Prov 3:1-8
SS Lesson for 01/14/2024
Devotional Scriptures: Isa 26:3-4
The book of Proverbs is generally attributed to King Solomon (see Proverbs 1:1). His wisdom was renowned (examples: 1 Kings 4:30-31; 10:24), and over 3,000 proverbs originated with him (4:32), so he was an ideal person to write this book of wisdom literature. Additionally, the text attributes two other sections to Agur (Proverbs 30:1) and King Lemuel (31:1). However, we know nothing about these two men. The text does not indicate when these texts were consolidated into the form of Proverbs that we read today. Further, the text does not have a direct recipient. The significance of Proverbs is not found in its original writers, date of composition, or original audience. Instead, its importance is in how it communicates what makes up a life of wisdom. All people can learn and apply the wisdom taught in the book of Proverbs. For some readers, the book of Proverbs reads like disjointed sets of oracles without any connection. However, five sections divide the book: an introduction to wisdom (Proverbs 1-9), the proverbs of Solomon (10:1-22:16; 25:1-29:27), the words of the wise (22:17-24:34), the words of Agur (Proverbs 30), and the words of King Lemuel (Proverbs 31). The first section begins with an explanation of the importance of wisdom (see Proverbs 1:1-7). After the introduction, most of that section is written from the perspective of a father advising his son on the importance of seeking wisdom from the Lord. With one exception (see Proverbs 3:5), the poetic order of each pair of verses in today’s Scripture follows the same pattern. First, the father gives his son a negative command (example: 3:1a). Second, the father gives a positive command (example: 3:1b). Finally, the father concludes that section with a promise for the son (example: 3:2).
Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding
(Scriptural Text from the New King James Version; cross-references from the NIV)
1 My son, do not forget my law, but let your heart keep my commands;
2 For length of days and long life and peace they will add to you.
22 But Samuel replied: "Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the Lord? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams.
16 Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey — whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?
13 Because of the service by which you have proved yourselves, men will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ, and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else.
10 If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love.
1 If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations on earth. 2 All these blessings will come upon you and accompany you if you obey the Lord your God: 3 You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country. 4 The fruit of your womb will be blessed, and the crops of your land and the young of your livestock — the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks. 5 Your basket and your kneading trough will be blessed. 6 You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out.
25 But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it — he will be blessed in what he does.
1 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.
6 The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace;
17 For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit,
33 For God is not a God of disorder but of peace. As in all the congregations of the saints,
14 For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility,
3 Let not mercy and truth forsake you; Bind them around your neck, Write them on the tablet of your heart,
4 And so find favor and high esteem in the sight of God and man.
28 I will maintain my love to him forever, and my covenant with him will never fail. 29 I will establish his line forever, his throne as long as the heavens endure. 30 "If his sons forsake my law and do not follow my statutes, 31 if they violate my decrees and fail to keep my commands, 32 I will punish their sin with the rod, their iniquity with flogging; 33 but I will not take my love from him, nor will I ever betray my faithfulness.
7 Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
36 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
2 Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God.
8 For we cannot do anything against the truth, but only for the truth.
14 Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. 15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ.
29 Peter and the other apostles replied: "We must obey God rather than men!
4 On the contrary, we speak as men approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel. We are not trying to please men but God, who tests our hearts.
16 They sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians. "Teacher," they said, "we know you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren't swayed by men, because you pay no attention to who they are.
18 For it is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends.
5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding;
6 In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.
23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. 24 See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
25 "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?
29 And do not set your heart on what you will eat or drink; do not worry about it. 30 For the pagan world runs after all such things, and your Father knows that you need them. 31 But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.
12 That is why I am suffering as I am. Yet I am not ashamed, because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day.
13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. 14 He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. 15 All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you.
14 because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.
18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.
3 The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice.
24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 25 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.
7 Do not be wise in your own eyes; Fear the Lord and depart from evil.
8 It will be health to your flesh, and strength to your bones.
3 "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
13 "But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.' 14 "I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."
7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
9 Peter said to her, "How could you agree to test the Spirit of the Lord? Look! The feet of the men who buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out also." 10 At that moment she fell down at his feet and died. Then the young men came in and, finding her dead, carried her out and buried her beside her husband. 11 Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events.
10 "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
39 One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: "Aren't you the Christ? Save yourself and us!" 40 But the other criminal rebuked him. "Don't you fear God," he said, "since you are under the same sentence? 41 We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong."
2 The Lord builds up Jerusalem; he gathers the exiles of Israel. 3 He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.
20 My son, pay attention to what I say; listen closely to my words. 21 Do not let them out of your sight, keep them within your heart; 22 for they are life to those who find them and health to a man's whole body.
