Wisdom shouts streets

Wisdom shouts in the streets

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Proverbs is the “goto” spot in scripture for wisdom of all sorts for all sorts of people. So it is naturally fitting that the first chapter of Proverbs would spend the first several verses telling us what types of wisdom can be found in these first 9 chapters. Furthermore, it informs us how to be the sort of person who can benefit from this wisdom.

After this, chapter one addresses all who read as children and tell us to listen to the words of a father and mother. This isn’t because all parents are inherently wise, but is more indicative of ideal and designed tutorship God baked into the parent child relationship which is first and foremost relational in a familial sense. The wisdom afforded a child runs contrary to the popular advice most children receive from their peers and that is the first example we are offered.

The chapter wraps up with wisdom presented as a woman crying out in the streets. Specifically she shouts out in the places of societal gatherings, judicial courts and commerce. She offers counsel that even the naive and simple can appropriate and spurns all those who turn up the nose at her.

Quite the intro… this most valuable book should be an informative and helpful read!

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Faith Good Works

Faith & Good Works Pt. 2

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Last week we turned to James for more wisdom on living out our confession of Jesus as our Lord having first read what Romans 2 and Hebrews 10 had to say about ‘Good Works’.

James bears down on the necessity of faith in the production of ‘Good Works’. To do this he starts off with how the believer is to approach times of temptation which James tells us is a testing of our faith as well as our character.

He offers seeking God for wisdom and how the poor and rich should approach life as examples.

He wraps up with a teaching on temptation and where to set our focus which offers us more insight on the topic than perhaps any single author in the New Testament.

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Proverbs Introduction

Proverbs: An introduction & overview

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Tonight we begin the book of Proverbs and as we have customarily do, we will kick it off with an overview of the book.

The word Proverbs means an object lesson based on or using a comparison or an analogy. So it’s similar in function and purpose to a parable, but in many ways they differ.

Proverbs is a poetic work. This would be easy to miss since Hebrew poetry does not rely upon rhyme & Meter as it does in most languages. Furthermore, being a translation into English all of that would have been lost anyway, which may be one of the contributing reasons why God had the Old Testament largely written in Hebrew. In the end, nothing is lost in translation!

Hebrew poetry relies heavily upon a thing called Parallelism which takes several forms which we introduced tonight.

Other facts we covered include:
• Proverbs is a compiled work of poetic, wisdom literature.
• It was pieced together over at very least 300 years.
• It has at very least 2 contributing authors, though likely considerably more.
• It is divided into 3 to 7 sections, only 4 of which we will recognize.
• It contains seven major forms – short potent statements for contemplation and meditation, stories, sayings, parental advice, moral discourses, concept personifications and an oracle.

I hope you will get something out of this introduction to Proverbs which will help you in your future studies and enjoyment of the book. Also, we hope that you will join us as we traverse Proverbs over the course of the next several months.

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Faith Good Works

Faith & Good Works Pt. 1

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Well if you have been following this series of “Maturity & Ministry” you know that we have been investigating what the New Birth looks like in terms of our ongoing responsibilities and stewardships in the Kingdom.

These include, but are not necessarily limited to:
• Love and respect for God
• Being proactive about the Word of God abiding in us
• Pursuing love of the brethren
• Desiring and being good stewards over the spiritual gift(-s) given to us
• Being faithful stewards over the ministry to which Jesus, the Lord of the Body, appointed us.
• Producing good works

Over the past 4 weeks we have taken a journey through the New Testament identifying specific things God calls “good works”.

This week we are beginning to look at the role faith plays in our pursuit of good works and our responsibility to encourage it in our fellow believers.

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Everything that has breath, Praise the Lord!

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Well tonight we wrap up the book of Psalms. It’s been one of the most educational and informative books we’ve studied yet.

In it we…
• Identifying the Psalms various authors and time periods
• Got to know how the greater book of Psalms was compiled from all of the individual psalms
• We came to understand the 5 book divisions
• We learned more about Hebrew poetry

These final 5 chapters are the ending doxology to the entire book of Psalms.

As I said last week these are a type of doxology – a composition praising God. However, strictly speaking ‘Doxologies’ “should be” a composition praising the glory of God specifically.

The word Doxa is the Greek word for “glory” and God’s glory in particular.

Since it is from this Greek word that we get the English word ‘Doxology’, a true doxology would not simply express praise to God in general, but particularly capitalize on His transcendent glory. These last 5 Psalms largely stick to this more precise definition!

The word ‘Glory’ means dignity, honor, majesty, splendor & even wealth. Ultimately these points to one’s character and impressive, sometimes weighty presence.

All that having been said, these Psalms do not require much in the way of explanation or deeper teaching – they are what they are – simple praises to God’s grandeur and glory… so Enjoy!

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