Proverbs 22:3

[sushilp3585]

Could you guys explain this verse? I am having a hard time understanding. I read some commentaries for this verse and still did not understand. I also watched the channel on YouTube that I usually watch for verse studies, but he does not cover this verse. Thank you in advance.

 

[Edward]

I didn't have to test it as the loving warmth, calmness and peace that came into my heart while hearing Him talking to me and what Jesus told me was confirmation enough to know I knew His voice. A spirit that does not confess Christ as Lord and Savior could never speak the words Jesus spoke to me.

You are exactly right Sister. I know that this may sound like it goes against scripture because scripture says to test all spirits, and that's good advice for the unsure. If there's any question, test that spirit.

But! As we draw closer to the Lord, He draws closer to us. That one time that the Lord spke audibly to me, there was no question who it was. I knew His voice, even though I can't actually remember ever having heard it before, but I knew it.

and when He speaks to me in the still small voice I have learned how He talks so I can easily tell the difference between my feeble thoughts, and His! He quickens our spirit and the peace that comes when He speaks says more about who He is than what He says, lol.

I've heard several testimonies where people said the tested Jesus, did Jesus come in the flesh? And He didn't answer them verbally, He held out His hands to them so they could see the nail prints. And gave them a nice smile just being full of patience!

Now, who will say, oh no He didn't say it it must have been a demon!? As dire a warning as is given in that passage, it is to be taken very seriously but, Brothers & Sisters...when Jesus walks into the room, you know it in the core of your being and you wont need to ask Him for ID, Lol!!

 

[sushilp3585]

You no longer have to ask who died for your sins as you know it was Christ Jesus.

Rom 10:8 But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach;
Rom 10:9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
Rom 10:10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

Maybe I misunderstood you, but I did not mean me asking, I meant for testing. 1 John 4 verse 1. When I would "speak" to the Father, I would do 1 John 4 verse 1. However, instead of saying it like that, I would test Father with the question who died for my sins to see if it is really the Father or if it is a demon disguised as the Father. That is what I meant. I am not questioning if he died for me lol. If I did, idk how I could be a Christian.

I thought I had a post about how I got saved and came back to God, didn't I? In any case, I will try to shortened my story on how I got saved. Please forgive me if things do not fit or make sense. I am trying to compress it for time because it is a long story and I do not know how much time you have to read it.

It started from high school in my junior year where I was giving an A+ exam. I failed and had a disagreement with my brother and "ran away" from home to stay with a friend of mine. About to be homeless, my friend introduced me to a person that we both knew, sat down, and had a chat. The relationship grew and began hanging around him.

One day, we were at a coffee restaurant and he was talking about spiritual things and at the end of it, I had told him I wanted to become a Christian. This is how I first became a "Christian".

Things went good for a bit and then fell down fast as my relationship with my mentor distanced. Then we come to the day where I moved here in 2019 and things were good at first as well. After, I got fed up and looked at the bible to see if the world was really supposed to be like this, like how it is. Remember, I never opened a bible before nor did I attend church regularly during my "Christianity". As I began to read and study the bible (if you remember the early posts I did here), it spoke to me and that is when my "true" journey began as a follower of Jesus.

 

[sushilp3585]

Yes, pray for understanding before you read. And ask while you are reading when you don't understand something.

We have a responsibility to seek and understand what the will of God is in our lives and in the moment. That's how the model prayer begins, our Father which is in Heaven, Hallowed be your name, Your Kingdom come, your will be done, in earth as it is in Heaven...

What is His will in your situation? And that's why He gave us His book and expects to learn these things!! It's in there!


It progresses to more than an hour pretty quickly. Learning more motivates one to righteousness, and the Holy Spirit may just answer you instantly so be listening! A thought will come to you, or a scripture pops into your head...don't immediately reject what comes to you. Write it down maybe and ponder it...does it answer your question? Does it agree with every scripture in the Bible?

The Holy Spirit is like anyone else so to speak in that, He has his own way of talking. Everybody speaks a certain way and thinks a certain, grammattically speaking. So does the Holy Spirit. I've learned that, hey I don't talk like that that sounds like something the Lord would say! And it gets easier.

The thing is...don't read the Bible with your carnal mind. Read the Bible from your spirit! Spiritual issues must be discerned spiritually, the carnal mind can never accept the things of God. And the Holy Spirit has been given to us as a helper and a tutor, so actually, we don't need any man to teach us. You want understanding? You have not because you ask not.

