Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Does someone want to take a stab at what wisdom is? Just from a very broad level.
What do you think wisdom is? When you think about the word wisdom, you think intelligence.
[00:00:13] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:00:16] Speaker A: Knowledge gained over experience.
What did you say?
You said knowledge.
Other words that come to mind or other ideas when you think about wisdom.
Discernment.
[00:00:37] Speaker B: Good.
[00:00:39] Speaker A: Yeah.
This is kind of jokey, but the difference. I've heard it described, the difference between intelligence and wisdom. Intelligence is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing it doesn't belong in a fruit salad.
That's discernment. That's discernment.
You know that it's fruit, but it doesn't belong in the fruit salad. That's funny. Yes, sir. James.
The ability to apply knowledge.
[00:01:05] Speaker B: Good.
[00:01:05] Speaker A: Okay, this is helpful. We're getting somewhere. Do you guys have your Bibles?
Keep your Bibles handy today because we're going to be in them.
Open up to Exodus, the book of Exodus, chapter 35, beginning in verse 30.
And would somebody read that? This is going to be Exodus 35, verse 30 through 35.
Someone want to read that portion of Scripture.
[00:01:40] Speaker C: Then Moses said to the people of Israel, see, the Lord is called by name Bezalel, the son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah. And he was filled. He has filled him with the spirit of God, with skill, with intelligence, with knowledge, and with all craftsmanship to devise artistic designs, to work in gold and silver and bronze, in cutting. Was that it?
[00:02:03] Speaker A: Keep going, keep going.
[00:02:05] Speaker C: In cutting stones for setting and in carving wood for every.
For work and every skilled craft. And he has inspired him to teach both him and Ohaliability. The son of Ahisamach of the tribe of Dan, he has filled them with skill to do every sort of work done by an engraver or by a designer, or by an embroiderer in blue and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twined linen, or by a weaver, by any sort of works, workman or skill. Desire.
[00:02:37] Speaker A: Perfect. Thank you. So why read that passage of Scripture when we're talking about wisdom, the word that's often missing when we're looking at wisdom specifically in the Old Testament, specifically in an ancient Near Eastern context? Because that's like when around the time the Old Testament was written, the word for wisdom is this word Hokmah or Chokma.
And the missing piece that I think when we think about wisdom as, like, we often say it's applied knowledge or ability, but this word actually means skill.
Skill.
So if you look back at the text that Tim just read, Bezalel who's been appointed by Moses to build the tabernacle. It says he has filled him with the spirit of God, with skill, with wisdom.
He's filled him with wisdom, with intelligence, with knowledge, and with all craftsmanship similarly.
So that's the first piece that's missing. So think of, like, think of this word skill, but it's not all skill, right?
Just because you have ability, just because you can do something well doesn't necessarily make you wise, Right? It just makes you what we would use. The word we would use today is competent.
You're competent at something, right? But if you look at second Chronicles, chapter nine, you can turn there now.
Second Chronicles, chapter nine. Beginning in verse one, I can read this quick Bible trivia for you. Who's the wisest man in the Old Testament?
[00:04:50] Speaker D: Solomon.
[00:04:51] Speaker A: Solomon.
This is the story of Solomon. It's very common to our ears. Here's what 2 Chronicles 9 says. Now, when the Queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon, she came to Jerusalem to test him with hard questions, having a very great retinue and camels bearing spices and very much gold and precious stones. And when she came to Solomon, she told him all that was on her mind.
And Solomon answered all her questions.
There was nothing hidden from Solomon that he could not explain to her. And when the Queen of Sheba had seen the wisdom.
This is the same word, okay? So just as we saw that Chokmah was Skill In Exodus 35, we now see that Solomon had as well the house that he built, the food of his table, the seating of his officials, and the attendance of his servants and their clothing.
There was no more breath in her. And she said to the king, the report was true that I heard in my own land of your words, of your words and of your wisdom. But I did not believe the reports until I came and my own eyes had seen it. And behold, half the greatness of your wisdom was not told to me. You surpass the report that I heard. So Sheba asks him questions, and what does Solomon do?
He answers all the questions, right? He's been filled with wisdom. He's asked the Lord for wisdom.
And what Solomon has done is he's taken all of what God has given to him supernaturally and been able to say, okay, now this is how the world works.
I see the world, and this is how the world works. So with all that said wisdom, this is my definition.
Wisdom is both the skill and the knowledge to make godly decisions by applying God's truth to your life.
