The Book of Proverbs is considered to be authored by King Solomon (although which of these proverbs are "curated" from collected Jewish wisdom literature of the time and which are original to him I am not sure), who is the wisest man who ever lived and ever shall live (1 Kings 12 ESV). I think it interesting to note that the Lord as an author sometimes uses certain archetypes by way of instruction as to demonstrate the personification of the quality of an attribute. That is to say if Solomon is the wisest man then it would be reasonable to assume that his words of wisdom are going to be a great, if not the, example of what the attributes of wisdom are. Similarly we can look to Moses, the meekest man in the world, and his actions to see what how the quality of meekness is displayed in one's life and what it means to be meek. All this to say that if we want to know what wisdom is, that is godly wisdom and not necessarily the wisdom of men, then Proverbs should provide great instruction in that regard.
Proverbs is generally organized as a collection of sayings, usually in pairs. It is not always clear (at least to me) why certain "bunches" of sayings are grouped with each other and others not. We also see certain sayings verbatim repeated at odd intervals and some sayings that appear to explicitly contradict each other (at least from a surface reading). My goal in this planned series of blog posts is not necessarily to go through each saying one by one but to give what I hope to be a general overview of the theme or themes of the chapter (if I feel there is one that I can ascertain) and to perhaps write a few reflections on certain specific sayings as I feel driven to do so. I welcome comments or questions. Without further ado let's begin.
Chapter 1
The beginning of the book of Proverbs serves as a mission statement as to its purpose. What is that purpose? "To know wisdom and instruction, to understand words of insight...to give prudence to the simple, knowledge and discretion to the youth...to understand a proverb and a saying, the words of the wise and their riddles." (Proverbs 1:2-6 ESV).
I would not say that, because of the format of the material, that this is like "breaking the fourth wall" (which would be appropriate to deus ex machina interruption of a narrative) but it serves as kind of aside (as we see in the beginning of Luke) where we are told why something is happening, that is, why are we being provided these proverbs, what will they serve us? I think this is important. Let us not forget, out of all history, all knowledge, all wisdom, God has chosen only these materials to communicate his truth to us (and I understand here I am already separating myself from some who hold to the coequal value of tradition; still, even if other materials are included by some, the point is that there are very few materials that God has provided out of the infinite collective pool of information he could have given to us to communicate to us his divine message - and yes of course I am also excluding natural revelation but please bear with me). So we should be very careful in to meditate and consider those select things he has put before us.
So we see that in addition to providing us a purpose for the material God is establishing a relationship between the provider of the material (Solomon) and the reader. My interpretation is that Solomon serves as a mediator of wisdom who God uses as his vessel to provide wisdom to his people (who will later be subsumed in wisdom and stature by the God of Wisdom, Jesus Christ). Solomon writes this book for his son and substitutes for God providing this wisdom for his children.
How do we receive this wisdom? To receive something we must first know that we are lacking it. As Christ later tells us those who know they lack will receive (Luke 6:20-21) and Paul says if anyone thinks he knows, he does not know as he ought to know (1 Corinthians 8:2). So what does this tell me? That I must realize my simplicity that I may receive prudence. I must realize my state of spiritual immaturity and youth that I may receive knowledge and discretion. As the Lord commands us, we must humble ourselves as little children and realize our utter lack of knowledge, our lack of wisdom, before we are able to receive it (Matthew 18:4). We must have eyes to see and ears to hear. I would recommend praying for these things whenever meditating on Proverbs to first make sure we are receptive to wisdom (Psalm 119 also has some good verses for opening ourselves up to receiving wisdom - ex. "Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law"; or "I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways." [Psalm 119; 15, 18 respectively ESV]).
So then the question is what is this knowledge that we are to receive? The fear of the Lord (Proverbs 1:7 ESV), which is the beginning of knowledge (id ESV). I confess I have trouble with this because the concept of the "fear of the Lord" is so grand and (to me) ambiguous that I don't know where to begin (no pun intended). But taking a step back I think this just reaffirms what was written before. The "fear of the Lord" is not a state of knowing (such as 2+2=4) it is a state of being. It is a state of being submissive to God and in fear of him, of humbling ourselves before him. Note also this is the "beginning of knowledge" (id ESV). We can never receive anything from God if we do not fear him (i.e. respect him, honor him, glorify him). This in my opinion is the fundamental difference between the wisdom of men and the wisdom of God. Do we need to humble ourselves before we can learn arithmetic? Actually perhaps we do
, but jokes aside the point I'm trying to make is there is a state of our heart and mind that we need to get right with God (that is under submission to his authority and instruction) before we can ever learn anything from him at all.