But remember that an increased input of the word of God may not be enough! What I mean to say is, you have to stop watching porn completely. You're trying to change your heart so watching porn is planting toxic seeds into your mind and heart. Urges to watch may come but resist the devil and he will flee. IOW, it'll pass, be patient and pray for the grave to be able to overcome it.

Am I misunderstanding this leave it in God's hand thing? Because that is the second time you mention that it is up to ME (just emphasizing, not angry) to find out what my will is in God's eyes. Can you or someone else explain this, please? Because I thought God will work His ways for me to accomplish his will. He will let us know what he wants us to do, obviously. But...I guess I am confused about this.

 

[Edward]

Am I misunderstanding this leave it in God's hand thing? Because that is the second time you mention that it is up to ME (just emphasizing, not angry) to find out what my will is in God's eyes.

Not your will, Brother. You want to find out what God's will is. And that's what the book is for (the Bible). The Bible is sort of a spiritual catylist which allows you discover the will of God and the heart of God. And you find out that He is not this big angry God waiting for a chance to hit you with a lightning bolt but instead he is a very nice God and very humble, wow.

But God isn't going to come download perfection into you all at once while you do nothing. Oh yes, you have to do this, by participating and picking that Bible up and reading it, applying yourself to it, which is to say, being present in the moment in front of His word and trying to understand, which is hard at first but you quickly realize, IDK, Lord what are you trying to say to me through this?!
...you ask for help. You have presented yourself to the presence of the Lord when you crack open the scriptures, and when you say, Whaat, Lord? Then you are there in the presence of the Lord and have asked, so you shall receive.

Did you know that any prayer to the Lord is considered worship in Heaven? And He loves the conversation with you/us! That's why He said to pray without ceasing. He wants us to strike up a conversation with Him.

He talks to all of us every day. Most people do not hear God because their too wrapped up in the world's distractions. But the longer that you focus upon God the louder or easier to perceive His voice will be to you.

 

[Edward]

Because I thought God will work His ways for me to accomplish his will. He will let us know what he wants us to do, obviously. But...I guess I am confused about this.

This is true...but there's a catch. The catch is, you do have to chase Him down for this and say, Lord I want this. Maybe even reach up and take it out of His hands? (or touch the hem of His robe!). What that means is you have to seek Him, He is not an easy catch! If you pull back and stop seeking His words and presence, then He'll let you do what you want to and pull back and not interefere with your free will.

But if you keep coming into His presence focused on Him through His written words and through His Rhemas (quickening of your spirit), that's drawing close to Him. That is seeking Him. That is knocking on HIS door!

And for those who seek shall find and for those who knock it shall be opened. So it is a cooperative thing, you might even call it, a relationship. If you draw back, He draws back. When you press forward, He presses forward. And you will know it when it happens! The Lord is quick to reward obedience!

But I advise you, Don't Believe Me! Go into prayer with the Lord yourself and ask Him about these things for yourself, and ask Him to show you any scriptures about it too...

 

[for_his_glory]

Maybe I misunderstood you, but I did not mean me asking, I meant for testing. 1 John 4 verse 1. When I would "speak" to the Father, I would do 1 John 4 verse 1. However, instead of saying it like that, I would test Father with the question who died for my sins to see if it is really the Father or if it is a demon disguised as the Father. That is what I meant. I am not questioning if he died for me lol. If I did, idk how I could be a Christian.

I thought I had a post about how I got saved and came back to God, didn't I? In any case, I will try to shortened my story on how I got saved. Please forgive me if things do not fit or make sense. I am trying to compress it for time because it is a long story and I do not know how much time you have to read it.

It started from high school in my junior year where I was giving an A+ exam. I failed and had a disagreement with my brother and "ran away" from home to stay with a friend of mine. About to be homeless, my friend introduced me to a person that we both knew, sat down, and had a chat. The relationship grew and began hanging around him.

One day, we were at a coffee restaurant and he was talking about spiritual things and at the end of it, I had told him I wanted to become a Christian. This is how I first became a "Christian".