That's my best working Definition of wisdom. I'll say it again. It is both the skill and the knowledge to make godly decisions. Keyword, godly. Okay, so decisions that are of the Lord. By applying God's truth to your life. Wisdom is the ability to see the world as it really is.
It's taking the world around you and making things happen in it.
You're able to make things happen.
It's often defined as the skill to live life well. In fact, that's the goal of wisdom.
Wisdom's goal is actually prosperity, not prosperity as we often think about prosperity, like the prosperity gospel. Right, so, but believing in God in order to get good things, so that God is like a stepping stone in order to get to the thing that you actually want, which is money, wealth, health, prosperity.
That's not what we're talking about here.
The ancient world saw wisdom as a way.
Does anybody know what a life hack is?
What's a life hack?
[00:08:42] Speaker D: Something that makes your life easier.
[00:08:44] Speaker A: Something that makes your life easier. It's a shortcut to figuring something out that actually helps you achieve something faster or more efficiently.
Right, that would be a life hack.
Wisdom in the ancient world, remember, wisdom is not just like true for the covenant people of God. It's not just true for the people of Israel. Wisdom is known in ancient Egyptian traditions and ancient pagan traditions.
There's a working understanding of wisdom. So like, for instance, wisdom outside of the covenant context of Israel would say, they would ask the question of like, okay, how do I get my crops to grow?
Agrarian society, like, how would I grow my crops? Ancient world wisdom might say, make sure you till the ground before the rainy season, make sure the ground is prepared, offer a sacrifice to BAAL so that the rains may come, and check the omens for favorable planting days. So there's a lot of ritual, technical, know how, and when you combine those two things, then you get the outcome you want. And that would be practicing wisdom in the ancient world.
So I have something I want, I know the technique, and then I do whatever ritual my religion or paganism calls for, and then I get the outcome that I want.
Okay, what we're about to see is that when it comes to thinking about wisdom biblically in the context of the people of God in Israel, there is something missing there.
There's a missing piece. Okay, but before we get there, I want us to look at, just on a very broad sense, some key foundations to wisdom. So we know it as we understand the definition of Hokma as it's the skill and knowledge to make godly Decisions and apply God's truth to our life. But what are the things behind that? What are the things that are assumed?
[00:11:25] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:11:25] Speaker A: We call these presuppositions. So in all of wisdom, here's some things that are assumed. First of all, you assume a creator of some kind, okay? You assume that there is some sort of divine creator and that this creator has put all of the things in the universe together. So you have a creator, and then you have what we'll call an ordered universe, an ordered universe. This is key to wisdom, because wisdom, the opposite of wisdom in the ancient world is chaos.
[00:12:12] Speaker B: Okay?
[00:12:13] Speaker A: So, like, think about Genesis 1. What's happening in Genesis 1? In the beginning, God creates the heavens and the earth. The earth is without form and void, and there's waters everywhere, okay? In the ancient world, water is a big representation of chaos.
You have raging waters and raging waves.
You don't have something structured. You have chaos.
So in wisdom literature, you have a creator, and then you have an ordered universe.
There's a structure to the way things go.
There's active rhythms within the universe. The universe is not seen as we see it today.
When we think about the universe today, like in our modern world, we think about the universe kind of like a machine, like.
And this is primarily because we are living in the age of science and reason.
So we think, if I do this to the universe scientifically, then I'm going to get this outcome. In the ancient world, they saw the universe as a living organism, as something that lives and moves and breathes. And it's something that you call creation was something that you cooperated with.
So you prayed for rain, you prayed for wind. You prayed for these activities because you didn't know exactly when it was going to come.
There wasn't all this prediction technology that we have now.
You were in cooperation with the created order. Does that make sense?
This is the ancient world, okay?
Not only is the universe, is there a creator and there's an ordered universe, but there's also an observable universe.
What does this mean?
Someone say livable?
Visible. Visible. Visible. Yes, it's visible. You have to.
You have to see it to be able to do something with it, right?
You have to be able to comprehend that there is order, that there are patterns in the world, right?
There are necessary things that we must do to observe the universe in order to get wisdom. So we have a creator, we have a universe with order.
We have the ability to observe that universe.
And then the last one, this one is more of a principle than anything else. But it's this idea that good brings about harmony.
What's harmony?
Peace.
What else would you say is harmony?
This idea that good brings about harmony means that there's an ethical dimension to wisdom, that there's a moral order to the universe as well. So there's not just a physical, observable universe where we can grow crops and have lines and lots and pleasant places, but that there's also such a thing as good and such a thing as chaos and evil.
[00:16:02] Speaker E: Right.
