Proverbs Archives - Page 7 of 8

Surveying the Text: Proverbs

Joe Harby on February 2, 2015

Introduction

The book of Proverbs contains more teaching about women than any other book of Scripture. The structure of the book means that it is all about women, and many of the individual proverbs which seem unrelated are actually not at all unrelated. Woman is the glory of man, the capstone of man. She is the best. Woman ruined is hell-bait. She is the worst.

The Text

“Wisdom hath builded her house, She hath hewn out her seven pillars: She hath killed her beasts; she hath mingled her wine; She hath also furnished her table. She hath sent forth her maidens: She crieth upon the highest places of the city, Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither: As for him that wanteth understanding, she saith to him” (Prov. 9:1–4).

“A foolish woman is clamorous: She is simple, and knoweth nothing. For she sitteth at the door of her house, On a seat in the high places of the city, To call passengers Who go right on their ways: Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither: And as for him that wanteth understanding, she saith to him, Stolen waters are sweet, And bread eaten in secret is pleasant” (Prov. 9:13–17).

Summary of the Text

In the book of proverbs, two different kinds of women are giving invitations to come and taste, come and eat. One is Lady Wisdom, a noble lady presiding over a great table in a great banqueting hall. The other is Dame Folly, blouse unbuttoned, enticing the simpletons. The drastic difference in the nature of these invitations sets up the conflict that is pervasive throughout the entire book of Proverbs—the conflict between wisdom and folly as they relate to every imaginable detail of life. These two women are everywhere.

This is why another theme of Proverbs is the theme of contrasting paths or ways—two paths with radically different destinations. The terms of value or praise in Proverbs are frequently related to jewelry, garlands, crowns, silver and gold, the woman’s touch. Men are commended in their industry—and sluggards condemned for their slack hand— because men were called to bring home the old covenant equivalent of the bacon. All the vocational activity and industry in Proverbs, far from being a snapshot of a “man’s world,” is activity designed to bring raw material home to the woman so that she might glorify it.

The book of Proverbs is a collection of various books of proverbs. The form of the book as we have it breaks out into the following sections. First is a set of didactic poems (Prov. 1:1-9:18). The second section is a collection of the proverbs of Solomon (Prov. 10:1-22:16). This section contains almost 400 proverbs. The third section is “words of the wise” (Prov. 22:17-24:22). The fourth is a very brief collection of more words from the wise, almost a postscript (Prov. 24:23-34). The fifth section is another small book by Solomon, a collection preserved by Hezekiah’s men (Prov. 25:1-29:27). The sixth comes from an unknown man named Agur (Prov. 30-:1-33), followed by another short section by an unknown King Lemuel (Prov. 31:1-9). It is possible that both Agur and Lemuel were of Massa—the word for “oracle” might actually be a proper name—meaning they were descended from Ishmael. The last section of Proverbs is a poem of praise for a very particular woman (Prov. 31-10-31). Although not named, her aspect is very concrete, as distinct from the metaphorical Lady Wisdom at the beginning of the book.

How Proverbs Work

Now proverbs are aphorisms, general truths. They are not axioms in geometry. All triangles have three sides, and you will never find a triangle that doesn’t have them. But a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and sometimes your blinkered uncle dies and leaves you with 3 million dollars. Proverbs are true, but they are not tautological truths. They are truths for living in a rough and tumble world, where there is a constant need for adjustments, interpretations, generalizations, and troubleshooting as you go. So a lazy bum sometimes does have that stupid uncle—but don’t bet on it.
This is why proverbs will often lean against each other. Deal with it, and grow in wisdom. “Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit.” (Proverbs 26:4– 5). If you pay back a fool in his coin, you have stepped in to help support his little economy. But if you don’t pay back a fool that way, then he won’t get paid what he deserves—which would be bad. Sometimes wisdom does one thing and sometimes wisdom does the opposite.

Reality Requires Navigation

Proverbs have all the concrete particularity of legalistic rules, but none of the rigidity. They have all the flexibility of license, but with none of the stupidity and sin. If you take the book of Proverbs as a guidebook for practical Christianity, the way it was given, you will have wisdom that can deal withobvious problems without resorting to a clunky rule. For example, take your entertainment standards. Leonard Ravenhill once said that entertainment is the devil’s substitute for joy. Deal with what you watch with the eye of proverbial wisdom, and not the wall of rigid restrictions.