------------------- End of Part 1
*ESV=English Standard Version
Proverbs is generally organized as a collection of sayings, usually in pairs. It is not always clear (at least to me) why certain "bunches" of sayings are grouped with each other and others not. We also see certain sayings verbatim repeated at odd intervals and some sayings that appear to explicitly contradict each other (at least from a surface reading). My goal in this planned series of blog posts is not necessarily to go through each saying one by one but to give what I hope to be a general overview of the theme or themes of the chapter (if I feel there is one that I can ascertain) and to perhaps write a few reflections on certain specific sayings as I feel driven to do so. I welcome comments or questions. Without further ado let's begin.
Chapter 1
The beginning of the book of Proverbs serves as a mission statement as to its purpose. What is that purpose? "To know wisdom and instruction, to understand words of insight...to give prudence to the simple, knowledge and discretion to the youth...to understand a proverb and a saying, the words of the wise and their riddles." (Proverbs 1:2-6 ESV).
I would not say that, because of the format of the material, that this is like "breaking the fourth wall" (which would be appropriate to deus ex machina interruption of a narrative) but it serves as kind of aside (as we see in the beginning of Luke) where we are told why something is happening, that is, why are we being provided these proverbs, what will they serve us? I think this is important. Let us not forget, out of all history, all knowledge, all wisdom, God has chosen only these materials to communicate his truth to us (and I understand here I am already separating myself from some who hold to the coequal value of tradition; still, even if other materials are included by some, the point is that there are very few materials that God has provided out of the infinite collective pool of information he could have given to us to communicate to us his divine message - and yes of course I am also excluding natural revelation but please bear with me). So we should be very careful in to meditate and consider those select things he has put before us.
So we see that in addition to providing us a purpose for the material God is establishing a relationship between the provider of the material (Solomon) and the reader. My interpretation is that Solomon serves as a mediator of wisdom who God uses as his vessel to provide wisdom to his people (who will later be subsumed in wisdom and stature by the God of Wisdom, Jesus Christ). Solomon writes this book for his son and substitutes for God providing this wisdom for his children.
How do we receive this wisdom? To receive something we must first know that we are lacking it. As Christ later tells us those who know they lack will receive (Luke 6:20-21) and Paul says if anyone thinks he knows, he does not know as he ought to know (1 Corinthians 8:2). So what does this tell me? That I must realize my simplicity that I may receive prudence. I must realize my state of spiritual immaturity and youth that I may receive knowledge and discretion. As the Lord commands us, we must humble ourselves as little children and realize our utter lack of knowledge, our lack of wisdom, before we are able to receive it (Matthew 18:4). We must have eyes to see and ears to hear. I would recommend praying for these things whenever meditating on Proverbs to first make sure we are receptive to wisdom (Psalm 119 also has some good verses for opening ourselves up to receiving wisdom - ex. "Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law"; or "I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways." [Psalm 119; 15, 18 respectively ESV]).
So then the question is what is this knowledge that we are to receive? The fear of the Lord (Proverbs 1:7 ESV), which is the beginning of knowledge (id ESV). I confess I have trouble with this because the concept of the "fear of the Lord" is so grand and (to me) ambiguous that I don't know where to begin (no pun intended). But taking a step back I think this just reaffirms what was written before. The "fear of the Lord" is not a state of knowing (such as 2+2=4) it is a state of being. It is a state of being submissive to God and in fear of him, of humbling ourselves before him. Note also this is the "beginning of knowledge" (id ESV). We can never receive anything from God if we do not fear him (i.e. respect him, honor him, glorify him). This in my opinion is the fundamental difference between the wisdom of men and the wisdom of God. Do we need to humble ourselves before we can learn arithmetic? Actually perhaps we do
, but jokes aside the point I'm trying to make is there is a state of our heart and mind that we need to get right with God (that is under submission to his authority and instruction) before we can ever learn anything from him at all.------------------- End of Part 1
*ESV=English Standard Version