[00:16:03] Speaker A: And the idea with wisdom is that doing good and being good is what is going to bring about harmony ultimately in the universe. Okay, so this is what this is like. Think of this as like the world view of wisdom.
[00:16:18] Speaker B: Okay?
[00:16:19] Speaker A: This is wisdom in and of itself is a worldview. And I don't have time, I wish I did have time to do this right now, but wisdom and creation are very much linked together.
And even looking at the way that God created the world in Genesis 1 and 2, a lot of that is linked not just to a lot of people like to say it's poetry, and it is, but a lot of it comes from a worldview of wisdom.
Because what God is doing is he's creating the universe and then he's naming it and he's calling it by name, and he's saying this is the function of these things. And he's bringing about an order, a structure, and then what does he do at the end?
What does he do at. What does he call his creation at the end of each day? He calls it good.
[00:17:21] Speaker E: Right.
[00:17:22] Speaker A: That's wisdom.
That in and of itself is wisdom. And it's very fascinating actually to study that in the lens of creation.
Again, we can't do that now, but a really good thing.
Here's the thing, though.
All of these things are good and necessary for wisdom. But there is a missing piece here that particularly sets wisdom in the context of the Creator, God, Father, Son, Holy Spirit and the Covenant people of Israel. There's something missing from this list. Does anyone want to take a guess at what that is?
Biblically speaking, what would be missing? Like, what's the thing that's going to set apart, let's say, biblical wisdom from this ancient wisdom, worldly wisdom, Balance. Not quite.
[00:18:29] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:18:30] Speaker F: Something about the creature. Greater, condescending, like humility.
[00:18:33] Speaker A: Humility. It's a good guess. Not quite.
[00:18:36] Speaker D: Morality.
[00:18:38] Speaker A: Morality, no.
[00:18:45] Speaker B: What?
[00:18:46] Speaker A: Education.
[00:18:47] Speaker F: What's the list?
[00:18:47] Speaker A: I can't read it. Oh, Creator. An ordered universe, an observable universe. And the idea that good brings about harmony. Education, education, the spirit.
Yeah, that's Just like saying, Jesus, you know, like Jesus. There's no Jesus here. Yes, but no.
[00:19:07] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:19:15] Speaker A: They'Re all really good answers. Y' all are going to be like, ah, when I tell you this, go to Proverbs, chapter one, verse seven.
Proverbs, chapter one, verse 7. Somebody read that out loud.
Read it out loud, brother.
[00:19:32] Speaker D: I don't know.
[00:19:33] Speaker A: I ain't there.
[00:19:34] Speaker D: But it's the fear of the Lord.
[00:19:36] Speaker A: Is the beginning of knowledge.
[00:19:38] Speaker G: Fools despise wisdom.
[00:19:40] Speaker A: Yes, that's the. That's the missing link. It's the fear of the Lord. The fear of the Lord is what?
It's the beginning, right?
It's the foundation, which means that this Creator is not just outside of creation. He doesn't just wind up the universe and let it spin. That's a deistic worldview, right?
No, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of. Of wisdom and knowledge. The fear of the Lord is where wisdom begins. So the ultimate foundation. If we want wisdom in a biblical sense, if we want to have a life full of wisdom, it's not asking the question of.
It's not primarily asking the question of how do I get my crops to grow?
The wisdom literature in the Bible is going to ask, what kind of person are you?
Not what kind of land do you have?
Not what your livestock says about you, but who are you actually?
Do you possess a fear of the living God?
And if you do, then good, then you can follow this. You can follow this and it lead to paths of flourishing and paths of righteousness. But if you don't have the fear of the Lord, you're no better off than the ancient pagan who is seeking to get good life hacks out of a worldview like this. Does that make sense?
So it's the fear of the Lord that brings about wisdom. And Brad touched on this a little bit in his sermon today.
We're not talking about a kind of fear that is afraid or trembling. We're talking about a kind of fear that is in awe and reverent of who God is.
It's a delighting trembling, as Brad put it.
[00:21:55] Speaker B: So.
[00:21:59] Speaker A: That'S the kind of. The foundational worldview of wisdom. So that's just wisdom from a. On a broad sense, we're going to look at now like wisdom literature itself. Okay, so wisdom in the Bible. So wisdom books of the Bible, you have four and a few more in other parts of Scripture. But primarily, primarily wisdom books, you're looking at the Book of Proverbs, the Book of Job, and the Book of Ecclesiastes. There is some wisdom in the Song of Solomon, and we'll talk about that kind of wisdom. Song of Solomon is primarily poetry and has obviously a romantic, erotic sense to it, but wisdom literature in the Bible, for our purposes, Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiastes. Okay, now let's look at the types of wisdom literature. The first one that I wrote up here is called proverbial wisdom. Proverbial wisdom.
