Let's pray. Father, we thank you as we come together today to be in your church, to be the assembly of the saints. As we gather together for a time of worship today, and also for this time of instruction as we continue to look at your word, we ask that you would be with us in word and spirit as we consider how you communicate wisdom to us and not only the idea of wisdom but that you yourself are the source of wisdom and that we can say that you are wisdom. in the ultimate sense of the word. So help us to understand these things, help us to understand that as we seek wisdom we are also seeking you and help us to seek you through Christ who has revealed you most completely through his life and ministry and through his word and we pray these things in his name, amen. So when we started out I said that we were going to do some character studies in the book of Proverbs. And after the first two weeks, which went from an introduction to a two-part introduction, you might have been wondering when we're going to actually get around to some kind of a character study. And not exactly today, but in a sense of the word, so here's what I mean by that. that if we think about who is the most important character in the book of Proverbs and indeed the entire scripture, who is that? Yeah, it's Christ or God. So, in that sense it is a character study and not just a study of a character, so to speak, a person, but the study of character itself as we describe it. So have that in mind as we start to look at some passages today. We could easily say that God's character is the foundation for literally everything in the universe. Scripture even explicitly says that it was by wisdom He what? He set the foundations of the earth. He created all things from nothing and so on. And then we could also say that God is not only a source of wisdom but also a motivation for wisdom. Hopefully we'll see that connection a little more clearly today and that in fact your relationship to God is what's going to define your relationship to wisdom both as a concept as well as a person. Wisdom is from God and God is personified as wisdom. And one passage where we see that most clearly is in 1 Corinthians 1 in verse 30 where it says, and because of him you are in Christ Jesus who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption. And now that I've already given you a big hint, the next question ought to be really easy, even this early in the morning. Which book in the New Testament uses the words wisdom and wise most frequently? I gave it to you. Kirk's mouthing James. 1 Corinthians. Yeah, so if you look that up, you'll find that wisdom is used 18 times and wise is used 12 more times, so a total of 30 times. And any guesses on what the Greek word is or the root of the Greek word that translates wise or wisdom? may not be obvious on the surface but you'll know it when you hear it yeah there you go so sofas or sophia so sofas is translated wise and sophia is translated wisdom And what English words are transliterated making use of that root, sophos? Sophistry. Sophistication. That's a name. I wasn't thinking of that one. But I am thinking of something that pertains to how we label someone who is in the second year of higher education. Sophomore. Okay. So, that Greek root is transliterated and used in a number of English words that carry some idea of wisdom or knowledge with them, right? Here's another one where it's the root but you may not notice it because of the prefix. Philosophy. And what does the prefix philo mean? Phileo refers to love or affection, and sophos refers to wisdom or knowledge. So when we talk about philosophy, it quite literally means a love of knowledge. So that word plus all of its variations, philosophy, philosopher, and so forth, and then something that should be required, knowledge for anyone who attains a degree called a PhD. What does that stand for? Doctor of Philosophy. Does that mean that you got a degree in philosophy? What does it pertain to generally? Well, it's a description of one who's attained a high level of learning in a certain field, right? We think of those with PhDs as being the ones who have attained the highest level of learning in whatever field of study it might have been. So we use those derivatives a lot in our English language. They're not unfamiliar to us. I might put it like this, that at the very least, if you're going to get a PhD, you should know that that degree is the product, as well as the proof, that you have a love for knowledge. And what's one of the keys to wisdom that we've already talked about in these early verses of Proverbs? The PhD is referred to as a terminal degree, which sounds kind of severe. Basically, that means you've gone as far as you can. In my case, it means get out of school and go get a job. But what do we mean? Is that the end of the line in terms of education is concerned? It ought to be seen as a preparation. In a way, it's a starting point, isn't it? The way my academic advisor said it was that the PhD is designed to equip you to do independent research. And that makes sense, right? Because what's a typical stepping stone for somebody who gets a PhD degree? Yeah, academics, where you're going to be doing research. And if you think about your professors in college, almost every one of them has a particular field of study that they may be very well known for in the academic world or the scientific world, as the case may be. Now, here's where we have to be careful. I'm getting off on one of those side trails. Part of the danger. of higher