Proverbs 1

1 The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel:

2 To know wisdom and instruction, to discern the sayings of understanding,

3 To receive instruction in wise behavior, righteousness, justice and equity;

4 To give prudence to the naive, to the youth knowledge and discretion,

5 A wise man will hear and increase in learning, and a man of understanding will acquire wise counsel,

6 To understand a proverb and a figure, the words of the wise and their riddles.

From the time that you were born, to the time that you die, a certain amount of time will have passed. For most of us, this time is of the order of decades (tens of years). During that time, you will face many situations, and make many decisions. You will think many thoughts, speak many words, go many places, and come across many people. In the end, you will die, and then one day, wake up to face the Day of Judgment. On that day, God will evaluate you, and pass judgment. Some will go to Hell and be tormented forever. Others will go to heaven, but they will have little or no reward. Only very few will shine like stars for they acted with wisdom during their time on earth, making good use of their time and money and talents, exchanging those for eternal reward.

In which category will you fall?

The book of Proverbs will help you understand how to make good decisions, and how to prioritize your time well, and how to think and speak with excellence. If you follow principles of this book, you will have something of eternal value at the end of your life.

Life comes with many traps and dangers. The book of Proverbs helps you know what these traps and dangers are, and how to deal with them.

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

If you want to know what these traps and dangers are, and how to deal with them then the first thing you have to master is ‘the fear of the Lord.’

Acquiring the fear of the Lord doesn’t require that you be afraid of God. Rather, it requires you to have such a great respect for God that you wouldn’t ever want to do anything to displease Him. You value His opinion of you so much that you take very seriously everything He says.

In contrast, a fool thinks that he knows better than God. He may not actually say, “I know better than God,” but when faced with a decision, he chooses to do what his own thoughts tell him, rather than what the Bible tells him to do.

A fool doesn’t bother to find out what God says. He has no time to read God’s word with the intent of understanding what it says. He would rather spend his time entertaining himself or making money.

What kind of person are you? What is your perspective of God? How much time do you spend diligently studying God’s word (not man’s word about God’s word, but God’s word itself)?

If you don’t fear God, and need to fix yourself in this area, then do it. That is the beginning of wisdom, and you will get nowhere with God until you learn to fear Him.

8 Hear, my son, your father's instruction and do not forsake your mother's teaching;

9 Indeed, they are a graceful wreath to your head and ornaments about your neck.

Besides having the fear of God, one must also have a lot of respect for one’s parents.

In most cases, parents genuinely care for their children and give them the best advice they can give. Their advice is not infallible, but still very good, because it is based on their own experiences of what works and what doesn’t. They don’t want you to fall into the same traps that they fell in.

As children grow up to be teenagers, they tend to ignore their parent’s instruction in favor of the general consensus of their peers and their own thoughts. That is one of the biggest mistakes that a teenager can make. It is one of the biggest mistakes because, as a teenager, you are now strong enough, and independent enough, to do what you want, but not smart enough to make good decisions. Neither are your peers. Further, while you may think that your peers have your best interests in mind, you can be sure that they don’t.

A teenager who gives weight to his parent’s instruction, and who treats his parents with respect (that is, as if they are royalty), has a good start to greatness. You will find that, in life, the only two people who genuinely want you to succeed without limits are your parents. Your friends and colleagues and other relatives may want you to have some success, but never more than their own success. Your parents, however, will be pleased if your successes exceed their own. However, don’t bring them grief by being arrogant in your success and then begin treating them with disrespect.

10 My son, if sinners entice you, do not consent.

11 If they say, “Come with us, let us lie in wait for blood, let us ambush the innocent without cause;

12 Let us swallow them alive like Sheol, even whole, as those who go down to the pit;

13 We will find all kinds of precious wealth, we will fill our houses with spoil;

14 Throw in your lot with us, we shall all have one purse,”

15 My son, do not walk in the way with them. Keep your feet from their path,

16 For their feet run to evil and they hasten to shed blood.

So far, we’ve seen that to get wisdom one needs to fear God and to learn from one’s parents. Next, we see that we need to avoid those who engage in wrongdoing, especially those who shed innocent blood.

As you go to school, and then later find a job and go to work, you will come across different people. You’ll see brash ones, timid ones, mean ones, bullies, liars, cheats, and many more. You’ll have to choose which kind of people to associate with, or whether to associate with anyone at all.

It is critical that you choose your friends wisely, and stick with those who love and do what is right. They may not be the smartest, or the most athletic, or the most influential, but they have the one quality that is valuable in God’s eyes – a desire for righteousness.

