God: The World’s Greatest Concealment Artist (Prov. 25:2)
Most often theology is written in the third person—about God. But for theology to become doxology, it must shift to the second person—You. I try to model that movement in this fourth installment on the doctrine of God in Proverbs. Proverbs 25:2 has the fourth occurrence of “God” (here Elohim ) in Proverbs. Proverbs 25:2 It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, But the glory of kings is to search out a matter. The ‘glory’ of God has multiple senses in Scripture. The sense here, since it is contrastively paralleled with “the glory of kings,” is “honor, acknowledgement of elevated status.” People honor what they admire. What brings honor to God is His concealment of matters because it displays his the unique excellence of His wisdom. God conceals matters. Father, You hide things. You cover things. You hide truth from the unbelieving (cf. Isa. 6:9-10; Mark 4:11-12). You cover in the simple guise of a leaf multi-faceted machinery that uses light for energy, that process...