Drink water from your own cistern, running water from your own well. – Proverbs 5:15

Today’s Scripture Reading (September 24, 2019): Proverbs 5

Context is king. Always. We have a bad habit of missing the context in the Bible, and the result is always a warped message. So Jeremiah writes “For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” (Jeremiah 29:11). And we use the verse to assure ourselves that no matter how bad things might get, life will get better; that God has a plan for us. And there is no doubt that he does. But the context of Jeremiah’s encouragement is that it is about a people and not a person. The individuals who first heard Jeremiah’s words had been carried into captivity, and as much as they might have wanted to go home, they never would. Jeremiah words are aimed at the generations that would follow them. God has a plan, but often his plans often seem to take the long way home.

And yet we insist on taking the short view, and the literal view, of what the Bible says. And so Jeremiah’s words are meant for us, not for the children of captivity or our children. The world was created in six twenty-four hour days because that is what the Bible tells us. If we can’t take the Bible literally, then of what value is it to us.

But context is king. And when we take verses out of context, we lose the intended meaning. These few words from Proverbs could easily be used to advertise for a campaign to create clean drinking water in the developing world. And various efforts to do precisely that by Christian organizations is a worthwhile endeavor. And developing drinking water is the literal meaning of the words, but using the words for that purpose would be to ignore the meaning that is intended here. I know that Solomon speaks of water here, but it is not drinking water that he has on his mind.

Solomon’s words are clearly about sex and our sexual desire. There is no way that Solomon starts off this section talking about sex and then stops to discuss drinking water, before returning to the idea of sex. The water here is being used to fulfill a sexual thirst. When Solomon writes that his sons should drink from their own cistern, he is indicating that their sexual needs should be fulfilled within their marriage relationships.  

Solomon reminds his sons and the rest of us who read his words that God is concerned with all of our needs. God gives us physical water to quench our physical thirst. He gives us spiritual water to quench our spiritual thirst. And by creating our marriage relationships, he makes provisions for our sexual thirst to be satisfied as well. But, while it might be tempting to steal sexual water from someone else’s well, God’s plan is that our sexual thirst would be satisfied through our drinking from our own well. And our focus should be on all of the ways that God has blessed us.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Proverbs 6