Weekend Kindness
Reaching Others Through Kindness

Finding wisdom is not for the faint of heart?and few are the people that actually understand its worth.

When Solomon became King of Israel after his father David, God approached Solomon with a proposition?ask for whatever you desire and it will be granted to you.  He could have asked for gold, riches, or a great kingdom.  Instead, he asked for wisdom and knowledge to lead God?s people well.

In the first part of Proverbs 2, we see the writer trying to impart the value of wisdom on his child.  You see, many will not pursue wisdom.  Yes, they?ll take what?s easy to know, and get a lot of information, but they will not go far looking after wisdom, for to know true wisdom requires work.

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The beginning of the book of Proverbs starts with a truth: The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and understanding. In verses 20-33, the author goes one step further.

Beginning in verse 20, Wisdom is personified, and seen crying out in the marketplace, in the cities and wherever people can be found asking or pleading with the people to listen and learn.

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The people that you listen to, that you admire, hold sway over your opinions and worldview.  They effect your judgment process and can influence the decisions that you make.

Proverbs 1:10-19 offers us a warning about people around us that may encourage us to sin:

My son, if sinners entice you, do not consent.  If they say, ?Come with us, let us lie in wait for blood; let us ambush the innocent without reason; like Sheol let us swallow them alive, and whole, like those who go down to the pit; we shall find all precious goods, we shall fill our houses with plunder; throw in your lot among us; we will all have one purse?? my son, do not walk in the way with them; hold back your foot from their paths, for their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed blood.

For in vain is a net spread in the sight of any bird, but these men lie in wait for their own blood; they set an ambush for their own lives. Such are the ways of everyone who is greedy for unjust gain;  it takes away the life of its possessors.
((The Holy Bible : English standard version. 2001 (Pr 1:10?19). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.))

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This proverb seems to be obvious, but given the current cultural climate it bears repeating:

Hear, my son, your father?s instruction, and forsake not your mother?s teaching, for they are a graceful garland for your head and pendants for your neck.
((The Holy Bible : English standard version. 2001 (Pr 1:8?9). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.))

The relationship between a child and parent differs over time.  Children start out believing everything a parent says, and parents are the child?s world.  Children then begin to have other sources of information other than the parents.  And then the young person starts to wonder if his parents ?know anything.?  It then turns full circle and the child (now adult) wonders why she didn?t ask her parents for more advice when she was younger.

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The book of Proverbs opens with a call to those that would be wise.  It gives an introduction to the material that will be found therein, and invites the reader to ?increase in learning and to obtain guidance.?

The first actual proverb is found in verse 7:

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.1

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1. The Holy Bible : English standard version. 2001 (Pr 1:7). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.

This month we?re going to start something new.  The book of Proverbs is an interesting book in that much of it is worded as a father would say these things to his son.

The main author was blessed with wisdom, and that wisdom is still relevant today, and it?s worth looking through these bits of wisdom to see what we can gain and learn.

So, starting in the month of May, and continuing as long as there is interest, I would like to look at different pieces of wisdom, working our way through the passage, and see what we learn along the way.