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Proverbs
00:26:26
Every society has a collection of sayings that express popular insights. Yet the book of Proverbs gives us something greater: wisdom from God Himself. Today, R.C. Sproul explains how to read Proverbs to pursue a wise Christian life. Request What Is...
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- [00:00]
R.C. Sproul
Every culture has its collection of sayings that preserves the insights of the ages. What makes the book of Proverbs in the Old Testament different from all other such collections is that we believe that these proverbial sayings that are found in the Book of Proverbs are inspired of God, that they find their origin in the mind of God and reflect supernatural and divine wisdom, not just the insights of crafty people in this world.
- [00:40]
Nathan W. Bingham
Since the wisdom in the Book of Proverbs is divinely inspired, does that mean each proverb is a universal law or promise that must always come to pass? If we don't know how to interpret proverbs and wisdom literature in general, we can easily find ourselves in trouble. This is the Tuesday edition of Renewing youg Mind. I'm your host, Nathan W. Bingham. Early in my Christian life, I was in a church filled with false teaching. And much of that false teaching came from them misinterpreting and misapplying the Book of Proverbs. That's one of the reasons I appreciate this week's series on wisdom and why I'm so thankful to be part of a ministry that is broadcasting truth sound biblical teaching, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Well, here's Dr. Sproul on interpreting and applying proverbs.
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R.C. Sproul
Every culture has its unique collected wisdom, the wisdom that's been accumulated over centuries of time, where the insights of the wise are preserved, usually in the form of the proverb. We have that in our own culture. We think back to Poor Richard's Almanac that was produced by Ben Franklin and some of the sayings that have endured even down to this day, the homespun wisdom that's encapsulated in these short, pithy, terse little statements that we call Proverbs. You've heard many of them. Like a stitch in time saves nine. A penny saved is a penny earned. I used to hear that one as a child, and I never understood that. I couldn't figure out what that meant. And then later on in life, I learned the eighth joyful mystery, the Law of Compounded Interest. And I began to understand something of that saying, the penny saved is a penny earned. In fact, I remember going to the barber shop last year and this woman was cutting my hair. And in situation, she started talking to me about the state lottery. And she said that she bought lottery tickets every day. And she told me how much she spent every day. And I was amazed at how much money this woman was spending on lottery tickets. And she asked me if I played the lottery and bought lottery tickets. And I said, no. And she said, why not? I said, I can't afford it. And she thought I was joking. And so while she finished cutting my hair, I sat there with a pencil and paper and did some calculations rather roughly in the next 10 or 15 minutes. And when I was finished, I turned to her and I said, let me ask you a question. Suppose I right now gave you a check for $60,000. Would you go out and spend that $60,000 on lottery tickets? She said, oh, absolutely not. I have all kinds of other things I'd like to do. I said, well, I just did these computations here, taking what you pay on lottery tickets every day and took it out over a period, period of time of 20 years. I said, if you invested this money at a reasonable rate of return after 20 years, you would have $60,000. And she couldn't believe it. And she hadn't learned yet that a penny saved is a penny earned. The wise person is a person who earns interest on his money, not pays interest on his money. Yesterday I was on my way to the office, and I had to stop at the golf course. And I walked into the pro shop, and the pro in there was carrying this great big box of donuts. And he said, rc would you like a donut? And I said, not now, but I'll be back later on. How about saving one for me? And he came over and he said, I thought you'd like this one. And he set that aside and he said, I'll hold it for you. And I said, fine. So I forgot I didn't go back and see him. And then this morning I walked in there and I said, bobby, do you have my doughnut? And he said, no, I don't have your donut. I said, well, you said you were going to save it for me. You even picked one out. And I expected to get that doughnut today. And he said to me, R.C. we have a rule around here. And I said, oh, yeah? What's that? He said, the rule is this. Those who are hungry eat, and those who are foolish don't. And then he said, it's kind of like a proverb. That's what I'm going to be speaking on today, is on proverbs. And I just learned a new one. And so I'm going to have to remember that the hungry eat and the foolish don't. Sometimes we have fun with proverbs in the realm of