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Hey, Bible nerds. This is Dr. Manny Arango, and I'm your host for the Bible department podcast powered by Arma. This podcast follows a Bible reading plan we created to help you read the entire Bible in a year. You can head to the show notes or thebibledepartment.com to download our reading plan and join the Journey family. Welcome to day 311. Can you believe it? We're 311 days in. I don't know how many days left. I guess, what, 54? I think 54 plus 311 is 365 maybe. Anyway, my degree is not in math. It's in Bible. I am so excited that you're here with us today. We are finishing up the book of Proverbs. That's right. Today we've got chapters 28, 29, 30, and 31. If you have not done the reading, how about you stop the video, pause the audio, go get the reading done. Solid reading today. We've got a good mix of authors, contributors, writers, and so we're going to talk about that when we get into our context clues. But if you haven't done the reading, I promise you it's a little bit longer than normal. Right. We've been doing about three proverbs a day, so this is four proverbs, but you're. You're good. I promise it's not. It's not going to take you that long. All right, for those of us who have done the reading, let's dive in. Okay. Let's do context clues right up at the top. I actually want to start in a. Maybe an odd place today or surprising place. I actually want to read Jeremiah 18:18 to us today. Okay. Jeremiah 18:18. Dr. Manny, why are you reading Jeremiah 18:18? Well, because it is going to tell us about three groups of teachers that Israel has. And one of these groups is directly connected to the content that we have here in the Book of Proverbs. Okay, so Jeremiah 18:18. The people of Judah are wanting to, you know, silence Jeremiah. Not a big fan. All the stuff that Jeremiah's got to say is not popular. Okay, so here's what they say in Jeremiah 18:18,18. They said, Come, let's make plans against Jeremiah to persecute him, to ensnare him, to imprison him. Okay, let's make plans against Jeremiah 4. The teaching of the law by the priest will not cease. Okay. The teaching of the law by the priest will not cease. Nor will counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophets. Three distinct groups. The Teaching of the law by the priests, nor the counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophets. So come, let's attack him with our tongues and pay no attention to anything he Sundays. So Jeremiah 18:18 gives us three groups, okay? Three groups. Priests who teach the law, prophets who give oracles, spoken words, the rhema word of God, and then counsel from the wise. So you just wanted to figure out, okay, like, like, what do we have in the. In the Hebrew Scriptures, like in the Hebrew Bible of the Old Testament? Well, I would say you've got the teaching of the law, right? Like that's the. The Torah, the. The section of the Bible that we know as Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. And then we're going to have a ton of prophetic content. We've gone through a lot of that. So the Torah, the Neviim, okay? And then the Ketuvim, the writings. But really, it's the council of the wise, okay? This wisdom literature that we've got comes to us from. From the counsel of the wise. And so wisdom is seen as an authoritative source of God's word, okay? So the wise men of Israel. Okay? The wise men of Israel, just wisdom, okay. In the same way that you know how to categorize someone as a priest or you know how to categorize someone as a prophet. As you enter into the world of the Bible, I want you to begin to realize that there's a category of just wise people. That they're not priests, they're not prophets, they're just people with wisdom. And so we've got entire books of the Bible that come from this school of wisdom or this source of wisdom, or wise people, okay? So we're gonna get a little bit of that today. We've already been exposed to that as we've been reading Psalms and proverbs. Both of these are considered wisdom literature, and they are both found in the last section of the Hebrew Bible, which is the Ketuvim, the writings. Ketuvim, Tanakh, okay? Remember, Torah, Neviim, Ketuvim. All right, let's dive into some nerdy nuggets. Okay? I'm going to give you my top five proverbs for the day, okay? My top five verses for the day. You know, we've done five, we've done seven, we've done ten. But we're gonna end off with the book of proverbs with my top five. And I'm gonna make sure that we've got at least one from every contributor