Things went good for a bit and then fell down fast as my relationship with my mentor distanced. Then we come to the day where I moved here in 2019 and things were good at first as well. After, I got fed up and looked at the bible to see if the world was really supposed to be like this, like how it is. Remember, I never opened a bible before nor did I attend church regularly during my "Christianity". As I began to read and study the bible (if you remember the early posts I did here), it spoke to me and that is when my "true" journey began as a follower of Jesus.

Oops, sorry for the misunderstanding.

Mainly the only time we are to test the spirits is when others are teaching us so we will know truth from error.

As far as praying/talking to God the Holy Spirit will always bare witness to your spirit that it is truly God speaking to you. Satan can not speak the words of love and compassion and give you Spiritual direction. All he wants to do is to destroy you by stealing your faith. You will truly know it is God's voice speaking to you by what He speaks.

 

[for_his_glory]

Am I misunderstanding this leave it in God's hand thing? Because that is the second time you mention that it is up to ME (just emphasizing, not angry) to find out what my will is in God's eyes. Can you or someone else explain this, please? Because I thought God will work His ways for me to accomplish his will. He will let us know what he wants us to do, obviously. But...I guess I am confused about this.

When I started reading the Bible I started with the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. I would read a chapter at a time, but only getting the jest of it thinking I understood all that was written in it. Boy was I wrong as I missed so much just glossing over the whole chapter, but never praying first asking the Holy Spirit to reveal to me that which was written. There is a difference between reading with a carnal mind or by reading with the Spiritual mind letting the Holy Spirit teach us.

I took a new initiative by praying first and asking the Holy Spirit to teach me by giving me wisdom and understanding. I would start with one verse and if I didn't understand that verse, or a certain word in that verse I would ask for the meaning and would not move past it until the Holy Spirit gave me the understanding. By doing this I gained Spiritual understanding of the whole chapter I read then I would move on to the next chapter. By doing this it allows us to become more mature in the word of God as we learn about Him and what His will is for us in our life.

Hope this helps.

 

[Kingdom Ambassador]

I will be using the lexicon/strong's concordance, and the kjv, of the bible, to answer your question.

Pro 22:3 - A prudent man forseeth the evil, and hideth himself: but the simple pass on, and are punished.

• Let’s define some of the words in this verse below:

Prudent - H6175 -
I). subtle, shrewd, crafty, sly, sensible

The evil - H7451 - wicked, mischief, bad,
I). bad, evil
E). bac (of value)

But the simple - H6612 -
II). simple, foolish, open-minded

Now let's look at a couple of scripture cross references, to the first part of the verse, in "Pro 22:3”, above, where it states, “A prudent man" is "Pro 14:16 & Heb 11:7", below:

Pro 14:16 KJV
A wise [man] feareth, and departeth from evil: but the fool rageth, and is confident.

Heb 11:7 KJV
By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.

Let’s define faith, from Heb 11:7, which is - G4102

1. Conviction of the truth of anything, belief; in the NT of a conviction or belief respecting man’s relationship to God and divine things, generally with the included idea of trust and holy ferver born of faith and joined with it
A. relating to God
i. The conviction that God exist and is the creator and ruler of all things, the provider and bestower of eternal salvation through Christ
B. Relating to Christ

i. A strong and welcome conviction or belief that Jesus is the Messiah, through whom we obtain eternal salvation in the kingdom of God

C. The religious beliefs of Christians

D.Believe with the predominate idea of trust (or confidence) weather in God or in Christ, springing from faith in the same

2. Fidelity, faithfulness

A. the character of one who can be relied on

Now let's look at a scripture cross reference, to the second part of the verse, in "Pro 22:3”, above, where it states, "the simple pass on, and are punished" is "Pro 7:7", below:

Pro 7:7 KJV
And beheld among the simple ones, I discerned among the youths, a young man void of understanding,

 

[D-D-W]

Not to take away anything already shared. BUt I think a verse in Hebrews answers the OP question:

Hebrews 5:14
But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.

There are 2 different types of discernment mentioned in the NT. This verse is one. The other one is in 1 Cor 12, and is a supernatural revelation of things. That is NOT what the Proverbs verse was talking about.

The kind of discernment here in Heb 5 is a growing thing. As one matures, his spiritual eyes start to recognize patterns. Experience will tell him if that pattern is from God or the devil; or from simple human understanding. "Because of practice," ("by reason of use" as some translations put it) is indicative of that life experience. It is after that growth process that one can start to see evil coming, and seek to avoid it.