theology. I don't know how many times in my life I've heard people say the Bible says God helps those who help themselves. Of course, that's nowhere to be found in sacred Scripture. I think the origin of that one was poor Richard Zalmannack. I'm not positive of that, but I think it comes from Ben Franklin, not from sacred Scripture. Well, what do we have with proverbs? How do they function, particularly when we find them among the writings that we call the wisdom literature of the Old Testament? As I say, every culture has its collection of sayings that preserves the insights of the ages. What makes the book of proverbs in the Old Testament different from all other such collections in our belief is that we believe that these proverbial sayings that are found in the book of Proverbs are inspired of God, that they find their origin in the mind of God and reflect supernatural and divine wisdom, not just the insights of crafty people in this world. Now, because they are inspired, some of us sometimes make the mistake of assuming that a proverb is like a law, that is, that it imposes a universal obligation. And some people treat the proverbs as if they were a list of divine commandments. If we do that, we'll run into all kinds of trouble because that's not the function of a proverb and that's not the form in which proverbs come to us. Even divinely inspired proverbs reflect what we would call truisms or insights that are generally true and apply to many concrete, concrete life situations, but not necessarily to all life situations. To illustrate that, let me use an example, not from biblical proverbs, but from our own collection of proverbs. In our culture, we have two proverbs and one of them goes like this. Look before you. What? Leap. Look before you leap. That makes sense. That's a good insight. It's a truism. It's a valuable tool to carry around with you. But we have another proverb that goes like, he who hesitates is lost. Now, if in every life situation we tried to apply both of these proverbs at the same time in the same relationship, we would really be confused, wouldn't we? Again, this came home to me when I was a teenager. One night in the summer we slept out in a tent with a bunch of guys and I couldn't sleep. And it was about 2 o' clock in the morning. And so since I didn't have a curfew on me, I wasn't staying at home with my parents. I just started roaming around about the streets of our town. I wasn't up to anything illegal or anything like that. I was just sort of loafing and walking up and down the streets, taking a walk, and I saw this car coming. I immediately recognized as the town police car. And the last thing I wanted to do was have the police stop me and say, what are you doing out at two o' clock in the morning? Do your parents know you're out here? So I just reacted by instinct and started to run. Well, the car stopped and I heard the door open. The policeman got out and started yelling and he started chasing me. And he's chasing me for all he's worth. And I'm running as fast as I can, trying to put distance between me and that police. So I just started running through people's yards. And this policeman was running right behind me, and I ran through this person's backyard. And I got to the back of the backyard and there was this real high hedge. And I had no idea what was on the other side of the hedge. That thing could have dropped off the edge of a cliff for all I knew. Or who knows? But all I knew was what was behind me, the policeman coming as fast as he can. And I had no opportunity to look before I left. All I knew was that he who hesitates is lost. And if I stopped, I was going to be caught by the police. And so I just kept running. And I got to the hedge and I just dove through the hedge head first and landed in some kid's sandbox in somebody else's yard. Made all kinds of noise, lights came on in the house, the windows weren't open, the shades were rolled up, and I picked myself up out of the sandbox and just kept on trucking. And the good news is the policeman never did catch me. But I learned in that situation the wisdom of not hesitating, because that was a life situation where I could not afford to hesitate. But at the same time, I also learned the peril of leaping without looking at the first. So do you get the idea that in many of life's circumstances, in many of life's situations, wisdom dictates that we examine carefully where we're going to place our steps next so that we are not just running blindly, and yet at the same time, we can't be paralyzed to such a degree with our judgments and analysis and evaluation to the point that we lose opportunities when they present themselves to us? And that's what is encapsulated in this idea of he who hesitates is lost? Well, it isn't bothersome for us theologically to find proverbs like this in our own cultural wisdom that conflict in their advice. But when we find them in the Bible, then that raises all kinds of questions about the trustworthiness of the text of Scripture itself. Now, if you're familiar with the Book of Proverbs, you may have already encountered some