Introduction to Proverbs
Solomon's Proverbs (his in the main) were written to make young men with ears and eager for understanding wise in the ways of life here and now and prepared for life hereafter. Wisdom is not a word we commonly hear in our culture and that rather regular omission from our vocabulary is telling about our cultural value system.
The proverbs are generalized axioms about the way life works and works out in God's moral order. I say 'generalized' because that is the limit of the Spirit's truth intention. Except in instances where they express an absolute truth by the nature of the case ("The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom."), the proverbs are wise maxims that express realities (not necessarily approved in all cases, but realities a practical person should know ("a talebearer tells tales") in running the gauntlet of life here on earth or they share with us what I call "predictables," i.e. what we can normally expect to result from various behaviors, all things being equal. Find a wise and godly person and one will notice in reading Proverbs a rather striking alignment with its teachings and counsels in that person's behaviors. Find a fool who is making a mess of things and he (or she) will be reflected, as in a mirror, from the pages of Proverbs.
People who love wisdom and understanding, as God deems it, will spend a lot of time in the Proverbs.
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