for these last Four chapters of the book of Proverbs that we got here, okay, chapter 28 is going to be more content from Solomon. Now, the cool thing about everything from yesterday and today, okay, so Starting in chapter 25, I believe starting in verse 25, it says these. It. It says these are more proverbs of Solomon compiled by men of Hezekiah, King of Judah. Okay? That means that in the same way that the Book of the Law was rediscovered or found in the time of Josiah, now if you remember that, that, like the Book of the Law had just gone missing and they found it during Josiah's reign. And Josiah's reign is kind of known as a time of repentance and revival. Josiah makes sure that, you know, the idolatry is wiped out of the land. He causes the people to repent from their evil ways and return to the Lord. And there's a revival, okay? And it's centered around the discovery of the Book of the Law, the discovery of the Word of God. So the same way that that is what happens during Josiah's reign, I want us to just go three notches in the family tree. Okay, so Josiah's dad is Ammon. Ammon's dad is Manasseh. Manasseh's dad is Hezekiah. Okay, so Josiah's great, great grandfather, no great grandfather Hezekiah. Similar kind of revival is going to happen in Hezekiah's time. Okay, so it's not all that crazy that old proverbs from Solomon are found and rediscovered during Hezekiah's reign. So chapter 25 starts off with this. These are some proverbs of Solomon compiled by the men of Hezekiah, King of Judah. And that's probably the wise men of Hezekiah, King of Judah, the group of men who would have been responsible for giving counsel and advice to King Hezekiah. So in the same way that we see a repentance return to the Lord revival during Josiah's reign, and the Book of the Law is found, we're going to see that same thing during Hezekiah's reign. But in Hezekiah's reign, it's not the Book of the Law that that is found, but all these proverbs from Solomon. And the men in Hezekiah's court who are wise are going to compile them. And that's how we get proverbs, chapters 25, 26, 27, all of which we studied yesterday and 28. Okay, so that's context. That's a ton of context. And that's also where we get chapter 29. Then when we get to chapter 30, we've got the sayings of a man by the name of Agur. Okay? Agur. Agur's got a lot of things to say to us. And then when we get to chapter 31, we're going to get the writings of King Lemuel, okay? And he's going to learn a bunch of things from his mom. Now, I think this is really cool, because the tone so far through the Book of Proverbs has been a father wanting to instruct his son. But we're gonna. What we're gonna have from King Lemuel is a mom giving instruction to her son. Because wisdom doesn't just come from men. Wisdom comes from moms to their boys, to their daughters as well. Okay? So that's enough context clues. Let's finally dive into our nerdy nuggets for the day. I'm gonna try to give you five. Okay? First is Proverbs, chapter 28, verse one. And it says this. I actually have this tattooed on my back. So the wicked, I know it by heart. The wicked man flee, though no one pursues. But the righteous are as bold as lions. I love that. The wicked man flees, though no one pursues, but the righteous are as bold as lions. This verse is saying two things. The first thing, sin will make you paranoid. The wicked man flees, though no one's pursuing. Whenever there's sin in your life, it just makes you, like, suspicious and paranoid and like, you just. You always got to. You keep your head on a swivel because you just don't know what's going to happen because you really are struck with a guilty conscience. So the wicked man flees. They're running away, even though no one's running after them. You ever just feel guilty about sin? Just kind of like, you know, you just feel like everyone knows. You walk into church and you're like, they know. They can see it. They can see sin on me. You know, it's like, no, that's a. Literally just a guilty conscience. That's you. No one's looking at you. Somebody, one time I was preaching. I'm preaching like, you know, who knows? I'm Seattle or Alabama or California, wherever. I'm on the road, which means I'm talking to people I don't know. And someone walked up to me, was like, yeah, like, there was this point where you were talking about, you know, sleeping with your boyfriend, and you looked right at me. Did you know I was sleeping with my boy? I was like, no, I don't I don't know you. And I was like, I don't think I was looking at you, ma'. Am. Like, I