Sermon Notes: Graduate Sunday - Proverbs 25:2
Proverbs 25:2
Who is the author?
Solomon is the author of this Proverb. Other authors of some proverbs are Agur and King Lemuel.
Who is the author’s audience?
Solomon addresses his son (likely Rehoboam) in the beginning of this compilation of his wisdom. One of his grandchildren, Hezekiah, has taken his grandfather’s proverbs and valued them enough to have them copied.
What is the occasion?
Solomon’s stated occasion for his sons, and according to 2 Timothy 3:16 all of us, is given in the opening chapter of Proverbs in verses 1-8: For us to know wisdom, instruction, words of insight, wise dealing, to grow in good judgment for the simple (meaning not everything is simple; there are complex things and one must grow into navigating complexity), to increase learning, to grow in understanding how to interpret a proverb and riddles.
What is the genre and does it affect how I read and interpret?
Proverb.
Proverbs are not promises, laws, or prophecies.
Proverbs are witty and rhyming truisms and general applications connected to the eternal truths of who God is and his work in the world. Hebrew rhymes in parallel thought not phonics.
Proverbs teach about how to live wisely and righteously as application of the Bible’s theology.
Proverbs 25:2 rhymes in parallel statements: God’s glory is seen in his prerogative to conceal things / A king’s glory is seen in his created role of searching out what God hid for him to find.
Key words and phrases.
Glory / Conceal (to hide) / Matter / Kings / Search out
"Glory" (kabod) Appears in both lines, which is the structural hinge of the verse. Kabod carries the weight of heaviness, substance, honor, and manifest worth. It is the same word used for the Shekinah glory cloud filling the tabernacle (Exodus 40:34). The repetition is not accidental. The poet is drawing a parallel between divine glory and royal glory, while simultaneously marking an absolute distinction between the two.
"Conceal" (satar) To hide, to keep secret, to veil. This is not deception. It is the sovereign prerogative of God to withhold what he has not chosen to disclose. Deuteronomy 29:29 is the parallel: "The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever." God's concealing work is itself an act of glory. It declares his transcendence, his otherness, his incomprehensibility. He is not obligated to explain himself to his creation.
"Matter" (dabar) Word, thing, matter, affair. It is one of the most semantically broad words in the Hebrew lexicon. This is intentional breadth. The verse is not narrowing to one category of hidden things. It encompasses all of reality: natural, moral, historical, eschatological, supernatural.
"Kings" (Melakhim) The plural is significant. This is not just for one king. It is a statement about the nature and vocation of kingship itself. A king who does not search out matters is not functioning as a king. Inquiry, investigation, curiosity, and the pursuit of wisdom are basic to royal dignity.
INTERPRETIVE NOTE: In Christ, according to Peter, we all who have received the Spirit through faith in Jesus are a royal (kingly) priesthood, a holy nation, a people of God’s own possession.
We are a church of king/priests whose created purpose is to have dominion over all that Jesus created for his glory and our glory in Christ.
"Search out" (chaqar) To dig, to probe, to investigate thoroughly. This word is used for mining (Job 28:3), of deep investigation (Job 29:16), and of searching the heart (Psalm 139:1). This word is not casual curiosity. This word is the disciplined, persistent pursuit of hidden truth.
Lists.
No lists.
Contrasts/Comparisons.
Contrast – There is a contrast between hidden things and found things.
The contrast is indicated with the conjunction, “but”. When presented as contrasting ideas the implication is that there is to be a resolution of the contrast by seeking and finding the hidden things.
So, things are hidden, and they are intended to be found not remain hidden.
This crushes the idea that since there are issues that are difficult to wrap our minds around, we are not intended to understand them. It means we are intended to work harder to make sense of them.
Terms of conclusion/Purpose Clauses.
None.
What does the text say?
The text says that God is glorified by hiding some “things”, some realities, in his created world that he created us to inhabit and have dominion over.
The text says that kings are glorified by searching out the hidden things put there by God for them to find.
NOTE: It should be understood that the glory God is due is not the same quality or source of glory for man, but it is glorious for kings to search out what God created them to discover.
What does the text mean?
1. God calls his people to seek truths that are not immediately evident.
No doubt God’s word is the lamp to our feet and the light for our path.
And, as we walk the path his word lights up for us, we are called to seek God and the good he has hidden for us to find.
Deuteronomy 4:29 (ESV) 29 But from there you will seek the LORD your God and you will find him, if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul.
Jeremiah 29:13 (ESV) 13 You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.
Matthew 7:7-8 (ESV) 7 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.
Matthew 13:44 (ESV) 44 “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.
It’s lazy to say, “God doesn’t want me/us to know that”. If it is in his word, and if it is in creation, he intends for us to attempt to know it as best we can. That’s what having dominion over creation looks like. That doesn’t mean each of us have the same capacity for the same discipline, but it does mean he has gifted some to understand quantum physics and some to understand how build stuff and so on.
