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- [00:05]
A
Hey, this is Shelby and CJ and we're walking you through the Book of Proverbs. If you're listening to a podcast or you're watching us on YouTube, we hope that you have also hit subscribe or Follow so that you can keep up with us as we walk through the rest of the Bible this year. Okay, C.J. today we're in Proverbs 7 through 9. What are we going to focus on in our episode from these chapters today?
- [00:28]
B
We say this a lot, but there is a lot in these chapters. There's a lot going on, but there's a lot going on in these chapters. So in Proverbs 7, we begin with the father begging his son to heed wisdom. Again, we expect this in the Book of Proverbs, especially in chapters one through nine. And then if the son heeds wisdom, he will be protected from this forbidden woman or a wayward woman. And she's sort of a temptress in this little story in Proverbs 7. And the Father, trying to convey it clearly to his son, tells a little story. He imagines. The father imagines or retells a story about this foolish man who is walking about the street, and he wanders near a married woman's house. She's dressed like a prostitute, and she lures in this unsuspecting young man. And here we can think of, like, Joseph and Potiphar's wife. There's a few other scenarios in the Bible that we might think of when we think of this setting or this scenario. And then the father tells the whole story, and he ends with this final warning. He says, son, listen to me. She, that is the sway word woman, has brought many down to death. Her victims are countless. And of course, he is talking about the idea of steering clear of other men's wives and not committing adultery. That's a very pragmatic, practical, wise thing to heed, right? But it also keys us into the wayward woman comes to represent something more. And we have to wait just a few chapters in chapter nine to get there. But if we go from chapter seven and then to chapter eight, we then imagine wisdom. We get this little hint of wisdom, or this little story about wisdom. And wisdom is the means of creation. And it's almost like a scent that you can follow or like a. Like a force that you can succumb to and lean into. And that's the way wisdom is described in Proverbs 8. And then we get to Proverbs 9 and wisdom that we learned about in Proverbs 8. Is juxtaposed with folly, and it's two women that you can listen to. So then going back to Proverbs 7, we're sort of meant to understand that folly, this abstract concept for evil, this voice that we can listen to that represents deceit and cunning and lying and cheating and stealing and all the evil things in the world, that's sort of that Proverbs 7 temptress woman that the Father wants the Son to steer clear of. And again, as we probably expect by now, we can listen to either woman Wisdom calling out for us to follow her, or Lady Folly, this temptress that we can listen to, which leads to evil and all the things we don't want to be.
- [02:56]
A
Wow, that was a super helpful way to walk through those chapters. C.J. i'm going to ask a question that I'll probably be asking a lot in Proverbs, which is, where do we see Christ in the chapters that we read today?
- [03:07]
B
Yeah. So if you were to go through Proverbs 8, you would notice that some of those descriptions of wisdom really map onto the person of Christ. And in fact, scholars have noticed that this might sort of represent the second person of the Trinity, the Son, who then is embodied in the person of Christ. So here's just, here's just one example. In Proverbs 8, 30, 31, it says, I, that is wisdom speaking. I was a skilled craftsman beside him that is, beside God. I was his delight every day, always rejoicing before him. I was rejoicing in his inhabited world, delighting in the children of Abraham, of Adam. Excuse me. So we have craftsmen, we have rejoicing in the inhabited world, we have delighting in the children of Adam. It's almost like we're speaking about Genesis 1, where God speaks and his Word is what establishes creation. Here we can think of the Word being Christ, being present at creation and rejoicing in God's created world. Some other ways that we can think about Christ as embodying wisdom is in First Corinthians 1:30, which I think you already mentioned before, it says, it is from him that you were in Christ Jesus, who became wisdom from God for us. So again we see this connection between Christ and wisdom itself, or Colossians 1:15, 17. He being Christ, is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. This reminds us of this Image In Proverbs 8, where it seems like Christ is the one who is wisdom was also present at creation. And now Colossians sort of makes that connection clear for us.
- [04:38]
A
That's super helpful, C.J. thank you for walking us through that. I think for my takeaway I'm going to tie together a couple things that you said. We see in these chapters and all throughout Proverbs that we have this choice to make between wisdom and folly and we'll make it, you know, a hundred times a day. We have lots of decisions to make, but we also see Christ as wisdom himself. And we know that as believers that we are united to Christ, so we are united to wisdom as we have these choices in front of us where we can choose wisdom or folly. And so I'm challenged that it is my responsibility to choose wisdom. But I'm encouraged that Christ is in me and working in me so that I might choose wisdom. And my prayer is that I will heed that and hear him and respond to that. So awesome chapters. I'm excited to keep walking through the Book of Proverbs. Awesome.