think. I think you're fleeing, though no one pursues. I think that's what's happening. Okay, so the wicked man flees, so no one pursues, but the righteous, bold as lions. So that means sin doesn't just take away, you know, your ability to relate to the Lord, but it also robs you of confidence, boldness, the kind of confidence that you really need in order to go after the things that God's promised you. So that's a good verse, man. Chapter 28, verse 1. Proverbs, chapter 28, verse 1. The wicked man flees, though no one pursues them, but the righteous, they're bold. There's. There's a certain amount of boldness if you're living in sin and can still be bold. Ooh, that's bold, man. That's. That's. That. Hey, power to you, you know? But most people, if there's a boldness issue, there may be a guilt issue or a sin issue, and it's important to address that. Okay. Anyway. All right. Proverbs, chapter 28, verses 20 and 22. I wish that they weren't interrupted by verse 21. We don't need verse 21. We just need chapter 20. Sorry, verse 20. And verse 22 of chapter 28 says this. A faithful person will be richly blessed. Praise God. A faithful person will be richly blessed. And just when you may be thinking to yourself, ah, it may. That doesn't mean it's necessarily talking about money. Well, here we go. But one eager to get rich will not go unpunished. Okay, a lot there. So the confirmation that we have in the second half of the verse means that the first half of the verse is talking about finances. Okay. It's not just blessed richly, it's richly blessed. That means, like riches family, the weight is over. My brand new book, Crushing Chaos, is out now and available everywhere. Books are sold, literally. Today I walked into a Barnes and Noble and I signed a bunch of copies at a physical location. So you can grab this book at a physical Barnes and Noble, or you can go to a Books a Million or Amazon or anywhere books are sold and grab a copy. If you enjoy reading the Bible for from an ancient perspective, if you understand that the beauty of scripture is actually knowing it in context, then you'll love this book. And if there's any chaos in your personal life, I think that reading the Bible from an ancient perspective can actually help to Crush the chaos in your life. I think this book is going to be a New York Times bestseller. I really do. I think we wrote a good one. I think you should get a copy today. All right, back to the episode of monetary value. But one eager to get rich. Okay, so there's a difference between stewarding wealth to get rich and being eager to get rich. And the Bible says being eager to get rich is an issue. If you're eager to get rich, it'll lead to impulsiveness and impatience, all kinds of things. Okay, so you shouldn't be eager. Desire, awesome. Eager, not so awesome. Okay, let's go to verse 22. The stingy are eager to get rich. Who's eager to get rich? Stingy people. But Proverbs has already told us, like, stinginess, boo. Generosity. Yay. Okay. Stinginess, boo. Okay. Stingy people are eager to get rich. They're always looking for a way to, like, get rich quick. They're always looking for a hustle. Stingy people are eager to get rich and are unaware that poverty awaits them. The very thing that they don't want is what they're going to have. Because a lot of times excelling in life, succeeding in life is counterintuitive. Okay? And you don't get a lot of money by eagerly pursuing money. You get. You get. You get to amass wealth by stewarding wealth with wisdom. All right, Proverbs, chapter 28, verse 13. We're going back just a little bit. Says, whoever conceals their sins does not prosper. Okay, but the one who confesses and renounces them finds mercy. Does it just. I mean, you can just take the proverb at face value. Don't conceal sin. Confess sin and renounce. It's one thing to confess sin. It's a whole nother thing to say. Nope. What? That was wrong. That was sin. I repent. I'm not just asking God for forgiveness. I'm asking that he would help me to transform, change. I renounce. I declare. That's not me. That sinful behavior, that was not me. Now, our last two. Ok, I told you I'd give you five. My top five favorite verses of today's reading. My next two are going to be from Agur and Lemuel. Okay, so let's take a. He says this or he writes this. In Proverbs, chapter 30, verse 5. And man, I love this. Chapter 30, verse 5. Every word of God is flawless. He is a shield to those who take refuge in him. Every word of God is flawless. The word of the Lord Is flawless. Like, that's such a good word. That's