Proverbs 3:3 Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you; bind them around your neck; write them on the tablet of your heart.

Scriptures that happen to be near other, more famous scriptures often get lost, and that’s the case with Proverbs 3:3. Verses 5 and 6 usually get all the attention:Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.

What we find in Verse 3:3 is similar to what we find in Proverbs 4:20-23 (see entry 22) in that we are looking at not letting things happen. There we looked at not letting God’s words escape. Here we are admonished to keep His love and faithfulness so close that we couldn’t go anywhere without them. After a general call to keeping His commandments, these verses call us to keep His steadfast love and faithfulness bound around our necks and written on the tablets of our hearts.

“Bound around our necks” can suggest several things. Things bound around the neck are usually something precious and observable. Historically, it is the most valuable items that are worn around the neck, such as precious stones. This is how we are to value His steadfast love and faithfulness, esteeming them more precious than silver or gold.

Keeping these godly qualities this evident demonstrates that His love and faithfulness are guiding our actions, actions visible to others. Actions meant to impress or done with a sense of duty don’t glorify the Lord. Actions rooted in His faithfulness and love carry His anointing, call attention to the Source of our conduct, and result in the fulfilling of God’s intention.

The tablets of our hearts, in contrast, are internal and individual. And while the Lord mentions throughout the Old Testament how He will write upon the hearts of His people, here He tells us to write them on our hearts ourselves! When these words were written, writing was done on stone or clay tablets, with the writing carved in for permanence. That’s how deeply we are to receive His love and faithfulness, so deeply that there are permanent marks on our hearts made by those godly attributes. Once there, they shape us and transform us over time, and of course, shape our actions.

There’s a fascinating tension here. We are to make certain things easily demonstrable by outward actions that reflect His love and faithfulness, AND we are to hold those same attributes so deeply in our hearts that His intentions get permanently carved there. That’s God’s will: to pour His Spirit on us in such a way that it transforms our hearts and works outwardly for all the world to “know that the Lord, He is God.”