God’s word is a great blessing, and obeying it is the basis for true happiness. A happy man is contrasted with people perishing, and the law of God is contrasted with “no vision.” There is nothing here about dreaming or building plans. What a travesty of Bible interpretation! May the LORD bless you to read and understand the sense of this proverb, as Ezra read and gave the true sense to Israel (Neh 8:8).Īs often in Proverbs, the parallelism tells you that “vision” is the hearing and reading of God’s word. The “vision” is a plan to grow the church in size and “perishing” is continuing on the same course with a bought-and-paid-for building. This proverb is often corrupted to seduce churches to borrow large sums of money to finance unnecessary building projects. May God save you from such ignorant and flippant use of the Scriptures. This is the sound of words with no regard to the sense of words. Here is one of the most abused verses in the Bible. Who has not heard this sound bite, “Where there is no vision, the people perish”? The words of this proverb are well known, but the true meaning is little known. The Bible says, ‘Where there is no vision, the people perish.’ Get a vision, people! Get a vision of tripling the size of your little church! Sign your pledge cards today, and help your pastor get that multi-million dollar mortgage! You need a vision, so your church won’t dry up and disappear.” He goes to his next PowerPoint slide and declares, “God agrees. If you can believe it, you can achieve it.” If you want to triple your attendance in two years, then you need to build an auditorium that size. If you want to grow, then you need to think growth. The hired gun brought in by the ambitious pastor tells the contented church, “To be a big church, you need to think big. The lesson of this proverb is simple, but most are grossly misled by a false interpretation and foolish application. Your success and prosperity depend on you having a message from God. Fulfillment and happiness are by keeping God’s commandments, which can only be known by attention to the Bible. God will soon destroy the world for its insane rebellion. Individual examples of dysfunction are all around you. Without a revelation of God’s will, mankind is desperately ignorant and will self-destruct. The Bible, the inspired scriptures of Jehovah, the only true God, is crucial for you.
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