Aleethia!

This lesson was taught on Sunday morning, 08-03-2008.

A Proverb is a short, concise, forcefully expressive saying that conveys general truth or advice.

In this lesson we’ll take a look at the first 7 verses of Proverbs 1. These verses serve as an introduction to the entire book. Here’s an outline of these verses.

• Proverbs 1:1-7 - Introduction to Proverbs
• 1:1 - Title (Proverbs of Solomon)
• 1:2-6 - Purposes (moral skill and mental acumen)
• 1:7 - motto (fear of the Lord)

Verse 1 introduces us to the author of the majority of the Proverbs, Solomon. Who was Solomon?

Solomon was the son of David. The third king of Israel. He built the Temple and the wall around Jerusalem. And he has the distinction of being the wisest man to ever live. (1 Kings 3:3-14)

God tells Solomon to ask for any one thing that the Lord could do for him, and he asks for understanding and discernment. So God makes him to be the wisest man to ever live (v12).

Immediately his wisdom is tested. The story is told in 1 Kings 3:16-28.

Two prostitutes come with a problem. How they got access to the king we’re not told. The point of the story is that they’ve come for the King to make a judgement between them. Each woman had given birth to a son, three days apart. Apparently they didn’t have any bassinets so the women are co-sleeping with their child. In the night, one woman rolls over and smothers her son to death. She awakes and sees what she has done. She sees that the other woman’s child is still alive so she switches the babies, exchanging her dead baby for the live one. Then she goes back to sleep.

When the other woman wakes in the morning to feed, she sees that her child is dead. Then she looks closer and says “Wait a minute! This isn’t my son. This is her son. And she has mine!”

So they end up before the king asking him to solve the issue.

There are no witnesses. The fathers are unknown. No blood tests to reveal parentage. It’s one woman’s word against the other, and they ask the king to settle the dispute. How would you respond?

Solomon tells his servants to bring him a sword! His solution is that he’s going to cut the baby in half and give half to each mother. Of course, the mother of the child doesn’t want her son to die, so she says to just give the child to the other woman rather than kill it. Solomon now knows she is the real mother and gives the child to her. What wisdom! I would not have thought to discover the truth in that way! Would you?

So this is the guy who wrote these Proverbs we’re reading. He’s not perfect. He makes mistakes, big ones. He is eventually led astray into idolatry by his foreign wives, of whom he has many.

Even with his faults, God saw fit to use Solomon to preserve some splendid nuggets of insight and wisdom for us.

Verses 2 through 6 reveal to us the purposes for which the Proverbs were written.

Verse 2 sums up the two purposes, verses 3-4 develop the first purpose. Verse 5 is a brief detour of exhortation. Verse 6 develops the second purpose.

Verse 2

To know wisdom and instruction
To understand words of insight

The first purpose is to develop skillfulness and discipline at living a holy life.

“To know” - This verb means more than just head knowledge, it means to be absolutely certain of something by experiencing it. It’s about personal experience and interaction. It means to learn it with your mind and then put it to practice in your life. It is intellectual knowledge AND the practical use of that knowledge.

“wisdom” - This word basically means “skill”. Skill that produces something of value. It is used in Scripture speaking of the skill of carpenters and craftsmen working on the tabernacle (Ex 31:6), the abilities of weavers (Ex 35:26), the capabilities of administrators (1 Kings 3:38), wise advice from counselors (2 Sam 20:22), and the “wits” of sailors (Ps 107:27).

In Proverbs, this word is used to denote skillful living, or skill in living rightly or morally. Someone who lives skillfully in this way produces lasting value from their life. Their works will not be burnt up on the day of judgment, but will stand, having been tested with fire (1 Cor 3:13).

“instruction” - This word is used three ways in Scripture. It is used to refer to parental discipline of a child. It is used to refer to verbal reproof, correction, or warning. It is used to refer to training or instruction. Its connection with the forgoing “wisdom” suggests that in this case it is instruction in moral living. As we see when we read Proverbs, that instruction often takes the form of witnessing the outcome of living incorrectly, and learning from that example.

The first purpose for which the Proverbs were written then, is to give us the skill to live rightly.

Verses 3 and 4 more fully develop this idea. Verse 3 begins by saying the Proverbs will give instruction (same word as used in verse 1) in “wise dealings” (ESV) or “wise behavior” (NASB) or a “prudent life” (NIV). The word here means “to act circumspectly” or to act with care and thought for the future, not taking risks.

