Week 9

11/15/09

The Way of Wisdom

I keep six honest serving men

(They taught me all I new)

There names are WHAT and WHY and WHEN

And HOW and WHERE and WHO

(Rudyard Kipling)

Five Questions:

  1. What is wisdom?
  2. Why attain wisdom?
  3. When do we need wisdom?
  4. How do we get wisdom?
  5. Who is wisdom? Who needs wisdom?

Does Proverbs Promise too Much? (Proverbs 3:1-11)

  1. Counter-proverbs (10:1-3; 24:16).
  2. The promise of justice – retribution (1:18-19).
  3. The promise of life in Proverbs (3:18; 12:28; 15:24; 23:17-18).
  4. Life as fellowship with God (2:5-8,cf.22;1:7; 9:10).
  5. Why “delayed” reward?
  6. Wisdom is living by faith in the Lord’s sovereignty and justice.

“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can a man give in return for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” Mark 8:34-38

Final Argument – Proverbs 7 – 9

  1. Proverbs 7 (Lady Folly) – The way of the world is rooted in deception and lies that lead to death. Her house is a house of doom (7:27).
  2. Proverbs 8 (Lady Wisdom) – The way of wisdom is the way of truth, rooted in the reality of the created order and the giver of life (8:22-38; John 1:1-5).  Her house is built by the Lord and will not fall (9:1-12).
  3. Proverbs 1-9 presents us with a choice; the consequences of that choice are life or death.
  4. The Way of Wisdom is the Lord Jesus Christ – “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6

“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