When we think of wisdom in the Bible, the book of Proverbs usually comes to mind. However, the Bible has several “wisdom” books and is obviously full of wisdom.
The Books of Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs, are all versified by the skillful use of parallelism, that is, of the balanced and symmetrical phrases unique to Hebrew poetry. With the exception of the Psalms, the majority of which are devotional lyrics, and the Song of Songs, a nuptial hymn, these books belong to the general class of wisdom or didactic literature, strictly so called because their chief purpose is instruction.
It would take five years to go through all of them—however, over the next 6 weeks at Southbrook Church, we’d like to give you a taste of these great books and show you how to get around in them. Our hopes is that individuals will continue on their own learning wisdom for living.
In the meantime, here are some thoughts to get you prepared.
Contrasting Psalms and Proverbs:
- Psalms deals with worship.
- Proverbs deals primarily with work.
- Psalms be read in an attitude of prayer.
- Proverbs should be read with a posture of readiness.
- Psalms is man talking to God.
- Proverbs is man talking to man.
- Psalms will grow your heart
- Proverbs will steady your walk.
According to 1 Kings 4, Solomon spoke with such practical wisdom and incredible insight that people traveled great distances to glean from his understanding. Yet, even though he was an exceedingly wise individual, he ended up playing the complete fool, because, rather than heeding his own wisdom (directly from God) he undertook a decades long worldly experiment of debauchery in order to see if satisfaction could actually be obtained by worldly means alone. He immersed himself in partying, material acquisitions, sexual pleasures and secular humanism—only to come to the conclusion God already told him was at the end of that particular road—emptiness
The book of Proverbs, however, was written by Solomon before he embarked on his journey to vanity. So the following three books can be approached with a certain helpful knowledge…
- Proverbs (principles and wisdom inspired by God)
- Ecclesiastes (principles and wisdom learned the hard way—through pain and rebellion)
- Song of Songs (or ‘Song of Solomon – Dispels misconceptions about sex and teaches us about intimacy between a man and a woman.
Just a few things for you to keep in mind as we embark upon this journey together at Southbrook Church—not a lot—but more than enough to make a difference! The perfect amount for Summer