Last time we saw that the teaching program found in Proverbs is based on the command for parents to teach their children to love God in all of life (Deut. 6:6-9). Today, we will be examining Proverb’s introduction (Prov. 1:1-7), to see the book’s goal and purpose: growing in godly wisdom.
In his commentary on Proverbs, Bruce Waltke tells us that, “The preamble, which was written for parents and teachers who will use the book, articulates the book’s aim (vv. 2–6) and its addressees, namely, Israel’s educable youth (vv. 4–5).”[1] Its particular goals are listed in verse 2 as knowledge, wisdom, and discipline. Those are the three goals then described in verses 2-6. Notice that knowledge, wisdom, and discipline are again listed in verse 7. Verse 7 then takes up those three and shows that they all begin and find their substance in the “fear of the Lord” (see also Prov. 9:10; 4:7). In other words, one cannot even begin to have the knowledge, wisdom, or discipline described in Proverbs without having them grounded in the fear of the Lord as their starting point. (Please note that the three goals are used interchangeably in Proverbs, so I will use wisdom to represent them).
What exactly does this mean? What does this say about the knowledge, wisdom, and discipline being taught in Proverbs? Can non-believers—those who do not fear God—possibly have any part of this? A scholar rightly notes that this “wisdom” is “defined in exclusive terms,” calling the “fear of the Lord a “gateway to knowledge, [where] everything that follows is reframed in terms of one’s relationship to God.”[2] In effect, this makes everything in Proverbs—all the value of its teaching—hinge on whether or not one has a right relationship with God. “Fearing” God refers to viewing Him as bigger or greater than everything else, to the point that we orient our lives around what He desires for us (the latter is explicitly expressed in Proverbs 3:1-12). Think of it this way. If you feared not having enough money, then your life would come to reflect that fear: you would find a way to make more money. If you feared what others would think of you above all, then you would orient your life in such a way that you can seek to control how they see you. That is the point. When we come to fear the Lord as taught in Proverbs, Deuteronomy, and elsewhere, then nothing else will compare with that fear. Every part of our lives will come to be changed, reflecting Him as our chief fear. In other words, He will be our God not only in outward appearances, but even in our hearts. This will then be reflected in all our decision-making and will: our whole person and life. This sounds a lot like the command to love God with all our heart, soul, and strength, doesn’t it? Both have a common beginning. Both are fully grounded in the One God.
Just as we saw that the command to love God in Deuteronomy 6:5 includes obeying God’s commandments from the whole heart (made possible through Christ), so the fear of the Lord refers to this same obedience. For instance, this same connection between fearing God and obeying His commands is consistently found in Deuteronomy (6:2; 8:6; 13:5; 17:19), Proverbs (3:7; 8:13; 14:16; 16:17; 24:21), and even Ecclesiastes (12:13-14).[3] Deuteronomy 6:2 also ties the fear of the Lord to the command to love God (i.e., to pursue one is to pursue both). Because of this, we can know that the fear of the Lord includes all that God commands and desires for us—just as the command to love God includes obeying the Ten Commandments from the whole heart. In this regard, the command to fear the Lord entails the whole of Scripture, since the whole of Scripture teaches us what God desires of us. Said another way, wisdom is found in heart-obedience to all God’s commandments. Christ loved God this way on our behalf, and we have been given a new heart and the Holy Spirit to increasingly manifest this love as well, as we study and apply God’s Word.
Another important point is that this wisdom is a gift of God. Godly wisdom, by its very nature, is (1) revelatory, and (2) covenantal. It is revelatory in that only the Bible teaches what God requires and gives us a way to obey it (salvation). It is covenantal in that it requires having a right relationship with God before it can be received. Because of this, none of the other nations could have any of this wisdom. They could not fear the Lord both because they did not have the revelation of God or a covenant with God (a right relationship). Both this revelation and this covenant are gifts of God! Both require God graciously acting before they can have a right relationship with Him. In 1 Kings 3:1-15, Solomon asked God for wisdom, showing he knew that it came only from God. God was also pleased with Solomon in seeking wisdom, since wisdom entails fearing God and thus seeking His ways, rather than some other self-serving pursuit (see also Prov. 2:6-7). James also teaches that wisdom is a gift of God in James 1:5-8,
5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. 6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. 7 For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways (ESV).
Is God unfair by making wisdom a gift that can only be given by Him? No, since all deserve death. Rather, this is God making a way for us to be reconciled to Him.
A final truth to know at this point is that wisdom is inherently connected and intertwined with righteousness. Isn’t it interesting that both wisdom and righteousness are gifts of God? Isn’t it also interesting that both result in having a right relationship with God? Both are ways of describing salvation, which is made permanent through Christ and by the sealing of the Holy Spirit. Both entail having our whole being conformed to God’s commandments through Christ. That is a life truly marked by the fear of the Lord. Bruce Waltke also sees these patterns throughout the book of Proverbs. He notes that in Proverbs’ introduction, all three goals (wisdom) result in doing righteousness, justice, and equity (1:3). This, he says, gives
wisdom a moral dimension (Prov. 1:3; 8:20). Indeed, ‘wisdom’ and ‘righteousness’ are coreferential terms—that is, they are not synonyms, but they refer to the same referent. In other words, a righteous person is wise and a wise person is righteous; the fool and the wicked are also coreferential terms. . . . In Proverbs [wisdom] also has a religious dimension, for its wisdom includes knowledge of the Holy One himself (see 9:10; 30:2). The righteous trust Israel’s God and are pious; the wicked trust self and are impious. In other words, the wise trust the sage’s inspired knowledge to love others and God, not self; the fool trusts himself and loves himself, not God and other people.[4]
So, wisdom itself reflects the character and righteousness of God. The “wisdom” of the nations are thus put into the category of “foolishness” because of its rejection of the fear of the Lord as its starting point. True wisdom can only be found today in Christian believers, serving also as an evidence of their saving faith. Much else can be said of wisdom, but perhaps that can be saved for another devotional.
Grow in wisdom my brothers and sisters. Pursue it like gold, well-refined in the fire. Amen.
[1] Bruce K. Waltke, The Book of Proverbs, Chapters 1-15, New International Commentary on the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2004), 145, ProQuest Ebook Central.
[2] Bernd U. Schipper, Proverbs 1-15: A Commentary on the Book of Proverbs 1:1-15:33, ed. Krüger Thomas, trans. Stephen Germany, Hermeneia—A Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2019), 69, Project Muse; cf. Tremper Longman, The Fear of the Lord Is Wisdom: A Theological Introduction to Wisdom in Israel (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2017), 105, ProQuest Ebook Central. Schipper further notes that “knowledge,” “wisdom,” and “discipline” all stand as “a triad of key wisdom terms that stand for the different conceptions of wisdom in the book of Proverbs.” 70. He continues, “Since ‘knowledge, wisdom, and discipline’ are not only named but also connected to the fear of Yhwh, this produces a sort of funnel effect. The spectrum of terms found in vv. 1–6 is distilled into a single guiding principle for the book of Proverbs as a whole: the fear of Yhwh.” 70.
[3] Jason S. DeRouchie, Jason Gile, and Kenneth J. Turner, eds. For Our Good Always: Studies on the Message and Influence of Deuteronomy in Honor of Daniel I. Block, vol. 3, Critical Studies in the Hebrew Bible (Winona Lake: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2013), 334-335, ProQuest eBook Central.
[4] Bruce K. Waltke and Charles Yu, An Old Testament Theology: An Exegetical, Canonical, and Thematic Approach (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2007), 914.