This is your standard proverb, okay?
And proverbial wisdom is still with us today. Like what would be a modern proverb for us? Penny saved is a penny earned. Penny saved is a penny earned.
[00:23:22] Speaker E: Right.
[00:23:23] Speaker A: What's unique about that saying?
Why is that? Why would we. Why would we call that a proverb?
There's a lesson in it. Perfect.
[00:23:38] Speaker C: Is it not literal?
[00:23:40] Speaker A: It's not literal.
[00:23:41] Speaker B: Good. Yeah.
[00:23:46] Speaker A: It's a timeless principle.
[00:23:47] Speaker B: Good.
[00:23:49] Speaker A: It's also memorable too, right?
Like it's. It's. There's a rhythm to it. There's a. Proverbs are meant to be memorable because the idea is that you would pass down wisdom, particularly to the next generation.
You would, you would.
A king or a family would collect these sayings and they would pass them down to their sons and daughters so that they might rehash and rehearse them and live by that wisdom.
[00:24:22] Speaker E: Right?
[00:24:24] Speaker A: So proverbial wisdom focuses primarily on attitudes and behavior. So Proverbs 15:1. A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.
That's about behavior. That's about how we interact with one another relationally.
And it's supposed to be.
I already mentioned this parabolic, like a parable that are meant to be memorable and precise. And again, we have our own proverbs today. Penny saved is a penny earned. Look before you leave, slow and steady wins the race, right? These are modern proverbs. This is proverbial prudential wisdom.
We're going to talk more a little bit about this second kind of wisdom, but one author calls it speculative wisdom.
Speculative wisdom is characterized by lengthy discourse or dialogue among various persons seeking to inform each other's opinions on truth and life. So you think about the book of Job or you think about the book of Ecclesiastes.
Take Job, for example. Job is primarily a dialogue, like the majority of the story is a dialogue.
It's Job talking and working out with his friends what has happened to him. Okay, so they're actively working out wisdom despite being called speculative.
This kind of wisdom is described as highly practical and. And centered on experience.
[00:26:06] Speaker B: Okay?
[00:26:07] Speaker A: So speculative wisdom, if proverbial wisdom is more theoretical. Penny saved is a penny earned. Speculative wisdom is you working through what's happened to you. Okay, so Job and Ecclesiastes would very much be considered a speculative kind of wisdom. Because like in Ecclesiastes, the king is speaking from experience.
He's saying, I sought all over the land to acquire wisdom and it was vanity. It's nothing.
[00:26:39] Speaker E: Right?
[00:26:39] Speaker A: That's speculative wisdom. Last kind of wisdom is lyrical. This is where the song of Solomon fits in.
This is mainly focusing on how someone can respond faithfully and attractiveness to another person. Again, it's this idea that good brings about harmony.
God looks at man and woman in the garden and says, it's very good. Because what they're about to do is very good. You get my drift? Okay, so again, this is the ultimate promise of wisdom. Step one, fear the Lord.
[00:27:22] Speaker B: Okay?
[00:27:23] Speaker A: This is what wisdom promises. You fear the Lord. You have a deep awe of God and reverence to him.
Step two, look at the order of universe. Observe the patterns of the created world and derive truth principles. You get these proverbs.
Step three, follow them, like do the patterns. So you observe the patterns, you discern them, you follow the patterns. Step four, flourish.
[00:27:51] Speaker E: Right?
[00:27:52] Speaker A: That's the promise of wisdom. If you fear the Lord, if you walk in his ways, if you observe the patterns of the universe and you follow these patterns, then you're going to flourish, right?
Simple enough. Okay, but what happens?
What happens when someone follows the rules of wisdom? When you fear the Lord, when you walk in his step stature and you're blameless before everybody else and everything goes wrong, what do you do?
You praise him, but you realize, wait a minute, something is off here. Okay, this is the book of Job.
This is the book of Job. So look at Job, chapter one, verse one. If you have a Bible, this is what Job 1:1 says.
There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job. And that man was blameless and upright. One who feared God and turned away from evil.
Does that sound like somebody who's wise? In the ancient world?
Yes, Job was very, very wise. Probably what the text is actually hinting at here is that Job was the wisest in all the land. Okay, but what happens to Job?
Those of you that know the story, he loses everything, right? What else happens to him?