27 The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life, turning a man from the snares of death.
11 The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.
The fruit of peace 3:1-10
The trust of the wise son (Proverbs 3:5-6) comes from heeding sound teaching (Proverbs 3:1-4), and it leads to confident obedience (Proverbs 3:7-9).
"Teaching" (Proverbs 3:1, Heb. torah) means "law" or, more fundamentally, "instruction" or "direction." Here the context suggests that the teachings of the parents are in view rather than the Mosaic Law, though in Israel their instruction would have rested on the Torah of God.
"Where it [torah] occurs unqualified (Proverbs 28:9; Proverbs 29:18) it is clearly the divine law (it is also the Jewish term for the Pentateuch); but my law, ’thy mother’s law’ (Proverbs 1:8), etc., refer to the present maxims and to the home teachings, based indeed on the law, but not identical with it." [Note: Kidner, p. 63.]
Proverbs 3:3 pictures devotion to kindness and truth (cf. Deuteronomy 6:8-9, which says that God’s law should receive the same devotion). "Kindness" or "love" translates the Hebrew word hesed, which refers to faithfulness to obligations that arise from a relationship. [Note: Ross, p. 916. Cf. Nelson Glueck, Hesed in the Bible, p. 55.] "Truth" or "faithfulness" (Heb. ’emet) refers to what one can rely on because it is stable. [Note: Moses Stuart, A Commentary on the Book of Proverbs, p. 167.] Together they may form a hendiadys: true kindness or faithful love. "Repute" (Proverbs 3:4) connotes success, as in Psalms 111:10. "Trust" and "lean" (Proverbs 3:5) are very close in meaning. Trusting means to put oneself wholly at the mercy of another (cf. Jeremiah 12:5 b; Psalms 22:9 b). Leaning is not just reclining against something but relying on it totally for support.
"In the final analysis all government, all economics, all currency and banking, all institutions and all marriages, all relationships between people, are fundamentally governed by trust. Without trust, society deteriorates into paranoia, the feeling that everybody is out to get you." [Note: Larsen, p. 12.]
"There are two sides to the matter of trust. There is the decision of trust and the habit of trust. The first is called ’commitment;’ the second is called ’trust.’ Trust follows commitment, not always right away, but it begins there. In the middle of our fears we make a decision to trust. This does not immediately bring the habit of trust, but if we will muster the courage to commit our way to God we shall soon learn to trust." [Note: Ibid., p. 14.]
"Acknowledge" (Proverbs 3:6) means to be aware of and have fellowship with God, not just to tip one’s hat to Him. It includes obeying God’s moral will as He has revealed it. The promise (Proverbs 3:6 b) means that God will make the course of such a person’s life truly successful in God’s eyes. This is a promise as well as a proverb, and it refers to the totality of one’s life experience. It does not guarantee that one will never make mistakes.
How can we tell if a proverb is a promise as well as a proverb? We can do so by consulting the rest of Scripture. If a proverb expresses a truth promised elsewhere in Scripture, we know that we can rely on it being absolutely true. A proverb is by definition a saying that accurately represents what is usually true, not what is true without exception. For example, the proverb "An apple a day keeps the doctor away" teaches that eating fruit regularly will help keep you healthy. It is not a promise that if you will eat an apple every day you will never get sick and have to go to a doctor. Proverbs are slices of life that picture what life is usually like. In the case of Proverbs 3:5-6 we have the repetition of a promise made numerous times in Scripture that people who trust God will experience His guidance through life (cf. Hebrews 11; et al.). In our attempt to "handle accurately the word of truth" (2 Timothy 2:15) we must carefully distinguish proverbs that restate promises from those that do not and are only proverbs. Failure to distinguish proverbs from promises has led to confusion and disappointment for many readers of this genre.
"The individual proverbs must be interpreted and applied within the context of the whole book and, indeed, of the whole Bible. They are not divine promises for the here and now, but true observations that time will bear out." [Note: Tremper Longman III and Raymond B. Dillard, An Introduction to the Old Testament, p. 276.]
Proverbs 3:7-10 suggest some of the ways that God will reward the commitment of Proverbs 3:5-6. Proverbs 3:7 a gives the converse of Proverbs 3:5 a, and Proverbs 3:7 b restates Proverbs 3:6 a (cf. Romans 12:16). This is the act of acknowledging God in all one’s ways.
"No wise man is ever arrogant." [Note: Larsen, p. 25.]
Proverbs 3:8 describes personal invigoration poetically.
"Scripture often uses the physical body to describe inner spiritual or psychical feelings." [Note: Ross, p. 917. Cf. A. R. Johnson, The Vitality of the Individual in the Thought of Ancient Israel, pp. 67-68.]
