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Wisdom Wednesdays: How do the proverbs make us wise? (WW#7/Prov 1:6).
Prayer
Almighty God, Heavenly Father, as I turn my eyes upon Jesus this morning, as I look to your word and seek your face, my need is desperate. I am utterly unequipped and unable to do anything with the new day that you have given me. Rebel desires even in my own heart would overwhelm me, and I have not the strength to repel them. Give me strength, O Lord, please meet me in my need with a fresh deluge of your grace, such as will be sufficient to see me safely through this day and the temptations and trials that lay before me. O Lord, such sins as have gained a powerful foothold in my life, Lord, please turn my will fully against them to devote them to destruction. And again I pray – please give your wisdom unto me. Please fill me to overflowing with insight and understanding, that I may live my life with prudence and in all godliness. O Lord, there is much to do, my life is so very far from what it ought to be. Please lead me in the way everlasting, Amen.
Reading
Proverbs 1:6
“...to understand a proverb and a saying, the words of the wise and their riddles.”
Meditation
There are many different types of literature, and they are each designed to have different and various effects on us. Poetry is designed to move us with the beauty of its imagery, stories compel us and give us examples to imitate; the Epistles of the New Testament are didactic often for the intent of instructing us. Newspapers inform us (supposedly…), joke books are intended to give us a laugh, and proverbs are intended to give us wisdom. In Proverbs 1:6 we read that Solomon puts pen to paper in this book: “to understand a proverb and a saying, the words of the wise and their riddles.”
A question that we might then go on to ask is: How do proverbs do that? How do they give understanding and wisdom to us? I believe that the most basic sense in which they achieve that goal is as they are repeatedly ingested through slow, constant meditation. As we’ve already noted, proverbs are mysterious – and that is a deliberate aspect of their design. They’re not mysterious to confuse us, but to slow us down and make us think, to chew those proverbs over again and again. And as we do that, as we think about them again and again, they have an effect on us. They impart insights into our hearts, they click into place in our minds, they affect our emotions. As you ponder the proverbs, and you come to understand these words of the wise and their riddles, you will begin to accumulate wisdom for yourself. You will start to become the person described in these pages. Your life will increasingly become exceptional, if I can put it that way. SDG.
Be ye doers of the word…
And so that question, the one that has repeatedly demanded an answer, is still there demanding it’s place in your life: Do you want to live an exceptional life? Do you want to be able to look back at end of life, and look back without regret? We won’t get to that place by accident, we will get there by prayerfully receiving God’s wisdom, and the book of Proverbs is instrumental in that goal. In Proverbs 1:20-23 we read that: “Wisdom cries aloud in the street, in the markets she raises her voice; at the head of the noisy streets she cries out; at the entrance of the city gates she speaks: “How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple?””.
Perhaps you think that this application is becoming repetitious by now, that you get the point. Something we will discover as we move in to this book is that repetition is one of the keys of learning and growth. And how few people truly learn it’s lesson! How few are willing to discipline and drill themselves in the daily gym of wisdom. Yet that is what is required. It might not be a bad idea to think of this as a kind of spiritual gymnasium. Just as our bodies require regular physical exercise, so also our minds, our hearts, and our affections – our spiritual faculties – require diligence in exercise as we feed upon and are directed by the word of God.
Prayer of Confession & Consecration
Lord as I commit myself to daily exercises of the soul in your word, and as I focus at this time upon the Book of Proverbs, I ask that you would please greatly bless me in these things. Unless your Spirit is at work, unless you yourself give me wisdom through your reading of your word, I will make no progress at all. Lord, please – give me wisdom! Have mercy upon me and forgive me for my many sins. These things I pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.
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By Reformed devotions from all of scripture.Prayer
Almighty God, Heavenly Father, as I turn my eyes upon Jesus this morning, as I look to your word and seek your face, my need is desperate. I am utterly unequipped and unable to do anything with the new day that you have given me. Rebel desires even in my own heart would overwhelm me, and I have not the strength to repel them. Give me strength, O Lord, please meet me in my need with a fresh deluge of your grace, such as will be sufficient to see me safely through this day and the temptations and trials that lay before me. O Lord, such sins as have gained a powerful foothold in my life, Lord, please turn my will fully against them to devote them to destruction. And again I pray – please give your wisdom unto me. Please fill me to overflowing with insight and understanding, that I may live my life with prudence and in all godliness. O Lord, there is much to do, my life is so very far from what it ought to be. Please lead me in the way everlasting, Amen.
Reading
Proverbs 1:6
“...to understand a proverb and a saying, the words of the wise and their riddles.”
Meditation
There are many different types of literature, and they are each designed to have different and various effects on us. Poetry is designed to move us with the beauty of its imagery, stories compel us and give us examples to imitate; the Epistles of the New Testament are didactic often for the intent of instructing us. Newspapers inform us (supposedly…), joke books are intended to give us a laugh, and proverbs are intended to give us wisdom. In Proverbs 1:6 we read that Solomon puts pen to paper in this book: “to understand a proverb and a saying, the words of the wise and their riddles.”
A question that we might then go on to ask is: How do proverbs do that? How do they give understanding and wisdom to us? I believe that the most basic sense in which they achieve that goal is as they are repeatedly ingested through slow, constant meditation. As we’ve already noted, proverbs are mysterious – and that is a deliberate aspect of their design. They’re not mysterious to confuse us, but to slow us down and make us think, to chew those proverbs over again and again. And as we do that, as we think about them again and again, they have an effect on us. They impart insights into our hearts, they click into place in our minds, they affect our emotions. As you ponder the proverbs, and you come to understand these words of the wise and their riddles, you will begin to accumulate wisdom for yourself. You will start to become the person described in these pages. Your life will increasingly become exceptional, if I can put it that way. SDG.
Be ye doers of the word…
And so that question, the one that has repeatedly demanded an answer, is still there demanding it’s place in your life: Do you want to live an exceptional life? Do you want to be able to look back at end of life, and look back without regret? We won’t get to that place by accident, we will get there by prayerfully receiving God’s wisdom, and the book of Proverbs is instrumental in that goal. In Proverbs 1:20-23 we read that: “Wisdom cries aloud in the street, in the markets she raises her voice; at the head of the noisy streets she cries out; at the entrance of the city gates she speaks: “How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple?””.
Perhaps you think that this application is becoming repetitious by now, that you get the point. Something we will discover as we move in to this book is that repetition is one of the keys of learning and growth. And how few people truly learn it’s lesson! How few are willing to discipline and drill themselves in the daily gym of wisdom. Yet that is what is required. It might not be a bad idea to think of this as a kind of spiritual gymnasium. Just as our bodies require regular physical exercise, so also our minds, our hearts, and our affections – our spiritual faculties – require diligence in exercise as we feed upon and are directed by the word of God.
Prayer of Confession & Consecration
Lord as I commit myself to daily exercises of the soul in your word, and as I focus at this time upon the Book of Proverbs, I ask that you would please greatly bless me in these things. Unless your Spirit is at work, unless you yourself give me wisdom through your reading of your word, I will make no progress at all. Lord, please – give me wisdom! Have mercy upon me and forgive me for my many sins. These things I pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.
Get full access to Old things New. at rcbhpastor.substack.com/subscribe