Seven Abominations?

I must say that I love this Going Deeper Bible study that we’re currently doing at WCC.  We’ve been faithfully doing Beth Moore studies for years (and I adore Beth Moore!), but this Fall we were challenged to take things a step further and actually teach the women ourselves, encouraging women to dig deeper into Bible Study on their own. No more filling in blanks!  Now women have homework each week, which is mostly just open-ended study questions so that they can discover nuggets of truth from God’s Word on their own.

One of things I love about this is that we have different speakers each week, and each speakers develops the homework for her week of teaching. So while there’s a constant theme and feel, for consistency, each week has a different flavor.  All that to say that I’m right now doing my homework for this week’s lesson, which is on Communicating Love.  The power of words!

This passage in Proverbs 15 hit me afresh today. This is a kick-your-teeth-in verse!  Of course I’ve often studies the Eph. 4:29 verse, the Matthew 12 and Matthew 5, and even lots of Proverbs 15, which are all full of great stuff. But this time around, Proverbs 26 seemed new and challenging all over again:

Whoever hates disguises himself with his lips and harbors deceit in his heart; when he speaks graciously, believe him not, for there are seven abominations in his heart.”  Prov. 26:24-25

Now I really am not a hateful person, and at the moment I can’t even think of anyone I hate or really dislike. For the most part I tend to like people.  I had to laugh when Beth Moore shared said something about this because it is exactly how I feel, she said, “I really tend to like people, which is why it’s so hard when they don’t like me! It’s like, ‘What?! Why don’t you like me? I like you! Why can’t you just like me?”

But if I do feel hurt by someone, wronged by someone, or am just bent out of shape for some reason, what is my natural response?  To fall on my face and ask God to change my heart and give me a pure heart of love?  I wish. More often it is to mask my ugly feelings with my words.  To double up on the outward niceness so that my ugliness doesn’t show.  For example, today something bugged me that Jeff said and I responded, “Ok sweetie well if there’s anything else you’d like me to do to make things better for you just let me know.”  Right this second I am laughing at myself because it’s obvious what a ridiculous statement that was. What I was really saying was, “For crying out loud I’ve bent over backwards trying to do things for you and I’m ticked that you have so much work to do and aren’t helping me right now. Can you puh-lease read my mind and see that I’m ticked and start being superDad which is what I want you to be right now.”  But I covered up my angry heart with some seemingly gracious words. It was a pretty puny attempt at disguising myself.  And isn’t it always?

I would venture to say that when we are ticked off, or jealous or bitter or angry, our attempts to disguise it with our words is usually a pretty sorry attempt. And what’s worse, Scripture says that we “harbor deceit” in our hearts. So now we’ve not only got hate (anger), now we’re double dipping into sin by harboring deceit as well!  And as if double dipping weren’t enough, this passage says that when we take it a step further and attempt to cover all the mess up by speaking graciously, then there are not one, not two, not three, but SEVEN abominations in our heart. Somehow that math just doesn’t seem fair, but apparently it is because God said it.  We hate, we deceive, then we try to cover it up, and in the end we’ve got a whole host of nasty sinful abominations in our heart.

And this passage is warning the poor recipients of all this junk, “Believe him not!”  We’re called to be discerning, to not be tricked by this foolishness. The hatred is still there.  Perhaps the greatest warning should be to us, though–to not be deceived by our own hearts, by our own words, to not fool ourselves into thinking that just because the words are right the heart is right as well.  That perhaps sometimes our gracious speech is really an abomination–or seven abominations!

Anyway, how’s that for  a fun little tidbit for your weekend?  Nothing like abominations to cheer up a dreary afternoon. 🙂  No really, though– love how God’s Word uses strong words because the stuff we’re talking about is strong stuff: love, relationships, the glory of God.  I pray that I, that we, would take this to heart, and keep the hatred–and abominations–out!