Yeah, he said he's. He's in this battle of good versus evil. He gets sick.
He gets all these like, like, like boils and, and diseases all over his skin.
And so you look at that and you're like, okay, like like we just had the book of Proverbs make all these promises to us that we will get wisdom if we do these things.
But now we have the person of Job and what's gone wrong? Okay, the same thing happens in the book of Ecclesiastes.
The author who calls himself the preacher takes a hard look at the world. And what's his conclusion?
Vanity. What does vanity. Meaningless.
It's useless.
He says, I've sought wisdom.
I did everything that you could do under the sun.
And I'm telling you that there's nothing new, that there's nothing new under the sun, that I've had all the women, I've had all the money, I've had all the food and the abundance in the world. And I even had wisdom myself.
And I realized that at the end of the day, it can't defeat death.
It's meaningless because we're all gonna die.
It's pretty dark, isn't it?
To go from Proverbs, which is this very positive picture of wisdom, to Job and Ecclesiastes that say something's gone wrong because we tried this and it didn't work.
[00:31:23] Speaker B: Okay, that's the.
[00:31:24] Speaker A: That it's. By the way, it's part of the beauty of the Bible is that you don't have to go outside of the Bible to get the tension of the human experience.
It's already within the pages. These questions are already being asked. There really is nothing new under the sun.
So I want you to.
I'm not going to answer what the Bible has to say about that tension yet, because I want you to just kind of feel it a little bit, because here is what we're going to do. I actually want us to get to our group activity.
You have in front of you a paper there that is particularly going, going to have you go through several proverbs.
If you don't have one, we have plenty, plenty of goat. So read the top there. It says, as you interpret these passages, make sure to ask yourself, what is the context of the surrounding text?
Sometimes when you read these proverbs, context is helpful. Other times it's just going to be random and they're just going to be isolated sayings. But I want you in your tables to read these texts. And then here's the different boxes and I'll explain what these are.
I want you to ask yourself, is this a general truth or a universal truth?
What do I mean? What do I mean by a general truth?
A general truth is something that is true, is a truth principle. But doesn't Necessarily mean that it's a law, like a universal law.
[00:33:20] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:33:21] Speaker A: So if you have general truth versus universal truth. Universal truth is something that is timeless and completely true, always in every context, in every sphere.
So like Newton's law. Anybody? Any scientists or engineers in here? Like Newton's law, an object at rest will stay at rest until acted upon by an outside force. That's a universal truth. That's always going to be true.
The proverbs, some of them work that way. But what you're going to find, and I'll just like give you a hint, most of the book of proverbs are general truths.
[00:34:04] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:34:05] Speaker A: And so once you've identified, is this a general or universal truth?
I want you to do what's called acknowledging exceptions to the proverbs.
[00:34:17] Speaker B: Okay?
[00:34:18] Speaker A: And the reason why this is good is because it helps us interpret the, the principle of what's being conveyed well here.
So I don't think I have, I don't think I have this proverb on here, but Proverbs 22 talks about training up a child in the way he should go.
[00:34:45] Speaker E: Right?
[00:34:45] Speaker A: You know what I'm talking about? If you train up a child in the way he should go, then he will follow after you, you, and he will do good.
That's, that's a, I would say that's a general truth because there are exceptions to that.
[00:35:00] Speaker E: Right?
[00:35:02] Speaker A: What happens if you train up. What if you, the parent, train up the child and the way they should go and he doesn't follow down the right path?
[00:35:11] Speaker E: Right.
[00:35:12] Speaker A: There would, that would be a potential, an example of a potential exception. So when you read these, talk through in your tables, what's the potential exception? And then the third one is, what's the underlying principle? Like, what is the overall truth being conveyed here? Okay, what is the proverb actually saying? And then the last one, how would obeying this proverb lead to flourishing? Okay, so that's kind of the first activity with the proverbs.
Then there you're gonna very, very briefly look at some speculative wisdom.
So you'll see that this is on your third page.
How do Job and Ecclesiastes complicate the picture painted by Proverbs? So kind of what I talked about before, like talk through, how does Job and Ecclesiastes kind of even push back a little bit against this wisdom that Proverbs is painting?
Then I want to be very specific and zoom in on a specific text of job 15, 20, 22 and honestly ask ourselves, is this wisdom, is this sound biblical wisdom that we should Follow yes or no, why or why not? And why is the context, particularly in Job, important to understand?
And then finally, how does the prologue or epilogue in Job, meaning the beginning and the end of Job and the final conclusion, Ecclesiastes, help us interpret the rest of the book?
