From a devotion on 2/21/04

There is a way which seemeth right unto a man…
There is a way that seemeth right unto man…
…but the end thereof are the ways of death.
Proverbs 14:12, 16:25 – KJV

       These proverbs should read, “There is a way right unto a man,…” or there is a chosen direction. Way in Hebrew is de-rek; figuratively a path of meaning, a defined direction, even choice. What is interesting about these proverbs is the way they were translated in the late sixteenth or early seventeenth centuries. The first proverb is translated ‘which seems’ while the second is ‘that seem’ – words not in the original Hebrew text.

       So Proverbs 14:12 reads, “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” There is a way which seems right, or there is a way, a chosen direction by which he is either surviving by or self-righteously going. This is the world most people walk in including Christians.

       Therein is the career man or woman, the materialist, the survivalist – the indifferent Christian ostrich. The materialist assumes a theory that physical matter is the only reality and that everything; thought, feeling, mind, and will, can be explained in terms of matter and physical phenomena; that physical well-being and possession constitute the greatest good and highest value in life – survival of the fittest.