education, higher degrees of education, is that it typically involves greater and greater specialization in a certain field. Okay. So with... Sure. I mean, even the major that you choose as an undergraduate is narrowing your field of study. And then if you go to graduate school in that field of study, then you're narrowing it further and further. It ought to be the case if it's doing what it's supposed to do, that essentially, this may sound kind of funny to say it, but essentially everyone with a graduate degree has a different degree. In other words, if you get a master's degree, especially a master of science degree, you're starting to specialize more in a field. So that becomes a unique field of study. You literally are designing your own degree plan by the time you get to the master's level. And then at the PhD level, even more so, you're choosing the classes that you want to take as part of your specialization and then a field of study where you're going to do your research. And that realization dropped out of the master's of aerospace engineering. Yeah, you may literally work yourself out of a field if you become too specialized. So there is a certain danger to that. We talk about, for example, how Cade's choice of majoring in nuclear engineering, it's frankly making it harder for him to find a job right now because that's a much more specialized field of engineering than something like mechanical or electrical or civil. and so on. Even aerospace engineering is pretty specialized. So point being that when it comes to learning, education, knowledge, and so forth, the system of education, as we call it, is typically designed to deepen your understanding in a certain field of study as you go further in school versus broadening it. So just a caveat, because just because you have A master's or a PhD doesn't make you an expert in everything. A word to the wise, as it were. So wisdom, wise, sophos, sophia, a number of English words, English concepts that come out of that root pertaining to knowledge or wisdom. In the fourth chapter of Proverbs, in chapter 4, verses 5 and 6, it says this. Tell me if this sounds like something you maybe should do. It says, get wisdom. Get insight. Do not forget and do not turn away from the words of my mouth. Do not forsake her personifying wisdom. and she will keep you. Love her and she will guard you." So I'm setting up the text that I want to look at today which is not in the book of Proverbs but it is in one of the wisdom books of the Bible and that's the book of Job in the 28th chapter. I'm going to read the whole chapter in this instance, 28 verses. In the discourse that Job is having with his friends, we come to chapter 28 where the editor's heading states it like this, that Job continues his discourse in answer to the question, where is wisdom? Okay, so Job 28. This is Job speaking. Surely there is a mine for silver and a place for gold that they refine. Iron is taken out of the earth and copper is smelted from the ore. Man puts an end to darkness and searches out the farthest limit, the ore, in gloom and deep darkness." What's that referring to? Yes, going underground or into a mountain where sunlight doesn't reach. You're going to have to take your light source with you, literally. Verse 4, man, he opens shafts in a valley away from where anyone lives. They are forgotten by travelers. They hang in the air far away from mankind. They swing to and fro. Well, that's interesting. The idea of literally hanging by a rope going down into the ground. Verse 5, as for the earth, out of it comes bread, but underneath it, Underneath it is turned up as by fire." That's also an interesting reference. Its stones are the place of sapphires and it has dust of gold. That path no bird of prey knows and the falcon's eye has not seen it. The proud beasts have not trodden it. The lion has not passed over it. Man puts his hand to the flinty rock and overturns mountains by the roots. He cuts out channels in the rocks, and his eye sees every precious thing. He dams up the streams so that they do not trickle, and the thing that is hidden he brings out to light. But where shall wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding? Man does not know its worth. and it is not found in the land of the living. The deep says, it is not in me, and the sea says, it is not with me. It cannot be bought for gold, and silver cannot be weighed as its price. It cannot be valued in the gold of Ophir, in precious onyx or sapphire. Gold and glass cannot equal it, nor can it be exchanged for jewels of fine gold. No mention shall be made of coral or of crystal. The price of wisdom is above pearls. The topaz of Ethiopia cannot equal it, nor can it be valued in pure gold. From where then does wisdom come? And where is the place of understanding? It is hidden from the eyes of all living and concealed from the birds of the air. Abaddon and death say, we have heard a rumor of it with our ears. God understands the way to it and He knows its place, for He looks to the ends of the earth and sees everything under the heavens. When He gave to the wind its weight and apportioned the waters by measure, when he made a decree for the rain and a way for the lightning of the thunder then he sought and declared it he established it and searched it out and he said to man behold the fear of the Lord that is wisdom and to turn away from evil is understanding." Now that's a fascinating chapter. for a lot of reasons. In our opening lesson a couple of weeks ago I mentioned this idea of a cipher. The idea that