Proverbs - Principles for Reading

Hey everyone! Hey: I need to give you a quick personal update on a surgery that's coming up for me. And I know that’s kinda of a weird way to start. But, here’s the headline:

On August 4, I’m going to head up to Mayo Clinic to have my ascending aorta replaced. That’s the headline. (Repeat.)

Now: this might be surprising news for you to hear—but it wasn’t a complete surprise to me or my family. On the paternal side of my family, we have a known connective tissue condition that causes the aorta to expand over time. My grandfather had it; my dad has it, and I have it. It’s something that I’ve been monitoring for a couple of years now.

So, at my annual check up where they do some measurements, they concluded that it’s grown enough where some preventative surgery is probably the best idea.

So, on August 4th, I’ll go up and have literally (literally!) the best surgeon in the world at this take care of it.

Now, here’s a couple of other things:

It’s not a “high-risk” surgery from the standpoint of survival rate or anything. And it’s once and done.

But it’s a serious surgery. The procedure itself can go anywhere from 5-10 hours; 5-7 days in the hospital to recover.

Now, here’s the kicker:

It’s gonna take about 6 weeks total for my incision and sternum to heal enough to get back to normal life. So... 6 weeks off of work. Couldn’t happen at a better time, right? It’s not as though we’ve got anything significant going on in my life or the life of our church... ;)

But let me just say this:

God has been so, so very near to us and obviously generous to us in this time. Here’s what I mean:

My grandfather died of this—because he didn’t know he had it, and even if he had known, the technology wasn’t around to do what they’re able to do today. So… there’s a God-thing.

The best hospital in the world is less than 2 hours away from my house. And our insurance covers it. Praise God and thank you Prairie Lakes.

And, if that weren’t enough, get this:

I go up to meet my surgeon and do a consult. And I’m wearing a UNI pullover. And so he walks in, and the first thing he says is this: “Nice shirt. My son lives in Cedar Falls. He’s an engineer at John Deere.”

We continue to talk, and learn that my surgeon is a devout Catholic with a dedicated faith who goes to the chapel at Mayo and prays for 30 minutes in the morning before every surgery, asking for God’s help, recognizing that he’s stewarding a gift that God gave him for the sake of others.

And, despite the weird timing as we’re trying to ramp things up towards succession and Pastor John and I switching roles… there’s even grace in being forced to stop and take a break. I’d be lying to you if I said that there wasn’t a part of me that is grateful for an excuse to rest. Not the route I would’ve chosen, but… I think God’s in that as well.

Okay? So: in times like these, it’s great to be a part of a church where we have teams of leaders instead of just solo leaders. Prairie Lakes has not and does not rest on the shoulders of any one person. We’ve got a teaching team that can pick up the slack; we have an Executive Staff team that will pick up the slack; we have a wonderful board of Elders who will be supporting me and our staff, and I’ve got a team of family and friends who will be supporting us personally through this.

Which means that all you have to do—and what we’d be very grateful for—is pray. Pray for a good result, for a quick recovery, and especially for my wife who will be carrying extra both emotionally and practically.

Transition: Bible Project Video

Okay. Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s shift our focus back to what we’re jumping into this weekend. I’m pretty exited about this.

We’re starting a series this weekend on the Book of Proverbs. And for the next 4 weeks, we’ll just be getting our minds around this really unique and interesting Old Testament Scripture.

So: you might be kinda familiar with Proverbs already, or maybe not at all. But here’s what I’m finding:

Even if you’ve been around church and the Bible for a long time—even if that’s you—a lot of us still feel pretty insecure about our relationship with the Bible.

Lots of us feel like we don’t read it as often as we should, or struggle to understand parts of it, or trust parts of it, or... maybe even feel like it’s not one of the primary ways that we connect with God.

Now: none of those might be true of you—but I think at least some of those are true for a lot of us… even for those of us who have been around this thing for a long time.

And so that’s why I get excited about series like this one in Proverbs—because besides it being just great content, it’ll give us a chance to grow a little more competent and confident in our relationship with the Bible. That’s really what we want for you—and here’s why:

It’s one of the biggest and most significant ways that God speaks to us. Even today. It’s his Word.

So, that being said, take a look at this video from a group called “The Bible Project.” It’s gonna help us start wrapping our minds around this book.

