Episode 307: Pete Enns – Pete Ruins Proverbs (REISSUE)

Pete: You are listening to The Bible for Normal People, the only God-ordained podcast on the internet. I’m Pete Enns. 

Jared: And I’m Jared Byas.

We’re very excited to announce that our brand new devotional guide, the Slow Work of God: An Ordinary Time Guide is out.

Now if you liked our Advent guide, this one is for you. If you didn’t know we had an Advent guide, well you can buy that too while you’re at it. Ordinary Time is a time in the liturgical calendar that happens between Easter and Advent, about 33 weeks long, and this time is called Ordinary because it’s free of the hustle and bustle of other church holidays.

Pete: This guide was created with a wide range of people in mind, especially those who may be rethinking Faith Church or what spirituality looks like in everyday life. 

Jared: Ordinary time can feel, well, ordinary. We think it’s the perfect space to slow down, reflect and reconnect. So with that in mind, our guide has 70 pages with weekly readings grounded in biblical scholarship from our nerds-in-residence, writing prompts to help you process and reflect curated listening recommendations from our podcast episodes that fit each week’s theme and video messages from yours truly.

Pete: Get it right now for instant download at thebiblefornormalpeople.com/ordinarytime. 

Pete: Hey folks. Today’s episode of Pete Ruins is a reissue of episode 36 from way back in 2018 when it was called Seven Things You Need to Know About How The Book of Proverbs Works, because we didn’t yet have the more concise idea of the Pete Ruins series. Live and learn, right?

Anyway, in this episode, I unravel seven big-picture issues that help us see what Proverbs is all about and why the idea of wisdom is such a central and vital biblical concept that too many know too little about. And as usual, with our Pete Ruins episodes, if you want to hear an extended side note about Proverbs, you can get our member-exclusive “Pete Ruins More Stuff” segment by signing up for our online community, the Society of Normal People. And by the way, by normal people, of course, we just mean somewhat playfully people who don’t necessarily have formal academic training in the Bible, which by the way, makes people like me abnormal. And anyway, here’s the thing.

When you sign up, you’ll also have access to all, not some, all of our many classes, bonus episodes, and an ad-free podcast feed, which leads me to ask, why are you still sitting there? Head to thebiblefornormalpeople.com/join to sign up. With all that said, I hope you enjoy this reissue of episode 36.

Hello everybody. Welcome to another solo podcast, where Pete once again attempts to be coherent all by himself without Jared’s adult supervision. I do the best that I can and today’s topic is one that’s really really close to my heart. It’s a book that I’ve come to really just sort of sit under especially in my adult years for a whole lot of reasons and it’s the Book of Proverbs.

So, here are seven things you need to know about how the Book of Proverbs works. 7 things–that’s a biblical number so you know that I’m right. And how the Book of Proverbs works, well let’s just hold on, and we’ll walk through these things and hopefully, it’ll give you a big picture view of how this book works and what it’s designed to do, if that’s even the right way of putting it. What it is, what it isn’t, and what it’s great value is, because I think the Book of Proverbs has resonances beyond simply the Book of Proverbs. I think it’s actually a model for us for much bigger and better things.

Wisdom as a Central Concept in the Bible: Joseph and the Coat of Many Colors 

So, this is a central concept in the Bible. You see wisdom that is not just in Proverbs, but it’s sort of baked into a lot of other books of the Old Testament. And one good example is the story of Joseph. People refer to that, scholars typically refer to that as sort of a wisdom story because, you know, God is not interacting and telling Joseph what to do–do this and do that. He’s just employing his own wisdom to finally navigate his way to a place of wisdom.

At the beginning, he’s sort of a spoiled mama’s boy, or daddy’s boy, because his mother’s not around, but spoiled daddy’s boy where he’s got the coat of many colors and he brags to his brothers, “I’m gonna rule over you and you’re gonna bow down to me.” In return, they throw him down a well and then sell him to traders who go down to Egypt, whereas the story goes, as you know he becomes second in command and he saves Egypt from famine and eventually saves his whole family when they come down. And for a while, he plays with them. He tricks them and it’s a very dramatic story. But see, God’s not really involved in it.

And at the end of the story what you see is Joseph having grown up. He’s gained wisdom because he says “What you meant for evil, God meant for good.” See he learned this lesson. So it’s a story of wisdom gained. And we can go on and on about that, but it’s a central concept and an important concept. And for me, it’s a liberating concept because of how it affects how we look at the Christian life. At least that’s for me. And that’s some of the stuff that I want to share with you–how it works and what difference it makes.

