“The proverbs of Solomon son of David, king of Israel: For learning wisdom and discipline; for understanding insightful sayings; for receiving prudent instruction in righteousness, justice, and integrity; for teaching shrewdness to the inexperienced, knowledge and discretion to a young man—let a wise person listen and increase learning, and let a discerning person obtain guidance—for understanding a proverb or a parable, the words of the wise, and their riddles.” ( Proverbs 1:1-6 CSB – Read the chapter)

Wisdom is not something our culture thinks much about. Knowledge, yes. Experience, perhaps. But wisdom, not so much. That’s too bad because we could use some wisdom nowadays. The choices we face as a people, as a nation, as a world are stark and filled with potential for great good or great harm. The answers to our biggest questions won’t be easy to come by—they rarely are—but the path to the best end will always be one lighted by wisdom. Today we begin a new journey. This is one I have wanted to take for some time, but have always put it off because it has seemed rather daunting. Yet daunting or not, we are going to begin tackling the best source of wisdom we have in the Scriptures. It won’t be a short journey, but, Lord willing, it will be a fruitful one. Let’s begin a trip through the Proverbs.

Let me add one more thing before we dive in. I’m trying something a little different today. You may have noticed this post doesn’t have what has been one of my standard post titles for nine years. Those two titles told you about how long a particular post was going to be, and they told you what Scripture we were going to be exploring together, but they weren’t particularly engaging. While the reach of this blog is global in a way I never could have imagined it would be (it has been viewed in something like 190 countries over its lifetime), it’s also not very big. I would love to see it grow from where it is, and if a search-engine-optimized title will help accomplish that, I guess I can change some. So, titles will look a bit different going forward, but hopefully they’ll be a bit catchier. In any event, on to the focus of the day.

Solomon was given a unique choice; one that has at least never been recorded as having been given to anyone else who ever lived. His ascension to the throne was tumultuous to say the least. He was not David’s oldest son. He wasn’t even in the top four. There was more than one brother who had a legitimate claim to the throne, politically speaking, when David died. Solomon’s claim was admittedly strong because David himself declared his intention was that Solomon follow him in the line of succession, but beyond that, his older brothers had a strong case to make. What both boosted and greatly damaged Solomon’s case was that his mother, Bathsheba, was David’s favorite wife. But her rise to queendom was scandal-plagued, to put it mildly.

It took a lot of quick political maneuvering to secure his position once David breathed his last. Following the advice of his father, though, Solomon quickly proved himself to be a strong, decisive, and insightful leader. He was an astute politician who was firm but fair with his rivals. And when he made a declaration, he followed through on it even when it was costly.

Once Solomon had established himself on the throne and once he had made clear by not just word but deed that he intended to following in his father’s footsteps of faithfulness to Yahweh, God came and visited him in a dream. He gave him a blank check to ask Him for anything he wanted. Whatever it was—riches, long life, the death of all of his enemies—God would grant it. As he deliberated, Solomon considered both of the first two options there, but decided that wisdom would be an even better choice. With wisdom he could establish himself and his household on a strong foundation that would provide the kind of strength and structure necessary to achieve everything else he desired.

This was the right thing to ask for, and God assured him that He would not only grant this request, but give him all the other things he thought about asking for as a bonus. Solomon wound up as not only the wisest king who ever lived, but one of the wealthiest. He enjoyed peace with all of his neighbors throughout his long reign. There was no human pleasure he missed out on experiencing. He expanded the borders of Israel greatly and made their small nation the envy of the world. Rulers from far and wide came to bask in the glow of their glory.

Solomon’s reign was a gift to his people, but his wisdom has proven to be a gift to the world through the collection of proverbs he wrote and were later assembled along with a variety of other wise sayings into what we know now as the book of Proverbs. The opening lines of the book (which we will look at both today and tomorrow) lay out what we should expect as we go forward on this journey. The whole collection is written in the tone of a father passing along wisdom to his son (or daughter). The first seven verses (six today and the last tomorrow) introduce us to what the proverbs are for and what the real foundation for wisdom is.

