The Usefulness of Proverbs
1 The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel:
2 To know wisdom and instruction,
To discern the sayings of understanding,
3 To receive instruction in wise behavior,
Righteousness, justice and equity;
4 To give prudence to the [a]naive,
To the youth knowledge and discretion,
5 A wise man will hear and increase in learning,
And a man of understanding will acquire wise counsel,
6 To understand a proverb and a figure,
The words of the wise and their riddles.7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge;
Fools despise wisdom and instruction.
There is no shortage of people offering free advice, and plenty more who will be happy to charge you a fee for the dispensing of their “wisdom”. Solomon is about to embark on the same, to give instruction in wise behavior, and to offer something for everyone: the naive, the youth, the wise, and even those who consider themselves to have a good understanding of life.
Yet Solomon does not begin by telling us how great and wise he is. Rather, v. 7 is telling of the whole book of Proverbs. If you want to begin to learn wisdom and increase your knowledge, the only place to start is with “the fear of the Lord.” If you aren’t interested in what God has to say about your life, it is unlikely you are truly interested in wisdom and instruction.
We must be willing to give up our own ideas, to admit we might not know it all, and learn from the best, the One who put it all together. We need to be willing to actually act on this new information, and live it. Truthfully, which of us knows even the half of it? So we ought to remain humble and accept the correction of and instruction of God.
If we let Him into our lives, He will direct us in the way we are to go. See something that seems clever? Put it up against the lens of God’s wisdom, and see how it stacks up. If we don’t build our lives on the wisdom of God, it’s like a house of cards, just waiting to tumble. Build instead on the rock that can never be shaken, the fear of the Lord, and your journey has begun.