Dan Phillips, observing the parallel form and chiastic structure of Proverbs 16:20, demonstrates that trusting the Lord is synonymous with diligent study of his Word.
Whoever gives thought to the word will discover good,
and blessed is he who trusts in the Lord.
Phillips informs us that “The term translated ‘he who gives thought, . . . means to give attention to, consider, ponder, understand, comprehend, with an emphasis ‘on the act of attentive observation, of perception and scrutiny, through which one becomes insightful.’” This word is elsewhere in the OT translated (ESV) “discern,” “study,” “regard,” “consider,” “ponder,” “observe,” and “gain insight.” This is clearly not something that happens in a passively yielded state of mind to one who has “let go and let God.” Trusting God is not a blind leap of faith into the mystical realm of whatever-one-hopes-is-there. Trust is the response of the thinking person to what God has revealed about himself.
Practical application can be made, destroying popular opinion that scholarship, resulting in doctrine, is opposed to spirituality.
What does the Bible do with the modern “faith [or love or Christian experience] versus doctrine” division? This text is one of many which reveals that trust in God and intelligent analysis of His Word are inseparable. Faith and doctrine are wed in the Bible. They are divorced only in sick and straying quarters of modern Christendom.
The point cannot be stressed too emphatically. Not only are faith/trust and doctrine not opposed to each other in Scripture, but there simply is no Biblically-defined “trust” without doctrine. Consider: it is only by Bible doctrine that we learn—
- Who God is
- Who we are
- What God’s will is
- What our deepest needs are
- What God’s provisions are
The list could be multiplied almost without end. Without Biblical doctrine, we don’t know whom to trust, or what to trust Him for. Absolutely everything we need to know as believers, in order to know and serve God, is revealed in Scripture (2 Tim. 3:15–17). Anyone imagining a relationship of trust that is not grounded on the certainties of God’s Word is envisioning something other than Biblically-defined faith.
—Dan Phillips, God’s Wisdom in Proverbs (Kress Biblical Resources, 2011), 131.
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