Week 5

10/18/09

Listening to Wisdom – Proverbs 1:8-33

Review: “The Fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge/wisdom.”

  1. “The Fear of the LORD” is what distinguishes the church from the world, the believer from the unbeliever.
  2. “The Fear of the LORD” is true piety; faith is its framework; it is conjoined with hope and love and therefore is not slavish dread, but rather filial reverence.[1]
  3. “The Fear of the LORD” is an attitude of worship that culminates in corporate worship on the Lord’s Day (Rom. 12:1; Heb. 12:22-24).
  4. “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism” is antithetical to the Gospel and the fear of the Lord. Worldly religion teaches “justification by works”, rather than the good news of “justification by faith through grace.” (Ephesians 2:8)

    As described by Smith and his team, Moralistic Therapeutic Deism consists of beliefs like these: 1. “A god exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth.” 2. “God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.” 3. “The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.” 4. “God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when God is needed to resolve a problem.” 5. “Good people go to heaven when they die.” [2]

  1. “The Fear of the LORD” is the fruit of believing the Gospel, the belief of a regenerate heart.
  2. “The Fear of the LORD” is the gift of God.
  3. The wisdom that comes from God enables his people to live in the world (this present evil age) in a way that is both pleasing and glorifying to God and a blessing and witness to our neighbors (Pr. 1:3; 1 Peter 3:8-17).

Learning to Listen to Wisdom – Proverbs 1:8-33

  1. Lesson #1 – “Young man” listen to your parents, more importantly, listen to wisdom, for wisdom is what your parents teach you. Do not listen to greedy men, for you will die (Pr. 1:18-19). Pay close attention to the different voices you hear and learn to recognize and value the voice of wisdom. Gain discretion and discernment for they are marks of true wisdom.
  2. “Wisdom is meant to be intergenerational; one generation was to pass on wisdom to the next. Thus, the institution of the family and the covenantal relationships within the larger family of God are responsibility to transmit wisdom.”[3]

    • The Parents Role – Parents are God’s means of communicating wisdom to their children (Pr. 1:8).
    • What do we mean when we say we are passing on wisdom to our children?
    • What is the purpose of Proverbs 1-9?
    • The danger of “presumptive generation”.
  1. Two Paths/Ways (Matt. 7:13-14)
  2. “The Way” (Acts 9:2; Ps. 1:1, 6; 23:3). “He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name sake.”
  3. Enticement to the way of the world/idolatry (Pr. 1:10).  Def. of entice: to lead on by exciting hope or desire. Synonyms: attract, bait, cajole, coax, entrap, lure, seduce, tempt, turn on (1 John 1:15-17; Colossians 3:5).
    Greed –>Covetousness –>Idolatry
  4. “The Joy of Sales Resistance” – Wendell Berry (v.10)
  5. Are you or your children tempted to join a gang? If not, what does this passage have to teach us about wisdom?
  6. Canonical context – Violence for gain (Pr. 1:16) in the history of Israel: Joseph’s brothers (Gen. 37:19-28) The sin of Israel (Is. 59:1-8)
  7. We underestimate the harm that sin/idolatry causes. The Bible calls it violence.
  8. What is the point of the “riddle” found in Proverbs 1:17?*[4]
  9. What is the parents responsibility to our children in light of these two paths?

“In sum, the parents first lesson in wisdom asks it readers, both ancient and contemporary, to practice discernment in listening, to pay attention to outcomes, and especially to do these while watching out for temptations to greed. This first lesson in wisdom, then, asks each of us to think about the messages we hear. Can we tell the difference between truth and deception, between promise and seduction? It asks us to think about the consequences that will come if we follow the urgings of those messages. Do they bring life to ourselves and our communities, or do they take it away? It asks us to think about what we really want in life. Finally it urges us to consider the choices we make to fulfill our desires, mindful of the danger that those desires can get hijacked by greed.”[5]

[1] Eaton’s Bible Dictionary, Libronix Library version

[2] Smith, Christian, Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers, pp. 162-163

[3] Gamble, Richard C., The Whole Counsel of God, Vol.1, p. 518.

*  The birds are trapped when they are unaware of the trap. They don’t know the difference between bait and food.

[5] Koptak, Paul E., Proverbs: The NIV Application Commentary, p. 81