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- [00:00]
A
Foreign.
- [00:05]
B
Hey, this is Shelby and C.J. and you're listening to A Year in the Bible with Daily Grace. It's a very exciting day because we are now in the Book of Proverbs, which means we are now in volume three of the A Year in the Bible Study. So if you're following along with us in the studies, you have completed half of the volumes, and we're moving into volume three. That is a big day. We're so glad that you're with us today. If you haven't subscribed or followed the podcast, wherever you listen to it, be sure you do that so that you can get every episode. So, cj, we're moving into the Book of Proverbs. I would love if you can give us just an overview of this book. What do we should we keep in mind as we're reading, and maybe even just some information about the genre of wisdom literature, which Proverbs falls into. Sure.
- [00:52]
A
So Proverbs is sort of the quintessential wisdom book in the Bible. When we think of wisdom in the Bible, we probably think of Proverbs. And Proverbs is associated with Solomon, as is much of the wisdom literature in the Bible. We can think back to the story of Solomon and how he asked God for wisdom, and God made him the wisest man in the world, and he wrote all these songs and these wise sayings. We learn about this in first Kings 4, and then we learn in Proverbs all of the other wise things that Solomon has to say. And Proverbs is part of this genre of biblical literature called wisdom literature. And it's kind of a controversial category because it does comprise so many different texts in the Bible. But a few things that it deals with is the good life. The existential questions, how do I live a good life? Why do bad things happen to good people? Or how can I make sure only good things happen to me and good things happening to me? That's sort of the theme of Proverbs. Proverbs wants to tell you how to live a good life. And most of the book is concerned with this, and most of the book is concerned with how to make good decisions, as one of my teachers would tell me, a sort of a summary of the book. And then as for the structure, Proverbs 1:9 is a major introduction, a really long introduction to the rest of the book. And through Proverbs 1 through 9, we see a father trying to convey wisdom and communicate wisdom to his son, sort of like a discipleship relationship. And as for much of Proverbs we have one or two lines per proverb. And the point is you're supposed to look at these two lines and it's almost like a little puzzle. You're supposed to mull it over and think about it and consider it, think how to apply it to your life, think about how it, if it even applies to your life. And you're supposed to kind of wrestle with each proverb as you go along. That's sort of the idea.
- [02:43]
B
Okay, great. That gives us a great overview as we jump in, because this is going to be quite different than some of the other books that we've read. But we're going to guide people through it step by step. So let's. Our specific chapters that we're covering today, chapters one through three of Proverbs.
- [02:57]
A
Yeah, today we're going to talk about one through three. And again, it's almost the introductory chapters to the introduction to the book. And we're just going to focus on one little proverb, Proverbs 1:7, that we're probably all familiar with. It says, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and discipline. And you really could summarize the book with just this little verse. It's sort of a great gateway or thesis of the book. And fear, when we hear fear, we might think of, like, being afraid, like, I'm scared of something. But in the Bible, as we might be familiar with, fear is more of, like, reverence or honor. So to revere the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. That's really how you get wisdom and how you pursue wisdom is you, you revere the Lord the way you're supposed to. We can think of Abraham, he is described as fearing the Lord once the angel of the Lord saw, and Abraham, and how he was willing to sacrifice Isaac. God through the angel of the Lord says, now I know that you fear God. In other words, I know that you respect me, that you revere me, that you're doing what I want you to do above all else. And the antithesis, the person we're not supposed to be is a fool. This is a person who doesn't revere the Lord, a person who runs away from the Lord and does things that he shouldn't do. And this dichotomy between the wise and the foolish, between fearing the Lord and not fearing the Lord, that is sort of the theme as we work our way through Proverbs.
- [04:20]
B
Yeah, absolutely. So let me ask you this question. Do we see Christ in the book of Proverbs? And in today's chapters.
- [04:28]
A
Yeah. So a good thing to keep in mind as we go through Proverbs is say, how did Christ embody this proverb? Or how did Christ embody this virtue described in the proverb? And I think we can say that Christ, more than anyone, revered the Lord. I think of in the Garden of Gethsemane when the Lord, when Christ says, not my will, but your will be done. I mean, that is sort of the epitome of Proverbs. Christ reveres the Lord to the degree that he's willing to walk the path that the Lord has him on and that the Lord wants him to walk on. And he's willing to deny himself and deny the things that might be easy or expedient or desirable in the moment.
- [05:09]
B
Yeah, thanks for breaking that down, cj. I really appreciate that. I think my takeaway for these chapters, yeah, we've kind of got this set up of, like, wise and foolish. And I was remembering 1 Corinthians 1:24, which says that Christ is the wisdom of God. And so I'm just gonna restate in a different way something that you already said, which is just that as we're reading through this, if we want a picture of this wisdom lived out, we can just look to the life of Christ. And that's something I'm keeping in mind as we read. And if you are along with us, you're reading along, but you aren't yet using the studies. This is a great place to jump in. You can look at the show notes. There is a link there that will take you to our website. You can grab volume three and volume four if you want to follow along for the rest of the year. We would love to have you dive deeper in the studies with us each day. We'll have more from Proverbs tomorrow.