Do you feel that 'having faith in humanity', when weighed by your own experiences, and seeing the results of this in others lives, do you feel it is better for the benefit of your overall life, to invest yourself in truly trying to believe the best about others, or wiser to keep a distance and care about others from 'afar'?
Do you feel these verses pertain to this topic and suggest an attitude of vigilence and caution regarding 'trusting others'?
Jeremiah 17:5-10
5¶Thus saith the LORD; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the LORD.
6For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited.
7Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is.
8For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.
9The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
10I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.
John 2:23-25
23¶Now when he was in Jerusalem at the passover, in the feast day, many believed in his name, when they saw the miracles which he did.
24But Jesus did not commit himself unto them, because he knew all men,
25And needed not that any should testify of man: for he knew what was in man.
Genesis 6:5 THE LORD saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.
Some teach that man is basically good. That is not what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches "No one is righteous, not even one." "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." "While I was looking and still not finding, I found one upright man among a thousand, but not an upright woman among them all. " These are all Bible verses. Of course another Bible verse is "Anything pure, anything noble, dwell on these things."
