My Tuesday morning Bible Study group recently started a study of the Book of Proverbs, which is still tucked right behind Psalms in the Old Testament. John Coon being a former teacher and a true student of religion and spirituality found our study guide and introduce us again to this fantastic work we find still located between Psalms and Ecclesiastes. The rest of us will take a Chapter each and leaning heavily on John and Mike Free try to get something out of the book.
I am a little tired of the ‘On this day’ stuff and I am finding this Proverb’s stuff really interesting. I think I want to talk about this new interest for awhile and leave the ‘battle of Brushy Creek’ and ‘how the Yankees cheated us in the great war’ stuff alone for a while.
That great spiritualist and wild game hunter Roger Ferrell led us in Chapter 1 and really did a good job. This stuff so far is so simple I can’t figure out why a dummy like me has not used it more for a resource during my life. The writer, Soloman primarily, starts it off by saying “the proverbs set out are to teach people wisdom and discipline and to help them understand wise sayings”. It seems like for 64 years this little nugget just went over my head. Now Mrs. Gladys Young and Mrs. C.C. Burdette taught me the proverbs and my family discussed them from time to time when one would apply to my raising but to actually study them and make them a part of my character and soul it just did not seem to take. I know I was a better person because I had heard them and knew where they came from but to absorb them and make them a part of my very fiber I don’t think I made the grade.
The first few verses of Chapter 1 very simply tell why these were put together. The book is not designed to convey a lot of religious or spiritual content. Solomon and the other writers are not looking to give the listeners and readers religious doctrine but simply everyday wisdom. Chapter 1:3 tells us that ‘Through these proverbs, people will receive instruction in discipline, good conduct, and doing what is right, just, and fair”. Duh, I have needed a lesson in right, just and fair many times over the years and the instructions were right there.
Now here is a truth, written for me in, I really have needed numerous times, 1:4 says “These proverbs will make the simpleminded clever”. If you look in the dictionary under ‘simpleminded’ I think you will find my picture, so why haven’t I been in this book daily. 1:4 finishes by assuring us the proverbs will “give knowledge and purpose to young people” (and old alike).
The writer sums up this introduction with simple instruction, which I somehow missed for so long. 1:5-6 says “let those who are wise listen to these proverbs and become even wiser. And let those who understand receive guidance by exploring the depth of meaning in these proverbs, parables, wise sayings, and riddles.” I guess it is time for me to start understanding these gems and receiving this guidance.
*All quotes are from the ‘Life Application Study Bible’, New Living Translation.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
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