of these difficulties in one place. The Book of Proverbs says, answer not a fool according to his folly. And then on the same page we read this maxim, answer the fool according to his folly. That kind of jumps right off the page and you say, wait a minute, how am I going to incorporate these instructions, this kind of wisdom, where it tells me, on the one hand, don't answer a fool according to his folly, and on the other hand, do answer the fool according to his folly. How can those both be statements of wisdom? Well, again, it's just similar to this conflict between look before you leap and he who hesitates is lost. There are certain circumstances where it would not be wise to answer a fool according to his folly. And there are other circumstances where it would be wise to answer a fool according to his folly. And let's see if we can give some scenarios where those two may apply. Let's take the negative first. Answer not the fool according to his folly. What's the idea behind that? The idea there is, if somebody is speaking, utter foolishness. It's not generally a wise thing to enter in and participate with that kind of foolish discussion. Those discussions aren't going to go anywhere, and it's a waste of time both for the the fool who starts it and the fool who carries it on in this endless chatter. And so we know circumstances like that where we're better off just not to say anything, avoid any deep discussion with people that are talking in a foolish manner. But when is it appropriate to answer a fool according to his folly? Well, one of the most effective ways of arguing that was understood not only by the Hebrews and found in biblical teaching, but also was made an art form by the ancient Greek philosophers, is the use of the argument that was called the reductio ad absurdum argument. The old philosopher Zeno was the master of this particular technique of debate. Sometimes it's called the ad hominemus argument, not to be confused with the fallacy ad hominem abusive, where you attack people's character in order to refute their arguments. But ad hominem argumentation is where you argue to the man, where, for example, in this process of reducing the other person's argument to absurdity, you argue from the other person's premise in a hypothetical way. Oh, you say such and such. Well, let me take that position. And if it's true what you say, then it would also be true something else. And then you show that person the necessary logical conclusion that flows out of their argument. And you show that if they are consistent with the premise that they are using that premise will lead them to an absurd conclusion. And in that sense, when the fool makes a foolish premise and gives a foolish argument, it can at times be very effective to answer the fool according to his folly by stepping over onto his grounds and say, okay, I'll take your position for argument's sake, and I'm going to take it to its logical conclusion and show you the foolishness of it. And so we have those kinds of things found in the Book of Proverbs. But for the most part, the Book of Proverbs is concerned with giving us practical guidelines for daily experience. I think of another example in my life where the Book of Proverbs got me out of trouble with the police. The Book of Proverbs was not intended to be a handbook for criminals. But I remember early in my Christian days, I was trying to drive home from the city of Pittsburgh, and I had to go through this, called the Liberty Tubes, this long tunnel outside of the city. And they are very strict about what lane you're in. In those tunnels, you're not allowed to cross lanes and so on. Well, I got myself in the wrong lane. And when we came out of the tunnel, I had to make a left turn, and I was in the right lane. And there was only about 100 yards between the end of the tunnel and the traffic light that turned. As soon as I got out of the tunnel, I darted from the right lane into the left lane. But unfortunately, just as I did that, the light turned red and I had to stop. And I had made that move right in front of a policeman who was sitting on the back of a motorcycle. I looked in the rearview mirror and I saw this policeman. His face was red. He got off his motorcycle and he started running towards my car. And I said, oh, boy, am I in trouble. And he came and literally pounded on me roof of my car. And he was just breathing fire. And I wound down the window and I looked at him, and he screamed at me, what do you think you're doing? And the first words that came into my mind were, from the Book of Proverbs, A soft answer turns away wrath. And I looked at this policeman and I said, oh, sir, I said, I'm Very sorry. I know that what I did was wrong and I shouldn't have done it, and I'm sorry. And it just caught him off guard. He was all ready for an argument or something. And when I did that, he just got all the more frustrated and he just looked at me and he shook his head and he says, oh. He says, forget it, and turned around and walked away. Didn't write me up. And I thought, thank you, Lord. I said, you've shown me how practical