Why does the beginning and end matter for making sense of all the wrestling, lament, and questioning that comes in the middle of these books?
[00:37:07] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:37:08] Speaker A: Does that make sense? So work through with your tables a little bit in reading these proverbs.
And then if you have time, go to Ecclesiastes and Job.
[00:37:22] Speaker B: Okay, go forth.
[00:37:24] Speaker G: What are your riches?
[00:37:26] Speaker B: All right, everybody.
[00:37:27] Speaker A: Hey, let's come back together real quick. What'd you guys think of this little activity?
Good time.
[00:37:35] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:37:36] Speaker A: Easy to overthink a little bit.
You started thinking of exceptions, and you're like, wait a minute, what is this?
There's like a bunch of. Yeah, nothing's true.
Let's work through some of these, especially maybe some of them that you were wrestling with a little bit.
We'll start with the first 1.
Proverbs 1:7. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and instruction. Is that a general truth or universal truth?
[00:38:11] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:38:15] Speaker A: Why was that one? Difficult, I guess.
[00:38:17] Speaker F: Define wisdom.
Pagan wisdom or the wisdom of the Lord of Scripture.
[00:38:23] Speaker A: Yeah, right.
Could it be both?
It certainly could be. What do you think, James?
[00:38:32] Speaker D: Well, I would say universal. And then just to go on, just to add to that, kind of like the pattern that we found is that any proverb that actually distinctly clarifies something to do with the Lord, we automatically get it as a universal.
[00:38:46] Speaker A: That's actually the key right there. That's the key.
[00:38:49] Speaker E: So.
[00:38:51] Speaker A: Very good, very good.
If there is a proverb that deals with the character of God, the nature of God, what God values and does not value, we would say that's a universal truth.
[00:39:07] Speaker B: Okay?
[00:39:08] Speaker A: So this first one would be a universal truth. And it's kind of a trick, because when you have a universal truth, there's really not many exceptions to it at all, Right? There's really no exceptions to the reality that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
That's from God, that's from His Word, and there's no exceptions to that.
[00:39:33] Speaker B: Real quick.
[00:39:33] Speaker A: Can I say something?
[00:39:34] Speaker D: Because, like, according to what Madison said, that's what we were talking about ourselves. Because the exception we would think of then.
You wanted to find wisdom. Well, then if it's not coming from the Lord, then it's truly not wisdom. It's foolishness.
[00:39:52] Speaker A: Yeah. We're getting. We're. Gosh. We're getting to the bottom of this conundrum that we have here.
It feels good. Feels good. I feel like we're digging further. Yes, exactly. Exactly.
Ooh, you're right.
[00:40:09] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:40:11] Speaker A: Proverbs 10:4.
A slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich. General or universal?
[00:40:20] Speaker B: General.
[00:40:21] Speaker A: General.
[00:40:21] Speaker B: Good.
[00:40:22] Speaker A: Okay. Why is this a general truth? Are there exceptions to this proverb?
What would be an exception?
Inheritance.
[00:40:32] Speaker B: Okay.
Yeah.
[00:40:33] Speaker G: I have diligently loved and worked for God and still live in poverty, but the main thing is to work hard and be grateful.
[00:40:43] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, go ahead. Joel, did you have something?
Yeah. You could just get lucky, right? You could win the lottery. You know, you don't have to be wise to win the lottery, so.
[00:40:59] Speaker E: Right.
[00:41:01] Speaker A: You can be pious and work hard and still not have riches, still not be wealthy, and you can be lazy and have much wealth. Okay, what about.
Let's do Proverbs 12:22. Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but those who act faithfully are his delight. Ye universal.
Yes, it's a universal truth. But there is some wrestling there, right? Because what about cases where lying actually brings about good, like a good outcome? Like, what did you say, Rahab? What is that about the Israelite spies were escaping?
[00:41:49] Speaker C: Was it Jericho? And then Rahab lied whenever the guards were looking for him.
[00:41:57] Speaker A: Yeah. After that decree went out in Egypt to slaughter the firstborn, they.
But yes, that also was a lie in Jericho.
What is the lie in Exodus, Austin, at the beginning of the narrative about Moses. Yes.
When the midwives. Yes, thank you.
[00:42:25] Speaker F: I've heard some commentators call that a righteous lie.
[00:42:29] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. That would be an example of a righteous lie. What would like a modern example of a righteous lie be and frank being hidden?
That would be an example of righteousness. Again, proverbs is dealing with.
Remember that Proverbs is dealing with the theoretical and the ideal.