such good vocabulary. God, I'm flawed. But your word is flawless. And not only is your word flawless, every one of your words is flawless. God, I misspeak. You never misspeak. I say dumb things. You never say anything that's wrong, incorrect, dumb, shortsighted, anything. Your word is flawless. So why wouldn't I read it every day? Why wouldn't I study it every day? It's flawless. It's flawless. It has. It has no fault. It has no flaw. It has no fault in it. Proverbs, chapter 31. It's our last one. Proverbs 31, 4, 7 is again king Lemuel. So this is a secular ruler. This is not a Christian ruler. This is not a Jewish ruler. Secular ruler. And what does King Lemuel have to say? Here we go. Start in verse four. It is not for kings, Lemuel. This is his mom giving him advice. It is not for kings, Lemuel. It is not for kings to drink wine, not for rulers to crave beer, lest they drink and forget what has been decreed and deprive all the oppressed of their rights. Let beer be for those who are perishing, wine for those who are in anguish. Let them drink and forget their poverty and remember their misery no more. Hey, Lemuel. Wine, Beer. Not for you. Why not? Because it's a sin. Proverbs chapter 31, verses 4 to 7 does not say that Lemuel should abstain from wine and beer. Because it's a sin. Says, because it's not what rulers do. It's not what kings do. I want to just sub out the word king and put the word leader. It's not what leaders do. So the reason I would ask people who serve at the garden, hey, if you're going to be a director, if you're going to be a team lead. No, alcohol has nothing to do with it. Being sin has everything to do with. There are certain things leaders don't do. This has nothing to do with sin. Has everything to do with leadership. What is. What does it say? It is not for kings, Lemuel. In the ancient world, kings actually got the best wine. The choicest of wines was reserved for kings. So this is countercultural. This isn't just countercultural, like for our culture today. It's countercultural in the actual culture that it comes from, that a mom would tell his son. Tell her son. No, no, no, no, no. If you're going to be a king, if you're going to Be a ruler. There are certain sacrifices that you have to make because the leadership is all about sacrifices. It's not about privileges. If you're in leadership because of the privileges, oh, you're not going to be a leader long because you're going to realize, oh, leadership comes with scrutiny. It comes with people watching you. It comes with responsibilities. It comes with you having to be exemplary. Leadership is not just about a reserve parking spot and a title in a reserved seat. No, no, no. Don't get it twisted. Leadership is about restraint. It's about all the things you can't do anymore. Because now you're a king. Now you're a ruler. Now you're a leader. And maybe you were thinking to yourself, I can't wait to be king, man. I get to drink the best wine. And here comes mom with some advice. Hey. Even though it's available to you, I'm gonna tell you right now, it's not for kings. Not for kings. Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. Because the whole nation is dependent upon you making good decisions. And what happens when you need to make a good decision? And let's say a poor person needs their rights defended and you deprive them of their rights unintentionally. You was just trying to go have a good time. You're just trying to drink. And now you've created a domino effect of not loving the people or the subjects of your kingdom. Well, Lemuel. No, no, no, no, no, no. Wine, beer. Not for rulers, not for kings, not for leaders. So the real question is not can I drink? Alcohol is drinking. Okay, that's not really the question. The question is how far in leadership do I want to go? How high up the kingdom ladder? Not the corporate ladder. How high up the kingdom ladder do I want to climb? One thing to climb a corporate ladder is a whole other thing to climb the kingdom ladder. To climb the kingdom ladder. Oh, man. It means that you become a servant. It means that you become humble. Means that you become teachable. It means that you become someone who. Give up. I'll give up alcohol, sure. Easy, whatever. I don't care. I'll give up anything. Because nothing compares to being used by God. Nothing. And I'll never let anything, any pleasure of the world, any privilege, any right come in between me and being used by God in a great way. I want to be used by God in a great way. Okay, those are my five verses that I think. And I can't