I Like Proverbs, Part 1

I really like Proverbs. And I am also a giant nerd, it is true, but I don’t think you have to be a giant nerd to love Proverbs. 

I think some of the reasons people don’t like Proverbs…

1. Not very clear, too complicated
2. Promises a lot, too rosy-eyed
3. Doesn’t address women, too male
4. Connects prosperity to morality, too prosperity-gospel

… are misunderstandings. I want to tell you why I like Proverbs so much, and I’ll use these misunderstandings as a roadmap.

Objection 1. Too Complicated

Of all these objections, this is the one that resonates most with me. There are complications between us and Proverbs. But I want to persuade you that those complications are not too big or too many: you can hear God’s Word in the Proverbs despite the complications.

This, I think, is the biggest complication, and it holds several smaller ones:

Proverbs is an unfamiliar kind of book: Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) Wisdom Literature. 

Some things that are helpful to know when you’re working with ANE Wisdom Literature:

1. It is intended for memory.
   The content of ANE Wisdom Literature takes a bunch of different forms, but what they all have in common is that they’re supposed to walk around with you (Prov. 1:8-9). You’re supposed to hear them and hang onto them. 
2. It is intended for meditation.
   A bunch of Proverbs may seem simplistic, incoherent or wrong on a surface reading. Some of them contradict each other (Prov. 26:4-5). Meaning is tucked into implications, into gaps, into contrasts that seem like odd things to compare to each other. It takes a lifetime (or more!) to see their meanings unfolded by relating them to real life situations.

This form of literature doesn’t want to be skimmed. It resists proof-texting. It wants to give you wisdom, to help you see through the shiny surface, to help you perceive the reality that we miss when we skim. Part of receiving God’s Word in the Proverbs is training our attention to do things it is unaccustomed to: memory and meditation. That’s not a mistake—it is by design. And it is good for us.

Wisdom cries aloud in the street, 

   in the markets she raises her voice;

…

If you turn at my reproof,

behold, I will pour out my Spirit to you;

    I will make my words known to you.

Prov. 1:20, 23 (ESV)

If you spend time in Proverbs, chances are memory will nearly take care of itself. The text wants to be remembered. It catches hold of your mind with images, showing you God’s Wisdom as a formidable woman, a welcoming host yelling her invitation down the street. She’s got a groaning table, and there’s a seat just for you, if you’ll come to her table on her terms.

Meditation, though — the practice of intentionally turning something over in your mind — that’s a skill that takes work. Again, that’s not a flaw. It’s by design. These are some of the skills you’ll need to cultivate:

Limit yourself to one lesson.

This doesn’t come naturally to us. In our setting, you read a book from beginning to end. And if you can’t read a whole book at once, you at least try to finish the chapter (or the section, or the page). Proverbs doesn’t work like that. 

In chapters 1-9, most of the lessons are shorter than a chapter. For example, Proverbs 1 has three lessons: lesson 1 is Prov. 1:1-7; lesson 2 is Prov. 1:8-19; lesson 3 is Prov. 1:20-33. The signals you’re looking for are 

1. the phrase “my son”
2. an abrupt shift in character, like we get at Prov. 1:20
3. the phrase, “Blessed is [someone]”
4. a list, often introduced like this: “there are [number] things” (see Prov. 6:16)

In chapters 10-31, the lessons are typically shorter—even as short as one sentence. And they aren’t intended to flow into one another; they’re intended to be received and meditated on as standalone nuggets (usually).

One of the reasons Proverbs so easily feels overcomplicated and overwhelming is our tendency to rush through multiple lessons, one after another, without letting a lesson soak into us. If that’s your experience, I think it will help if you receive just one lesson at a time—one verse, even. 

Listen.

There are a bunch of tools you can use to guide your listening. I think Dr. Phil Brown’s devotional questions are a great tool. I’ll model using another set of listening questions here:

1. What does the lesson say?
2. What does the lesson imply?
3. Is this lesson correct?

Let’s use Prov. 10:9 (ESV) as an example.

Whoever walks in integrity walks securely,

    but he who makes his ways crooked will be found out.