there are scattered throughout scripture certain verses or passages that when we see them we understand that they are telling us how we are to understand that portion of scripture. And the example that I used was from the book of Judges and our understanding of the book of Judges is based on what refrain that occurs in that book from beginning to end literally. There was no king in Israel in those days and the people did what was right in their own eyes. And that makes an interesting example too because that's actually the antithesis of wisdom isn't it? People doing what is right in their own eyes. So this becomes how we understand the wisdom literature that we have this refrain occurring throughout. Here it is in the 20th chapter of Job, very explicitly, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to turn away from evil is understanding. And it's also the case that that occurs a number of times in the book of Proverbs, and I'll get to that in just a moment. Notice how wisdom is compared. What is it that wisdom is being compared to in human terms in this passage? Right. So we have things like gold, silver, sapphires, any kind of jewel that you can imagine. We can add others certainly to that list. The thing that we're searching for? If we were to ask the question this way, what is the most valuable possession, thing, material possession that you could have in this life? Yeah. I saw a graphic just yesterday. I haven't looked at it. Yeah. I'm referring to material things now. OK. Apparently, and tell me if this is correct, that I saw a graphic that indicates that the price of gold is over $4,000 an ounce at the moment. or silver, or platinum, or iridium. Iridium is really high, but there's something even more rare than that. So we, for things like that, and here's the analogy in this chapter, it's referring to things that God has produced in nature. Things like metals, whether it's gold and silver, what we would consider precious metals, or whether it's something that's been all as iron Even that has material value. And then precious stones, gems. And we have an economic value that we assign to those things. Those are among the most precious things that you can own and probably you have some of that in your possession now. It might be a gold ring with a diamond in it or something along those lines. that has material value and you recognize the material value of it and a little bit may go a long way in terms of its value. We're seeing a description of some of the most precious things that men can possess or acquire as possessions. Part of that, and here's where I'm going off on another mental rabbit trail, if we think of iron, iron is not really the kind of thing that we would use as a means of exchange, but gold and silver throughout scripture are commonly used as forms of exchange, as money, gold coins or silver coins, because they have intrinsic value. Iron coins not so much, but you can build a skyscraper out of iron, or a bridge out of iron. Yeah, railroad's another example. That is correct. It's not very convenient to carry around enough iron to use it as a means of exchange. So I don't recommend that. What's the picture though in these first 11 verses of chapter 28? And it's amazing to me because remember this is ancient literature. We don't know precisely the dating of the book of Job, but we have some contextual clues that suggest to us that Job probably lived around the time of Abraham, which is about 2,000 BC, which is 4,000 years ago, according to my quick math. And what's fascinating is to think in terms of how the ancient world, even at that time, understood these kinds of things. I mean, whose idea was it to dig up some red dirt and say, you know, if we heat that up enough, we can make something out of that. Or some green dirt. Yeah, copper ore. So you have copper, iron. Most metals are not found in metallic form. We find things like silver and gold in nature because why? Chemically. They don't oxidize. They're chemically inert, virtually, right? But even things like aluminum. Aluminum is not a naturally occurring metal. You don't find a piece of metal, aluminum, unless it's in a junkyard maybe. So those metals occur in oxidized form in nature and somebody somewhere had to have enough knowledge of these things to be able to say if we get that red dirt hot enough or that green dirt or that white dirt hot enough then we can turn those things into metals. It's really quite amazing to think about what they understood even if they didn't understand the chemistry that we know today that they were able to do those kinds of things even in the ancient world. Anthony? Yeah, and the description here, it's obviously in, you know, spending a little bit of time in Colorado as I did. Colorado is essentially settled by what? By whom? Miners, because they were looking for gold, maybe silver. There's a town called Silverton. I have a suspicion about how it got that name. But yeah, even hiking around in random parks, you'll find what are called pilot holes just about everywhere. It's a hole that's about six or eight feet wide and three or four feet deep where at some point somebody started digging to see if they could turn up some gold in that spot. And if they did, what did they do? They kept digging and made gold mines. One of the biggest gold mines, I think, in the world, in the United States, if not in the world, is just a few miles from where I used to live. It's an open pit mine, so they're not in that location where that mine is located they're basically doing what's called a