Christ As Our Wisdom

In the eighth chapter of Proverbs, Wisdom is described in terms that go well beyond the attributes of a creature. “The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was . . .” (Prov. 8:22–23). For various reasons, it seems wise to see this as a glorious metaphor—albeit a feminine one—for the Son of God. And how does this wisdom speak?

“The fear of the Lord is to hate evil: Pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, And the froward mouth, do I hate” (Prov. 8:13).

“But he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul: All they that hate me love death” (Prov. 8:36).

Christ is expressly identified as the wisdom of God.

“But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:24).

And this is our savior, Jesus of Nazareth, crucified, buried and risen. And this is why, taking it all together, we see that it is either Christ or death, Christ or nothing, Christ or evil, Christ or chaos.

Get Wisdom: Part 2 (Proverbs)

Joe Harby on July 27, 2014

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The Sons as Wisdom

In the book of Proverbs, wisdom is not just a virtue. Wisdom is a person, a person with attributes and a personality (8:12-21). Wisdom is a person that we are expected to get to know. And as you read Scripture more and more it is hard to not suspect that this person is actually the second person of the Trinity, the Son. Here are three things that hint at this connection.

Creation – Solomon says that Wisdom was not just present at creation, but was used by God to create the universe (Prov. 3:19-20, 8:30). In the New Testament, however, we are told that this was specifically the role that that Son played (John 1:1-3, Col. 1:15-16).

Son as Wisdom – In the New Testament, the Son is regularly identified as “Wisdom” (1 Cor. 1:30, Col. 2:3).

Life – Proverbs describes Wisdom as life itself (Prov. 8:35-36). But the New Testament says that Jesus is life (John 1:4-5).

So we are tempted to think that Wisdom is actually Jesus. But this has been a controversial position to hold because many throughout church history have thought this interpretation would force us to embrace a heretical understanding about the Son. But this is not actually a problem if we understand that the Son is eternally begotten.

Getting Wisdom

So if Wisdom is Jesus this makes “getting wisdom” a much bigger deal. This is why cultural issues are actually a big deal. Becoming a fool is how you fall away from Christ. Tolerating foolishness in your house (or mutually agreed upon foolishness) is how you lose your children.

Wisdom is Near

But the good news is that one of the premier attributes about wisdom is that wisdom is always near (Prov. 1:20, 8:1-3). We don’t ascend to Wisdom, because the Son came down to us. That means that nobody goes to hell for being stupid. You fall under judgment for hard heartedness, stiff-neckness, for stubbornly clinging to your foolishness. But not because you were not good at Latin.

The bad news is—this leaves you without excuse. The good news is, obedience is always right in front of you.

Get Wisdom: Part 1 (Proverbs)

Joe Harby on July 20, 2014

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The central theme of the book of Proverbs is getting wisdom, which Solomon describes as the principle thing (Prov. 4:7). So what is wisdom? And what is the difference between wisdom and knowledge? That is what the book of Proverbs is about.

v. 1 King Solomon was the wisest man on earth (1 Kings 4:29-30, 34). People streamed to him from all over to hear his wisdom. And out of his wisdom he spoke these Proverbs. A proverb is a pithy saying that gives you insight into the way the world works, and from this insight, exhorts you to make righteous decisions.

vv. 2-3 Solomon gives the first half of a definition for Wisdom in v.2-3. Wisdom is justice, judgment, and equity. Wisdom is not just seeing what is, but seeing what should be. It moves from is to ought. This makes it an inherently religious virtue because it is not just looking at creation, but it is looking at creation and discerning the purpose of the Creator behind it all.

vv. 4-5 One of the bizarre things about the Bible in general, but the book of Proverbs in particular, is the way that it is suited for all ages.

v. 6 The Hebrew verbs for “to speak a Proverb” is marshal. But that same verb also means “to rule, or to exercise dominion.” There is an innate connection between wisdom and ruling. Solomon was wise and everyone came to submit themselves to him. But more specifically, it is not just wisdom in general, it is the riddling of Proverbs that goes hand in hand with kings.

That is what wisdom is – it is a blessed intuition that sees not just the facts of the matter, but the bigger story, the riddle that God is telling in the lives and circumstances around you. Therefore, wisdom is also a tool for dominion. People are drawn to a wise leader.

vv. 7-9 But remember the Gospel irony, the truth that the way up will be down. Wisdom and the power to rule come first to humility, to the one ready to fear God and to sit and listen to his father and mother. Fools will kick against this. The wise man is one who stops to listen.

Wisdom is particularly attached to faithful communities. We as a congregation are blessed beyond imagination with the privilege of living and worshiping in a community like this, with a wide range of ages and experience in life, living closely together. But you will find that receiving wisdom sounds a lot better on paper than it feels in real life.