The Structure of Proverbs 

So first of all, this is number one for those of you keeping score at home. The structure of the book–now these are sometimes very boring discussions, but this is going someplace. I want to say something briefly about the structure. It’s 31 chapters. The first nine chapters are not the Proverbs themselves, but it’s an introduction to the book. We’re going to get into that introduction very shortly, but it’s just enough to know it’s the theological introduction to the book and then the Proverbs themselves begin in Chapter 10 and they go through Chapter 31.

So you’ve got 31 chapters and the first nine is a long introduction that you’re not really sure where it’s going at first, but it’s a very powerful introduction. And then you have the actual proverbs themselves.

And just pause on that second half a little bit–this actually tells us something also about the book and its history, maybe even its authorship. See when you start in Chapter 10 and then you go through Chapter 22, about halfway through Chapter 22, that whole section of 13 chapters, is the sayings of Solomon. And, of course, Solomon is the one to whom this book is attributed. The book begins that way, you know, the Proverbs of Solomon. And that’s fine.

But, when you start in the middle of 22, verse 17 to be specific. Through 24, so a couple of chapters, it has a different heading. There we read, it’s the Words of the Wise. Mmkay. That’s interesting. And what’s also interesting there is that there’s a section in there that looks an awful lot like a well-known, at least to scholars, a well-known Egyptian wisdom text by this guy named Amenemope. Yes, I just said that. Amenemope. Say that 10 times fast.

The point though is that it seems like and it is probably the case–most Scholars will say something like this–that this section of Proverbs, that is written by “the wise”, not Solomon, but the wise, might be lifting stuff from this Egyptian text. Which is, I think, just totally groovy because wisdom has a universal appeal anyway. All cultures in the ancient world have wisdom traditions and there’s some engagement between Egypt and Israel at various times in their histories. It’s just not a big deal. But the point is that someone else wrote and compiled these.

Then you get to Chapter 25 and now through Chapter 29, you have more sayings of Solomon (so we’re back to Solomon). But the thing is, these sayings of Solomon were collected by the men of Hezekiah’s court. And who is Hezekiah? Well, Hezekiah is one of the kings of Judah who reigned after the empire split into North and South. In fact, after the northern empire came to an end in 722 BCE, that’s when Hezekiah is reigning over the southern nation of Judah. My point here is that it’s around 700 BC when Hezekiah is King and it’s his men who collected other proverbs of Solomon and put them together.

So Solomon probably died, roughly speaking, around 930 BCE, so this is now a good 200, maybe as much as 250, years later that this book still has life. And you might say, well, why would the Bible do that? That seems ridiculous. You know, the Bible would never just evolve like this. But, it is. Because when they’re sitting down to write the Book of Proverbs, they’re not thinking about writing a Bible. They’re recording the wisdom of their tradition and the wisdom of their King. And it’s happening in stages and by different people.

And then when you get to the end of the book, Chapters 30 and 31, you have a section by this person named Agur and then in Chapter 31, at least the first nine verses, you have this guy Lemuel. And, boy oh boy, nobody really knows what’s going on. Who are these people? We have no idea. Are they really their names? Are they pen names, pseudonyms, false names? Is it somebody else? No one really knows who these people are, but somebody thought they were important enough to put their words in this collection.

And then the book rounds off in Chapter 31 with the noble wife, or the noble woman, or translations put it differently and we’ll get to that cause that’s a very important section of the book.

But, you see, my point is that you have this two-part structure. And then you have, in the second half (10-31), you’ve got these layers of proverbs written by different people, collected by different people. So the book itself has an evolution. Nobody sat down at one point in time and wrote down the Book of Proverbs as we know it today. It probably evolved and was added to over time.

And if somebody actually did sit down and write it sort of from scratch, it had to be after the year 700. And who knows how long, right? Because that’s when Hezekiah is mentioned. Who knows how long that would be. The problem is there’s no indication in Proverbs of when it was actually written or when the parts were written other than Hezekiah–the mention of Hezekiah–because there are no real historical clues in it. I mean, sometimes in some books you can just see, oh gosh, this must be after the exile or this must be after the conquest because these things are talked about. You know, the Pentateuch is notorious for that sort of thing. Mentions things that had to be much later. So scholars think, you know, this was probably during the time of the exile the Pentateuch came together.

You don’t really have that here in Proverbs. You don’t have those historical hooks. The best we have is this reference to Hezekiah so there’s something going on there. Okay? Okay, that’s brief. I said this was going to be brief. That’s my brief first point. Don’t hang up. Okay.

Two Types of Proverbs: Sayings and Instructions 

So, second point. There are two types of Proverbs in the book–starting in Chapter 10, where the actual proverbs are listed. And these two types of proverbs are usually called sayings or sentences. And then instruction. And a saying is like, you know, when we think of proverbs today, “a stitch in time saves nine.” “A stitch in time saves nine.” I don’t even know what that means. “A stitch in time saves nine” or “a penny saved is a penny earned.” It’s a saying. It’s a sentence. It’s a bit of wisdom. It’s a nugget of wisdom.