chemical extraction. So they're digging up the rocks, they're treating it with chemicals, and leaching the gold out of the rocks using a chemical process. Whereas just a short distance away, there's a mine that's now a tourist attraction, where you can go 1,000 feet down into a mine shaft and see how they used to use jackhammers just to dig in the rocks, looking for veins of gold. Right? So sometimes it occurs in a vein. In other cases, it's there in the rock, but it's so dispersed that it takes work to extract it. Somebody had to figure those things out thousands of years ago. Of course it is. And where does that myth come from? That was a home run. That's right, because the modern PhDs think what? How did things get to be the way they are? Evolution and how does a biological view of evolution affect our overall anthropology, our view of man? Yes, that the earlier versions of man, whatever that was, were more primitive. The caveman, right? All he's got is a club and maybe he's got just enough knowledge to be able to rub a couple of sticks together and start a fire. And the idea of the ancient man living in caves because he wasn't sophisticated enough to build a house, those kinds of things. That's part of the mythology of ancient man and yet our biblical understanding is that the smartest man who ever lived was who besides Jesus? Adam. Adam was the only man besides Jesus who did not have a fallen mind and I'm pretty sure Adam never went to college but I'm also pretty sure Adam had a knowledge that made it possible for him to carry out the command that God gave him, which was to fill the earth and subdue it. And we get a picture, by the way, a little glimpse of that in that genealogy in chapter four of Genesis of the ancient world and enough sophistication to be able to do things like metallurgy and like musical instruments and like agriculture. Yeah, first of all. First act of science was taxonomy, Adam naming the animals. And probably thinking to himself, hmm, what can I do with this one? Sure. The ability to make distinctions. If we can't make distinctions, then we don't get very far in any scientific process. So wisdom here is being compared to the process of mining. And it's describing in some small way, if we try to imagine what it must have been like 4,000, 5,000, 6,000 years ago to mine without the benefit of the modern mining technology that we have today, which it's still difficult even with that. how much more physical labor was involved in the mining process 4,000 years ago. It would be an exaggeration to say that it was literally a life-threatening thing, that you were probably risking your life trying to mine these things out of the mountains or out of the ground And here we have a picture, I think it's, I don't think this is inaccurate, but tell me if you think this is wrong, but it's obviously describing digging a hole straight down in the ground that requires you to be hanging by a rope to get down into the hole, but also tunneling into the foundations of the mountains, for example. So you could have both vertical and horizontal mining described there, both difficult, both laborious, both very risky. Even today, there's always a danger associated with mining. We think of things like coal mining especially, but other kinds of mining as well. But we're talking about a world that was 4,000 years ago, we can scarcely imagine the kind of physical effort that was required and the kind of physical danger that was involved in getting these things. This is what I'm trying to emphasize, that these are considered the most precious things that we can acquire and we're literally having to exert enormous physical labor and put ourselves in physical danger to get those things. And that's being compared then to what? Wisdom. In other words, If we're going to put that kind of effort into something like gold or silver or iron or precious stones, then when we turn and change the topic to wisdom, how do we carry that idea into the next part of the chapter? Verse 12, Job poses the question, where shall wisdom be found? Where is the place of understanding? And then verse 13, man does not know its worth. and it is not found in the land of the living, where we go after all those things that we consider most precious, even putting our life at risk. Wisdom is a thing of greater value, but it's not where you might expect to find it, is it? There's not a place you can go to dig a hole in the ground to get wisdom. Now somebody's going to say, well, but that's what university is for. You go to university to get wisdom. Well, that's very questionable. But yes, you can get knowledge. But there's also a distinction between the knowledge of wisdom and the knowledge of fools. But we'll get to that. Ginger. The emphasis in this chapter is, or at least the emphasis that I want to put on it for the time being, is that we recognize the intrinsic value of those kinds of things that we work so hard to acquire that are temporary things, they're temporal, physical things. We need to also recognize that there is a greater value to wisdom and if we're willing to put ourselves at such an effort to get the physical things, the material things, then we shouldn't be surprised if there's an effort that's required to get the non-physical thing, the wisdom or the knowledge that we're describing here. Interesting that Job says that man doesn't know what it's worth and it's not found in the land of the living. It's something that is spiritual and even eternal. Verse 18, he says, the price of wisdom or the value of it is