SHOW BIBLE PROJECT VIDEO

Principle #1: Probable Principles, Not Promised Outcomes

That’s a good first step into what we’re talking about this weekend as we kick off our Proverbs series:

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Proverbs - Week 1: Principles for Reading

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So, like our friends at the Bible Project helped us see: Proverbs is a book in the Old Testament that fits into a category of books collectively known as “wisdom literature.” Wisdom literature is just one of several different categories of writings in the Bible—and that’s the beauty and complexity of it: 66 books that share a binding, but are a mix of different kinds of writings. It’s like having all the Barnes and Noble sections or categories in one book. Wisdom literature is one of those categories.

And even within this category of wisdom literature, not all wisdom literature is the same. The type of wisdom literature that we’re going to be looking at, Proverbs, is a specific kind of wisdom literature that deals mostly in the real world of probabilities.

Which leads us to our first principle for reading it:

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Principles for Reading Proverbs

#1: Probable Principles, Not Promised Outcomes

Proverbs is a collection of probable principles—but not promised outcomes.

If we live according to the wise principles of the Proverbs, we’ll probably have a pretty good life.

But in real life, this side of heaven, there are no guarantees. Proverbs don’t make promises.

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Now, God makes promises. And God will make good on his promises. And we can count on God’s promises.

But even those don’t promise that you’ll be protected from pain, or tragedy, or injustice.

That being said, Proverbs is in a different category entirely. Proverbs aren’t promises. They are probable principles.

One of the most common felt barriers to that first step of trusting God is this: “How can I trust in God if he lets bad things happen—and not only that: happen to good people?” Godly people, even?

And that thought or feeling sometimes is more philosophical, other times really personal—because each of us have been scarred by this broken world. You’d think that if there was a God, things would be different.

And so when we encounter a verse like this...

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Proverbs 10:27 “The fear of the Lord adds length to life, but the years of the wicked are cut short.”

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And then we see a family killed in a car accident, or a child die of cancer, or great Christian kids (and other kids) murdered in a school shooting...

Or we lose a parent while we’re young...

If we think about these as promises, we can really only come to one conclusion:

This is a lie. If that’s a promised outcome, that’s false. Because that’s not how it always works.

But these aren’t promises. They are probable principles.

Generally speaking, this is true: when we live life God’s way—a life of love, generosity, not ruled by our vices, sexually pure, productive… all of the things Proverbs is going to teach us—

When we live life God’s way, we’ll give ourselves the best possible chance of a long, full life.

But not always. That’s not how life always works. And the Proverbs don’t intend to assume that’s how it always works.

Listen:

You don’t have to look hard to find a well-intentioned friend, or pastor, or author… singer/songwriter… lots of Christian people will paint a picture of a life with God that is pretty much mostly great all of the time. There’s storms (it’s always a storm… never a different metaphor)—there’s storms, but he gets ya through. So turn that frown upside down. Because it’s all gonna work out for you.

Well… life isn’t as simple as that. And while I get the sentiment, that can also cause some pretty real damage by creating this horrible expectation about how life and life with God is supposed to work.

And so I want to protect us from contributing to that by assuming something the Bible (and the people in it!) never does.

Think about what Adam, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Rachel, Moses, Joshua, Hannah, David, Solomon, Esther, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Mary, Elizabeth, Jesus, Peter, James, John, Paul, Dorcas… you know, people that are celebrated for their faith and faithfulness to God… think about what they would say to you if you asked them about how life worked—knowing what we know about their stories.

Each of them would tell you about how real God is and why you should trust him—but they’d also tell you a story about how life doesn’t always work out like the song or book or sermon says.

There aren’t guarantees that living a particular way is going to keep you from pain or from bad things happening. Period.

Pain is a part of this world and real life. Sometimes tragic, horrible, grievous, faith-shaking, life-altering pain. And anyone that tells you any different, or tries to whitewash that reality with spiritual sentimentality and chicken-soup-for-the-soul sayings is tragically mistaken. This world and the people living in it have become disconnected from their creator, resulting in a place that is wild and out of our control.

And yet:

Proverbs is going to still make this claim—that the Proverbs way is probably the best way to live. Probable principles; not promised outcomes.

Here’s a couple of examples of how to apply this as you read:

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Proverbs 22:6 “Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it.”

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Yeah right.

I know several parents of adult children who would say, “Yep. Absolutely true.”

And, I know several parents of adult children who would say, “That is true—but it doesn’t seem to be true of my kids.”

