Chapter one explains that the wise person fears God and is always seeking greater wisdom and knowledge, while the fool is arrogant and therefore ignorant as well, disdainful of being taught greater wisdom.
Here are a few verses that I like:
7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; wisdom and instruction fools despise.
19 This is the fate of everyone greedy of loot; unlawful gain takes away the life of him who acquires it.
24 ...I called and you refused, I extended my hand and no one took notice.. you disdained all my counsel, and my reproof you ignored.
31 Now they must eat the fruit of their own way, and with their own devices be glutted. 32 For the self-will of the simple kill them, the smugness of fools destroys them. 33 But he who obeys me dwells in security, in peace, without fear of harm.
So lets, see - the first idea this made me think about was in verse 7 up there: fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. As it says in the awesome footnote-y things, fear of the Lord is, in other words, "reverential fear and respect for God on account of his sovereignty, goodness and justice toward men". There are a lot of people out there that would say that all sorts of wisdom and knowledge and virtue are possible without a belief in God, per se. But the way I see it is that "fear of the Lord" is just the exact opposite of pride. In order to go about seeking wisdom and knowledge you have to acknowledge that there is an absolute truth and order to things that exists apart from your own little brain. So for all those people that say that wisdom and virtue are possible without belief in God, I would say to just substitute "fear and respect for Natural Law" instead of "fear and respect for God".
Okay, secondly, I like the idea in verse 24-ish that Wisdom, who is the narrator here, is always there waiting for us to just take her hand. The only reason why we wouldn't is our arrogance, our disdain for counsel. Although sometimes it is tricky to know exactly what the wise thing to do is, I think usually my conscience is telling me what to do if I would just make an effort to listen.
And finally, the idea that sinners are punished by the bad fruits which their sins produce. That reminds me of Paster Pete's sermon on idols - worshiping idols always leads to death, while worshiping God leads to life. Also, it reminds me of this one part in the best commencement speech ever:
There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship -- be it JC or Allah, bet it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles -- is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you... Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful, it's that they're unconscious.Okay. Yesterday, I actually decided to go to this church i google-mapped that's near where I live called "Servant's Community Church". It was pretty nice - as soon as I sat down, the woman next to me (she was prob. like 30) introduced herself and was very welcoming. The actual service was sort of a mix between Harvest and all the protestant services I've been to and a Catholic mass. Yeah. Because there were some definite ritual-y aspects. There was a recitation of a confession. After the reading from the Acts of the Apostles (chapter 16!), the pastor said "The word of the Lord" and we all responded "Thanks be to God". But there was no communion and no organ haha.
During the sermon, the pastor (Pastor Jeff, pictured at left) brought up something that sort of relates to that proverbs chapter. He said that even though he knows that he should follow Apostle Paul's example and go out and do risky things with the Gospel at the center of his life, he just plain doesn't want to risk his health, wealth, and everything that he's gotten settled for himself here. He said that his prayer is something like "God, help me want to want to do the harder things". What do you guys think about this? Do you think that we should do what we know is most righteous, even when we REALLY don't want to make the necessary sacrifices? Isn't just sort of cowardly to pray, "Help me want to do that, because I sure don't want to right now" ??
Cowardly? I don't think so. I think God rewards honesty. There's a story in the Bible where one son agrees to do what his father says, but the other son says no way. The first ends up not doing it (did he forget?), but the second ends up doing it even though he really didn't want to. Obviously, the second will receive a greater reward.
ReplyDeletewow! im like pelased that u went to church mar! actually i dont know if u remmeber the one night in LG where we watched a video from a guy named Rob Bell.. (.it was like a nooma video...and it was really good) he is a pastor at a church in GR called Mars Hill.... check it out if its near by!!!! http://marshill.org/
ReplyDeleteoh i didn't get to commet about ur quetsion either.. . i don't think its necessary cowardly to pray to have a heart like Paul and have the gospel @ the center of your life...in fact, I think its good to challenge yourself to live out the gospel more in your life... i mean, God is not calling every person to move to another country, give up everthing and become a misisonary,
ReplyDeletebut also i think God has a specific calling to each perosn in life and if we are in line with His will, and are able to be used for the purposes in which we were created then true joy should result.
hmm. i think part of being in a relationship with God is that you should please him and do what he wants you to do. the problem with this is that, obviously, we don't always want to do it hahaha. it's just like when you're married: there will be moments when you don't love your husband and you don't want to do what he wants you to do, but you'll still do it. that is love; it's more than just the fuzzy emotion you get when you see him, it's also your commitment to still care for the other person and put him first even when the fuzzy feeling is gone.
ReplyDeleteand also, like sav said, God likes honesty :) i remember someone once told me that it's a big fat lie to believe that when you don't feel like worshiping, it is hypocritical to still sing the songs. it's when you don't feel like it, i think, that God values it the most, because it's not some emotional high that's fueling your desire to worship him - you're doing it cos he deserves it, and that's it, hahah. and God knows our puny human limits - we're not always going to want to do what he wants us to do, and we're not always going to do it, but i think what he truly looks for is someone whose heart is facing his, and when there isn't the strength to do it, you admit it and ask God to provide you with what you need to do what he wants you to do. (2 Corinthians 9:8)