Do not add to His words...

Proverbs 30:5-13 (NASB) from the daily reading in the One Year Bible

⁵ Every word of God is tested;
He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him.
⁶ Do not add to His words
Or He will reprove you, and you will be proved a liar.

⁷ Two things I asked of You,
Do not refuse me before I die:
⁸ Keep deception and lies far from me,
Give me neither poverty nor riches;
Feed me with the food that is my portion,
⁹ That I not be full and deny You and say, “Who is the Lord?”
Or that I not be in want and steal,
And profane the name of my God.

¹⁰ Do not slander a slave to his master,
Or he will curse you and you will be found guilty.

¹¹ There is a kind of man who curses his father
And does not bless his mother.
¹² There is a kind who is pure in his own eyes,
Yet is not washed from his filthiness.
¹³ There is a kind—oh how lofty are his eyes!
And his eyelids are raised in arrogance.

Verse 6 says: Do not add to His words; Or He will reprove you, and you will be proved a liar. Adding to God’s word is as much an affront to God as taking away from His word. Yet it seems that people have a hard time not doing one or the other and sometimes both. Adding to the word of God contributed to the deception in the garden and the fall of man. Genesis 3:1-3 says:

 Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?” ² The woman said to the serpent, “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; ³ but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.’”

God never said they could not touch the fruit, simply that they should not eat it. When we add to God’s word it can lead to complication and confusion. God’s word is meant to guide us and protect us, not to restrict and prohibit us. The Pharisees did the same thing, there were 613 Levitical laws which God gave to the Israelites to guide them in their daily living. As if that weren’t enough the Pharisees added countless more rituals and regulations to restrict and control the people. Jesus had strong words for the Pharisees regarding the heavy burden of ritual and regulations they placed on people. In Matthew 23:13-15, He says:

“But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in. ¹⁵ Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.

Many in the church today also add to God’s word, preferring the restrictions of the traditions, the rules and regulations of man over the freedom and protection of the true word of God. In 2 Timothy 3:13-17, Paul gives Timothy and us this instruction and encouragement about God’s word.               But evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. ¹⁴ You, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you have learned them, ¹⁵ and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. ¹⁶ All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; ¹⁷ so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.            All scripture, the whole word of God, we need to be careful to not add to God’s word nor take away from it. His word will not contradict itself, so we need always to view scripture in the light of scripture, not taking verses our of the context of the truth of the whole word of God. The word of God, the message of all scripture from Genesis to Revelation is the good news of the gospel. It is the story of God’s plan to redeem, reconcile and restore man and all of creation to Himself and the way He intended. God’s word is to give us freedom from sin not freedom to sin. 

In verse 10 of today’s text, the writer gives us another good nugget of wisdom. “ Do not slander a slave to his master, Or he will curse you and you will be found guilty.”      Believers, Christians are slaves to Christ their master. We should think carefully about how we speak of the Master’s slaves, never seeking to discredit or slander them in God’s sight. The word of God has a lot to say about those who speak badly of their fellow believers, their brothers. We may have a better ability to comprehend the importance of this if we think in terms of other relationships we have with God and Christ, things that are a bit more common to our culture than slaves. We are children of God, chosen and adopted into His family. God will not tolerate the slander of His chosen children.

The church is also the bride of Christ. In Ephesians 5:25-30, Paul compares our earthly relationships to the perfect love Christ has for the church.

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, ²⁶ so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, ²⁷ that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless. ²⁸ So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; ²⁹ for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, ³⁰ because we are members of His body.

Regardless of the condition which we see the church and its members in, the sinfulness and unrighteousness, Christ sees the church as His spotless bride. He gave His life so that the church, His bride could be spotless, holy and blameless through and for Him. This does not mean that we should in any way tolerate sin and unrighteousness in the church. The price Jesus paid to free us from sin is far too great for us to ever condone or tolerate. We though should not seek to condemn, rather we should seek to restore as it says in Galatians 6:1.     Brethren, even if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; each one looking to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted.        We should not add to or take away from the word of God and its truth. Ephesians 4 gives us instruction about how we should relate to our fellow believers, the church.

And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, ¹² for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; ¹³ until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. ¹⁴ As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; ¹⁵ but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, ¹⁶ from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.

“Speaking the truth in love”, truth and love are inseparable.  We don’t truly love others if we fail to speak the truth, not tolerance, not inclusion but the truth that Christ died to free us from sin. The truth spoken in love for the purpose of restoration, causes the body to be built up in love.

The way we are to relate to the world is not that different. We are called to love our neighbor, still truth and love are inseparable. Ephesians 4 continues:

¹⁷ So this I say, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, ¹⁸ being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart; ¹⁹ and they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness. ²⁰ But you did not learn Christ in this way, ²¹ if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus, ²² that, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, ²³ and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, ²⁴ and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.

²⁵ Therefore, laying aside falsehood, speak truth each one of you with his neighbor, for we are members of one another... ²⁹ Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear. ³⁰ Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. ³¹ Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. ³² Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.

Whether with the church or with the world, truth and love should be inseparable, the foundation of our relationship.

Heavenly Father, Lord Jesus Christ; precious Holy Spirit, thank You for Your truth and Your love. Help me to see others as You see them, to speak the truth in love, calling them out of darkness into Your light. Help me to walk in and proclaim the whole truth and nothing but the truth of Your word.      Amen.