And if you want to see those in action, you almost can open up to any place you want to–and I’m just going to the very first section here of these proverbs in Chapter 10. “A wise child makes a glad father, but a foolish child as a mother’s grief.” And keep going. It’s like–again and again. It’s pages and pages of entirely these sayings. These sentences. And you have to go flipping around. You might even hear me flipping my pages around here. You have to go to other sections to see a lot of the other kind of proverbs, which are instructions–almost sort of like commands you need to do this.

So for example, I mentioned before the sayings of the wise, which begin in 22:17, you see a whole bunch of instructions there. Maybe you’re driving. Like, don’t open your Bible or anything. But just, yea, when you get home…

Chapter 22. Starting in verse 22. “Do not rob the poor because they are poor or crush the afflicted at the gate, for the Lord pleads their cause and despoils the life of those who despoil them.” See, it starts with a command. An instruction. Don’t do this or do this. So, two types of sayings and they’re both important. Sometimes the saying–you have to sort of look at that and say, “Okay, what is this saying to me?” And likewise, the instructions are a little bit deceptive. We’re going to get to this a little later, but they’re a little bit deceptive because they look like they’re eternal and unchanging commands, but it’s a lot more complicated than that. And it’s good news by the way that it’s complicated. This book forces us to grapple with the information. We’ll get back to that.

Okay, so that’s the second point. That was relatively brief. I’m proud of myself.

Proverbs Intended for Young Men Entering Elite Courtly Service 

Third point. Hopefully even briefer. Is that, and this is something that scholars debate, but by and large–and this is my opinion too, but by and large it’s agreed upon that this book was originally intended for young men, probably adolescent age (very important detail) who are being trained for some type of life of like elite courtly service. That is a very important point because it explains why the Book of Proverbs, especially this theological introduction in 1 to 9, talks the way that it does.

So, just keep that in mind. Young men in the court.

Now you might be saying, “Okay, well what about me? What about a young woman? What about all that kind of stuff?” Yea, we’ll get to that.

But, I’m saying originally the intention of this book was for young men entering life in the court and leadership and having to rule. And having to have wisdom in order to rule well, or supervise well other people. So, that’s the third point.

The Personifications of Lady Wisdom and Lady Folly 

The fourth point–we’re going to connect this with the young men issue in a second.

The fourth issue is, in Chapters 1 to 9, the idea of wisdom is personified. And personification is just a fancy word that means you take an abstract concept and you make it into a person. So you have a couple of personifications in Chapters 1 to 9.

One is wisdom itself. And wisdom is Lady Wisdom and she’s described in various ways. One of which is that she goes around and stands at the crossroads and calls out to people saying “Follow me, listen to me, heed what I say.”

Another personification is the opposite of wisdom, which is foolishness or, in most Bibles will say something like folly. So you have Lady Wisdom and you have Lady Folly.

And they’re personified as both sort of competing to grab the attention of these young men, these naive simpletons who have not lived long enough to know when they’re being trapped. To know a good thing when they see it. They have to be trained in wisdom.

Okay? Got that? So here. Here goes.

In this theological introduction, Lady Folly is, oh here’s the word, concretized as a loose woman. So, Lady Folly is this personification of this abstract concept of foolishness. What is foolishness? Well, she’s personified as a woman.

But then almost–and I’m going to use this word advisedly–almost like an incarnation of Lady Folly is this adulterous woman or loose woman or strange woman, as she’s called and various translations. So you have Lady Wisdom, personification of wisdom, Lady Folly, personification of folly, but then you also have this other character who is like this embodiment–a concrete embodiment of folly and this is a loose adulterous woman. Okay, why?

Because this book is geared towards young men who are adolescents, who are driven by testosterone. Things don’t change that much over history, right? So, the point here is to grab the attention of the young man and to use maybe what would be about as tempting as anything for them as an example of folly.

Okay, it’s not that sex is bad because the point is that this loose woman is an adulterous woman. She’s married and her husband goes on a trip and she says, “Come on inside and let’s do it,” right? “He’s not going to be home for a long time, and we’re safe, and we’ll get away with this, and no one will know.”

What I think is really really important here for understanding this image of this personification of wisdom–again, don’t open your Bibles when you’re driving–but, it basically concerns sort of the middle section chapters 5 to 7. Chapter 5, it’s all about this loose woman and she’s a loose woman and don’t go near her and she’s bad bad bad, right?

So, it’s a warning against this loose adulterous woman.

