The Wisdom of Proverbs

Intro

Who do you think of as wise?

What makes them wise?

If I am educated does that make me wise?

If I have a lot of life experience does that make me wise?

What is wisdom, and why should I care?

What is a proverb(s)?

Wise sayings

It is practical and involves some action pieces

The word for proverbs means comparison as in comparing two things

many of the proverbs say a wise person does this but a foolish person does this

Many of the Proverbs were addressed from a parent to a child

Protecting the new normal Mike talked about it being like the advice that you tell your kids

Miguel De Cervantes “Proverbs are short sentences drawn from long experiences.”

We might have similar things that are kind of like proverbs that we pass on from generation to generation some that I am thinking of are. Some of these are so common that you could probably finish them yourself

An apple a day keeps the doctor away

Life is what you make it

Give a person a fish and it will feed them for a day teach a person to fish and they will eat forever

Life is a journey, not a destination

Proverbs on

Debt

Generosity

Justice

Family

Character

Alchohol

Forgiveness

Work

Friendship

And So much more

So the book of Proverbs circles around this one question and the question is “what is wisdom?” “How do I become a wise person?” or maybe even “How do I let wisdom find me?”

What is wisdom?

Wisdom

Knowledge

Action and skill, applied Knowledge

Skillful living

We can have head knowledge but if we don’t follow it we are still foolish

We can also be mindless doer that aren’t rooted in why we are doing anything and get burnt out

The hard part about wisdom isn’t knowing what is right, it is doing what is right

Almost all of the time knowing what is right is easier than doing what is right

Doing is the hard part, that is where the leg work comes in

The ability to separate the truth from lies

Who was Solomon?

Solomon was a mighty King Son of King David

When Solomon was young he made this temple and a house and God comes to Solomon in a dream and say basically anything you want I will give you just one wish

Instead of doing what I would do which would be asking for unlimited wishes

Solomon thinks and says I want to be wise I want to be a wise leader, God give me your wisdom.

1 Kings 3:9 NRSV

Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, able to discern between good and evil; for who can govern this your great people?”

God was pleased that Solomon asked for wisdom

Even saying look Solomon you could have asked for health, money, a long life, more political power, but God was greatly pleased that it was wisdom that Solomon asked for

So Solomon throughout his life compiled at the time one of the largest libraries of everything.

Historians think that the book of proverbs was probably a collection of wise saying and riddles that either Solomon or someone who worked for Solomon put together from his collection

This scripture as we will read it in a second introduces not just just to this series but to the book of proverbs but it also guides us in helping us to find those first steps of wisdom

Scripture

Proverbs 1:1–7 NRSV

The proverbs of Solomon son of David, king of Israel: For learning about wisdom and instruction, for understanding words of insight, for gaining instruction in wise dealing, righteousness, justice, and equity; to teach shrewdness to the simple, knowledge and prudence to the young— let the wise also hear and gain in learning, and the discerning acquire skill, to understand a proverb and a figure, the words of the wise and their riddles. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.

This intro tells us a couple of things

It clarifies that the book of Proverbs is all about Wisdom

It states that the way that it teaches wisdom is through words of the wise and through riddles

This means that the proverbs themselves might not be intended to be taken literally, but just because something is not true does not mean that it doesn’t hold truth

An example of a wise riddle for our time might be “an apple a day keeps the doctor away”

That last verse really stands out as unique

Proverbs 1:7 NRSV

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.

We don’t have all of the answers

Fear The Lord

Reverence and Awe

Reverential Awe

tell the story of Cascade Falls

A certain amount of wonder that comes with seeing

This idea of the fear of the Lord Solomon comes back to several times throughout the book of proverbs

As one author puts it wisdom is too big to fit in one brain

All of the people that are listed

Simple, young, to the wise

God teaches unique things to people in different seasons of life

Other people often have the answers that we seek if we are willing to listen

Sometimes I think the assumption that I can have and that we can have is that wisdom is only reserved for the oldest among us

But it seems the scripture might be pointing us to something that could stretch us a little bit that even those that are young still have things to teach and offer the life of our church

As we are preparing next week to celebrate confirmation I am reminded that our confirmands and those even younger than our confirmands are not the leaders of the church of tomorrow

The children that participated in our Vacation Bible School have valuable wisdom to teach us

They are leaders of our church right now and have wisdom and value to offer

When I don’t have all the answers that means

I don’t get to make up my own rules about what is right and wrong

That I might have to humble myself before God, admit that there is a power greater than me at work and admit that God might just have the wisdom that I seek

The pursuit of God is the beginning of Wisdom

We might confuse wisdom with a lot of things

education - knowledge

age or numbers of years lived

Being successful or healthy

But Wisdom being skillful living comes to us only from being in pursuit of God

That can happen regardless of all of those other things

God is always in pursuit of us

Our recognition of that our recognition of God’s love for us should drive us to hold reverence and awe, wonder per haps for a God that could love us that much.

There comes a point in the life of anyone that is wise where they say there has to be something greater than me in the universe

If I think truly that I am the center of my own universe I am not being wise

If the way I read my Bible or the things that I do in church result not in transformation but in me just doing the same things I am not wise

A first building block to this whole thing is Fear of God

So I actually want to back up out of this Scripture back to that story of Solomon

He gets one wish and he chooses wisdom

Our sentence this week that is uniting all of our sites is this

God, Help Us To Desire Your Wisdom

Circle back to Solomon’s desire

Skillful living

Lord God would you teach me how to tell what is true and what is false?

Lord God us to desire to do your will that our whole lives would not just be head knowledge that we wouldn’t have the right answers, but that we would do

that we would do your will

That we would practice skillful living

End with Prayer

Invite everyone to pray: God, help us to desire your wisdom. We stand in reverence, in awe, in worship, and in fear of you. Over this next week we pray that we would seek to desire you more. God, help us to desire your wisdom. Amen