Of all the things Proverbs contains, one very notable ingredient is its optimism. Historically, this makes sense. Most of the Proverbs were written or had their origin (if they were tweaked) during the easiest era in all of Israel's history: the reign of Solomon. The kingdom was huge, the king was rich (some people theorize that he was the richest human alive), and the battles were few and far between. Foreign relations were smooth. Life was good.
And so, in a season like that, it's no big surprise that Proverbs begins to sound like the "Israelite Dream." Fear the LORD, get around the right people, work hard, plan ahead, have the right attitude, stay away from the wife of another, don't cheat, don't lie, don't talk too much, be kind... and life will go really well for you. Proverbs seems to promise riches, success, long life, and happy relationships to those people.
Last week, in the sermon, I described the reality we must face that Proverbs are observations that are dependent upon a specific set of circumstances. You can hear that message here. The phrase I will use throughout the study to describe that situation is that these things are true "all things being equal" (a phrase I stole from a Tremper Longman III lecture on Ecclesiastes).
Speaking of Ecclesiastes, it's worth taking a minute and comparing the wisdom of that Teacher to the wisdom of Proverbs. After that, swing by another major chunk of Israelite wisdom: Job. If you line the three books up with one another, the game "which of these is not like the other?" is pretty darn easy. Ecclesiastes and Job attempt to understand the world God created when there seems to be no justified reason for the very difficult circumstances of life. And then there's Lamentations, which is literally a lament for the way things have gone so poorly for Israel. When you're done with those, take a look at the Psalms, and you discover the wisdom of all three mixed together.
It seems the "Israelite dream" came crashing down. For those of us mining these books in search of divine Principles, we might become a bit frustrated. Allow me to invite you to take it all in as a gift from God, and an invitation to view justice, wickedness, joy, pain, triumph, and defeat from a heavenly perspective. The Bible is no one-dimensional manual for how to be happy. Instead, it faces the realities of life in a fallen world head on. I am amazed at the complexity and the balance that emerges. One of the greatest keys to reading Proverbs (and the rest of the Bible) rightly is this: read them in light of eternity. The rewards and pleasures promised to the righteous will be given out perfectly. Wisdom begins when we fear the LORD - in other words, when we glimpse at the infinite nature of the Creator of the universe, and shudder at the fact that we survived given our limited perspective. Consider the Bible's claim about the spiritual reality of believers in light of this complexity:
"But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ -- by grace you have been saved -- and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus..." (Ephesians 2:4-5, emphasis added).
And so, in a season like that, it's no big surprise that Proverbs begins to sound like the "Israelite Dream." Fear the LORD, get around the right people, work hard, plan ahead, have the right attitude, stay away from the wife of another, don't cheat, don't lie, don't talk too much, be kind... and life will go really well for you. Proverbs seems to promise riches, success, long life, and happy relationships to those people.
Last week, in the sermon, I described the reality we must face that Proverbs are observations that are dependent upon a specific set of circumstances. You can hear that message here. The phrase I will use throughout the study to describe that situation is that these things are true "all things being equal" (a phrase I stole from a Tremper Longman III lecture on Ecclesiastes).
Speaking of Ecclesiastes, it's worth taking a minute and comparing the wisdom of that Teacher to the wisdom of Proverbs. After that, swing by another major chunk of Israelite wisdom: Job. If you line the three books up with one another, the game "which of these is not like the other?" is pretty darn easy. Ecclesiastes and Job attempt to understand the world God created when there seems to be no justified reason for the very difficult circumstances of life. And then there's Lamentations, which is literally a lament for the way things have gone so poorly for Israel. When you're done with those, take a look at the Psalms, and you discover the wisdom of all three mixed together.
It seems the "Israelite dream" came crashing down. For those of us mining these books in search of divine Principles, we might become a bit frustrated. Allow me to invite you to take it all in as a gift from God, and an invitation to view justice, wickedness, joy, pain, triumph, and defeat from a heavenly perspective. The Bible is no one-dimensional manual for how to be happy. Instead, it faces the realities of life in a fallen world head on. I am amazed at the complexity and the balance that emerges. One of the greatest keys to reading Proverbs (and the rest of the Bible) rightly is this: read them in light of eternity. The rewards and pleasures promised to the righteous will be given out perfectly. Wisdom begins when we fear the LORD - in other words, when we glimpse at the infinite nature of the Creator of the universe, and shudder at the fact that we survived given our limited perspective. Consider the Bible's claim about the spiritual reality of believers in light of this complexity:
"But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ -- by grace you have been saved -- and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus..." (Ephesians 2:4-5, emphasis added).
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