Chapter 6, at least the first part of it, through like verse 19 or so. It shifts gears entirely to, or what seems to, it shifts gears to talk about warning against falling folly, against foolishness. Not the loose women or the adulterous woman, but against foolishness. And there you see topics addressed. It’s a brief section, but it’s topics like finances, speech–big issue in Proverbs–what comes out of your mouth is very important, how you speak. Gossip, slander, things like that.

These verses in Chapter 6, they already anticipate many of the themes that you’re gonna see in that second half of the book (10-31). So what?

Well, after this section, starting around 6:20 and going into way in the end of Chapter 7 is this extended discussion again of the loose woman. So, just think Chapter 5 and then some of Chapter 6 and Chapter 7, you have these warnings against the loose women. Smack dab in the middle of that, you have a warning against folly. And the point of that is to make it very very clear that resisting folly in any form is like resisting the loose woman.

Or let me put it negatively. Giving in to slander or gossip or treating people unjustly and unfairly as a ruler. When you do that, it’s no different than giving in to the adulterous woman. See, the little things in life have major graphic implications. So you read Proverbs and there’s a lot of mundane stuff and some stuff that just seems like this just doesn’t seem too important. It’s all important because you always have a choice, young man. Listen, my son, as the Book of Proverbs repeats. You always have a choice whether you’re going to follow Wisdom or you’re going to follow Folly and foolishness.

And when you follow Wisdom, you’re following the right lady. When you’re following Folly and foolishness by saying the wrong things, or being prideful or hurtful towards other people or unjust and showing partiality and judgements–things like that–at that point, you’re basically committing adultery. And that’s a graphic lesson for young men to learn. And that’s why this book is structured the way it is.

See, this is why when we read these nine chapters, we might want to minimize the sexual focus of these chapters. Maybe it’s embarrassing, we don’t worry about it in church, we don’t want to explain things to our kids, blah, blah, blah. But when we think about why this book was written and its purpose for being written, well, you realize, no, that it’s actually very important for understanding the theology of the text. That there are no little things in life. Everything’s a big thing. Everything is a choice between Wisdom and Folly. Let me illustrate it for you by this example that I know you’re going to get.

Now that brings us to the fifth point, which is, uh, okay, well what about us today and how do we relate to a book that has such a focused purpose, young men about to rule? Well, fifth point is this. Don’t forget that this book, which had an original intention, the original purpose, was eventually collected by scribes long after the exile. Who knows how long? But you know, fifth century, fourth century, we don’t know when, but after the exile is when the, the Judites who returned from Babylonian captivity, this is when they gave us this Bible that we know.

And by putting it into this collection, this what we call a cannon, by including it in their scripture. Which was their guide for knowing what God was like and what was required of them as a people, right? They included in this canon a book that was originally meant for a portion of the population, and I think that is highly significant.

See what the book of Proverbs may be focused on a particular audience, but as part of the cannon, it becomes the, I mean, a word I’m struggling here with is it becomes democratized. It becomes part of the people’s books. So now the question is, okay, how do we read a book like this that has such, you know, an original male-centered meaning.

And male-centered focus. How do we read this today for people who aren’t men and for people who aren’t gonna be rulers? Right. Well, that’s, I, I think that the fact that this is in the canon gives us the permission. In fact, it might even demand that we take that seriously, that process seriously, of figuring out what do we do with this book.

And I think for me, the, the, the best example here of the need to do that is the very ending of the book, chapter 31, 10 to 31. And this is the, the woman there is referred to in various ways, like a, a noble wife or a, I’m trying to remember here what the new revised standard version says, a capable wife.

And this is used, I think, erroneously so, by not well-meaning people perhaps to say, listen, you know, this wife is gonna be described, or she does little things and she takes care of the family. She buys land and sells it. You know, she sows clothes and stuff like that. And it’s like, you know, oh wow, this is a wife that I want, you know, and, and young men are told, find this person as your wife.

And I think that’s missing the point drastically of what is happening here in this last chapter. It’s not find the right wife, but this woman, this noble woman at the end of the book, A Woman of Valor as some translated that’s, that’s acceptable in the Hebrew, A woman of valor, of courage, even. The point is that this woman is the embodiment of Lady Wisdom. 

Now we have to go back now to the theological introduction. The first nine chapters, right? Remember, you have two abstract concepts that are personified. Wisdom is Lady Wisdom. Foolishness becomes Lady Folly. Lady Folly is embodied in this looser adulterous woman. And you might ask, well, okay, well where’s the corresponding embodiment of Lady Wisdom?

Well, you don’t get it in chapters 1-9. You have to wait till you get to the end of the book. That’s, that’s what this noble wife is. And, and you can tell, I mean, if, you know, if, if you’re listening to the echoes of the book, the beginning of chapter 31:10, when this woman is introduced, it says, A capable wife, I don’t like that word wife there, but a capable wife who can find, she’s far more precious than jewels.

