Proverbially Speaking - Finding the Wisdom

With 1,100 or so Verses in Proverbs, How do You Find Your Wisdom?

Ned Barnett

To me, The Book of Proverbs is like God's Instruction Book for Life. In just 31 brief Chapters, each with 30 to 40 verses - and with almost every verse containing two precious gold-nuggets of wisdom, the Book of Proverbs really does provide readers with an exceptional guidebook for living their life to the fullest by following God's Wisdom.

But with all that wonderful information at my fingertips, how do I find the wisdom God has put there for me?

That's the question I asked myself a week or so ago.

I know some people find value in flipping open the book, picking a page at random, running their finger down the page, then reading whatever the finger lands on.  They believe (and who am I to doubt this) that by using Proverbs (or the Bible itself) as some kind of cosmic Ouiji Board, they'll find guidance.   I've tried that, but I don't think that's what God has in mind for me.  Perhaps I'm too logical, or perhaps I'm torn between Moses ("Cut not the corners of thy head, nor round the corners of thy beard, for I am the Lord" - Leviticus 19, as best I remember it) and Paul ("Long hair is a woman's glory and a man's shame" - one of Paul's epistles, again, as I remember it).

Others choose to commit things to memory - but for me, the old joke applies ... "memory is the second thing to go ... and I can't remember what went first."

For me, I'd rather have a workable and methodical way of finding the Wisdom that I know God has waiting for me in Proverbs.

Back in 2010, I thought about putting together some kind of digital database - a great idea, but I'm really not a "digital database" kind of guy.  Still, the idea of pulling together all of the Wisdom of Proverbs in some kind of topical form really did appeal to me - in principle.

As I said, I'd asked myself that same question in 2010, the last time I went through Proverbs chapter by chapter over a month's time.  Like many people, I have found that Proverbs is a perfect book to read more or less in one big gulp.  It has 31 Chapters, so it's ideal for a one-a-day-for-a-month kind of reading self-assignment.  That's what I did in 2010 - I read one chapter a month for 31 days - and that's what I found myself doing in November of 2013.

And as I did, I came across the same thought I had in 2010:

"Wouldn't it be really helpful, if only to me personally, if all of the Wisdom in Proverbs was organized topically?  Wouldn't it be great if I could turn to that book and - in just a moment, and with certainty - find exactly what I needed to guide me, inspire me, "convict" me of something I'm doing wrong, or motivate me to follow God's instructions.

However, this time, I was reading Proverbs in the New Living Translation (a great "study" translation) that had been pulled together by Jud Wilhite, Senior Pastor at Central Christian Church in Henderson (suburban Las Vegas).  He had taken that great translation, gone through and highlighted the verses that meant the most to him ("If God is for us, who can be against us?"), then also inserted a dozen or so 15-page essays (super-blogs, if you will) on issues that anyone studying the bible would welcome.  The result, his book:  "The Uncensored Truth Bible for New Beginnings," is a very insightful guide, as well as a wonderful biblical translation.

  I sat down and read each one of those super-blogs of Jud's - then, after reading a few of the shorter old and new testament books as a kind of warm-up exercise, I turned to Proverbs.

Perhaps it was because this version of the bible included someone's personal interpretation (I'm not sure, but that answer "feels right"), but I began thinking once again about how I could get more out of Proverbs. After rejecting (again) the idea of creating a digital database, I thought, "why not take each chapter, one at a time, then divide each set of verses into a broad topical arrangement?"

For instance, there is a lot in Proverbs about fools, and about people who are wise.  So, hypothetically, you might find a verse that reads, "The fool runs his mouth, but the wise man chooses his words carefully."  That could easily be sorted into a broad section (Fools and the Wise), and then more specifically into sub-sections "Fools Talk Too Much" and "Wise Persons Think Before Speaking."

After a few days of contemplating this, I began taking the Book of Proverbs, one chapter at a time, and dividing the verses into broad subject areas. At first, I had a dozen, then 24, now probably 36 different broad topical areas.  The deeper I did into Proverbs, the more vital and distinctive topic areas I find.

Best of all, I found it was relatively easy to assign each verse to at least one or two topical sections, and some verses fit under three or four topics.  I was on my way.

However, once I had the first 13 chapters divided up, I realized that I was too focused on sorting verses by Chapter - for instance, all of the verses about fools from Chapter 12 were batched together - rather than honing this down to just a topical focus.  Having the comments from many chapters on the same broad topic now together, I was able to see that very similar pieces of wisdom were presented in different chapters, and that those topically-similar verses had more in common, one with the other, than they did with other same-topic verses from a single chapter.

Suddenly, with a flash (not Paul's, but an eye-opener nonetheless), I realized to get the most value out of this exercise, I was going to need to put the topically most-closely-related verses together - not by chapter but by message - if this effort was to help me (or help the proverbial "other" reader) get the most out of this labor of love.

