58. Beginner Bible Course: The book of Proverbs of Solomon

EPISODE 58  The simple Bible overview of…THE BOOK OF PROVERBS OF SOLOMON

In a previous episode. I mentioned about the old timer down South who gave his grandson some advice about learning that there was book learning, people, listening, learning, and P, and on the fence for yourself. I didn't tell you that I grew up on a dairy farm. We had to keep those cows in a pasture. And my father did it with a thin wire. The thickness of pencil lead through that wire ran up to 10,000 volts of electricity. Plenty to put the fear of God into a thousand pound Holstein. In fact, if you didn't cut the grass under the wire, it was known to start grass fires at about the age of six or seven. I decided to give that piano wire thing, a try real bright in fact, call me the whiz kid.

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It worked. I only did it once. And as you've already figured out, I didn't grow up to become an electrician. In our last episode, we looked at the Life of Solomon certainly more than his legacy as Israel's third King was God's statement. He was the wisest man who'd ever lived. As we've mentioned in earlier episodes, the Bible States that God picked up the writers and carried them along by his spirit, as they wrote what we have in Proverbs Ecclesiastes. These in song of Solomon are three books of wisdom from Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived carried along by the spirit of God. That's impressive.

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All three are in the genre of poetry. As I mentioned, the songs of David poetry and Hebrew is not rhyme or meter like in English, but is parallelism where phrases repeat or contrast the previous phrase. Solomon's first book of wisdom. The Proverbs our written in that format. He tells us clearly in the beginning of the book, this was written to his children. Why sayings a book learn and why sayings from his years of living it out. And as we learned in Solomon story wisdom, coming from him, peeing on the fence for himself and boy Diddy Solomon's purpose is clearly stated. These are to be wise general truths for his kids, living life skillfully.

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This will be some of the easiest literature in all of the Bible to read and understand because you already have a built-in genre filter for Proverbs. You already know many common. Proverbs like the early bird gets the worm or an Apple a day keeps the doctor away, general practical, trues for life like the early bird, getting the worm. Those who get up early with a jump on the day, usually have a significant headstart or advantage over others. And those who eat well, whether that's an Apple a day or just their general diet normally visit the doctor less than those who binge on junk food. However, that's not always the case.

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The early risers did not always get ahead. Clearly some listening, my voice are not mourning doves. You're night, owls by 10 o'clock in the morning, your second brain cell comes on with the help of coffee or some mountain Dew, perhaps. And there are those who have great diets who still get very sick. What's my point here, as you read the Proverbs they're general trues, you would be wise to live by however they're not guarantees. That's really important. So let me repeat that. The Proverbs of Solomon are general truths for wise skillful living, but they're not guarantees from God. I'll have a conversation with a parent.

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Usually have an adult child. They unpack how that adult child is kind of gone off the rails is making some really bad decisions and the parent is taking it very personally. Often. I'll hear them pull out a verse from Proverbs train up a child according to his way. And when he is old, he will not stray. I did everything I could with this kid. I prayed for the child while he was still in the womb. I took him to Sunday school in church. We tried to live the real thing in our home. I even put them into a Christian school or university, and now the kid's gone completely the opposite direction. These parents feel like they've fulfilled their side of the contract as best they could.

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And God hasn't fulfilled his side of the contract. There are other parts of scripture outside the Proverbs that I pull up to encourage those parents like Paul's writings in the book of Philippians for, I am assured that the one who began a good work in your child will be faithful to complete it until the day of Jesus. That's more of a promise, but train up a child is a general truth. Not a guarantee of God. You'll see throughout the old Testament and also in the new quality parents doing the best they can do not guarantee a child will follow in their steps. However, aiming those little arrows well will more often than not have them end up hitting a better place on the target.

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I have one day in my course to convince my students how important Solomon's book of Proverbs is to their lives. Here's how I do it. I go around the class and assign each student with one chapter in Proverbs. I tell them, don't read it, just open your Bible to that page. Then I do something I would never advise outside this class. I tell them when I get to your chapter, I want you to close your eyes and point down at the page and read the Proverbs that your finger is pointing to. I further instruct them a few of the Proverbs are several verses tied together. If you

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Point at one of those, read the whole thought

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Again, please don't do this in your own study of the Bible. Remember every text should be taken in context for this exercise. It really gets the message across. I'd invite you to do that too. In fact, I'm going to do that right now for you. I just opened to Proverbs 16 finger down. It's better to be poor and godly than rich and dishonest. Then I turned to 19. A false witness will not go on punished nor will a liar escape 19, a lazy person, sleep soundly and goes hungry. Proverbs 20 avoiding a fight is a Mark of honor only fools insist on quarrelling Proverbs five.

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So now my son run from her. Don't go near the door of her house. If you do, you will lose your honor and hand over to merciless people. Everything you've achieved in life. The context is don't get lured into a relationship with an immoral woman. I'd say that's true of a immoral man. Ladies, Proverbs six. If you've trapped yourself by your agreement, the context is co-signing alone and you are a cop by what you said quick, get out of it. If you possibly can translation don't co-sign alone. And if you do begin to get out of it, that was just five or six random Proverbs.

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I do this in a class of 20 to 26 students. We get through almost every chapter. And by the time we're finished, man, do they have an aha look in their eyes. We read Proverbs on money, friends, relationships, and sex work in laziness, moderation, and excess. It's really quite extraordinary. Then I challenged them with this. What would happen if starting today? You read the Proverbs chapter of that day of the month. Today is the 17th. If I read Proverbs 17 and what would happen if you did that every day until you became your teacher's age, I'm 60 over the course of their lives until they were my age.

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They'd read every chapter of Proverbs 550 times. I suggest after reading Proverbs 17 550 times, it would be stuck in their mind and in the, for of their soul. And I suggest if they applied it even partially, it would make a huge, huge difference. Proverbs is appropriate to even irreligious people. It's just plain distilled wisdom. It's learning from a book. So we don't have to experience the 10,000 volts of learning the hard way like I did as a kid, but only once as we learned in Solomon story, Solomon was better at articulating these things then in living them out, which leads to his second book of wisdom, Ecclesiastes these the diary of a grumpy old wise man.

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And we'll pick up that diary and examine it in our next word picture.