“If a man digs a pit, he will fall into it;
If a man rolls a stone, it will roll back on him.”
Oh this was a fun one! We said our prayers inviting the Holy Spirit to teach us and show us how Jesus fulfilled the book of Proverbs. We boldly said our declaration of: “I am a child of God! He loves me, so I love me!” We then took a moment and said our introduction that we’ve been using for at least 10 years and read our next verse, Proverbs 26:27.
Immediately we were confronted with a popular scene in many Western movies, when the antagonist makes his victim dig his own grave. The footnote in my Bible compares it to Psalm 7:16, “The trouble he causes recoils on himself.” If not for a villain’s command, why would anyone dig a pit? Was it like the Psalm inferred or was it for a trap? For us, we looked at it like ‘the more you keep on talking, the deeper you dig.’ The point was, “Stop digging!” For whatever the plan, it will not turn out like you think it will.
The next part of the Proverb came out as a scene from an Indiana Jones movie, The Raiders of the Lost Ark. But instead of Indiana rolling the stone in place, it was rolling after him! What does the stone the Proverb mentioned represent? Unlike for a boobytrap to protect a religious cultural artifact, the rock can represent regrets the man would rather hide.
We ended with our favorite question, “How did Jesus fulfill the book of Proverbs to make us into new creations, 2 Corinthians 5:17?” We were brought right to Jesus’ empty tomb, John 20:1. Here the rock didn’t roll back upon us, for our trouble was removed by the Blood of the Lamb, Hebrews 8:12.
The passage Matthew 27:51-54 also seems appropriate to mention. I just didn’t know where it fit. Also, Aaron Ventura’s comments on Biblical interpretation seem extra fitting on these verses and the 182 experiment with ChatGPT. Aaron Ventura’s thoughts can be found here:
“Before I give you my take on this text which I will do at the end, I want to do a brief survey of what the church has said about this passage over the last 2,000 years. So I’ve pulled together a bunch of quotations ranging from the 1st century church fathers up through the reformation period, and I am going to just walk you through how the church has historically interpreted this passage and then give you my own interpretation after that.
And this is a good exercise in how to do theology and biblical interpretation. Just as we are to read the Bible within the community of the church, so also we should interpret Scripture within the context of the church, and not just the church of the present day, but the universal church throughout history. This is one of the ways we obey the 5th commandment to honor our fathers and our mothers. That doesn’t mean the church has always gotten the right interpretation, in fact often it gets it wrong just like Israel got things wrong, but checking our work with theirs can help keep us from error.”
https://localchristendom.com/what-happened-to-the-people-who-were-resurrected-in-matthew-2751-53/