drive by those. We gotta stop. We gotta get out. We gotta take a picture. Can't Just drive past it. It's like, ooh, those are the five verses that I'm just like, yeah, man, get out the car. Come on. Get your arm around that verse. Put up your peace sign. Let's take a picture. Let's post that on Instagram. That's a good verse right there. All right, Thomas. Truth for the day. This entire book is going to end with a wife of noble character. Now, there are two ways to interpret this. First, it's talking about a literal woman, which is possible. However, I know a lot of women who read Proverbs 31 and just go, this is no way. This could be talking about a real woman. Actually, when they read it, they feel inadequate because they're like, what woman could actually live up to this? And there's some women who are like, nope, I'm a Proverbs 31 woman. And it becomes a standard for them. So not all women feel the same. But I just want to throw maybe a curveball and say, could it be that what the writers of Proverbs want is for you to marry Wisdom? And when Wisdom becomes your wife, wisdom will bring all the benefits of a wife and noble character. Maybe wisdom is the wife of noble character. Once you get wisdom in your life, once you marry Wisdom, it's like, wisdom will begin to conduct the affairs of your life. Wisdom will do all kinds of stuff. And regardless of how you interpret this, I would say that God doesn't choose spouses for anybody. He doesn't do it anywhere in the Bible. And every time I tell people that God doesn't do that anywhere in the Bible, they're like, yeah, but he did it for me. It's like, okay, cool. Got it. So your experience is how we know God. No, it's not. The Bible is how we know God. Okay, so you can't use your own personal experience as a way to disprove, like, the Bible. That still means that there's no place in scripture where the Bible tells somebody who to marry. We want God to tell us who to marry because we don't want the weight of the responsibility of making that decision for ourself. That's a whole nother problem for a whole nother day. Here's my timeless truth for the day. My timeless truth for the day is this, that if you actually marry Wisdom, then you and Wisdom will make a wise decision on who you should marry. That's it. God wants you to actually make a decision on who to marry. Why? Because your decision on who to marry will actually reveal the level of wisdom. That you have. And I wouldn't make a decision about marriage until I was sufficiently wise. Because it's the ultimate test of whether or not you're a wise person. I wouldn't make a permanent decision while I'm still an idiot. I wouldn't do that. That sounds dumb to me. It's like when I see some people with tattoos and I'm like, what's that a tattoo of? And they're like, oh, it's Pikachu. I'm like, got it. You got a tattoo while you are still stupid. Got it. I understand. I don't know why you got Pikachu tattooed on your elbow, but that's dumb. That's stupid. You may want to wait until you're smart before you start getting things tattooed on you. You may want to wait until you're wise, until you do things that are permanent. And you may want to wait until you're wise before you make the decision to marry somebody. Because there's a lot of divorce people running around here. And that means that a lot of people who got married to people before they got married to wisdom. And I think if you marry Wisdom, wisdom will protect you from making a short sighted decision when it comes to an earthly relationship. And that is a timeless truth. That's not just good advice for Lemuel or Solomon's sons or anybody who has a direct link to the context of these proverbs. That's good advice for you, for me, and for every single person on the planet. I. All right, tomorrow we've got day three 12. We're in the book of Job. We did it. Job. Anyway, we're going to be in job, chapters one, two, and three. It's going to be fantastic. Day three 12. I can't wait. Same time, same place. I'll be here. The only question is, will you be here? If you're on a streak, I'm so proud of you. Even if you're not on a streak, I love you. I'll see you tomorrow as we start our journey to the Book of Job. Peace. Thanks so much for joining us on the Bible Department podcast. You can find us online and learn more about the show@thebibledepartment.com and on Instagram at the Bible Department. If you enjoyed this episode and want to dive deeper into the Bible, you can get free access to our library of courses@thebibledepartment.com we'll see you back here tomorrow. Sam.