Proverbs 7:3
"Bind them on your fingers; write them on the tablet of your heart"
bind them on your fingers
This seems to refer to a physical way of reminding. It could have been how our culture got the idea of tying a string around your finger to remind you of something. The idea is that every day one needs physical reminders to prod us to remember the bibilcal truth that will be the focus of the day. The soul needs training and a template for the day. Give it Scripture. Each day write down a verse, phrase, or word from Scripture that God can use to direct your actions, speech, and thoughts that day.
write them on the tablet of your heart
The word heart expresses the deepest inner recesses of a person – both the material and immaterial aspects of a man's being. This is the soul and the mind.
What is interesting here is that the soul is open to new programming. Humanity is not just the result of random chemicals or the reactions to those who act upon it. God declares that a person can program his/her soul to follow a righteous set of instructions. In our day of evolution and naturalism we have almost completely ignored the soul as an aspect of mankind. We believe that there is nothing beyond the brain and the firing of the nerves in it. This, however, is not true. Mankind has a soul – an immaterial part of their being that is not dependent upon the physical. Studies done on those who have gone through various surgical procedures and have been pronounced brain-dead have been able to recount memories of the time during which they were brain-dead. This suggests that those memories were stored in something beyond the brain. It is the strongest purely physical evidence of the existence of the soul.
We must be roused from our naturalistic stupor and re-embrace the fullness of what we were created to be – mankind body, soul, and spirit. It is in the soul that the programming for the life you live will take place. We are not only the product of our environment, our genes, and the universe as a whole. God declares that we can be different than the flow around us. We can program the soul to respond to different stimulus than the natural.
We don't have to be proud, selfish, greedy, power hungry, immoral, and lazy beings; but instead we can take the Word of God internally and use it as an operating system for our lives to orient us to God and run the hardware of our body.
We have largely given up on moral training because we have bought the lie of being only physical chemical beings. Moral training is essential to have a civilized society. Instead of moral training, we have substituted advertising and have bombarded our body and soul with messages of materialism, lust, selfishness, greed, and envy until it is these messages that form the dominant operating system for our lives.
This is tragic because we already had an orientation toward these things in our fleshly nature anyway. Since the fall of Adam, mankind has been oriented to selfishness and rebellion. And added on top of that is the orientation toward activities that will destroy relationships with God and others – further immoral training is tragic.
This is a long way of saying that what we think about and repeat over and over again programs us. What we hear repeatedly, sing, or watch in the movie theater of our mind creates an orientation to the world. If that orientation is not godly, then we will go in that direction. Jesus stated this when He said: If your eye be single then your whole body is full of light... but if the light that is in you is darkness... how great is the darkness. If the internal messages that are guiding your life are all materialistic, sexual, selfish, haughty, and angry, then your life will be constantly directed toward destruction.
God's way is different; it orients us toward relationships, not against them. It guides us to submission to God rather than rebellion. We have a constant need to hear again these counter-intuitive messages or we will never make the right choices.
Let's get practical. This proverb would suggest that one needs to have a phrase or verse that you are repeating over and over again that day which will be your moral prod that day. It could be one of the two great commandments. It could be one of the Ten Commandments. It could be one of the Proverbs. It could be the fruit of the spirit. It could be a particular word from Scripture that you are focusing on that day.
If you don't have a verse or phrase of Scripture to ruminate on, then most likely you will be left with some advertising slogan you hear or a song on the radio you like or a phrase from a character on TV. These are rarely, if ever, moral training. These phrases will not keep you out of trouble. In fact, the phrases from advertising, music, and TV often encourage impulsive, selfish, and rebellious behavior.
What is your godly phrase today? Write down your phrase each day at the beginning of the day in a conspicuous place so that you will see it throughout the day. You might want to put in on a card or a Post-it note. If you don't have a phrase for today, use a major theme command of Proverbs and wisdom. Do not let lovingkindness and truth leave you. Listen for the guidance of the Holy Spirit moving you toward living out these ideas.
Until tomorrow,
Gil Stieglitz