Guest Contributors

Avot 4:16

By Bill Beyer  | Comments (1) | Posted on February 12, 2008

The Pirke Avot is one of my favorite pieces of study material outside the scriptures. I go over and over the proverbs and I am amazed at how many of them still speak to the situations we encounter on a day to day basis. True wisdom is timeless. And the Pirke Avot is an example of such timeless wisdom.

One of my favorite teachings is Avot 4:16: R. Judah said, “Be cautious in study, for an error in study can amount to presumptuous sin.”

In this day of the internet there is a plethora of materials at our disposal. We can go all over the internet and have no troubles finding teachers who will tell us what our itching ears want to hear (2 Tim 4:3, 4). It can be very easy for us to place our trust in those who can easily lead us astray from the truth, if we are not careful.

The gift of discernment is vital to our education. It is part of the caution of study that Rabbi Judah wants us to be engaged in. In this way we can protect our teaching, making sure that we do not lead ourselves into presumptuous sin. However, discernment can be difficult when we are studying Torah on our own. This is one area where community becomes very important.

One of the extra benefits to being a part of FFOZ’s Torah Club is the Torah Club Online Forum. The Online Forum gives people a virtual community in which to ask questions and strive to find answers. It also allows us a place to test teachings we may hear and see how they measure up against scripture. With the guidance of the FFOZ Teaching Team and others we can work to be cautious in our study and not be easily led astray by every whim of doctrine.

I encourage you if you are not already a Torah Club member to look into becoming a part. And then join us in the Torah Club Online Forum. There we can work together to keep our study and ourselves from presumptuous sin.

About the Author: Bill Beyer is a friend of FFOZ and a volunteer moderator for the Online Torah Club Forums. He is also the pastor of a Lutheran church.

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