May 24

Proverbs 3

1 My child, do not forget my teaching,
but let your heart keep my commandments.

2 for they will provide a long and full life,
and they will add well-being to you.

3 Do not let mercy and truth leave you;
bind them around your neck,
write them on the tablet of your heart.

4 Then you will find favour and good understanding
in the sight of God and people.

5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart,
and do not rely on your own understanding.

6 Acknowledge him in all your ways,
and he will make your paths straight.

7 Do not be wise in your own estimation;
fear the LORD and turn away from evil.

8 This will bring healing to your body
and refreshment to your inner self.

9 Honour the LORD from your wealth
and from the firstfruits of all your crops;

10 then your barns will be filled completely,
and your vats will overflow with new wine.

11 My child, do not despise discipline from the LORD,
and do not loathe his rebuke.

12 For the LORD disciplines those he loves,
just as a father disciplines the son in whom he delights.

13 Blessed is the one who has found wisdom
and the one who obtains understanding.

14 For her benefit is more profitable than silver,
and her gain is better than gold.

15 She is more precious than rubies,
and none of the things you desire can compare with her.

16 Long life is in her right hand;
in her left hand are riches and honour.

17 Her ways are very pleasant,
and all her paths are peaceful.

18 She is like a tree of life to those who grasp onto her,
and everyone who takes hold of her will be blessed.

19 By wisdom the LORD laid the foundation of the earth;
he established the heavens by understanding.

20 By his knowledge the primordial sea was broken open,
so that the clouds drip down dew.

21 My child, do not let them escape from your sight;
safeguard sound wisdom and discretion.

22 So they will become life for your soul
and grace around your neck.

23 Then you will walk on your way with security,
and you will not stumble.

24 When you lie down you will not be filled with fear;
when you lie down your sleep will be pleasant.

25 Do not be afraid of sudden disaster
or when destruction overtakes the wicked;

26 for the LORD will be the source of your confidence,
and he will guard your foot from being caught in a trap.

27 Do not withhold good from those who need it
when you have the ability to help.

28 Do not say to your neighbor, “Go! Return tomorrow
and I will give it,” when you have it with you at the time.

29 Do not plot evil against your neighbour
when he dwells by you unsuspectingly.

30 Do not accuse anyone without legitimate cause
if he has not treated you wrongly.

31 Do not envy a violent man,
and do not choose any of his ways;

32 for one who goes astray is an abomination to the LORD,
but he reveals his intimate counsel to the upright.

33 The LORD’s curse is on the household of the wicked,
but he blesses the home of the righteous.

34 With arrogant scoffers he is scornful,
yet he shows favour to the humble.

35 The wise inherit honour,
but he holds fools up to public contempt (Proverbs 3, NET).

I first came across a subgrouping of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Job as together comprising the Old Testament’s discussion of wisdom in work from The Bible Project. This grouping really helps to make sense of what is going on in the Proverbs overall. One of their suggestions, and honestly, one of the most helpful things I’ve ever come across in discussion of the Proverbs, is the reminder that they are a collection of proverbs, not promises. The Proverbs are relentlessly optimistic about the relationship between God, justice, and right living. But we’ve already seen in our study, especially looking at the Psalms or some of those prophetic/poetic writings of Isaiah or Jeremiah, that justice and right living don’t always go together. Sometimes, in our experience, we don’t see the LORD meting out justice on people we believe deserve it. Ecclesiastes and Job balance out Proverbs’ optimism with something of a more jaded or fatalistic view and all three really need to be held together in light of God’s promise that ultimately, justice will win, that the truth will out, and that we’ll all be held to account by the Righteous Judge at the end of all things. Until that day though, we can expect our sinful world to be broken and for justice to sometimes be delayed as God mercifully continues to call fallen humanity back to Him. This can certainly be a painful experience as we see or feel the effects of sin crashing upon people who don’t deserve it, or the people perpetrating injustice seemingly getting away with it.

