Good Morning Everyone,
Our theme for this month: “Conflict”
Our Bible verse for today: “A person’s insight gives him patience, and his virtue is to overlook an offense.” Proverbs 19:11 (HCSB)
Our thought for today: “A spiritually mature person is slow to anger, and easily overlooks offenses.”
Is it possible to measure, or assess, or to gain some insight into, the depth of a person’s spiritual maturity? Yes, it is. Both the Old and New Testaments offer us plenty of verses and passages which provide us with assessment tools, so to speak. These are indicators which reveal what’s really going on in the depths of a person’s soul. In Galatians 5:22-23 the Apostle Paul wrote about the Fruit of the Holy Spirit which should become more and more evident in the life of a believer as that individual matures spiritually and grows into the likeness of Christ.
In Matthew 12:34 Jesus said the words that come out of our mouth reveal what’s really going on in our heart. That’s another indicator of spiritual maturity.
In Proverbs 19:11 Solomon provides us with yet another of those passages. He tells us that the depth of this person’s insight (read “wisdom”) will give them patience. If you have patience you will be slow to anger. And if you are slow to anger, you will be much less likely to end up in a conflict. He also says here that one of the virtues such a person has is that they have the ability to simply overlook offenses. The ability and willingness to simply overlook an offense and shrug it off is a measure of the depth of your spiritual maturity.
I love the way the study notes in the Holman Christian Standard Study Bible defines “virtue”. The editors write: “Virtue is literally a “beautiful adornment”. When through insight a person gains patience, he gains the admirable capacity to overlook it when someone sins against him.”
Yes, the ability to do that is a “beautiful adornment” to your personality. (And it goes a long, long way towards avoiding conflicts!)
The Amplified Bible translates Proverbs 19:11 in this way: “Good sense makes a man restrain his anger, and it is his glory to overlook a transgression or an offense.”
Whether we define it as “good sense” or “insight” or “wisdom”; and whether it results in “virtue”, “beautiful adornment”, or “glory”, the Biblical lesson is clear – “Be slow to anger, overlook offenses, avoid conflict”. Sounds like good advice.
God Bless,
Pastor Jim
Oak Hill Baptist Church 