The Scripture We Need (Prov 30:1-6)

In the past four studies, we’ve seen how the Bible presents God as a God who speaks. From beginning to end, He is a God who relates with human beings and acts for them using words. We’ve looked at the kinds of words God uses and some of the qualities of those words – the sufficiency, clarity and authority of Scripture.

In this study, we look at a fourth quality – the necessity of Scripture. His words are necessary; we cannot do without it. The purposes for those words cannot be achieved without those words. They are needed and we desperately need them. 

(A) WE ARE DESPERATE FOR THE SAVING, STABILISING, SWEET SPIRITUAL TRUTHS OF GOD (PROV 30:1-3)

The ancient book of wisdom called “the proverbs” is a collection of truth from God about skillful living in a fallen world. In this book, the writers focus on teaching God’s wisdom and truth, and how to live God’s ways in a fallen world. The intention is to urge the readers to listen to him as a source of wisdom.

However, the writer of Proverbs 30, Agur, the son of Jakeh, begins the chapter in a very unusual way. His opening words break the pattern of wisdom as he acknowledges that life in this world was too much for him – he declares that he was weary and worn out (Prov 30:1) because of what he did not know and couldn’t figure out. In millennial speak, “I’m tired. I can’t. I just can’t.” And this state of weariness was so extreme that Agur went on to say, “I am too stupid to be a man. I have not the understanding of a man” (Prov 30:2), as if he wasn’t qualified to even be a human! 

How does this help us to understand life in a fallen world? This writer of Proverbs is acknowledging that life in this world is too much for him! There is too much to figure out. He is weary and tired. Friends, this is God’s word. God’s word contains the acknowledgment that we live in a world like this! It engages, addresses and recognizes all of the misery and agony we know so well. And it is also the way of wisdom to come before God’s word as we are – weary, wanting, and worn out. 

Agur then speaks of two types of ignorance that have worn him out in Prov 30:2-3. Firstly, he speaks of the lack of wisdom and secondly, the lack of knowledge of the Holy One. He does not know how life should work, and he feels he does not know enough to understand God’s nature, His purposes and plans. He can’t work them out by reasoning, observation or philosophy; he needs someone to explain them to him. Such is life in a fallen world – our lives are broken and there is so much we just don’t get. 

The deep philosophical questions of life are the questions that drive us mad. We may not know how to ask them, but we sense them deep within. They cause us to question if anything has meaning at all. People who don’t know God run without knowing what the race is or what life is for. They are agonizing and striving without end in sight. They are desperate to be loved, but don’t know where to find that kind of love. 

We often go through life distracting ourselves from these questions, finding ways to give ourselves meaning and short-term fulfilment. But like Agur, we are desperate for those answers. We are desperate for the saving, stabilizing, sweet spiritual truths of God.

(B) WE NEED THE SCRIPTURES IF WE ARE TO HAVE THESE TRUTHS (PROV 30:4-6)

These thoughts then trigger Agur to ask five rhetorical questions about God: four ‘who’s and one ‘what’ (Prov 30:4). From his observations of the power of God in nature, he reasons that observing nature alone is insufficient to know God. He has seen all these things, but he still has so many questions! The God who gathered the wind in His fists – who is this God? What is this God like? How can I know Him? Even as Agur opens the book of nature, he does not know this God well or clearly. Romans 1:19-20 tells us that the God we know and love is indeed able to be observed and related to through nature, although there is a gap in that knowledge such that we can still say we do not know who He truly is. 

His last question, “what is his name, and what is his son’s name?” tells us that something he has been taught about God fills him with questions, such that he does not know God specifically, and he is desperate to do so. 

As Agur considers what he does not know, he then shifts to express what he does know – that every word of God proves true (Prov 30:5). Everything that this God has spoken is a true word. 

He goes on to declare this God who speaks is a shield for those who take refuge in him (Prov 30:5). As this man is reasoning through his brokenness and life in a fallen world, and he’s thought through what he’s seen in nature and the questions he still has, he concludes that the only way he can know God is if he can hear his voice, if he can see the words that he speaks, which are all true and reliable. And when he gets to know this God, he will find that He is a shield and refuge for those who go to Him. The writer is therefore calling us to pay attention to the words of God, as they are the only things that will help us truly know Him. 

He then warns the readers, “Do not add to his words, lest he rebuke you and you be found a liar” (Prov 30:6). We see a high reverence for the words that are God’s. He warns his readers that God will call them out for adding falsely to His Word. We are not to add randomly at our own choice the words we think God has spoken. 

If we are going to find answers, we are going to need the true words of God in Scripture. We will need to see that each of His words are trustworthy and true, as Agur recognized and quoted from King David in Psalm 18:30 and 1 Sam 22:31. If we are going to know God, His purposes and plans, we must go to the word He has spoken. Observing nature is not enough; Scripture is necessary. 

