Proverbs 1

It is only fitting that the book of Proverbs gives homage to Solomon, both because of his own wisdom, and because of the number of passages in the book itself that are from him. A proverb proper is a short meaningful statement that presents a practical truth. While there are many of these statements in the book, there are also longer teaching sections (parables, sayings and riddles), particularly at the beginning. The main purpose of the book is to provide moral instruction, and there are two basic guidelines for us: (1) only the wise will learn, because only the wise want to learn, and (2) true wisdom starts with the fear of the Lord. We could say that our initial relationship with God starts with a literal fear, because we need to understand what will happen to us if we don’t believe in Jesus Christ as our Savior! But both our initial and ongoing relationship with God needs to be characterized by a different kind of fear. If we aren’t in awe of God and don’t respect Him, then we won’t pay attention to what He has to say. We won’t trust. We won’t listen. We won’t obey. If we fear Him, then we’ll heed His Word!

Proverbs is written as though it’s Solomon giving advice to his son about how to live. His words are wise, precisely because they are echoing God’s words. It’s the Lord who gives true wisdom! And we should make sure that we pass down that wisdom to both our physical and spiritual children. But we are also all children, needing guidance from others more spiritually mature than we are. We shouldn’t listen to the ungodly voices that encourage us to sin. Here greed is seen as something that can lead to theft, violence, and murder. Listening to wisdom causes us to ignore the crowd and live godly lives.

To our modern ears verse 26 seems a bit harsh: “I will mock when calamity overtakes you” (WEB). But this is actually an important reminder about how life works. It’s too late to ask for wisdom’s help after we’re caught beating and robbing someone (11-14)! The time to seek wisdom is before we end up in trouble.

Thought for the day: Are you in awe of God enough to want to know His Word so that you can stay out of trouble and follow Him?

1 Peter 2:2 (WEB) “as newborn babies, long for the pure spiritual milk, that with it you may grow”