Words mean Things

This morning, my friend Herb Whitehouse was having breakfast at our home and I was sharing a verse in Proverbs that had jumped off the page at me.  It is Proverbs 8:12, “I, Wisdom, share a home with shrewdness and have knowledge and discretion.”

Herb, ask me if I would read that again, and after doing so this was his comment; “I can’t put my mind around that” and I knew precisely what he was saying, for that is the reason it jumped off the page.  We both had a definition of Shrewdness that had a connotation of the person who is shrewd as being evil.  He left to go paint a house and Jan and I went to New Braunfels to move boxes at Kids Club across the street from the Counseling Center.  When we returned I began to explore the word Shrewd, and how it is used in Scripture, these are my findings.

Shrewd

Defined by Webster

Shrewd: having or showing an ability to understand things and to make good judgments: mentally sharp or clever.

Jesus words on the subject of Shrewdness; Matthew 10:16, "Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; so be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves.”

Luke 16:8-9, "And his master praised the unrighteous manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the sons of this age are more shrewd in relation to their own kind than the sons of light.”

The word Prudent is used with the same meaning as Shrewd.  Hear these words from Proverbs 18:15, “The mind of the prudent acquires knowledge, And the ear of the wise seeks knowledge.”

Proverbs 12:23, “A prudent man conceals knowledge, But the heart of fools proclaims folly.”

The word Astute is used with the same meaning as Shrewd.  Hear these words from Psalms 18:25-26, “With the kind You show Yourself kind; With the blameless You show Yourself blameless; With the pure You show Yourself pure, And with the crooked You show Yourself astute.”

2 Samuel 22:26-27, "With the kind You show Yourself kind, With the blameless You show Yourself blameless; With the pure You show Yourself pure, And with the perverted You show Yourself astute.”

The Bible also deals with the ungodly being shrewd in more than one place: Psalms 83:3 is an example, “They make shrewd plans against Your people, And conspire together against Your treasured ones.”  Job 5:12-13 is another example, "He frustrates the plotting of the shrewd, So that their hands cannot attain success. "He captures the wise by their own shrewdness, And the advice of the cunning is quickly thwarted.”

Now in closing let me share that Herb was a college professor of history, and I am an uneducated Texas boy who often needs the dictionary, but we both had been taught a wrong concept of the word Shrewd.  Words mean things and as followers of Christ we need to make sure we understand what is being stated.  “I, Wisdom, share a home with shrewdness and have knowledge and discretion.”

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice

http://fromourbackporch.blogspot.com