Clichés, adages, and quirky sayings are such a large part of our everyday language that we often loose track of their origins. Such as, ‘what can go wrong will go wrong’, the term pot luck, ‘pride goes before the fall’, or ‘truth stands the test of time’. Each of these little phrases are things we’ve heard before, but we rarely know the source.

 

Well the last two in the list above, ‘pride goes before the fall’ and ‘truth stands the test of time’ are proverbs from the Bible.

 

Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.
Proverbs 16:18

 

Truth stands the test of time; lies are soon exposed.
Proverbs 12:19

 

Often we don’t realize how many little adages and clichés are biblical, but then there are those that we assume to be biblical but in fact they go against the very nature of God. A prime example is the saying “God helps those who help themselves”. This ‘verse’ is often thought of as a biblical statement, and I can’t count how many times I have heard people reference this saying as being from the Bible. But in truth it is a line from an Aesop Fable also a Benjamin Franklin quote from the Poor Richard’s Almanac in 1757.

 

The Aesop Fable of which this reference comes goes like this:

 

“A Wagoner was once driving a heavy load along a very muddy way. He came to a part of the road where the wheels sank half-way into the mire, and the more the horses pulled, the deeper sank the wheels. So the Wagoner threw down his whip, and knelt down and prayed to Hercules the Strong. ‘O Hercules, help me in this my hour of distress.” But Hercules appeared to him, and said: ‘Man, don’t sprawl there. Get up and put your shoulder to the wheel. The gods help them that help themselves.”

  

How a fable became a Bible verse I don’t know, but some will say I’m incorrect and throw out the Bible reference Hezekiah 6:1 as the Bible verse that states ‘God helps those who help themselves’, BUT Hezekiah isn’t a book in the Bible, not even in the Apocrypha. Hezekiah was a king of Judea whose story can be found in 2Chronicles and 2Kings, but he doesn’t have a book of his own.

 

But what makes the statement against the nature of God, it sounds like something that would be true? Other than the fact that half truths are Satan’s bread and butter, which is how he deceived Eve in the Garden of Eden and attempted to deceive Christ in the wilderness, the statement basically negates our need for salvation.

 

If our actions or the ‘helping of ourselves’ dictates God’s actions that would tend to lessen the power, strength, and mercy of the Almighty. There is nothing we can do or say to deserve the mercy of salvation or the presence of God in our lives. As Believers we do not set a course for ourselves, and then pray, asking God’s help as we ask Him to “go beside us”…but rather, we humbly ask, “what do You have in mind for me to do?” (ac9:6)

 

But this also doesn’t mean that we are to sit back and just let the world happen around us. There is a part for us to play in this world. God expects us to be active and obedient to His leading, but we are never the master of circumstances; He is. The more we try to control the more we are trying to wrestle control from Him. At the source of this conflict is a mist trust that God actually works things together for good. (Romans 8:28)

God wants our active obedience in His plans not lazy believers. So be careful in what you references as biblical statements cause they can be a stumbling block for believers of any stage in their walk with Christ. So to reword the quote from Aesop’s fables to be a more biblically relevant; God helps those who obediently submit to his mercy and take up their cross and follow Him.

 

Have a Blessed Day!

Tags: Aesop Fables, Benjamin Franklin, God Helps those who help themselves

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 12th, 2008 at 9:15 am and is filed under Reflection. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.