Our image-conscious, hurry-up culture celebrates people with broad appeal and shallow character. Just look at the proliferation of reality shows featuring people who are famous for being famous. They do nothing, contribute nothing, stand for nothing, and accomplish nothing, yet television and tabloids can’t get enough of them. This is nothing new, of course.
Read MoreTag Archives: Proverbs
Stinkin’ Thinkin’
Sunday, we examined two reasons why people fail to heed the counsel of wisdom—found either in Scripture or other sources—when making choices. Some stubbornly resist wisdom because they are strong-willed and refuse to surrender. Others simply fail to hear wise counsel due to insensitivity. Today, we encounter two additional factors. Indifference “You neglected all my counsel” (1:25).
Read MoreFailure to Yield
Solomon pleaded with his son—and, by extension, with all of us—to heed the warning voice of wisdom. A good question is, why? Why must Solomon plead? Why do we ignore God’s reproofs, those in Scripture as well as those that come through other means? Looking back at the sayings preserved for us in Proverbs 1, I discover at least four reasons we do not heed reproof.
Read MoreOut of the Mouths of Babes
Divine reproofs aren’t limited to Scripture. While Scripture is God’s primary instrument of communication, He will use any means necessary to get our attention when we’re headed in the wrong direction. On other occasions, reproofs come verbally from those who care about us, including parents, friends, children, mates, employers, neighbors, a policeman, a teacher, a coach . . . any number of people.
Read MoreDanger Signs
Author and pastor Andy Stanley tells of a time when he and a friend drove from Birmingham to Atlanta and, to shave an hour off their trip, decided to use an unfinished section of Interstate 20. Impulsive teenagers, they felt a rush of adrenaline as they eased their car between the words “Road” and “Closed” and then gunned it. They had the entire highway to themselves, so they made great time . . . for a while.
Read MoreReproofs
Let’s face it: we are a wayward flock of sheep! It’s not so much that we are ignorant, but rather that we are disobedient. More often than not, we know what we ought to do. Put plainly, we simply do not put what we know into practice. So we spend our days enduring the irksome and painful consequences of going our own way. The grind of disobedience is neither easy nor new.
Read MoreThe Purpose of the Proverbs
As we open the book of Proverbs in order to discover divine wisdom for ourselves, an appropriate question to ask is, why? Why has God preserved these sayings down through the centuries? If we go back to the preamble of the book, we’ll find the answer. You might want to glance back over Proverbs 1:1–9. As I reflect on those words, I find five reasons God gave us this book of wisdom:
Read MoreThis Means You
While we are getting better acquainted with the ancient sayings, I should mention that this is a book full of various kinds of people facing a variety of common challenges. Years ago I completed an in-depth analysis of Proverbs and was surprised to discover that the book includes more than 180 types or categories of people.
Read MoreTrue Wisdom
While much of the book of Proverbs came directly from the pen of Solomon, the finished work actually combines the wisdom of several sages, which a final editor compiled and arranged as we have it today. Ultimately, this is the work of the Holy Spirit. Like the sixty-six books of the Bible, Proverbs combines the writings of many human authors working under God’s direct inspiration.
Read MoreWisdom and Style
The book of Proverbs conveys divine wisdom—practical counsel with a vertical dimension—in a style that follows the conventions of Hebrew poetry. The most common structure in Proverbs, for instance, is the couplet. The writer places two ideas side by side such that each complements the other. Take Proverbs 13:10, for example: Through insolence comes nothing but strife, But wisdom is with those who receive counsel.
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