Postings on Proverbs 1:1, 10:1

"The Proverbs of Solomon" (1:1, 10:1)

The first 9 chapters of Proverbs are 14 sermons, all with the same point: Get Wisdom!!!

When I was a kid I wanted a metal detector so bad. I wanted to go to the beach and find money hidden in the sand. When I actually got one, I walked around a park in Costa Mesa, CA for hours looking for money -- never found anything though! How a person gets wisdom, the passion we should bring to this endeavor, is compared to the passion you might have if discovered there was buried treasure in your backyard (2:4) -- for those in California, a backyard is a patch of dirt or grass located in the back of your house :P

Then, holding on to that wisdom, meaning living your life according to it, is better than being rich (3:14, 8:10, 8:19). If gold and jewels and money were on one side of a scale & wisdom lie on the other, there would no comparison -- wisdom is far more valuable (3:15, 8:11). In fact, "nothing you desire" -- technology, friends, knowledge, cars, houses, a spouse, influence, etc. -- nothing at all "compares with" wisdom (3:15). Now, if the primary author of Scripture is God Himself (2 Timothy 3:16, 2 Peter 1:19-21), then this is not human opinion, but God Himself telling us what He wants us to value greatly.

In general, getting wisdom is accomplished by reading, studying, meditating on, talking about, writing about God's Word. However, after 3 years of studying Proverbs one of the things I learned was that in chapters 1-9 Solomon is encouraging his readers to get the wisdom found in chapters 10-31. When it says "Get wisdom" it means, learn and then live chapters 10-31.

Now, I studied the Bible consistently, but after preaching all 14 sermons in chapters 1-9 twice and challenging the people under my care to get wisdom, I kept being challenged with this question: "Am I getting wisdom with the same intensity that I'd have for buried treasure?" The answer was "No," so to take my own medicine I'm going to search for wisdom and pray that I get some by going verse by verse through chapters 10-31 in this blog. I started doing this before blogs existed, but stopped when life got too busy. So, on a regular basis I'm going to take that task up again here, starting in Proverbs 12:5 where I left off.

See you soon!!! TII!!!