above pearls. And then verse 20, again, where then does wisdom come from? Where is the place of understanding? And, of course, the answer is at the end of this chapter where he says, behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to turn away from evil is understanding. So I wanted to show you that chapter because it's fascinating to me in part because it gives us a little glimpse into the ancient world and how even in the ancient world there was an understanding of things like metallurgy, but also because it's setting the stage for placing the value on wisdom that's going to give us the motivation to seek after it, to work at it, in other words. It's not something that you just sit and wait for it to land on you. Comment? Okay. We could even put it like this. again kind of keeping with the analogy here, that it takes a certain amount of wisdom to know where and how to get wisdom. What then is the starting point for wisdom as it's described for us in this chapter and in the book of Proverbs? beginning with the fear of the Lord. And then if you start with fear of the Lord, and why did we say that the way that that is stated, fear of the Lord, which is fear of Yahweh, is important for what? It doesn't just say fear of God, fear of El or Elohim, but fear of Yahweh. What does that signify? Who said it? Oh, Kirk, sound booth. The covenantal relationship, which means what in our churchy parlance? Yeah, salvation. So we could even say it this way and not be far off that salvation is the beginning of wisdom because it puts you in the right relationship with God. Side note, a couple of weeks ago, I guess it was two weeks ago, when I was here making this interview, you mentioned my collection of verses. And I took just a random list and I put them in Excel and sorted them. And they're not, some of them are not individual verses, they're just groups of verses. are examples of people recoiling in fear. But the total number right now, and I'm still finding some, is 247. And that's specifically fear of the Lord? Or examples of where they recoil in fear after they are like the three disciples on the other side. I'm just trying to narrow down your search terms because another way that you could search it is fear the Lord. And that could be stated either in the imperative or in the present tense. I also have another deal about the fear nots. Yeah, and again, when we talk about poetic forms like this, we expect to see those kinds of contrasts, okay? what to do or what not to do, what constitutes wisdom or what constitutes folly. Where do we mine for wisdom today? I've already mentioned one place that we often mine for wisdom and that is the university, right? Men may think that wisdom is found on the university campus and I can say, maybe because I'm in the club, that some of the dumbest people I've ever interacted with are people with PhDs. It's really quite amazing that they literally cannot think clearly about anything. They want you to know that they have a PhD, and I guess that's supposed to lend some weight to their bad reasoning skills. But it doesn't do that, actually. That's called the expert fallacy, by the way. We are often plagued by experts, unfortunately, who we're supposed to listen to just because they are experts, quote unquote. Yeah, humanly speaking. We may think that wisdom is found on the university campus, but the university campus is frankly becoming a wasteland of ideas, quite frankly. It's terrible. I'm kind of glad I got out of that. It's been almost 30 years now, but I can't imagine what it would be like to be in that system today or to be like Elizabeth, a college student in that system today. How much discernment do you need at a time like this to be able to make sense out of what you're being educated in? Vicki said the Bible. That's a good answer. Why is the Bible the place that we should be mining for wisdom? We're illustrating the point by doing a study of the book of Proverbs because that is the Word of God. Which means what? That's kind of an old-fashioned word. Yeah. Live in it or remain in it. Remain within it. Yep. That's a big warning for those of us in the church. that there's a great deal, and here's where by the way, and I can kind of schmooze these together, where church and academia start to make an unholy alliance. There's a great deal of liberalism that comes into the church through the theological academic world. A great deal of caution there. in terms of where these bad ideas make their way into the church including rejection of biblical inerrancy. And that was what in the 1800s, 1700s? Yeah, so a couple hundred years ago, made its way across Europe, made its way to the U.S. is a legitimate field of textual criticism, does it really mean that? Higher criticism is judging its meaning. Right, removing the principle of objectivity. And this is where I love how our Confession states it and does so in such concise terms often in that very first chapter of the Confession of Scripture. Whichever paragraph that is, I'll have to look it up. I think it's around paragraph 8. paragraph 9, the infallible rule of interpretation of scripture is the scripture itself, and therefore, when there's a question about the true and full sense of any scripture, parentheses, which is not manifold but one. Now we might easily just kind of gloss over that little side note in parentheses. What does manifold mean? Lots. What does one mean? One, in other words, scripture doesn't mean what you think it means or what you want it to mean, it means what God meant and what God meant