And there are a couple of key words in there that are echoed several places in the theological introduction and also going outside of that into the proverbs sections themselves. And it’s the word find the capable. Who can find what you’re supposed to find- wisdom. She is more precious than jewels. Well, that’s exactly how wisdom is described in 3, 5, 8, 1.

Right. And if you do, if you do a search, just if you have, you know, a go on the internet and do a search, look for the word find and look for the word jewel or precious. Look for those words in the first nine chapters of Proverbs or throughout Proverbs, and see what those words describe. This is clearly echoing your attitude towards wisdom, wisdom’s, precious, more precious than jewels, and you have to find who can find wisdom. Well, you gotta go looking for wisdom. 

Pete: So here we have this woman who is a concrete embodiment of, of what it means to be wise, what taking care of the little everyday things. Right. So in, in a sense, you know, taking care of business, uh, caring for your family, caring for people around you, that’s actually an act of wisdom.

You know, unwise people don’t do that. They go off and, you know, create multi-billion dollar ministries and ignore their family. That’s not wisdom. Wisdom is taking care of the little stuff, right? And this is also for a young man, a graphic reminder of the benefits of wisdom. So, yeah, actually this is true.

This is what you want in a woman. Right, and that makes sense to the original readers of this book. But see, here is where we come in, right? This book has been canonized. This book is part of scripture, and we need to understand for ourselves, how do we appropriate this and this, because the book of Proverbs is now democratized because it’s now for the people and not just for a segment of people, we have to look at something like this and say, okay, what do we do with this? 

And what I used to tell my, uh, seminary students years ago who were, you know, 99.99% men. I said, don’t think so much of looking for a Proverbs 31 wife. I told them, you be a Proverbs 31 man. See, this is democratizing this to their situation too, saying it’s not about the wife that you find.

It’s modeling for you what wisdom looks like. Of taking care of the little things, the things that people don’t notice. The things maybe you do in secret, but that have to get done. Honor those around you like that by being a person like that. This is a, actually a very powerful conclusion to the book.

It’s not just an add-on. Oh, yeah. By the way, if you’re looking for a wife, these, these are her qualities. It’s summing up the entire book, which has been dealing with little things, with speech, with manners, with attitudes, with, with the, the little things that no one sees except for you and God. That’s, that’s this proverbial section starting in chapter 10.

This is what it deals with, and now it’s being summed up in just a beautiful concrete way for these original readers, but we have to appropriate it for ourselves. Okay, that was point five. Now, two more points to go. Point six, and that is we have to go back to the theological introduction, 1-9. That’s a big deal.

Getting this right is so important, but there we see lady wisdom or the idea of wisdom being closely aligned with creation itself. So, for example, you can flip over as I’m doing as we speak to chapter 3. Again, don’t do this while you’re driving, but their wisdom is praise. Starting around verse 13, verse 14.

There we read, for example, you know in verse 15, she is more precious than jewels, which is exactly how the woman’s described in 31:10. But she is also a tree of life to those who lay hold of her. Those who hold her fast are called happy. See, she’s a tree of life. And of course that resonates immediately, I think with many of us, with the Adam and Eve story.

And it was access to the tree of life from which they were barred after they ate of the forbidden fruit, and were driven out, I say exiled out of the Garden of Eden. And if you want to, you can listen to another podcast I did, uh, you know, a few months ago on the Adam and Eve story in evolution and how I understand the Adam story.

But by and large I would say this is rather metaphorical, the Adam and Eve story, and it represents being driven out of the land. It’s exile language being driven out of the land, which is a place of death, and being in the land is a place of life because that shows that you’re connected with God. See, the land is a promise to the Israelites as long as they maintain the covenant and are obedient, especially by not worshiping other gods.

Okay? Anyway, so here in Proverbs, wisdom is a tree of life. See, wisdom is that thing that gives you access back to the tree of life. Not literally, but metaphorically. Your life is now, again, connected with the creator that had been disrupted in this Adam and Eve story. So see, wisdom is actually a big deal, right?

It’s, it’s not, it’s not just sort of rules to live by. It’s painting something bigger for us that with access to this wisdom that we have, if we seek and we’ll find and we will learn and we will grow more and more, and wisdom, you’re actually communing with God more closely. See it’s, it really is a big deal.

And then Proverbs chapter 3 goes on verse 19 to say, the Lord, by wisdom founded the earth by understanding, he established the heavens. And he goes on and on like that. See, not only is Proverbs connected to the Adam and Eve story, but it takes a step further back to Genesis 1, where the Earth was founded.

