Proverbs

The Amazing Bible. Book Club

With Hebrew poetry and wisdom literature, there is an understanding that God is sovereign over all things, and these poetic books acknowledge Him and cry out to Him. With Proverbs, this is not, "Thus says the Lord," instead it is people speaking to humanity about humanity. These are not necessarily promises from God, but general truths about life. There are proverbs about almost every aspect about life, and there are two main groups of people the wise and the foolish. The third group is called the simple, and they are so naive that they have become either wise or foolish yet. The ESV study Bible said in its introduction, "the greatest sin in Proverbs is the hardness in unteachability." The majority of Proverbs are little quotes about life, that are easy to say, but sometimes it takes time to ponder their truths. Sometimes they seem to contradict themselves like Prov. 26:4-5, "Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you will be like him ourself." "Answer a fool according to his folly, or he will be wise in his own eyes." One of the keys of wisdom is knowing what to do and when to do it, and sometimes that changes due to circumstances. The majority of Proverbs are written by Solomon, but then some are, "the sayings of the wise," (22:17). Also in 25:1 says, "These are more proverbs of Solomon, copied by the men of Hezekiah king of Judah." Chapter 30 are "the sayings of Agur son of Jakeh - an oracle," and chapter 31, also known as the Proverbs 31 woman, were "the saying of King Lemuel - an oracle his mother taught him." These last two men are not mentioned elsewhere in Scripture. This lesson ends with a look at Proverbs chapter 8, and how Wisdom speaks, and how the NT writers looked at this chapter and saw Jesus, the personification of wisdom, who was from the beginning, who was with the Father as they created the world, and when we find Him, we find life and light.