Week 10

11/22/09

The Grace of Wisdom

Review: Wisdom and Consequences

  1. The consequences of choosing or rejecting Wisdom are both eternal and earthly.
  2. The promises of God in Proverbs are ultimately fulfilled in the life to come.
  3. The promises of God in Proverbs are not promises of a life without suffering. They do promise a “good life”; the promise of a life well lived.
  4. Wisdom is living by faith in the sovereignty, justice, and goodness of God, in the light of salvation in Jesus Christ (Romans 8:31-39).

Wisdom and the Word – Proverbs 8:22-21

  1. Wisdom is eternal.
  2. The universe was created by Wisdom.
  3. The LORD delights in Wisdom.
  4. The Wisdom of Grace (John 1:1-4; Col. 1:15-20).

“In plain words, Solomon, who represents his teachings as Woman Wisdom, claims that his sayings originate in the very character of the eternal God and are in accord with a comprehensive knowledge of the universe, both in the realms of time (from before the creation) and cosmic space. That comprehensive, universal knowledge, which represents Reality, endows his teaching with absolute and infallible authority and cannot be relativized by an unknown factor or a theology that God is a Work in progress of becoming.”[1]

Two Houses – Proverbs 9

  1. The House of Lady Wisdom
    • A picture of prudence, strength, riches, and honor (vs. 1-3).
    • The call of Wisdom is the call of Grace; An Invitation to the Feast (vs. 4-6; cf: Isaiah 55).
    • Humility, Grace and Wisdom (vs. 7-9).
    • The Wisdom of the Cross – the Fear of the LORD (vs. 10-12)
  1. The House of Lady Folly is a house of death (vs. 13-18).
    • “. . . It would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”[2]

“Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread and your labor for that which does not satisfy?

Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good and delight yourself in rich food.

Incline your ear and come to me;

Hear, that your soul may live;

And I will make with you an everlasting covenant,

My steadfast, sure love for David. Isaiah 55:2-3

“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.” Matthew 7:24-27

[1] Waltke, Bruce, An Old Testament Theology, p. 916

[2] Lewis, C. S., from the essay The Weight of Glory