[00:43:02] Speaker E: Right.
[00:43:03] Speaker A: So the reason we would say this is universal is because those examples are coming from experience. They're coming from a place where, you know, there are exceptions, but overall, lying is what? It's sinful, Right. It's. It goes against the heart and the command of God. And so again, you have here, like James mentioned, lying. Lets are an abomination to the Lord, but those who act faithfully are his delight. Let's skip down to.
Oh, yes. Oh, yes, sir.
Yeah.
[00:43:45] Speaker D: 1321.
[00:43:46] Speaker A: Did you have a question on that one?
[00:43:48] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:43:49] Speaker D: Because now, come to think about it.
What?
We wrote it down as universal could it be general?
[00:43:57] Speaker A: What do you guys think?
General 1321. The third one.
General.
Why? Why general job? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would say it's general because there are numerous examples in the Bible, like Job, of the righteous suffering.
[00:44:21] Speaker F: So we were thinking of it more from an eternal perspective. This is absolutely universally true.
[00:44:28] Speaker B: Okay, okay.
[00:44:31] Speaker F: Apart from the Lord versus with the Lord.
[00:44:33] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay, good. Okay, that's helpful, because what you're doing there is you're reading the text in a theological sense.
[00:44:42] Speaker E: Right.
[00:44:43] Speaker A: But remember, these are.
Proverbs are meant to be primarily principles and not universal laws or rules.
And neither are proverbs meant to really even be promises.
So they're not the promise of, like when we'll read in Hebrews next week, when God says, I will never leave nor forsake you. That's a promise of Scripture. Proverbs are.
This is a principle.
[00:45:14] Speaker E: Right.
[00:45:15] Speaker A: So disaster pursues sinners, but the righteous are rewarded with good.
Obviously you have examples of people who are righteous that are not rewarded with good. Right, right.
[00:45:31] Speaker G: I put disaster pursues us all, but in Christ we can weather the storms.
[00:45:38] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, that's very good. Very good. That's good underlying principle there.
Let's just get down to the last two.
Proverbs 26:4 and Proverbs 26:5. You notice these are back to back with one another.
Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself.
Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes. So general or universal truths? General, obviously.
[00:46:08] Speaker E: Right.
[00:46:10] Speaker A: Why.
Why would you answer a fool according to his folly?
So he could be instructed.
[00:46:18] Speaker E: Right.
[00:46:19] Speaker A: And why wouldn't you answer a fool according to his Father?
Because.
So. So what do you need? Like, which one is it? Which one do you do?
Yeah. So I hope that this was helpful in teaching you and getting you used to reading some of the proverbs.
This is particularly Proverbs 10 through the end of the book are more of your sayings and your principles. The beginning of Proverbs, Proverbs 1 through 9 has more like allegory and poetry that kind of give you more. This is where, like, wisdom is personified in Proverbs 8 and, you know, is calling out and inviting the young man towards wisdom. And there's foolishness from the harlot that the young man is wrestling with. So what about.
Let's talk a little bit as we close about speculative wisdom.
When you look at Job and Ecclesiastes, just from, like, a big picture, how do you guys wrestle with this tension of that wisdom makes these promises that if you fear the Lord and if you discern the ordered universe and you do good and that good brings about harmony.
How do you deal with it when that doesn't work or when the Ecclesiastes calls it meaningless or useless? What do you think?
[00:47:55] Speaker D: Well, because it never guarantees that it's going to happen immediately. Ultimately, at the end of the story of Job, Job did prosper.
So.
[00:48:03] Speaker E: Right.
[00:48:04] Speaker D: He wound up better than he was.
[00:48:06] Speaker E: Right.
[00:48:07] Speaker A: So that's how life came.
[00:48:10] Speaker D: He still, through his wisdom of.
Even during the rough times, he still feared the Lord.
[00:48:16] Speaker A: He still feared the Lord even through it.
[00:48:18] Speaker E: Right.
[00:48:19] Speaker A: That's good.
[00:48:20] Speaker C: What do you think is on looking towards the eternal?
[00:48:23] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:48:23] Speaker C: Not being concerned with the material, but looking to Jesus because he is lasting. He is eternal.
[00:48:30] Speaker A: Good, good. Anything else? What other thoughts do you have? This tension with Proverbs and Job and Ecclesiastes that are more speculative.
Good answers.
[00:48:46] Speaker G: He didn't really realize he came to the end with great wisdom appear.
But I don't think he actually.
Well, he questioned God and God said to him, well, you're there when I created the world.