was a single objective idea. Not manifold, but one, it must be searched and known by other places that speak more clearly and so we have that principle of comparing scripture to scripture. The way that I like to put it is, The Bible is the only infallible commentary on the Bible. All other commentaries written by men, fallible. Many of them are full of errors. Some of them are just barely worth burning. But the Bible itself is the only infallible commentary on the Bible. And so we have that principle of comparing scripture to scripture. And one of the most dramatic illustrations in the Bible of that very principle is what? Yeah. When Jesus was tempted in the wilderness. and Satan tempts him and what does he always respond by saying? It is written, right? He's quoting scripture as the authority. Right. So I'm looking at the passage in Luke 4 So Jesus is tempted, first turn the stones into bread. He says, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone. The devil took him up to the high place in the kingdoms of the world and said, I'll give all of this to you if you'll worship me. And he says, it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve. And so Satan started to pick up on the pattern here that Jesus is quoting scripture. So what does he do next? took Him to Jerusalem, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, He will command His angels concerning you to guard you, and on their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone. And Jesus said, Wow, man, you got me that time. Oh, He said, It is said, or It is also written, you shall not put the Lord your God to the test. In other words, the proper understanding of the verses that Satan is quoting to him in his temptation is found in another part of Scripture. In this case, he's quoting Psalm 91 and Jesus is saying, you can't understand Psalm 91 without reference to Deuteronomy. Scripture interpreting Scripture, so that the proper interpretation is one, not many, and that the Scripture is the only infallible commentary on itself. So, Scripture as that source, that ultimate source of wisdom, and not just in the general sense, but also because in books like Proverbs, and books like Job, and books like Ecclesiastes, where specifically Those are specifically designed to be a source of wisdom for us within the canon of scripture. We talked about the covenantal connection between the fear of the Lord, the fear of Yahweh, and wisdom. And let's expand on that by saying that the man who fears God trusts in Him and follows Him. And then I could ask this question because this is the question that really permeates the whole book of Job. When do you need to trust in the Lord more than when you were in the midst of suffering? Wasn't that the great test that Job faced at that particular time that's recorded for us in that book? How do you trust in the Lord when you're suffering? Or, what if it's suffering that is that crucible that actually deepens your trust in the one who has control of all things? What does Job even say at the very beginning of the book in those opening chapters when he appears to have lost just about everything? And naked I came into the world and naked I will return to the ground. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. That even in the midst of suffering, even in the midst of unimaginable loss, we have to maintain our trust in the Lord. Peter says it this way, 1 Peter 4.12, Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you as though something strange were happening to you. And even before that in the first chapter, Yeah, I didn't write down the verse reference. Yeah, thank you. He's describing the suffering, he's speaking to these exiles and describing their suffering and saying, in this you rejoice, though now for a little while if necessary you have been grieved by various trials, comma, so that the tested genuineness of your faith more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ." So again, comparing 1 Peter 1 starting verse 7. The one that I quoted before that is 1 Peter 4. So when he says, don't be surprised by the fiery trial, it's like he's coming back around to the issue of suffering and saying that this is a test of your salvation because it's too precious not to be tested. We might put it that way. Excuse me. So that was my introduction. I see it's 1023. I keep saying we're going to talk about the fear of the Lord. We did kind of start that, but there are a number of specific references in the book of Proverbs that I want us to look at. I even printed them out for you, but because this is kind of, I can't start that and have time to get through it and do justice to it, that'll be what we cover next week. So I'll hang that out there, kind of keep you in suspense for the next week. In the meantime, you can do a little of your own study like Bill has done on the fear of the Lord as a search phrase or fear the Lord as another search phrase and see what those texts have to say. and we can pick up our discussion with that next week. So I'll just stop there. We'll conclude, and I'd like to ask Steve to pray for us, if you would, today. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. Thank you for preserving it for us. Forgive us for our dull of understanding, dullness of hearing. Pray that you would open our hearts, minds, souls Receive what your Holy Spirit will teach us. Forgive us for times where we're lazy and complacent in studying your word. Give us a greater hunger and thirst and love for your word and for you. In Christ's name, amen. Amen. Thank you.