It is a lazy cop out to deny that human image-bearers can’t know things God has given us to know.
2. The fact that God hides some things is not a problem to be solved, it is a joy to be sought after.
Our task is not to solve a problem of hiddenness. Our glorious work is to search with eyes of faith in child-like joy for what the Lord Jesus has given to us.
God doesn’t call us to find his hidden glories by better theology or better scholarship. In fact, some people may use their theological learning to ignore such glorious and childlike fun. Frankly, as a linguistic scholar, I’ve never put down a Hebrew and Greek exegetical work and laughed with deep joy. I usually put it down and wondered why they were so dry.
Jesus was pretty clear that unless we came to him like a child, we would not inherit the kingdom.
He calls all of his people regardless of their theological or scholarly acumen to seek after him and the good of his creation for us to oversee.
God hides some things for his own glory, and that’s the point. The fact that God hides some things for us to discover is a declaration on who is God and who is not.
God is glorified when his people take him at his word, go explore all things, maximize their learning, and exercise holy dominion over creation as he designed us to do.
3. We image-bearers are glorified (dignified) when we take God at his word, explore all of God’s world, maximize what we discover, and exercise holy dominion over creation as we were designed to do.
We are not glorified in the same way God is to be glorified, but we are being sanctified to be restored to the glory God gave us and we lost in the fall.
Romans 8:30 (ESV) 30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.
There is a glory we regain when we engage in seeking after what God gave us to seek after.
4. When we believe God has called us to seek the right glory of man in doing what we were designed to do we are then ready to seek first his kingdom and his righteousness in all things.
Seeking the kingdom is not at odds with seeking what God has hidden for us to discover.
Jesus taught about his kingdom in parables as a judgment on those who were too hard to search for him like a child.
Jesus quotes Isaiah when telling us why he taught about his kingdom in parables. He’s hiding it from hard-hearted sons of Satan, and only those who will seek for him and understanding him and loving him will understand. The sons of the Devil will throw rocks, complain, and ultimately seek to put Jesus to death along with all those who want to seek after him.
Part of our discipleship has to be seeking out God’s good and living by that good.
Gospel Connection.
Matthew 13:44 (ESV) 44 “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.
When Jesus told us that his kingdom is like a hidden treasure, he drew the line of seeking directly to himself. What I mean by that is that all true seeking is by Jesus’ design and will end in knowing him or rejecting him.
Humans seek stuff all the time. We are constantly learning, and if mankind will see, he will either embrace Jesus, the ultimate treasure in whom is hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Colossians 2:3) or will be held to account for the glory of Jesus he witnessed and turned away from for inferior joys.
C. S. Lewis was a committed atheist who was haunted by what he called an inconsolable longing awakened in him through Norse mythology, George MacDonald's fantasy writing, and great literature, which he could not explain away materialistically. Eventually he would understand that longing as something Jesus put there pointing him beyond himself. Through long conversations with friends Hugo Dyson and J.R.R. Tolkien, he was confronted with the argument that the myths he loved as literature were shadows of the true “myth” of the good news. Lewis moved first to theism in 1929, describing himself as "the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England," kneeling in his room at Magdalen College and admitting God was indeed real. Full blown Christian faith followed in 1931 after the famous late-night walk with Tolkien and Dyson, which he later described in “Surprised by Joy”, which tells about the entire journey from his Irish childhood longing to his arrival at faith in Jesus.
Lewis’ pursuit of “joy” through literature ultimately led him to see the Jesus of the Bible as Creator God and the source of joy, and through the good news sharing of his friends, believed.
Application.
1. In all of your search for good things, don’t miss Jesus. Believe, and don’t throw that belief away when things get hard or confusing.
You are going to get challenged, and you will run up on puzzling things.
Keep your eyes on Jesus. Hide his word in your heart. Resist sin. Keep searching.
2. Pursue your chosen vocation as a search for hidden glories put there by Jesus to be found as you pursue excellence while working for Jesus as your chief vocational pursuit.
Colossians 3:23-24 (ESV) 23 Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, 24 knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.
When you labor in your chosen vocation and do so to discover what Jesus has done in creation, you dignify yourself and humanity and receive the good fruit of human flourishing.
3. Don’t underestimate the evil kingdom’s ability to twist truth into a lie.
Matthew 4 records for us how Satan misapplied Psalm 91.
As you search for hidden glories, you will run up on lies and dark forces of evil who have twisted creation, abused it, and used it for evil.
Have eyes to see. Seek to heal and redeem. Make no peace with evil.
4. Your limits to understand some things are not defects, they are design.
The concealing work of God is not a gap that scientific work alone can fill. God’s concealing work reminds us of our place as created.
The appropriate response is not anxiety but worship, along with continued, humble, persistent searching for the glory of God in creation.
5. Wherever you land, be a member of a local church in covenant fellowship for help and accountability to seek God’s kingdom and have dominion over all creation.