And that’s, you know, again, at the moment of creation, so to speak, wisdom is there. The big section is chapter 8, and this is like, boy, people talk about this a lot, starting in around verse 22. We see there about wisdom’s intimacy with the act of creation. You know, wisdom was there before anything else.

Before there were mountains, rivers, seas, anything, creatures, wisdom was there with the creator, creating, and in fact, it’s, it’s a little bit controversial ’cause the Hebrew’s not super clear, but verse 22 says, in a lot of translations that wisdom was the first of God’s creation. Which means wisdom was created by God first.

Right? But other translations say things like wisdom was acquired by God. Okay. That’s interesting. It’s a little bit different. Acquired doesn’t mean created. Others say, like, wisdom was begotten by God. Okay. That’s interesting too. It reminds me of Jesus and as it should, but the question is how much is wisdom always there?

Is wisdom, like, this fundamental character trait of God by which God created everything there is. I think that’s what Proverbs chapter 8:22 and following is saying, wisdom is is a fundamental part of God’s character. If we can even talk of God having a character, this is, this sums up God at, you can’t get any more basic or go back in time further.

This has always been there. Now you, do you want to seek this wisdom? Do you want this wisdom to drive and inform and shape what you say, what you do, how you treat other people? See, wisdom is a big deal because when you access wisdom, you are intimate with the created order itself. On a moral level, let’s say.

And that’s why I think, again, it’s, this is not like just rules to live by. Wow, isn’t it great? Let’s be wise and, and when you’re wise, things will go well with you. So there’s a payoff. Let’s be wise. Book of Proverbs is actually painting a portrait for us of a reality that we are invited into to take part of.

Now in the New Testament, you know, Jesus has said the word in John chapter 1 was with God at creation, and nothing was, uh, it wasn’t, you know, created by, you know, the word and the creator together somehow, you know, it’s the intimacy of Jesus at creation is something that John talks about and Paul alludes to in a couple places as well.

That seems to be derived from a particular reading of Proverbs chapter 8, which is another reason why Proverbs 8 is so important. You know, we have access to life and for us, you know, as Christians, we think in terms of the spirit of Christ dwelling in us. To mold us and to shape us, and to teach us to live the right way.

Well, that’s exactly how the Israelites talked about wisdom, right? So I mean, that adds a twist to what the gospel is. The good news is that you can live for life. You can live well. You don’t have to live and answer the call of foolishness. You can answer the call of wisdom, which was intimate with God at creation.

And we don’t often talk about the gospel and the Christian life as wisdom. We talk about getting saved, and then you just try to figure stuff out. Well, this is a path that we walk and this is a way of life that is painted for us in pictures here in Proverbs, chapter 8. And I think, I think that’s very important.

That’s a big deal. The, the, the, the longer I look at this stuff, the more I think, again, as I said earlier, that wisdom is a central concept in Old Testament theology, and I think we ignore it to our own disadvantage.

Okay, moving to the last point. The book of Proverbs and, and I’m talking more specifically of the Proverbs section starting in chapter 10. Proverbs don’t function as a rule book because Proverbs are ambiguous and they’re diverse. Read any proverb, just open up someplace and point to almost anything. And you see that it doesn’t actually tell you what to do.

It’s ambiguous. You have to figure it out. And then if you look at how the Book of Proverbs treats the same topic, you see, my goodness gracious it. It handles topics differently. And that may sound like a sort of a drag, like, oh, kind of a messed up book is this? Well, it’s not messed up at all. The point of Proverbs is that it’s not a rule book.

It’s a book to train you in wisdom. And wisdom is all about being able to read a situation and not just being able to read a book. So, for example, uh, the, the best place to go to, to see this, at least in my opinion, it’s, it’s something that I point to an awful lot, is, uh, Proverbs chapter 26:4-5, be very brief here, but this illustrates the point of the ambiguities and the diversity that you see in the book of Proverbs, which is baked into the pages. 

I think this is intentional. It’s not just oh, oh, shucks. If we were ancient people, we’d get this. We wouldn’t, not immediately. We’d have to think about it, right? So, so this, these are, uh, uh, two of the more famous proverbs in the book of Proverbs 26:4.

Do not answer fools according to their folly, or you will be a fool yourself. Verse five, answer fools according to their folly, or they’ll be wise in their own eyes. So, okay, which one do you do? Do I do 4 or 5? And the answer the book of Proverbs gives is, yes, you do 4 or 5. Which one do I do?

Figure it out, right? I mean, what does it mean to like, you know, even answer fools according to their folly, you know, or not answering. What do those things mean? You know, what does it mean to answer them? I mean, what words do I use? It’s not telling me what to do. It’s giving me this general principle and the two contradict each other.