And I grew up with both of those kinds of kids. I knew how they were being raised, and I saw how they turned out.

It’s a good parenting principle, and will give your kid the best possible chance of being a good human as they strike out on their own. But it’s not a promise.

Here’s another one:

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Proverbs 10:27 “The fear of the Lord adds length to life, but the years of the wicked are cut short.”

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And we looked at that one from the first part of that—but now lets focus on the second part. Do bad people die young?

Well then how do you explain Hugh Hefner? There’s a guy who preyed on young women well into ripe, old age.

If you project promises onto the Proverbs, you’ll not only miss the principle—but you’ll create so much noise and dissonance in your mind and heart that it’ll only create more distance between you and the Scriptures.

Instead:

Approach them according to their designed purpose and limits. If you do, they can teach you things about life (even 3,000 years later!) that will help you live it to its fullest.

Principle #1. Let’s move on to Principle #2:

Principle #2: More Caught than Taught

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Principles for Reading Proverbs

#2: More Caught than Taught

The Proverbs can teach anyone how to live life “with the grain”—or how it’s designed to be lived.

But some of it can only be accessed by knowing the Designer well enough to take his advice.

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I’m not a cat person—but it doesn’t take a cat person to know that you shouldn’t pet a cat backwards. You pet them “with the grain” so to speak. Their fur has been designed to fall a particular way. Pet them against the grain and get a very unpleasant outcome.

You can teach that to your kids, right? And they can grab onto that pretty quick (hopefully).

Some proverbs are like that. You just have the collective wisdom of people who have lived a lot of life, discovered how it’s designed to work, and are teaching anyone who will read or listen how to live it according to how it’s designed.

But Proverbs goes a step further than that. And where it does, there’s wisdom that can’t really be taught—but only caught—by hanging around their divine Author.

That’s the sense of Proverbs 1:7 and 9:10:

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Proverbs 1:7 “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.”

Proverbs 9:10 “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.”

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This is more than just practical principles for good living. This is knowing God personally—and therefore trusting that his ways are best.

Let’s make sure that we’re grabbing onto this—because this is super important not only for reading Proverbs, but for your relationship with God.

Whenever you see “Lord” in the Bible and it’s written like that, with all the letters capitalized, that’s where the author is using God’s personal name, Yahweh (or Jehovah in some translations; doesn’t matter—because either way, the author wants you to know) he’s not talking about God generally speaking, or some sort of commonly held belief about who God is. He’s talking about the one, true, personal God of the Bible who has revealed himself by name: Yahweh.

And so, when 1:7 or 9:10 talks about the “fear of the LORD” or the fear of Yahweh, it’s talking about knowing him personally so that you come to respect, submit to, obey, and even love him.

In fact:

There’s some wisdom in Proverbs that you won’t benefit from unless you have that kind of relationship with him.

Why?

Because some of the wisdom shared in Proverbs is the kind of wisdom that you follow only if you trust the source.

And if you don’t, you won’t.

Here’s how the Proverbs talk about this:

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Proverbs 14:12 “There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death.”

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Or 16:25, which believe it or not, says...

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Proverbs 14:12 “There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death.”

Proverbs 16:25 “There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death.”

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Yep. You’re reading that right. Same exact verbiage, two different proverbs. Kinda like they wanna make sure we don’t miss it.

This is what I mean when I say some of these proverbs are only caught—they can only be understood and applied by going deep enough with the Author to trust his advice—even when it doesn’t seem right to you.

This is how it works in our relationships, for sure:

You can teach your kids that they should look for a spouse who loves Jesus first, and that it’s really important. But they are far more likely to live according to that teaching if they have hung around you and have seen how that looks up close, day in and day out. And even then, they might not follow your advice—but they have the best possible chance of following it if they know you well enough to trust you.

We could rephrase this principle a little differently by saying this:

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You can benefit from borrowing some of Proverbs’ principles—but you will become wise by knowing the God of the Proverbs.

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The way the entire Biblical narrative starts in Genesis is this: God designed this world perfectly, but humanity decided that it knew better. And then everything went to pot pretty quickly.

But that’s the core problem, and the core break in the relationship between humans and God: humans think that they know better.

But Proverbs is going to assert: we don’t. And when we think we do, it’s like petting the cat backwards. There is a design to this life that we’re living, and we’ll live our best life when we’re living how it’s been designed. But the only way to really do that is to trust the Designer.

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