Proverbs 3:9 applies the principle of acknowledging God to the financial side of life.
"To ’know’ God in our financial ’ways’ is to see that these honour Him." [Note: Kidner, p. 64.]
"The tragedy with many people is not that they don’t claim to have God in their lives, but that, while they claim to have Him, they still don’t trust Him. The most significant telltale symptom of this lack of trust is that they never get around to honoring the Lord with their substance. We’ve got to make sure that the family has security; and we don’t add to the security by whopping off a hunk of it and putting it in the offering plate, unless we really believe that God is our security." [Note: Larsen, p. 31.]
The prospect of material reward (Proverbs 3:10) was a promise to the godly Israelite (cf. Deuteronomy 28:1-14; Malachi 3:10). Christians should recognize this verse as a proverb, rather than a promise, since the Lord has revealed that as Christians, we should expect persecution for our faith rather than material prosperity (2 Timothy 3:12; Hebrews 12:1-11).
4. Divine promises and human obligations 3:1-12
This section is mainly about peace as a benefit of wise living, but it concludes with another appeal to seek wisdom.
The importance of continuing to seek Wisdom 3:11-12
Even though the price one has to pay for wisdom (i.e., life within the will of God) includes submitting to God’s discipline (Proverbs 3:11-12), it is worth it (Proverbs 3:13-20). "Loathe" (Proverbs 3:11 b) means to shrink back from (cf. Hebrews 12:5-6). Rejecting with the will and recoiling emotionally are opposite actions from trusting (Proverbs 3:5). God’s discipline may not produce all that God desires if we respond to it improperly.
5. The value of Wisdom 3:13-35
"Sages reserve the laudatory exclamation blessed (’asre [Proverbs 3:13]) for people who experience life optimally, as the Creator intended." [Note: Waltke, The Book . . ., p. 256.]
Long life, riches, and honor (Proverbs 3:16) were the rewards God promised the godly under the Old Covenant. The tree of life figure (Proverbs 3:18) implies that wisdom is the source and sustainer of a long and beneficial life (cf. Proverbs 3:16). [Note: See Ralph Marcus, "The Tree of Life in Proverbs," Journal of Biblical Literature 62 (1943):117-20.] The point is that by pursuing the way of wisdom, a person can obtain the best things God has to offer him or her.
"It’s good to have the things money can buy, provided you don’t lose the things money can’t buy. What good is an expensive house if there’s no happy home within it? Happiness, pleasantness, and peace aren’t the guaranteed by-products of financial success, but they are guaranteed to the person who lives by God’s wisdom. Wisdom becomes a ’tree of life’ to the believer who takes hold of her, and this is a foretaste of heaven (Revelation 22:1-2)." [Note: Wiersbe, p. 40.]
In Proverbs 3:21-35 we can see the quality of love in the wise son. Proverbs 3:27-30 deal with neighborliness. The situation in view in Proverbs 3:27-28 is one in which someone owes money, not one in which giving is an act of charity (cf. Leviticus 19:13). The point is: pay your debts promptly. [Note: Kidner also included a subject study on the friend (Proverbs 3:29-30), pp. 44-46.] We could apply Proverbs 3:30 by taking it as a warning against hauling someone into court on flimsy accusations. [Note: McKane, p. 300.]
"The Book of Proverbs is the best manual you’ll find on people skills, because it was given to us by the God who made us, the God who can teach us what we need to know about human relationships, whether it’s marriage, the family, the neighborhood, the job, or our wider circle of friends and acquaintances. If we learn and practice God’s wisdom as presented in Proverbs, we’ll find ourselves improving in people skills and enjoying life much more." [Note: Wiersbe, p. 97.]
Proverbs 3:31-35 warn against the temptation to resort to violence when we deal with neighbors. One must decide if he or she wants to be odious to God or be His intimate friend (Proverbs 3:32). That is the issue in choosing the ways of the wicked or those of the upright. James 4:6 and 1 Peter 5:5 quote the Septuagint version of Proverbs 3:34. Proverbs 3:35 probably means that fools display dishonor because that is what they get for their choices-in contrast to the wise, who get honor.
(Adapted from URL:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/eng/dcc/proverbs-3.html)
A 2022 study showed that most people spend about two and a half hours daily on social media platforms. While this may not seem like a lot of time, it is a significant increase from 10 years prior, when the average daily usage hovered around one hour per day. Social media has become a “voice of authority” for many people, regardless of the actual knowledge, expertise, or wisdom of that voice. It is easy for believers to say that we are seeking the wisdom of God when in actuality, other voices influence our lives and shape our perspectives. If we’re filling our lives with human ideas rather than the wisdom of God, which will have more influence?