They’re not saying the same thing. They’re not. You can’t reconcile them. They’re not meant to be reconciled. They’re ambiguous and they’re diverse. They’re ambiguous. You have to figure things out. You have to try to employ wisdom. You might have to ask other people. You may have to really ponder this, right?

It’s not a quick fix book. It’s not, you know, look up the index and, oh, here’s the thing about fools. And you go to it and you say, oh, this is what I do. That’s not wisdom. God’s not a helicopter parent hovering over us telling us what to do. We have to figure stuff out. Right. That’s wisdom. That is the, that is the accumulation of wisdom over a lifetime.

This is what happens when you seek wisdom and you find wisdom. You start figuring things out because you’re connected to the creator and to creation. See, these are ambiguous and they’re diverse. It doesn’t tell you what to do. Sometimes you answer a fool to put them in their place. Sometimes you don’t answer a fool.

‘Cause if you do, you’re just giving them airtime they don’t need. And you’re gonna get into a useless argument and it goes nowhere, right? Sometimes you tell a coworker off, sometimes you don’t. Sometimes you sit down and talk to a family member, and other times you don’t. Which you do depends entirely on whether the timing is right, whether the, you know, the situation is right.

See, that’s wisdom. Wisdom is not just reading the book, it’s reading the situation. And it’s trying to figure out what to do. And I think this is just a beautiful thing about the book of Proverbs. It’s it, it’s not, again, I love the metaphor. It’s not the rule book, it’s not the Christian instructional manual.

It’s a book that gives you glimpses of what wisdom looks like, and you have to figure it out. And this holds for other topics. You know, you could, I mean, we won’t get into this, but if you wanna do a search on things like money and wealth, it’s, it’s all over the place in the book of Proverbs. And it would be if, again, if you’re dealing with an elite ruling class, right?

That’s a big deal. But, you know, wealth is the kind of thing you wanna sort of get. Just what should my attitude be towards wealth, right? Uh, what should my attitude be towards a fool? Just tell me, you know, don’t, don’t make me figure it out. No. Too bad. You have to figure it out. And when you think about things like, well, I’ll get to wealth in a second, but a fool is not just like a class clown.

A, a fool is somebody who hates discipline, who wants nothing to do with correction, who slanders, who gossips, who shows partiality and judgments, who, who does all these things that are the opposite of wisdom. So, and, and wisdom is a big deal, right? So a fool is the person you don’t wanna be. So what do I do when I’m confronted with a fool?

It depends. Wise person. You have to figure it out. Likewise, wealth, wealth is, we all know this, a source of, you know, great joy. But man, all the problems in the world are about wealth and greed at the end of the day, and holding on and getting more stuff and keeping other people from taking it. It doesn’t matter if you’re rich or poor.

Here’s another topic, boy, which the Bible would have a teaching on wealth, but it doesn’t. If you, if you, you know, scan proverbs and do a search again on, on Google or your Bible software or concordance or whatever, you, you see how diverse the Bible is about wealth. Sometimes wealth is a source of comfort.

Other times it’s a, it’s a source of arrogance, which is it? Well, good question. Oh person, you have to examine yourself to know that. You have to know yourself well enough to know, am I relying on wealth or am I just thankful for it? How much is too much? Where do I cross the line between a healthy sense of comfort to opulence?

And what do I do about it? You see, these are not things, the Book of Proverbs hands you on a silver platter. You’ve got to figure it out. But I just want God to tell me no. ’cause again, God’s not a helicopter parent. And the Bible’s not God’s helicopter parenting book. Proverbs is opening up to us a window of reality again that we’re, we’re invited into and we have to figure things out.

A, a lot of the Christian life really is figuring things out because the Bible, not just Proverbs, but the Bible as a whole doesn’t always give you advice. It’s ambiguous. And the Bible’s diverse. See, it’s not just Proverbs, the, the Bible and Proverbs is modeling this for us. Proverbs and the Bible as a whole are, are not just waiting there for us to find the right verse to know what to do.

It’s painting a portrait that we get to gaze at and then sort of enter into that story somehow. Uh, one thing I like about the, the, the ambiguity and diversity of Proverbs is that, as I just mentioned, it models something for us about how the Bible as a whole works. And just two very quick examples and then we’ll be done.

One is, look at the laws of the Old Testament and really look at them and read them. Pick one almost at random, and you’ll see, my goodness gracious, I’m not sure what to do. I, I get it right. And some of the penalties are really stiff, like including death. Right? But I don’t know exactly what to do here. And some of these laws, I’m not even sure if I should be doing them, right, like beat your children with a rod if they disobey.

