Lesson 345: “Shooting From The Hip"
Shooting from the hip is usually associated with the old western movies. For the heroes and the bad guys it meant to quick draw a gun from the holster, firing without raising it to arm’s level. The dictionary defines shooting from the hip as reckless or impulsive speech. It also means to speak indiscreetly such as gossip or to brag or boast about things you know nothing about. An idiom is a phrase or expression with an unusual syntactic pattern or with a meaning differing from the literal meaning of its parts. The idiom of shooting from the hip would be simply shooting off one’s mouth. Job gives us a prime example of shooting from the hip in his very humble apology to God. “Surely I spoke of things I did not understand. Things too wonderful for me to know” (Job 42:3).
Ben-Hadad decided to attack Samaria and was quite the bully in doing so. Although Ahab gave in to most of the demands, he balked on the last one and Ben-Hadad ironically used a threat much like Ahab’s wife Jezebel. “May the gods deal with me be it ever so severely if enough dust remains in Samaria to give each of my men a handful” (1 Kings 20:10, 19:1-2). Ahab answered him saying, “one who puts on his armor should not boast like one who takes if off” (1 Kings 20:11). In other words do not boast of victory until you have actually obtained it! Proverbs backs this up with “do not boast about tomorrow for you do not know what a day may bring you” (Pro. 27:1). There was a lot of shooting from the hip in the bible and David said the wicked poured out arrogant words and all the evildoers were full of boasting (Ps. 94:3-4).
The king of Judah challenged the king of Israel and Jehoash replied; “you are arrogant and proud. But stay home! Why ask for trouble and cause your own downfall and that of Judah” (2 Chro. 25:17-19)? Isaiah warned about boasting comparing it to the ax raising itself up against him who swings it and the saw boasting against him who uses it (Isa. 10:15). In Ezekiel 35:13 God assures us that He hears our boasting without restraint against Him and Psalm 52:1 states that boasting of evil you have done is a disgrace to God.
According to the many warning scriptures, we do not have boasting rights. We need never “shoot from the hip” (Romans 11:18, Ephesians 2:9, 2 Timothy 3:2, James 3:5-6). The only boasting we should do is to boast in the Lord (Ps. 34:2, 44:8, 49:6). “Let him who boasts boast in the Lord” (2 Cor. 10:17) and remember that “we are not trying to please men but God who tests our hearts” (1 Thess. 2:4).