Anger

Joe Harby on January 29, 2012

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The Texts

“Make no friendship with an angry man, and with a furious man do not go, lest you learn his ways and set a snare for your soul.” (Proverbs 22:24-25)

“He who is slow to wrath has great understanding, but he who is impulsive exalts folly.” (Proverbs 14:29)

Hot Noses

A literal rendering of these two texts would start something like – Prov. 22:24 “Do not be a friend with a lord of the nose . . .” And Prov. 14:29 “A long nose will understand much . . .” These make a little more sense when you understand the Hebrew idiom for anger and patience – a hot nose.

Something doesn’t go your way, seems to be unfair, seems not the way you want it to be, not the way that it should be, and you get hot in the face.

Notice what this heat in the face is inspired by – some perception of injustice.

Anger is an intense and burning urge to see that which we think is wrong, uneven, and unbalanced, to be made right, even, and balanced. It is an urgent sensation that you have been somehow wronged and that justice needs to be done.

Two Kinds of Anger

This means that it is possible for anger to be right and godly. And it is possible for us to be consumed by an ungodly anger.

Most obviously, God is capable of great, righteous anger. Rom. 1:18 “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness of men. . .” Throughout the prophets we hear of the coming wrath of God and the day of his wrath. John the Baptist preached about the coming wrath of God (Lk. 3). And the book of Revelation is filled with vivid descriptions of God’s wrath, poured out like bowls of wine on earth or described as a winepress that all the unrighteous will be tread in. Psalm 2 tells the kings of earth to “kiss the son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little . . .” God has intended to display his wrath. “What if God, wanting to show his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction . . .” Rom. 9:22). But his wrath is entirely just, directed at the unrighteousness of men.

But then there is man’s anger. The first recorded instance of anger in Scripture is Cain. Cain is convinced that God has wronged him by not giving him the favour that he thought was owed to him.

Other great moments in the anger of men –

Jonah 3:10-4:5. “And it got hot.” Jonah sees that God is having mercy on Nineveh and asks to die because things are so bad. He is convinced that the just thing would be for Nineveh to be nuked. And it gets him hot to see Nineveh get mercy.

Luke 15:28. “But he was angry and would not go in . . .” This is really the same story all over again. In both of these stories a man is angry seemingly on behalf of justice, while the one who truly had the right to be angry has given mercy.

Wrath of Man vs. Wrath of God

So we see God getting angry with a perfect and righteous and holy anger. And then we see men getting sinfully angry, trying to justify their anger as right and good. James contrasts these two kinds of anger – James. 1:19-20.

James corrects here our sinful confusion. When we are heated, we become blinded by the delusion that what we are after is justice. And there are two parts to this delusion. First, we tell ourselves that a terrible injustice has been committed and that is what has provoked our anger. And second, that our anger, the heat of our outrage, is itself the solution to the problem.

Dealing with Anger

So how do we deal with the anger that rages in our hearts? First, we have to understand the difference between the anger of God and the anger of men. Rom. 12:17-19. Vengeance is God’s. In other words, anger does not belong to us. When anger creeps up on you, it does so by making a case that you have a right to feel this way, that your outrage is just. Dealing with anger begins with refuting this. You don’t have a right to wrath. You too are a sinner, in need of forgiveness. Get this perspective and let go of the anger. “For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thes. 5:9). Through salvation we are saved not only from the wrath of God, but we are also delivered from our own sinful wrath.

Application

If you have a problem with wrath, what do you do?

1. Identify it, and stop justifying it. If you can’t let go of the “demands of justice and righteousness” then you need to step back and honestly assess what the demands of justice and righteousness actually are in your own case. Do you deserve the wrath of God? Are you going to be the unrighteous servant who’s choking the debt out of his fellow servant?

2. Once you’ve identified it, confess it. Let go of it. Name it to God, and then name it to everyone else that saw it. The confession should be as public as the sin.

3. Now that you’re ready to be done sulking under the gourd tree, go into the party. And if you recoil at the thought of this, then go back to step one again and keep doing this until you are ready to go into the party. God didn’t appoint you to wrath, he appointed you to salvation.

Cheerful Hearts And Good Words

Joe Harby on August 29, 2010

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Introduction

We need to begin with the obvious, which is that Scripture teaches that our words affect how we are doing, not to mention t hose around us. But this “obvious” truth can, if unattended, deteriorate into the vagaries of generic uplift. When we speak the good word, it must be a word that is truly wise and good.

