Removing the Dross

(Pro 25:4 KJV) Take away the dross from the silver, and there shall come forth a vessel for the finer.

I hesitate on how to interpret this verse for today. I see the need to “take away” (1898) the “dross” (5509) of our lives, both spiritual and temporal. There are many applications to that. We sometimes focus only on the spiritual life and the sin in our hearts. Without taking away from that, I think it may also be a reminder to remove the activities that keep us from being pure. Those activities may be a natural part of our life, just as silver has natural impurities. They may be artificial. They must be removed.There is a quote that was attributed to John Wesley but I have not been able to verify. At this point I can only paraphrase it anyway. It went something like this: Whatever takes away from your ability to live right, whatever dulls your sense of spiritual awareness, whatever makes it hard for you to act in liberty, etc.; for you, that is a sin.

How many TV shows or movies fit into those categories? What books, magazines and even cartoons bring this result? What leisure activities contribute to these failures? By themselves they may be harmless, but if they keep us from being what God wants us to be, they are sins.

Silver was one of the first metals to be used by man because it was found in a relatively pure state and could be beaten into shapes. Silver can be found to make into jewelry and such but it is not pure silver, thus it has different characteristics and less value than smelted silver.

This type of silver does not have the “dross” (5509) removed. To be useful to God we must be cleansed of the sin and habits that impregnate our personalities and nature. The root word has the idea of backsliding. Fight it.