Or even in Deuteronomy, kill the rebellious son who doesn’t listen to correction and just be done with them, right? These are laws, right? It’s hard to know what do I do with these things. But I mean, one example is. Remember the Sabbath day, which means, you know, third commandment, which means, uh, don’t do any work.

But the question comes up immediately, well, what is work? Well, the biblical law doesn’t clarify that for you, which is why you have in the history of Judaism early on, discussions about what is work. And you get to about the year 200, that’s CE or AD. And you have this collection of oral tradition called the Mishna, and in there, I think it’s something like 31, a list of 31 things that constitute work that you’re not allowed to do on the Sabbath.

And it sounds to Christians well, it’s legalistic, blah, blah, blah. No, it’s not. It’s just like, it says, remember the Sabbath day. Keep it holy. Don’t do any work. You or your servants or your animals, or anybody in your household don’t do any work. Okay, great. What’s work? You need wisdom to be able to fulfill the law.

‘Cause it doesn’t tell you. And the wisdom is gained through community and through experience and just sitting down and applying your brain and saying, okay, listen, this, are, we agreed? This looks sort of like work. Okay, let’s not do this. Let’s not boil water. How about these other things? How about helping somebody up when they fall down?

Okay, that’s, that’s not work. Right? And wisdom had to be applied to arrive at those conclusions. So that’s law. And, and one more example. Uh, one of my favorite ones in the whole Old Testament, ’cause it illustrates so many things, is the Book of Chronicles, 1 and 2 Chronicles. This is a complete revision of the history of the monarchy, starting with Saul and then David and Solomon, and then the divided monarchy and the exile.

And Chronicles tells the story very, very differently. And this is, you know, obvious. It’s, it’s not really up for debate. It leaves things out. It rewrites things that David’s sins are really sort of brushed aside, and, and David is very involved in the Temple and Chronicles, but he’s not in 2 Samuel.

And, um, things like, uh, you know, even, even the whole northern contingent of Israel that goes into exile, they’re not even really talked about in Chronicles because nobody cares about them. They’ve been gone for a long time. It’s the Judites who are back. So they’re writing this story. They just wanna talk about themselves and all sorts of other things like, I mean, you know, man is the worst king in the history of the cosmos.

In 2 Kings, he’s the reason the exile happened. But in Chronicles, he becomes a repentant sinner and God forgives him. None of that’s in 2 Kings. So my point is this. In this narrative, in this story, you have a recasting of Israel’s story for another time and place for applying the past to a present situation.

That is an act of wisdom, folks. That’s what I’m after here. When you’re taking these old stories and saying, okay, that was then, but this is now it. It’s sort of like canonizing the book of Proverbs. Okay, that worked back then. This is what it was about. This is how it worked then, but we’re now. And how do we appropriate this book?

Well, you put it in the canon and people have to do different things with it. Likewise, Chronicles is saying, okay, listen, that was then, but now is now what? What do we do with this? See, the thing is that Chronicles we, we know when that was written. Pretty, pretty well, it’s probably written no earlier than the middle, or even late fifth century, maybe the fourth or third century because of the names that are listed and a few other reasons.

See, this is recounting Israel’s ancient story hundreds of years after the exile, probably. Making that past relevant for them takes creative engagement with this story. And when you do that, that is an act of wisdom. You are thinking through scripture and making it your own. And here’s my point with that, that process doesn’t stop in the Old Testament with Chronicles.

It continues in the New Testament. I mean, how, how many sort of, of these tectonic shifts do you see in Israel’s ancient story now that Jesus has come? So, for example, you don’t, you know, Gentiles don’t have to be circumcised or obey dietary restrictions. They don’t need to do that. That’s a big deal. You know, holding onto the land, making sure the temple is there, those things are left to the side because times change and circumstances change, and now you have to apply these stories differently in your situation.

That’s an act of wisdom. See it’s, it’s sort of like Proverbs 26:4-5. Wisdom is more than just reading. It’s like you have to own it and you have to bring it into your own moment, into your own existence. And I think the Bible as a whole illustrates that. And then the whole history of the Christian Church.

What have we been doing other than reinterpreting and reengaging these texts for our moment in time, for our purposes, for our context, for our cultures. We’re constantly doing that. See, what I think wisdom models for us is the need to engage personally and deeply and wisely this biblical story for ourselves.

Proverbs doesn’t do that in and of itself, but I think Proverbs sets the stage for how we look at the Bible as a whole, as a book of wisdom, not as a book of rules where we find the verse. 

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Outro: You’ve just made it through another episode of The Bible for Normal People.

Don’t forget, you can catch our other show, F for Normal People in the same feed wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was brought to you by The Bible for Normal People team: Brittany Hodge, Joel Limbauan, Melissa Yandow, Lauren O’Connell, and Naiomi Gonzalez.