Intro to Proverbs

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.
Proverbs 1:7 

Quiz time! Serving 160 years apart, name the two secretaries of state who never married? What are the two four letter words that have ‘oo’ in them in the poem inscribed at the base of the Statue of Liberty? In Genesis 4, what name is chosen because God ‘hath appointed me another seed’? Those questions are a few of the final jeopardy questions that Brad Rutter faced during his Jeopardy campaign. Having all that memorized knowledge served him well to the effect that he had earned $4,255,102 or $4,270,102 and a pair of Chevrolet Camaros. And as impressive as that sounds, King Solomon was estimated to have had a peak net worth of $2.2 trillion! And while he too had knowledge and had a lot of dough, what really sets him apart from Brad Rutter (and many other wealthy people) is the fact that Solomon had true knowledge and true wisdom. And much of his wisdom is contained in the book of Proverbs.

While the book of Proverbs does state that they are from Solomon (1:1), this book is really a collection of wise sayings from multiple authors, such as Agur (chapter 30) and Lemuel (chapter 31) and compiled over a long period of time; one point being during the reign of King Hezekiah (25:1). And to try and summarize this book can be very difficult since the maxims in it touch on a wide breadth of topics such as righteous living, sexual relations, revenge, discipline, laziness, a godly wife, and so much more. Despite the cornucopia of themes, it is not difficult to discern that this book is providing the reader with wisdom in how to live in this world. Many of the books we read in the Old Testament have covenantal themes, being dominated more on how it is that a person can have fellowship with God, but proverbs comes alongside and teaches us how we as disciples ought to live our lives in fellowship with God.

Also, prevailing theme that we encounter throughout the book is that wisdom proceeds from God and can be found by those who fear and trust in Him. And because everything that we do has a direct correspondence to our hearts, it is important for us to recognize that while knowledge (memorization of facts) alone does not change a person’s nature or character, the first truth is that we if we desire to be wise we must fear the Lord. It is our fear of the Lord that drives us to Christ and drives us to living life in a manner that is pleasing to Him. And this can be difficult for us at times because we are finite. But a recognition of our limitations and fragility (30:2-4) is a good thing because it brings us to humility and a realization that we are not to walk in a way that seems wise to us because it will only lead to death (14:12; 16:25). Instead, a truly wise man will submit himself God’s Word, because “every word of God proves true” (30:5). When we reject God and His word and try to live our lives apart from His counsel and will, we live like fools. But when we fear the Lord, we find life (9:10-11). May we live wisely in the fear of the Lord because we know that our lives are short and that in the end we will be demanded an account of it in eternity.

Grace and Peace,
Alex Galvez

To never miss an article, click on the "Subscribe" button at the top of the blog page (https://aogalvez.blogspot.com/)
****************************************************
These articles follow the current Bible Reading plan for Overflow Ministries. If you would like to join the reading plan, simply download the plan here: Overflow Reading Plan

You may follow Overflow Ministries @ https://faithlife.com/overflowtx/activity
or on Facebook @ https://www.facebook.com/OverflowChurchTX/

Question? Comments? Post in the comments or send me an e-mail: OverflowBlog@outlook.com

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Balance

Image
"For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come." 1 Timothy 4:8 (NIV) This past weekend (Month even) has been a very busy one. It often happens that when life ramps up, we cut the unimportant things out of our lives in order to accomplish the tasks we identify as most critical. To all my followers, I want to apologize for my having cutting this portion of my life out for a period of time and I will do my best to have more consistency. A years ago, the United States Army deployed a digital "fitness" test to its soldiers and certain respondents received a message that read, "Spiritual fitness may be an area of difficulty. You may lack a sense of meaning and purpose in your life. At times, it is hard for you to make sense of what is happening to you and to others around you. You may not feel connected to something larger than yourself. You may question your
Read more

Satisfaction

Image
“…for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.” Philippians 4:11b (NIV) This has been a very busy month for me in terms of traveling around. I returned home from Brazil after a long three weeks and, after two days, I now find myself back in a hotel in the great city of Duncan, Oklahoma. Although it is slightly inconvenient to me, in terms of my schedule for studying the word, prayer, and working out to live in a hotel for almost a full month, I have found great comfort in the words from the apostle Paul. A man who has murderous attempts on his life, been imprisoned on multiple occasions, beaten up, shipwrecked three times, and bitten by a snake was able to find a state of contentedness regardless of what situation he was in. Talk about finding complete joy. This is the same joy that the beloved disciple wrote of many times for other believers to embrace. And this is a joy that over the years I have learned to develop and enjoy. That no matter what situation I find
Read more

Light

Image
“And this is the message which we have heard from him and announce unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” 1 John 1:5 (ASV) Darkness is not a real thing. Cold is also not a real thing. They are just words that we have made up to define the conditions of an environment or state of existence at a specific period or periods of time. What do I mean then when I say that they are not real things? Well, what I mean is that the darkness that we see (or cannot see because of) is not because it is overwhelming, but because it lacks light. Darkness is the absence of light. When light comes into existence, because light is something real, darkness is expelled. That’s the same with cold. Cold is simply the absence of heat. It is not that it is cold and then at some point it shifts to being hot. It is simply that the heat that exists is too miniscule that it cannot bring warmth to anything. In verse five, we read that God is light, but not a weak source of light
Read more