Ezra 8:15 I gathered them to the river that runs to Ahava, and there we camped three days. As I reviewed the people and the priests, I found there none of the sons of Levi. Then I sent for Eliezer, Ariel, Shemaiah, Elnathan, Jarib, Elnathan, Nathan, Zechariah, and Meshullam, leading men, and for Joiarib and Elnathan, who were men of insight, and sent them to Iddo, the leading man at the place Casiphia, telling them what to say to Iddo and his brothers and the temple servants at the place Casiphia, namely, to send us ministers for the house of our God. And by the good hand of our God on us, they brought us a man of discretion, of the sons of Mahli the son of Levi, son of Israel, namely Sherebiah with his sons and kinsmen, 18; also Hashabiah, and with him Jeshaiah of the sons of Merari, with his kinsmen and their sons, 20; besides 220 of the temple servants, whom David and his officials had set apart to attend the Levites. These were all mentioned by name.
Proverbs 2:6 For the LORD gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding;
Proverbs 20:5 The purpose in a man’s heart is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out.
Daniel 2:21 He changes times and seasons; he removes kings and sets up kings; he gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding;
2 Timothy 2:7 Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything.
“Who were men of insight”. There are times I seem to have an understanding and other times it seems like there is nothing but air between my ears. Something changed in our world over the last 25 years. “Google it.” For most of this culture, the thought of going to the library and looking something up has never been a thought. This culture has what seems to be the worlds biggest library right in the palm of their hand. We can speak into our smartphone and in less than 2 seconds have a response to our inquiry. We weed through these results and scan them for information that seems to meet our expectation. The problem with the ease of this is that the search is so easy that we do not have the want to retain knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. Everything seems to go into short term memory because anytime I need to know something I can do a search and have the information that seems right within the time it would take me to grab my keys to go to the library. I don’t need to do all of the research that once upon a time was required. I can just read up on all of that from others and for the most part, never have to form my own thoughts. Herein is the problem; When this approach is taken toward the Word of God.
We don’t have to “Know” God’s word as intended but rather can just look up keywords and have His promises pop up in front of our eyes. We latch onto these for the cure of our heart, mind, and soul. We can look up; afraid, lonely, greed, pride, grace, forgiveness, love, joy, peace, refuge, power, strength, security, hope, faith, to mention a few. We find a verse or a few verses that we can claim and it eases our mind. What gets lost in this type of “one and done” lookup is the presence of God in our lives. What gets lost is a continual growth and maturity that comes from seeking and desiring to know and understand God through intentionally spending time in His word, meditating on it, and allowing Holy Spirit to transform our thoughts through diligent study. Don’t get me wrong. There are times to use “lookup searches.” While we are spending time in study is a good time to gain understanding through seeing more examples of the verse that strikes a raw nerve in our heart.
We must guard our heart and mind from being tempted from the neglect of “the Wholeness” of God’s Word. We must spend time in it with a longing to know God deeper and how to humbly serve, honor, follow, trust, and obey Him if we want to become “men of insight” who rightly divide the “Word of Truth”.