Conrad Joseph Ratzinger Journalism Joy Judaism Judaize Judgment Judith Butler Jurgen Moltmann Justice Justification Kalevala Kant Karl Barth Karl Marx Karl Polanyi Karl Rahner Kazakhstan Kazuo Ishiguro Kenneth Lonergan Kierkegaard King Lear Kingdom of God Kitsch Knighthood Knowledge Korea Labor movement Lactantius Lamech Lament Landscape Language Latin America Laughter Law Law and Punishment Leftism Lent Les Murray Levi-Strauss Levites Leviticus Liber Mundi Liberal arts Liberal Theology Liberalism Light Lighthouse Linguistics LIstening Literacy Literary structure Literature Liturgics Liturgy Locke Logic Love Luther Lutheran Lutheranism Lying Lytton Strachey Macbeth Machiavelli Machines Madness Mainline Manhattan Manicheanism Manners Manufacturing Manuscripts Mao Zedong Maps Marcion Marilynne Robinson Marketing Marriage Martha Nussbaum Martin Bucer Martin Chemnitz Martyrdom Marx Marxism Mary Mary Douglas masculinity Mass Materialism Mathematics Maundy Thursday Max Weber Media Mediation Medication Medicine Medieval Church Medieval exegesis Medieval Literature Medieval theology Medieval Thought Medievalism Memory Merchant of Venice Mesopotamian Religion Messianic Metaphor Metaphysics Methodist Mexican-American War Michel de Montaigne Michel Faber Middle Ages Middle East Midwifery Mikhail Bulgakov Military Millennium Mind Miracles Miscellaneous Mission missionaries Mixed constitution Modern self modernism Modernity monasticism Monotheism Monroe Doctrine Monsters Montaigne's Essays Moral philosophy Mormonism Moses Mother Teresa Motherhood Motive Mount of Olives Movies Multiculturalism Murder Music Musicals Mutability Mutability Mystery Mysticism myth N. T. Wright Narrative Nation-State Nationalism Natural Law Natural-Supernatural Nature Nature and culture Nature and Grace Nazi Nazirite Necrophilia Nero Nestorianism Neuroscience Nevin Lectures New Atheism New Testament New York City Newbigin News NGOs Nibelungenlied Nicholas of Cusa Nicholas of Lyra Nietzsche Nigeria Nihilism Nobel Prize Nobility Nominalism Norbert Elias Norman MacCaig nostalgia Novels Numerology Obama Objectivity and subjectivity Occasionalism Odysseus Oil Old Testament Oliver O'Donovan Ontology Origen original sin Orthodoxy Othello Owen Barfield Pacifism Pactum salutis Paedocommunion Paganism Pain Painting Paleoconservatism Palm Sunday Pannenberg Parenting Pascal Passions Passivity Pastoral Care Pastoral theology Patrick Modiano Patristics Patronage Paul Peace of God Peace of Westphalia Penal substitution Pentecost Pentecostalism Perichoresis Pericles Persecution Person Peter Peter Enns Petrarch Philip K. Dick Philip Melanchthon Philosophy Philosophy of Action Philosophy of History Philosophy of language Philosophy of science Phone booth Photography Physics Pictures Pierre Bourdieu Place Planned Parenthood Plants plato Play Plot Plotinus Pluralism Pneumatology Poetics poetry Poetry & Stories Poland police Political Philosophy Political theology Political Theory Politics Pop Culture Pope Francis Popular Culture Populism Pornography Porphyry Post-Colonial Theory Post-Structuralism Postmodernism Postmodernity Potential Poverty Power Practice Pragmatism Prayer Preaching Predestination Prediction Prehistory Premillennialism Presbyterian Priesthood Prince Charles Prison Reform privacy Private Prodigal Son Progress Progressivism Property Prophecy Prophet Propitiation Prosperity gospel Prostitution Protectionism Protestantism Providence Prudentius psalms Pseudo-Dionysus Psychological Warfare Psychology Public intellectual Public Life Public Philosophy Public Theology Publishing Punk Rock Pure nature Puritanism Purity Pushkin Putin Pythagoreanism R.J. Rushdoony Race Racism Radical Orthodoxy Rape Rationality Reactionary reading Realism Reason Red State Blue State Reformation Reformational Catholicism