Think about how and when you became convinced that you could know God and experience Him. Most likely, someone came alongside you and opened the Bible with you, telling you about the God who has revealed Himself, who loves you, and who desires to have a relationship with you. What a joy and privilege it is that we have Bibles, and through them, we can know God! That is what Scripture has always been for.

One of the greatest misconceptions that has crept into the Church today is that there are many other ways to know God. We hope that 15 minutes or an hour of the most anointed music track, album, singer or preacher will enable us to come closer to God and know Him. But for the past 2,000 years, the Church has always believed that the way to know God is through His word! And that is where we should go if we’re searching for a spiritual high or feeling spiritually low. The Scriptures are necessary and effective for us to know God. 

In one of his most famous testimonies, the puritan writer, Jonathan Edwards, describes his experience with God’s word as such:

“Once, as I rode out into the woods for my health, in 1737, having alighted from my horse in a retired place, as my manner commonly has been, to walk for divine contemplation and prayer, I had a view that for me was extraordinary, of the glory of the Son of God, as Mediator between God and man, and his wonderful, great, full, pure and sweet grace and love, and meek and gentle condescension. This grace that appeared so calm and sweet, appeared also great above the heavens. The person of Christ appeared ineffably excellent, with an excellency great enough to swallow up all thought and conception — which continued, as near as I can judge, about an hour; which kept me the greater part of the time in a flood of tears, and weeping aloud. I felt an ardency of soul to be, what I know not otherwise how to express, emptied and annihilated; to lie in the dust, and to be full of Christ alone; to love him with a holy and pure love; to trust in him; to live upon him; to serve and follow him; and to be perfectly sanctified and made pure, with a divine and heavenly purity. I have several other times had views very much of the same nature, and which have had the same effects.

For Edwards, reading and meditating on God’s word delighted his soul and thrilled his being. Have you taken the time to spend time alone with God, to seek Him and know Him as He has revealed Himself? 

(C) THE REVEALED TRUTH IN SCRIPTURE CULMINATES GLORIOUSLY IN JESUS (1 COR 2:1-13)

In 1 Cor 2:1-13, the apostle Paul speaks of himself in very similar terms as Agur in Proverbs 30. In this passage, Paul was telling the Corinthian church about his manner of preaching to them and about the wisdom he wanted to impart to them. Just as Agur began with self-deprecation, saying that he was weary and broken, Paul says that when he came to them, he came not with lofty speech or wisdom, but in weakness and in fear and much trembling (1 Cor 2:2-3). He was simply telling them about Jesus and his cross – that’s it – no rhetoric or style or eloquence. 

He goes on to say that among the mature, he does impart wisdom, but not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age (1 Cor 2:6). He imparts a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory, that the rulers of this age did not understand (1 Cor 2:7-8). The message Paul was speaking about is the message of the cross – that God came in Jesus Christ and died on the cross for our sins – that is the only wisdom he has for them. 

This passage is often prone to misunderstanding. Paul may appear to be saying that what we need to “get” spiritual insight is a special revelation from the Spirit on top of what we have already received in the gospel. This passage is often used to express various types of gnostic ideas – that we need the Spirit to de-mystify our faith, which is a misunderstanding built on 1 Cor 2:12-13. 

However, the “we” Paul speaks of here refers to the apostles. The Spirit of God has been given to the apostles and they impart this wisdom in words not taught by human wisdom but by the Spirit. This is not some kind of secret philosophical wisdom, but the message of Jesus Christ expressed in the New Testament Scriptures – that were given to the people then and to us now. 

As such, we have the answers to the questions Agur asked in Proverbs 30! Now, indeed, we surely know! Unlike Agur, who only had the Old Testament Scriptures telling him about God the Creator, we have the New Testament that tells us about God the Saviour in Jesus Christ, who is the fulfillment of all God’s plans! Scripture culminates in the amazing revelation of the mystery of the cross, through which we are able to know God in ways we’ve never known and to understand the Old Testament rightly. Scripture is necessary in its entirety.

In his book, Taking God at His Word, Kevin DeYoung explains: “So this is the necessity of Scripture in a nutshell: we need the revelation of God to know God, and the only sure, saving, final perfect revelation of God is found in Scripture.”

When we see that the Bible tells us not just about God, but also about God in Christ – that the One in heaven has indeed come near, that we may know Him, His name, and His son’s name, we can enter into a relationship with Him. We can know the fullness of what Christ has done for us on the cross. 

Has your walk with God has been rocky since COVID-19 began? Hear the Holy Spirit’s invitation to come and meet God in His word, where He desires for you to know Him and fall in love with Him.