Proverbs should be taken seriously though. Even though it is the optimistic of the three wisdom books, it is not naïve. Rather it identifies patterns and prescribes the way to live rightly, the way to experience the blessings of life (recall Jesus’s “How good is it for the one who…” from the Beatitudes we looked at just a few weeks ago). Much of the Proverbs consists of little one-liners which act as maxims or little bite-sized sayings which provide real practical guidance. Now interestingly, they don’t always provide specific practical guidance. Rather they send you in a direction. One of my favourite moments in the Proverbs occurs further down, in chapter 26:4-5 where contrary advice is immediately given:

4 Do not answer a fool according to his folly,
lest you yourself also be like him.

5 Answer a fool according to his folly,
lest he be wise in his own opinion.

This shouldn’t be something anyone likes to look at, but I think it so aptly illustrates what the Proverbs are all about. They are aiming to teach us judgement, not give us clear courses of action. It’s not enough to just be told what to answer to someone you see or hear behaving foolishly because not every situation where you see this is the same. Sometimes an answer will be required. Sometimes an answer is going to be counterproductive. Sometimes you should give an answer anyhow (that whole bit about not letting a fool be wise in their own opinion), and it’s still going to make you look like a fool to some onlookers because of their biases or presuppositions or what have you. The point is training in wisdom.

But I do find that the number of one- or two-liners in the Proverbs occasionally makes it hard to gain something like a coherent message from the book as a whole. Reading through, it often feels more like you’re getting rained on than drinking deeply (to use a metaphor) and the key is to find which drop (proverb) goes down the back of your shirt (to really torture that metaphor). By this, I mean that it’s a good and useful way to read the Proverbs to pick out the ones that are helping you, or causing you trouble, and meditating on them. The standout verses in this chapter for this approach are 5 and 6 which will likely be familiar to you, even if you haven’t read them in the context of the rest of Proverbs 3 before as they are many peoples’ favourite verses. And they are great advice! But, I’ll still encourage you: do keep coming back to this book, or even this chapter, because I’d bet the next time something else sticks out and makes you think in a new way. At the risk of finally drowning in the metaphor, I’ll say that even if it’s not always a text to drink from deeply, it rewards repeated sips.

Proverbs 3 expands on one of the outstanding ideas that is explored extensively in the first third or so of the book where Wisdom is personified as a lady with whom one should cultivate a relationship. We get that especially in verses 13-18 where we see that formulation, “Blessed is the one” or “How good is life for the one” who grows their relationship with wisdom. Likely Solomon is writing this sequence; you see some autobiographical information about long and successful life included in verse 16. But you also see a repeat of that Psalm 1 formula as well. Wisdom is that tree of life planted by the life-affirming stream of God’s law. When you hold to it, your paths are made apparent and pleasant, and your feet are planted sturdily.

The part of this chapter that blows my mind though is in verse 19. Here you see the turn. Wisdom isn’t just the virtue that drives you into the good life. It’s also personified as the motivating agent for the creation of all things. If you take Proverbs 3, Genesis 1, John 1, and 1 Corinthians 1 together, you get an incredible conflation of God’s “Wisdom” and “Word” coalescing in the incarnate Christ, Jesus of Nazareth. And I think this is where you really see the value in holding Proverbs together with Job and Ecclesiastes. Job is all about the righteous man’s suffering. Ecclesiastes bemoans the felt pointlessness of applying principles of wisdom when the proverbs/patterns explained by the optimistic Proverbs don’t apply. You need look no further than Our suffering LORD on the cross to see what our fallen world wants to do to wisdom. But as Paul instructs us in 1 Corinthians 1, the wisdom of God looked like foolishness to the world, but only one of them has shown us what resurrection looks like.

My prayer for you this week then is that you find something that confronts you as a challenge to change and grow in Proverbs 3. And if you’re in a place where you’re feeling despair or anger or whatever else over the very real injustice of the world, that you be reminded about the resurrection, and the promise Jesus gives us that one day, he is going to return and set things right.

Next week's text is Romans 12.