in application these Proverbs are in the Old Testament. Now, if you look at the Book of Proverbs, which I would commend you to do, this tends to be a somewhat neglected treasure of the Old Testament. There is much there to guide our lives. One of the themes, incidentally, that you'll find in the Proverbs that recurs again and again is the theme sin of industry. We often forget that one of the most basic sins that besets us in life is the sin of slothfulness or indolence, being lazy. If you really want to find a tough work ethic, read the Proverbs. Because the Proverbs enjoins upon us the necessity before God of being people who are diligent and industrious in our. And so often clever little allusions are made to the animal kingdom. For example, the ant is used as an illustration of the good worker. Consider the ant, thou sluggard. We're supposed to learn wisdom from the ant who works so hard to prepare provisions for his group. Or we're compared sometimes to inanimate objects. The sluggard is like a door turning on its hinge. That is, the sluggard just keeps rolling back and forth upon its own bed. And yet at the same time, in contrast, the Proverbs will tell us the sleep of a working man is sweet. Isn't that interesting that when we really put in a full day's work and we're exhausted, there is a certain sweetness that comes in our daily rest, a sweetness that is absent if we procrastinated. Then we toss and turn on our beds because our mind is not at rest. We have an uneasy conscience because we haven't been diligent in that day. Now, again, the Book of Proverbs is a a depository of treasures like this that have all kinds of applications for daily life in how we should raise our children. Boy, we really need wisdom there. So often I have parents come to me and say, how can I get my child to do this? How can I do it? I prefer to think it's 90% prayer and trust in the providence of God. But there are real, concrete pieces of advice that comes from the mind of God himself that are sprinkled liberally throughout the Book of Proverbs. If you want wisdom, this is a fountain from which to drink. It has untold riches lying there for our consumption and for our edification. And he who is hungry must eat of these morsels. He who is foolish will not.
- [22:26]
Nathan W. Bingham
That was R.C. sproul on the Wisdom Found in the Book of Proverbs thank you for joining us for this Tuesday edition of Renewing youg Mind as we spend a week considering the wisdom literature of the Old Testament. Don't go anywhere as Dr. Sproul will be back in just a moment. If you'd like a copy of today's message on Proverbs, we'll unlock this series for you in the free Ligonier app. When you give a donation at renewingyourmind.org or when you call us at 800.435.4343, learn about the Psalms, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon and more. When you request RC Sproul series simply titled Wisdom. When you make your donation@renewingyourmind.org or by using the link in the podcast Show Notes, we'll also send you his book what is Biblical Wisdom? Listen to or read this material and grow in your understanding of wisdom literature. Your generosity makes renewing your mind possible. So thank you for any gift, large or small. And if you live outside of the US And Canada, you can request digital access to the series and his title what is biblical wisdom? At renewingyourmind.org global well, here is RC Sproul with a final thought for today.
- [23:49]
R.C. Sproul
I would like to ask those of you who are listening to perform a task this week to take time out from your schedule, whatever you're doing, and make it a point this week to read the Book of Proverbs. The whole book, and I think you will find it in many ways shocking. As I came to this class today, I was musing. As I got out of my car and walked over here, I thought, you know Sproul, you really do march to a different drummer. I find myself so out of step with the way things are going around me and the wisdom of this age. I sometimes think I was born in the wrong century. And I was thinking about that and I thought, why is that? And I thought, well, one of the reasons it is is that I don't accept the collective opinions of what's politically correct and so on in our own culture because I have a different source for trying to understand truth, and that source is the Scripture. And if you're really thinking in biblical categories, beloved, you're going to find yourself out of step with most of the world. But we need to listen to the wisdom of God so that we can cut through this cacophony of noise that would lead us into all kinds of confusion about the very living of life. So my challenge to you is that this week, refresh your mind. Spend time in the Proverbs. Seek for the wisdom of God.
- [25:39]
Nathan W. Bingham
If there was a literary technique, a key to help you unlock and understand much of the wisdom literature of Scripture, would you want to learn about it? If your answer is yes, don't miss tomorrow's episode here on Renewing youg Mind.
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R.C. Sproul
Sam.