As for the rest, you don’t have to look down upon them, and you don’t have to make it obvious that you don’t enjoy their company. Always treat them with kindness, but avoid habitually hanging out with them. They may try to draw you in by asking for your help in some things. Ask God for protection, and use wisdom to escape out of such engagements if you suspect an ulterior motive.

A lot of nonsense goes on in fraternities and sororities. Why expose yourself to such foolishness? Isn’t it better to be alone and without ‘friends’ than to have ‘friends’ who help you to destroy yourself? It is better to be socially inept than to be socially smooth but morally bankrupt.

17 Indeed, it is useless to spread the baited net in the sight of any bird;

18 but they lie in wait for their own blood; they ambush their own lives.

19 So are the ways of everyone who gains by violence; it takes away the life of its possessors.

People who take advantage of the innocent think that they will get away with it. However, only later in life do they find out that what they do ends up bringing harm to themselves. For Almighty God, who sees everything, avenges the innocent.

20 Wisdom shouts in the street, she lifts her voice in the square;

21 At the head of the noisy streets she cries out; at the entrance of the gates in the city she utters her sayings:

22 “How long, O naive ones, will you love being simple-minded? And scoffers delight themselves in scoffing and fools hate knowledge?

23 “Turn to my reproof, behold, I will pour out my spirit on you; I will make my words known to you.

In a sense, acquiring wisdom is not hard or impossible. It is very doable, because God wants you to be wise, and is very eager to give you wisdom. You just have to want it and accept it and pay attention to God when He tells you how to acquire it, and then act upon what He tells you to do.

Life is full of problems – personality problems, financial problems, relationship problems, time management problems, career problems, technical problems, and many more. Some of them are avoidable, and some of them are unavoidable. A wise person will avoid the avoidable problems. However, that’s not enough, because in your life, you will also encounter many unavoidable problems. If you learn to solve your unavoidable problems quickly, cheaply and efficiently, the quality of your life will be so much better.

Naïve people don’t understand this. They think that somehow their problems will get solved automatically, and therefore, they think that they don’t need to know how to solve problems. When problems hit them, they are at a loss as to what to do, and this opens them up for unscrupulous people to take advantage of them.

Scoffers feel that it is beneath them to learn from others how to solve problems. As a result, their ability to solve problems is very limited. They are too proud to ask for help, and their problems never get solved, and what started out as small, easy-to-solve problems for them, grow into big, bad problems that are very difficult to solve.

Some people just hate knowledge. That is, they don’t want to take the time and trouble to learn how to solve problems. In their childhood and youth, when their dad or mom call them and try to teach them something, they run away to do something more fun. As a result, when they are older, their life is full of unsolved problems, and these problems cause havoc to them, and they in turn, make the lives of those around them miserable too.

This passage tells you to not be among the naïve, the scoffers, and those who hate knowledge.

24 “Because I called and you refused, I stretched out my hand and no one paid attention;

25 and you neglected all my counsel and did not want my reproof;

26 I will also laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your dread comes,

27 When your dread comes like a storm and your calamity comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you.

28 “Then they will call on me, but I will not answer; they will seek me diligently but they will not find me,

29 Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the LORD.

30 “They would not accept my counsel, they spurned all my reproof.

31 “So they shall eat of the fruit of their own way and be satiated with their own devices.

The time to get wisdom is when God is giving it, not when you are in need of it. If you ignore God when He is giving it, He will not give it to you when you need it. You can’t disrespect God and expect to get anything from Him.

32 “For the waywardness of the naive will kill them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them.

A wayward person is one who strays from the path. A complacent person is one who moves slowly on the path. People who approach the path of wisdom with waywardness and complacency will lose a lot of opportunities to get wisdom. You have to be like a sink, ready to absorb wisdom at every moment, treasuring it so much that you will sacrifice anything to receive it.

33 “but he who listens to me shall live securely and will be at ease from the dread of evil.”

Wisdom comes with great reward. When disaster strikes, the wise person is able to handle it. When calamity comes, your wisdom will show you how to avoid it or navigate around it.

For starters, a wise person doesn’t have to deal with sexually transmitted diseases or alcoholism or tobacco / drug addiction. A wise person doesn’t have to deal with financial problems. A wise person doesn’t have to deal with a difficult spouse because he or she chose wisely. A wise person raises sensible children and can avoid the sorrow of a truant child.

Wisdom is more valuable than riches and honor and power and popularity. That is why there is such joy in having it.