[00:49:02] Speaker E: Right.
[00:49:03] Speaker G: So he grew in the Lord, I guess is the way to say that.
[00:49:07] Speaker A: Yeah. 100%.
You think about, like Ecclesiastes 3 is probably the most famous words in Ecclesiastes. This is. There's a time for everything. A time to be born and a time to die, time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted. I mean, even like the world is familiar with this saying.
The world even takes this and says, oh, yeah, like that makes sense. That's a pattern.
[00:49:40] Speaker E: Right.
[00:49:40] Speaker A: There's a time to weep and a time to laugh. You know, it's just human.
[00:49:44] Speaker E: Right.
[00:49:45] Speaker A: There's a time to mourn, there's a time to dance, there's a time to seek and a time to lose, a time to keep and a time to cast away. You don't have to be a Christian to understand that.
The whole point of that, though, is if you look at Ecclesiastes 3:11, it says he has made everything beautiful in its time.
Also, he has put eternity into man's heart yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.
The whole, the whole tension that the author of Ecclesiastes and Job are wrestling with is really like the limitations of wisdom.
It's that at the wisdom can get you really, really far, but it cannot satisfy you.
That's really the lesson of wisdom.
[00:50:51] Speaker E: Right.
[00:50:51] Speaker A: Is that fearing the Lord, which is necessary, acknowledging his ordered universe, being wise and doing good and bringing about harmony in the world, doing good things, it will prosper you. It will take you a long way. But it can't satisfy you. Because as James, you were talking about, everything comes from the Lord.
Everything does. And so the end of Ecclesiastes, I think, gives the most helpful perspective. And this is the words of the preacher. He says the preacher sought to find words of delight, and uprightly he wrote words of truth, the end of the matter.
All has been heard, so all has been laid out on the table.
Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.
For God will bring every deed into judgment with every secret thing, whether good or evil.
So really, the key to wisdom is to go back to solve the tension. It's to go back to the beginning of wisdom, which is what fear God, keep His commandments. That's the, that, that, that's the whole key to the tension is it's kind of circular in the end of like, continue to press on and acknowledge the Lord in all of your ways and fear Him.
And ultimately that's what's going to bring about wisdom. Even when things fail and things go wrong and awry, God is still God and He's still the creator and originator of all things.
And he's the one that we must return back to again and again.
That's all we can say. And so, like, you know, Job, we often look at these examples of speculative wisdom as like, you know, it's a problem of evil, right? Like, if God is good, then why do bad things happen? That's really the problem of evil, you know? You know, but remember, this is, this is all about wisdom. This all goes back to wisdom.
It's about fearing the Lord. And when we don't do that, that's when God's going to rebuke us. Like you were talking about at the end of the book of Job is God ends up blessing Job tenfold from what he once had, but not before he says, where were you in the beginning?
In creation? Again, it's this idea, when you think about wisdom, think of creation.
There's such a strong connection between this idea of wisdom and creation. But the whole idea of resolving this tension is that wisdom is good and necessary and proper, but it cannot satisfy you and it cannot bring you to ultimate fulfillment. Only God can do that. And the only way we do that is by fearing him and trusting him.
Yes, sir.
[00:54:29] Speaker D: If God is good, why do bad things happen? But if bad things don't happen, then we can't experience the goodness of God.
[00:54:36] Speaker E: Right?
[00:54:37] Speaker A: Right.
[00:54:37] Speaker D: We don't know what good is.
[00:54:40] Speaker A: Yeah, that's something. It's a good line of thought that CS Lewis brought up. It's like, you know, how do we know that a crooked stick is crooked in the first place?
There must be some order.
[00:54:56] Speaker E: Right?
[00:54:57] Speaker A: Because we all know that there's something wrong. All of us know inherently that something has gone wrong. Something has fractured the universe.
That's why people were trying to do good, because they thought that ultimately that that's what's going to bring harmony. And the gospel says no.
Human wisdom can only go so far.
But Jesus, the Logos, the one who was before all things, he is divine wisdom, and he's become man and dwelt with us and died in our place and suffered for our sins and rose again three days later so that we might have actual fulfillment. But at the end of the day, this is still like, acknowledging all of these things is still man going to God.
[00:55:50] Speaker E: Right.
[00:55:52] Speaker A: But what's the gospel?
It's God coming to us, and then that's where the circle is fulfilled. And the fear of the Lord.
It's pretty amazing.
It's pretty amazing the way all of this comes together in Jesus, truly.
So that's the class, y'. All. Love you guys. Appreciate your time.
