Dear friend,

 

 

- Prov. 1:1-2 -

 

Proverbs is the perfect book to read once a month: a chapter a day for 31 days. I distinctly remember reading Proverbs at breakfast before my dad left for work - the six of us hunched over our bowls of cereal as he worked through the pithy statements in the book. 

 

As I got older and read the book myself, what I found puzzled me. Sometimes the statements seemed like direct contradictions. Other times they were just plain repetitious! What I didn't know then, and know now, is that Proverbs is a great illustration of Hebrew parallelism, a method of poetry we generally don't use in English.

 

Here's what I said about this in a lecture on Wisdom Literature in our Understanding the Old Testament course:

 

"Wisdom literature doesn’t fit in our boxes of how theology or narrative should work. Sometimes we avoid reading it because it’s hard! Other times we misunderstand or misuse these texts by reading them more generally or literally than intended. Proverbs, for example, are not promises—they are general life principles. When we treat them as promises, we can be very disappointed (such as with the famous verse “train up a child in the way he should go”).

 

Wisdom literature extrapolates the truth of the Law and shows how wisdom applies these truths to daily life, especially as individual believers. Proverbs, for example, is very practical—addressing everything from sex to words to alcohol to marriage. We are created to flourish; this is God’s desire. Wisdom literature points us to the road of a flourishing life and describes what happens when we depart from God’s path.

 

Like most Hebrew literature, wisdom lit contains a lot of parallelism. Proverbs in particular uses three kinds:

 

 

We also see this used in Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs."

When we read Proverbs 1) as poetry, with the parallel structure in mind and 2) not as a set of guarantees but as guidelines for living, we find the book far easier to understand. Proverbs is full of wisdom that I like to call “holy common sense”; it talks about debt, marriage, parenting, lust, gossip, alcohol, and every human struggle under the sun. Interspersed between the advice are longer discussions of Wisdom herself: what she looks like, how she acts, and what happens if you follow her.

 

Chad Bird, who taught our Old Testament course with me, made an interesting point about Proverbs 31. This passage so often used as the prototype of godly womanhood could instead be an echo of earlier in Proverbs: the personification of Wisdom. Pictured as a woman, Wisdom calls out for people to come to her and find life. We know that Wisdom's personification is believed to point to Christ Himself, the Word who was with God at the beginning; what if Proverbs 31 is an echo of that same ideal? 

 

Whatever the case, Proverbs pushes us beyond our face-value interpretations to read like an ancient Israelite, not just reading lines but reading between them. And between the lines of Proverbs we learn that the source of all wisdom is God Himself. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”, we are told. Michael Reeves says in his book Rejoice and Tremble that the fear of the Lord is to be “in awe of His affection for us”. 

 

Proverbs points us to an awe of God's affection leading to a truly abundant life. What's better than that? 

 

Last week I talked a little about moralism in Christian materials for kids and why we need a holistic approach to the gospel when teaching our kids about God. I built on that today by discussing how to teach on the Holy Spirit with our kids. 

THIS WEEK we announce the theme of Verity Conference 2025! We are all online this year with a brand-new training for our Verity Local hosts. Expect an announcement of our speaker lineup, topics, and more!

 

If you're interested in attending the simulcast, hosting a location at home or your church, this is the place to be – click below to join the email list for all the important updates from Hannah, our event coordinator!