Proverbs

Proverbs. The Holy Bible, New King James Version. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1982.

Proverbs is a collection of wise sayings. Most are attributed to Solomon. A couple of chapters are attributed to Agur and Lemuel’s mother.



Though related proverbs are loosely grouped together, the book overall can seen disjointed. This is the partly the nature of a collection of sayings.

With the exception of a few longer, poetic sections, each proverb is a short saying, usually just a couple of lines. Often, the second line is a comparison or contrast to the first. A typical proverb may express essentially the same idea in two ways, or it may present opposite behaviors with their different results.

These sayings are intentionally short and often poetic because they are intended to be easy to remember. They are teaching tools.

What the proverbs teach are ethics. They encourage good behavior, righteousness, integrity, good character and wisdom. They discourage evil, injustice, deceit, bad character and foolishness.

The proverbs are founded on a religious understanding of the world. God exists and he has a plan for His creation. The world is a created order and understanding this order can lead to better decisions. God is just and ultimately sets everything right, even if it appears in the short-term that evil is rewarded and good has no effect.

Even though the proverbs have this religious outlook, they are not idealistic. Wisdom may begin with acknowledging God and His character, but it includes recognizing that our world is full of evil and corruption. Pitfalls abound with sexual immorality, strong drink, deceitful people, and corruption in business and government.

Living righteously in a corrupt world is not easy, and sometimes the advice on how to deal with evil and foolishness seems to conflict. While it is straightforward enough that we should never do what is evil, sometimes the proverbs advise to confront and sometime they advise to let things be. Sometimes the wisest thing is to turn tail and run.

This isn’t so much a matter of conflicting advice as recognition that wisdom isn’t a cookie-cutter approach to life. We learn wisdom over time as we mature. People are different and we learn to tailor our responses to them for the best effect. In addition, the wisest people are always learning, always seeking appropriate counsel, and always turning to God because they recognize they don’t know it all, haven’t seen it all and are far from perfect.