Proverbs 3:7 - Meaning and Application

We have here three exhortations, each backed by a good reason.

First, we must live in humble, willing submission to God and his rule (Proverbs 3:7). “Fear the Lord” means to treat him as our sovereign Lord and Master, to let religion guide every part of life, and to submit to his will. This must be a humble submission: “Do not be wise in your own eyes.” Nothing is a greater enemy to true religion, and to the fear of God in the heart, than thinking too highly of our own wisdom. People who trust their own judgment often think it is beneath them to follow God’s rules.

It must also be a dutiful submission: “Fear the Lord, and turn away from evil.” We should be careful not to do anything that offends him or brings us outside his care. To fear the Lord and turn from evil is true wisdom and understanding (Job 28:28). Those who have it are truly wise, but they are wise in a humble way, not proud in their own eyes.

For encouragement, the next verse says this way of life is good even for the body. It will be nourishing, like health to your navel, and strengthening, like marrow to your bones (Proverbs 3:8). The prudence, temperance, calmness, and self-control that religion teaches are good for the soul, and they also help the body. A healthy body is a great blessing, and without it even other good things in this world lose much of their sweetness. Envy wastes the bones; sorrow dries them up; but hope and joy in God are like marrow to them.

Second, we must use our money and property well, and that is the way to increase them (Proverbs 3:9-10). The command is, “Honor the Lord with your wealth.” We were made and redeemed to honor God, to bring him praise and glory. In that sense, all we have belongs to him, not just our bodies and spirits, but our possessions too. Even worldly wealth, small as it is, should be used to honor him, and then it becomes truly useful.

We are to honor God with our increase, with all our increase, and with the first and best of it. When riches grow, we are tempted to praise ourselves and set our hearts on the world, but the more God gives us, the more we should honor him. This especially points to the increase of the earth, since we live from year to year on what God provides. We should also give him the first-fruits of all, as Abel did (Genesis 4:4), as the law required (Exodus 23:19), and as the prophets taught (Malachi 3:10). God, who is first and best, deserves the first and best of everything.

So we should make our worldly goods serve our religion. We should use what we have, and the influence it gives us, to promote godliness, help the poor, and do works of mercy and charity. The promise is that this path is also good for our own welfare: “Then your barns will be filled with plenty” (Proverbs 3:10). It does not say your bags or wardrobes, but your barns and presses, meaning God blesses what is useful, not what is for show. Those who do good with what they have will be given more to do more good. If we make our estates serve our religion, we will find our religion serves our earthly affairs well. Godliness has promise for this life too, and much of its comfort. We are mistaken if we think giving will ruin us. Giving for God’s honor is a way God blesses us.

Third, we must conduct ourselves rightly under affliction, under suffering and hardship (Proverbs 3:11-12). The apostle quotes this passage and says it speaks to us as to children, with a father’s authority and love (Hebrews 12:5). We live in a world full of troubles, so we need instruction for suffering. When we are in affliction, we must neither despise it nor grow weary under it.

We must not despise an affliction, whether it is light or short. We should not treat it as something too small to notice, or as if it had no purpose. It is wrong to be like stone or like a stoic, feeling nothing under hardship and thinking we can get through it without God. We must also not grow weary of an affliction, whether it is heavy or long. We should not faint under it, lose heart, or give up hope. We must not think the trouble is worse or longer than it should be, or conclude that help will never come just because it has not come yet.

Our comfort is this: the affliction is a divine correction, the Lord’s discipline. That is a reason to submit to it, since it is foolish to fight against a God whose power cannot be resisted. It is also a reason to rest in it, because a God of perfect purity does us no wrong, and a God of great goodness means us no harm. Since it comes from God, we must not despise it. To slight the messenger is to offend the one who sent him. Since it comes from God, we must not grow weary of it either, for he knows our frame, both what we need and what we can bear.

It is also a fatherly correction. It does not come from God’s punishing justice as a judge, but from his wise love as a father. A father corrects the child he loves, even because he loves him, and wants him to become wise and good. He cares about what is pleasing in his child, and he corrects what would spoil that beauty and lessen his joy in him. So God says, “Those whom I love, I rebuke and discipline” (Revelation 3:19). This is a great comfort to God’s children in their troubles, because their afflictions do not stand against covenant love, but come from it.

They are so far from doing them any real harm that, by God’s grace working with them, they do a great deal of good and become a happy means of their contentment.