Proverbs 1

Bible Passage:  Proverbs 1

The Fear of the Lord…. Do We Even Begin to Understand this?

The theme for this series on Proverbs is the “Gainining of True Wisdom”.

Just some background on the book of Proverbs as as we it over the next 30 days.  The prologue connects the book of Proverbs with Solomon, who was renowned for his wisdom in general and for his profilic composition of provers in particular (cf. 1 Kings 4:29-34).  Though not all the proverbs in this book were written by him, it is likely that Solomon was the source of many of them.

The prologue (found in verses 1 to 7) also states the book’s purpose – in a word, to pass along wisdom.

The “fear of the Lord” is a criticial concept in Proverbs.  This expression frames the book by appearing both at the begining (Prov 1:7) and at the end (Prov 31:30).  This phrase occurs throughout the book of Proverbs (highlight it!) and guides our reading and understanding.

As God is the source of every beginning, so our fear of Him (worship and faithfulness) is the beginning of the study of wisdom and its primary goal.

My challenge to you all (and to myself) over the next 30 days is this… to discover what the fear of the Lord actually means and how it can be applied practically in our lives.

Take for example in the first seven verses of this chapter, we read about 3 basic qualities that the wise are to display:

• the humility of the learner;
• the love for our neighbour; and
• the fear of the Lord – which is of utmost importance.

Fear of the Lord is about turning from rebellion to teachability before God.  The life of wisdom is not just good sense or a list of principles for a happy life (though they help); it’s an attitude towards God that influences our decisions and actions.

How open are we to being taught by God.  We must have heard hundreds of hours, if not thousands of hours, worth of sermons.  And we have read the Words of God and discussed it many times….

But how much has this actually changed us?

These are good things to think about and reflect as we come towards the Spiritual Meeting.  May we be able to make our ‘Breakthroughs’ in our fear of the Lord in whatever we say or do.

Lesson Learned:  Learning How and To Whom to Listen

In verses 8 to 19, the young man is told to pay attention to his parent’s teachings and to the correction of Wisdom but to ignore the offer to join violent gangs and avoid the seduction of the temptress.  The motif of competing voices, calls, and seduction runs throughout Proverbs 1 to 9 and the repetition urges us to consider the consequences of crucial life decisions.

It is very important to learn how to listen and to know whom to listen to.

Very few of us are actually enticed by violence or ill gotten gains.  But we can miss the passage’s caution aginast the underlying issue of greed.

Just look around us today.  If we listen to the media barrage with this in mind, we may be surprised at the level of desire, if not outright greed, underlying not just the commercials, but also the media programs itself.

These TV programs, movies, magazines etc form a sort of reference to what is deemed as successful and happiness.  And these are very often ingrained into us without us ever realizing it.

Be careful who or whom we listen to.  There is only One whom we should listen to.

The question is… are our hearts open to really listening to the call of Wisdom?