Rather than heaving baby and bathwater out with the same heave-ho, I've decided to continue the broad sorting I'd begun, taking it through to the end of the Book of Proverbs. Then, once it's all together, I'll be better able to analyze each broad topic area, then come up with reasonable topical sub-divisions (and maybe sub-sub-sub-divisions).  In this way, I can refine the sorting process until what I have is the best reference tool I can craft, starting with the Book of Proverbs.

This new, revised process will clearly take longer - probably a lot longer - but the end result will be more helpful.  To me, and - I hope - to others.

Along the way, a publisher who's a friend of mine has already offered to publish this when it's done.  I was telling him about this project, not to seek a publisher, but to share with a friend who's also deeply spiritual what I've been doing - and his enthusiasm was immediate.

So now I'll be thinking about sources (I'm not a bible translator, so I'll need to use someone else's translation), and that means obtaining the rights.  Either that (my first choice) or I'll have to settle on an older translation, one that's long-since been in the public domain.  However, those older translations bring in their own level of potential confusion - King James, for instance, is beautiful and inspired poetry, but unless you're a Shakespearean scholar, some turns of phrase in the KJV might be less than elucidating.

However, one way or the other, I intend to complete this personal labor of love, and if others agree that it has value, I'll try to find some way of publishing the book, sharing this resource tool with others.

Finally:  To the reader of this blog.  I'd be very interested in your insights.  You can reach me directly at ned.barnett (at) gmail (dot) com, and when you do, please share with me any thoughts you might have.  Literally, the more the merrier.

Christ's Coming Foretold in the Book of Proverbs

Did You Know That Solomon Also Foretold Christ's Coming?  

Neither Did I ... 

I guess all the other times I read Proverbs, I was looking for glimmers of guidance on how to live a Godly life in a secular age.  Because of the structure of Proverbs, which tends to jump form subject to subject with each passing verse, the prophecy of the coming of Jesus just never sank in.

At least for me.

It didn't sink in until last week, when I was revisiting Proverbs for the first time in three years.  When I came across Proverbs 8, suddenly the scales fell from my eyes, and I saw clearly (I believe) what Solomon was trying to tell in what may have been his only venture into prophecy (if Solomon was prophetic elsewhere, I haven't found it yet, and would welcome anyone else's insights here).

Here's what I found (in the New Living Translation version):

Proverbs 8

¹⁷ “I love all who love me. Those who search will surely find me.
¹⁸ I have riches and honor, as well as enduring wealth and justice.
¹⁹ My gifts are better than gold, even the purest gold, my wages better than sterling silver!
²⁰ I walk in righteousness, in paths of justice.
²¹ Those who love me inherit wealth. I will fill their treasuries.

²² “The Lord formed me from the beginning, before he created anything else.
²³ I was appointed in ages past, at the very first, before the earth began.
²⁴ I was born before the oceans were created, before the springs bubbled forth their waters.
²⁵ Before the mountains were formed, before the hills, I was born—
²⁶ before he had made the earth and fields and the first handfuls of soil.
²⁷ I was there when he established the heavens, when he drew the horizon on the oceans.
²⁸ I was there when he set the clouds above, when he established springs deep in the earth.
²⁹ I was there when he set the limits of the seas, so they would not spread beyond their boundaries. And when he marked off the earth’s foundations,
³⁰     I was the architect at his side. I was his constant delight, rejoicing always in his presence.
³¹ And how happy I was with the world he created; how I rejoiced with the human family!

It couldn't be any planer than that, now could it?  Verses 17-21 describe some of the attributes of Christ, and of the glorious gift He offers to anyone who cares to follow him.

But the clincher is obviously Verses 22-29, which clearly evokes the beginning of the Gospel of John.  Here, in that same NLT translation, is how the Gospel of John begins:

1 In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God,  and the Word was God.
² He existed in the beginning with God.
³ God created everything through him, and nothing was created except through him.
⁴ The Word gave life to everything that was created, and his life brought light to everyone.
⁵ The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that this isn't "news" to any real biblical scholar.  However, I'm not a biblical scholar - I'm a believer who is trying to understand the full nuance of the bible, and especially (in this case) how the writings of the Old Testament so accurately predicted the coming and the ministry of Christ, chronicled in the New Testament.  There are, of course, many prophetic references - from the prophets, of course - but until now, I hadn't really encountered anything quite so clear in what those scholars call the Wisdom section of the Old Testament.

The more I study, the clearer it becomes that the Trinity was foretold throughout the Old Testament (another recent and - to me - surprising discovery), and the clearer it becomes that so many of the books of the Old Testament - beyond those books of clear prophecy -  directly or indirectly refer to Christ.  Some are fairly obvious - Jonah's three-day sojourn in the belly of a Great Fish before he was returned to life, and to dry land, born anew and ready (finally) to do as God had commanded.  Others require real biblical scholarship to dig out - but for those willing to understand the life and times of the prophets, their meaning becomes clear.  

But I don't think I've seen anything that was quite so clear a direct reference as Proverbs 8, Verses 17-29, and how they relate so clearly to the Gospel of John, Verses 1-5.

This may be old news to you, but it grabbed my attention and wouldn't let go until I put it down in writing.