The Text

“A merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance: but by sorrow of the heart the spirit is broken” (Prov. 15:13).

“Heaviness in the heart of man maketh it stoop: but a good word maketh it glad” (Prov. 12:25).

Summary of the Text

We begin by juxtaposing two proverbs, asking each of them to illumine the other. The first tells us that there is a link between the condition of the heart and the condition of the countenance. A merry heart results in a cheerful countenance, just as a man speaks out of the abundance of his heart (Matt. 12:34). The heart is a thermostat, setting the temperature of the rest of your activities. If the heart is sorrowful, the spirit is broken, and if the heart is merry, then the countenance shows it. So, then, how do we adjust the thermostat? When a man’s heart is heavy, then his heart stoops. He becomes discouraged. He cannot carry the weight that providence is asking him to carry. When someone want to help, what they need to do is come in order to speak a good word. A good word makes his heart glad.

Timing is Everything

But this is a good word, not just any word, and not any old word that somebody thinks is good. “He that blesseth his friend with a loud voice, rising early in the morning, it shall be counted a curse to him” (Prov. 27:14). Suppose your roommate, or your spouse, or somebody in your house, comes staggering out to breakfast, and pours himself a bowl of Grumpy Nuggets, with no sugar and very little milk. Is that the time to wave your spoon in the air in time with the old gospel song you start to sing in a raucous manner? “Cheer up, ye saints of God, there’s nothing to worry about/Nothing to make you feel afraid, nothing to make you doubt. Remember Jesus loves you so why not stand up and shout?/You’ll be sorry you worried at all tomorrow morning.” And the word of Scripture is fulfilled; you are reckoned as one who curses.

The words you speak should be true, of course, but they need to be more than true. They must also be relevant, and in addition to being relevant, they must also be timely. The only difference between salad and garbage is timing. “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver. As an earring of gold, and an ornament of fine gold, so is a wise reprover upon an obedient ear” (Prov. 25:11-12). So don’t be like Mary Bennett in Pride and Prejudice, saying true things all day long, in wildly inappropriate ways. And they should also be kind. The lock on the door of your mouth should have three keys—is it true? is it kind? is it necessary?

Creaturely Imitation

There is more involved in this than just heeding an exhortation to “be nice,” or to “say nice things.” If we need to do this kind of thing in wisdom, and we do, we need to do it in imitation. What we do, we are to do as children, as imitators or followers of God (Eph. 5:1). We worship God through the Word, and so it is not surprising that we are logocentric, that we are people of words. We serve and worship the God who is love, and so we are to walk in love (Eph. 4:15). And, in the same way, we worship the God who spoke the perfect word, the fitting word, into our hearts, and so we are to do the same to others, by imitation and by analogy. Our words are to be gospel, and our words are to be gospel-like.

Counterintuitive Words

We want to take it apart in order to find out how it works. But we need to begin with the reality that it works. The Bible calls the preaching of the cross “folly” to the worldly-wise. Why should we be surprised when they come up to us and say that what we are doing doesn’t seem relevant to them. Of course it doesn’t. That is a design feature. God defines what a word fitly spoken looks like. God defines what a perfect setting of silver should be.

Need and Grace

We learn how to speak to others, speaking the good word, by observing how God speaks to us. And when the gospel comes to us, what is it? We have human need on the one hand and divine grace on the other. The good word spoken is the intersection between need and grace. The good word that preaching brings is this—it is the declaration of the grace of God, addressed to human need, and the declaration is backed up with the authority of God’s throne. So when you come to encourage someone, what is it that you are imitating? It is not a hollow appeal that says, “don’t worry, be happy.”

The Declaration of the Christ

Christ, then, is to be preached. By that we mean Christ incarnate, Christ crucified, Christ buried, Christ risen, and Christ ascended. When He is declared in this way, the pattern of death, resurrection, and ascension is not put out there to complete an argument in your intellect, although it may do that. Neither is Christ over all to be preached in such a way as to soothe or excite your emotions, although it may do that as well. We are to love God with all our minds, and we cannot do that without the preaching of Christ crucified. We are to love God with all our hearts, and we cannot do that without the preaching of Christ risen and ascended. But something more is necessary. No, the faithful declaration of this gospel is always aimed at the citadel of the human will. You are not here as spectators, or observers, but rather as worshipers, and this means that you are on the mountain of decision. And when you go down again, into your day-to-day activities, you will be in the valley of decision. Here you are, and here is the Word declared. What are you going to do?