What does the lesson say? 

People who live with integrity have security.

People who live in crooked ways will be discovered.

What does the lesson imply? 

Well, look at what the lesson says: these two statements are not actually opposites, right? The two main characters are opposites, but the statements about them don’t match. 

That means it’s time to play one of my favorite games: Explode the Proverb! To play the game, you need a table. The table should have 1 column for each pair of opposite traits, like this:

Trait 1: How they walk	Trait 2: Security or Not	Trait 3: Discovered or Not
Person walks with integrity	Walks securely
Person walks crooked ways		Will be discovered

And now: Because person 1 (walks with integrity) is the opposite of person 2 (walks crooked ways), we can fill in those empty spaces with their implied opposites.

• The person who walks with integrity—the person who walks securely—will not be discovered. 
• The person who walks crooked ways—the person who will be discovered—does not walk securely. 

There’s more, right? Line 2 of this lesson says “he who makes his ways crooked will be found out.” It doesn’t say who will find him out. That implies a question: Who catches the crooked guy?

And then that leads me to another question: Why is the guy with integrity secure? Is that just a truth about the universe—those who walk in integrity are safer than those who don’t? Or is someone keeping him safe? 

Maybe I chase those questions down, maybe I don’t. But either way, asking these questions is part of what it looks like to listen to the lesson.

Is this lesson correct?

This sounds like a silly question. It’s in the Bible, so it must be correct. ✅ Good answer, class dismissed.

But wait. I have a more interesting question. Is my understanding of this lesson correct? Is it true that people who walk with integrity are, on the whole, more secure than those who walk crooked ways? 

Man, it depends what you mean by secure, right? We see plenty of folks walking crooked and winding up at the top of the heap. In the US, somehow politicians of both stripes get discovered, but just keep walking securely as far as our eyes can see. 

And somehow our King, Jesus, walked in perfect integrity—and He was discovered in Gethsemane, and His way led right into His execution as a criminal. And yes, I hear you, that’s partly because He was fulfilling God’s plan of redemption—but also, it looks like that’s how people wanted to react to who Jesus was, to His walk of integrity. When I read the Gospels, it doesn’t look like God’s twisting any arms—people are lining up to kill Jesus before it’s even time to.

You could say that Jesus is an outlier, that the extremity of His integrity got Him in trouble. You could point me to Ecclesiastes 7, “Be not overly righteous, and do not make yourself too wise. Why should you destroy yourself?” Cool, fine. But it really sounds like Prov. 10:9 is prompting me to walk in integrity—unmixed integrity, the opposite of crookedness. So does Prov. 10:9 guide me into integrity, promising security, and then yank the security away?

I don’t think so. Let’s return to Jesus (always, often, especially in the Proverbs—this is a book about how to be a king, and there is no greater King. More on that later.). 

His story doesn’t end with Him walking into the trap. He ends up resurrected, exalted, the King of the universe. I repeat: there is no greater King. His resurrected body is seated in the Heavens, incapable of dying again (Rom. 6:8-10). Death has no more dominion over Him. 

He is secure. 

… Wow. Okay, so it sounds like the entire story of Scripture leads me to read Prov. 10:9 differently. This security that comes from walking in integrity may or may not be something I experience in this lifetime. In this lifetime, integrity will probably lead me into as many scrapes as it delivers me from. But Jesus teaches me to set my hope on the resurrection-life that I share with Him and I will share with Him beyond death. 

Security will come. There is no doubt about it.

But it might be on the other side of the veil of death, and that veil might just be pierced by a shiv, even if/because I’m on the path of integrity.

Conclusion

This is long enough for one post, but I hope you see what I mean. Proverbs’ lessons are complicated, and it takes some work to receive them—it takes time, attention, effort. 

But it’s not too much work, right? You can't think about these lessons for very long before they point you back to Jesus and to His life-giving example. He is Yahweh’s King. He is Yahweh’s Wisdom. If you sit with these Proverbs, He will come and guide you—I’m convinced that He’s the one who calls to us and invites us to the table of Wisdom.

More to come. Next time: Proverbs are too Rosy-Eyed.