This is further defined as living with “righteousness, justice, and equity (evenness, fairness).”

This life style is depicted for us in a Bible story from 1 Samuel 25. At this time Saul is still king, but David has been anointed by Samuel as King. Saul is hunting David with the armies of Israel, and David is living in the wilderness with his mighty men.

A rich man comes to the area on business and sends his young men out with his flocks to find grazing land. David and his men encounter these herders in the wilderness and protect them from bandits, and predators. After some time, a national feast day comes around and David and his men don’t have any food to celebrate with. So he sends 10 of his men to ask the rich man, Nabal (which means “fool” btw), for some food to celebrate with. Nabal’s men tell him of the protection David has given them, how they have not lost one single lamb the whole time. They describe David and his men as acting as “a wall” to protect them day and night. Nabal refuses the request, basically saying that David is a rebel and he’ll give him nothing.

David’s response is to take 400 armed men and head toward Nabal’s camp intending to kill every male among them by morning.

One of Nabal’s young men tells his wife, Abigail, what has happened. He tells her that Nabal is unreasonable and won’t even listen to his own employees. So she takes a bunch of food and wine and heads out to meet David and his men. She apologizes for her husband’s lack of respect, offers them the food, and a prayer asking God to diminish David’s enemies and bless him.

David is so impressed with her discretion (behaving in such a way as to avoid causing offense, deciding what should be done in a situation) that he praises God, blesses her, and spares her husband.

Ten days later God strikes Nabal dead, and David sends for her and asks her to marry him.

Abigail showed wisdom and equity by her actions.

Verse 4 tells us who the Proverbs were written for.

To give prudence to the simple

Simple here means “naive” or “gullible”. If any of you feel that way, then Proverbs is for you. The Proverbs are intended to give such a person the skills necessary to avoid being tricked or taken advantage of.

Knowledge and discretion to the youth

Here the writer is saying his goal is give those who are inexperienced or immature due to their young age, knowledge and discretion. This means the perceptive ability to make good plans for how you will act in the future. As a young person facing challenging life changes, such as college and marriage, this kind of instruction is something you should be eager to receive.

In verse 5 the writer is careful to let the reader know that while his purpose is instruct those who need it most, there is still value here even for the learned and experienced. No matter how wise a person might be, he should still listen to what the Proverbs have to say, and so increase his wisdom.

The second half of verse 2 gives the other purpose for the Proverbs.

…to understand words of insight…

To understand here means “to tell the difference between” to separate mentally or distinguish. “words of insight” means words that enable one to discern good and evil. This idea is further developed in verse 6 where the same word “understand” is used again.

To understand a proverb and a saying, the words of the wise and their riddles.

So while the first purpose was to instruct us in wise living, the second purpose is to help us understand proverbs, parables, riddles, and wise words.

Verse 7 gives us the motto of the whole book of Proverbs. “The fear of the Lord” is a phrase you’ll see coming up over and over again. It’s used 14 times in 31 chapters. Sometimes there are promises associated with it. It’s a powerful phrase that I think has been softened and misapplied in our modern church settings.

The Hebrew word for fear, yir`åh, can describe dread (Deut 1:29), being terrified (Jonah 1:10), awe (1 Kings 3:28), or reverence (Lev 19:3). When its object is the Holy Lord, it

captures both aspects of shrinking back in fear and of drawing close in awe. It is not a trembling in dread that paralyzes action, but neither is it a polite reverence. ¹

It is like the fear I had for my dad as I was growing up. I respected him, but I was at time terrified of him. I never doubted his love though. In our churches we tend to soften the fear of the Lord to merely respect. I think this is a wrong application of Scripture. We need to understand God’s love for us, but we also need to understand and stand in awe and even terror of his holiness.

In his book The Holiness of God, theologian R.C. Sproul speaks of Christ and talks about feeling “the threatening power of his holiness.”² This is something we don’t feel much in our churches today. But Proverbs tells us that feeling “the threatening power of his holiness” is where knowledge and wisdom begin.

1. Allen P. Ross, Proverbs Commentary - The Expositor’s Bible Commentary vol.5 p.907
2. R.C. Sproul, The Holiness of God (Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 2000) p.65