These proverbs are “for learning wisdom and discipline.” Wisdom involves more than merely knowing the difference between right and wrong. It expands beyond that to the ability to actually and actively choose what is right. It includes knowing why what’s right is right and why what’s wrong is wrong. Wisdom is rightly paired with discipline which is the intentional and practiced ability to choose what is right. A wise and disciplined person does the right thing automatically both because she understands why that is the best path to take, but also because she has done it so many times that she doesn’t really have to think about it any longer.

The proverbs Solomon offers us in the following collection are “for understanding insightful sayings.” One of the things studying the book of Proverbs offers us is the ability to recognize real wisdom when we encounter it. There is much false wisdom out there in the world around us. There are ideas that are made to seem wise, but which upon further reflection is just the opposite. Think about the counsel that appears everywhere in our culture to follow your heart. That has been dressed up as genuine, meaningful wisdom for generations, but it is in truth the height of folly. Someone who has spent time meditating on the proverbs can easily recognize it for what it truly is.

Immersing ourselves in this book is also good “for receiving prudent instruction in righteousness, justice, and integrity.” As much as we might like to imagine otherwise, that trio of characteristics do not come naturally to us. They are learned traits that must be practiced carefully and intentionally. We need good and faithful instruction in how to recognize them, how to choose them, and how to get them right. We will find a great deal of that in this book.

Proverbs is good “for teaching shrewdness to the inexperienced, knowledge and discretion to a young man.” Shrewdness is one of those biblical virtues that feels odd. It sounds like it should be a character trait we don’t want to develop, but Jesus Himself praises it and commends it to His followers. Shrewdness is all about being able to navigate the world deftly. It’s about both knowing how the world works and how to use that to our advantage. The shrewd person knows how to make a bad situation work in his favor because he can push and pull on just the right people at just the right times to cause things to play out the way he wants in the end. Shrewdness like this isn’t ever obvious in its application. It requires a great deal of knowledge of the people around us and discretion. When you are working the angles, the people being worked can’t know it or they’ll refuse to cooperate. Proverbs, studied carefully, helps teach those skills to folks who haven’t yet developed them. It offers a faster route to that end than merely developing them over time by trial and error.

The final thing Solomon says these proverbs are for is “understanding a proverb or a parable, the words of the wise, and their riddles.” In other words, the sayings we are going to encounter together over the next few months are intended to help us recognize and grow in all different types of wisdom. While wisdom only has one source (which we will talk more about tomorrow), it has a myriad of different forms. It adapts to the situation it is in quickly and easily. It doesn’t matter if a particular situation is serious or lighthearted, there is a form of wisdom that offers just what is called for in the moment.

Just before this final definition of the book Solomon offers a quick aside. He makes an invitation: “Let a wise person listen and increase learning, and let a discerning person obtain guidance.” Wise people recognize wisdom and receive even more of it. The richer get richer when it comes to wisdom. To those who have, more will be given because they know how to obtain it. This book represents something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. It offers us a way to grow in wisdom, but whether we receive it and learn from it is up to us. Those who are wise already will receive it with joy and gladness, bask in its offerings, and grow even wiser for their efforts. Those who are fools will ignore it and keep on trying to find their way through life by other means, none of which will prove as helpful as these will.

So then, as we prepare to embark on this journey together, let us make a decision. Are we wise or are we fools? Are we those who recognize the insight of our God when He presents it to us, or have we so be snookered by the world’s call to look inside ourselves and follow our own hearts that we can’t see the better path through life when it is right in front of us? Of course, a wise person would never consider himself to have arrived at such a place, but I suppose that’s the point. The fool thinks himself wise and turns away. The wise person knows he isn’t there yet and leans in. Let’s lean in and see just how much our God can teach us about how to navigate this life in the best, most fulfilling ways possible.