Reformational Philosophy Reformed theology refugees reinhold niebuhr Relationality Relativism Relics Religion Religion and science Religions Religious Freedom Religious Liberty Religious Right Renaissance Rene Girard Republican Party Resurrection Resurrection. Revelation Revelations Revenge Revivalism Revolution rhetoric Richard Flannagan Richard II Richard III Richard Wagner Richard Wilbur Righteousness Ritual Robert Frost Robert Herrick Robert Jenson Robert Mugabe Robert Spaemann Robinson Crusoe Rock n' Roll Rod Dreher Rodin Roman Catholicism Roman Empire Roman Religion Romance Romanticism Rome Rootedness Rosenstock-Huessy Rousseau Rowan Williams Rural America Russia Russian literature Russian Orthodoxy Rusty Reno Rwanda S. Y. Agnon Sabbath Sacrament Sacramental theology Sacraments Sacred Sacred Space Sacrifice saints Salt Sam Harris Same-sex marriage Sanctuary Satan Satire Saudi Arabia Scapegoat Scarcity Schism Schleiermacher Scholarship Science Science and Theology Science Fiction Scopes trial Scotland Scott Adams Scott Cairns Scottish Reformation Scotus Scripture and tradition sculpture Sea Second temple Secularism Secularization Self-Help Self-trust Semiotics Semper reformanda separation of church and state Sermon on the Mount Sex Sex Trafficking Sexual abuse Sexual Politics Sexual Revolution Sexuality Shakespeare Shame Culture Shema Sherlock Shopping Silence Simone Weil Simplicity Simpsons Sin Sincerity Sixties Skepticism Slavery Slavoj Zizek Sleep Sloth Social capital Social change Social Imaginary Social Science Socialism Socialization Sociology Sociology of Knowledge Sociology of Religion Sola scriptura Sonnets Sophocles Soteriology Soviet Union Space Spain Speculation Spinoza Spirit Sport Sports Star Trek State State-formation Stephen Masty Steven Bannon Strangers Structuralism structure Subject-object Substitution Suburbs Suffering Suicide Super-Rich Superheroes Supersessionism Supplication Supreme Court Surveillance Symbol Synagogue Taberancle Tabernacle Tax Taxes Tears Technology Teens Teleology Television Temple Ten Commandments Terence Terrence Malick Terrorism Thanksgiving The South The West Theodore Roosevelt Theogony Theological Education Theological Language Theology Theology - Anthropology Theology - Christology Theology - Covenant Theology - Creation Theology - Ecclesiology Theology - Eschatology Theology - Liturgical Theology - Pneumatology Theology - Soteriology Theology - Trinity Theology proper Theopolis Theopolis Institute Theosis Theresa May Thomas A. Clark Thomas Aquinas Thomas Carlyle Thomas Mann Threshing Thucydides Time Tocqueville Tolerance Toleration Tolstoy Tom Wolfe Tools Torah Torture Toscanini Totalitarianism Trade Tradition Tragedy Transhumanism Translation Transubstantiation Travel Trees Trinitarianism Trinity Trinity House Tristan Troilus and Creysede Trump Trump Truth Turkey Twelfth Night Two Kingdoms Typology Ukraine Ulysses Uncanny Uncategorized Uniform Union with Christ United States Unity University Usury Utilitarianism Utopia Value Vatican II Vengeance Vico Victorian Age Victorian Literature Vienna Violence Virgil Virgin Birth Virginia Woolf Vladimir Nabokov Vladimir Solovyev Vladimir Solovyov W.H. Auden Walls Walt Disney Walt Whitman Walter Benjamin Walter Lippmann War Wars of Religion Washington DC Wealth Weddings Will William Carlos Williams William Gilpin William Golding Wine Wisdom wonder Word of God Wordsworth Work Works World Council of Churches World History World War I World War II Worldview Worship Wrath Writing Youth Youth Ministry Yuja Wang Yves Congar Zimbabwe Zwingli Zygmunt Bauman

Select a Month January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What does the name "Daniel" mean?

Select your answer to see how you score.

God is my strength Chosen one The Lord is my shepherd God is my judge