What comes to mind when you think about the book of Proverbs? Perhaps some familiar and comforting verses like Proverbs 3:5-6 (“Trust in the Lord with all your heart…”). Or perhaps familiar but not-quite-so-loved verses that bring you back to mistakes you made as a child when your parent would quote this book to get you back in line (“Go to the ant, thou sluggard!”).

Proverbs is filled with vivid imagery that is designed to help us visualize essential truths: Wisdom and Folly personified; the foolish young man who follows the call of the adulterous woman to destruction; the virtuous woman who diligently cares for her family; the wise person versus the fool. For many of us, Proverbs was the book that helped us establish a daily Bible reading habit with its 31 chapters. Perhaps it was the book that taught you how to do a topic study or impressed upon you the importance of diligently pursuing wisdom in your daily choices.   

For all these reasons, Proverbs is one of the most beloved and familiar books of the Bible, and probably one of the most needful books right now in the middle of our confusing era. But it’s also perhaps one of the most misunderstood! That’s why we’re spending time studying it together in our Community Groups this fall and spring.

Here are just a few of the topics we’ll consider based on the teaching in this book:

• The characters of Proverbs: the wise man, the fool, the scoffer, the sluggard
• Our emotions: happiness, anger, anxiety, humility, pride.
• Our roles in life: as family member, spouse, friend, neighbor, citizen, and worker.
• Our major “stuff” in life: greed, generosity, honesty, time management, digital devices, sexuality, our words, and even our deaths.

I’m excited to be able to study these practical, on-the-ground topics as groups and see how God’s wisdom can guide us. But I am also cautious about wanting to make sure we all understand the book of Proverbs well. If we don’t, and if we misunderstand the style of the book or misapply the principles or excuse away our unwise behaviors, we could come away living less wise and more foolishly.

To that end, let’s consider a few of the potential pitfalls we might fall into as we study this book together:

#1: Proverbs as Promises

This is one of the most dangerous mistakes, because it can lead a believer into all sorts of false beliefs. Many have used statements from Proverbs to defend the Prosperity Gospel, for example: “Proverbs says if I give to God, I will get wealth and long life!” Yes, passages like Proverbs 3 indicate that prosperity and blessing come to those who obey God’s wisdom, but it is stated as a general principle of what happens, not a guarantee. The books of Ecclesiastes and Job help explain the exceptions to this general principle.

Does this mean we can’t take Proverbs at its word, or that the Bible doesn’t mean what it says? Absolutely not! The book itself indicates that it is giving general principles rather than for-all-times-and-in-every-circumstance promises. Here’s a great example: Proverbs 26:4 says NOT to answer a fool, but the very next verse says TO answer a fool. Is this contradictory? Not if you understand what Solomon is trying to do. He’s giving us general wisdom that differs depending on the situation. There are times when you need to answer a fool, “lest he become wise in his own eyes” (vs. 5) but other times when answering him will make you just like him (vs. 4).

#2: Proverbs as Tweets (or a Fortune Cookie)

In our social media age, we’re used to taking passages of Scripture and posting them in bite-sized (or tweet-sized) portions. We’ve all seen inspirational or thought-provoking images paired with a verse and posted on Instagram or Facebook for people’s encouragement. Don’t get me wrong. It is a very good thing to fill social media with Scripture! And certainly, Proverbs makes a great book to post from, made up as it is of so many nuggets of wisdom that do not depend on surrounding verses!

But if we’re not careful, viewing Proverbs this way makes us forget the whole context of the book. We might take each verse in isolation and miss other verses within the book that also speak to various aspects of the issue at hand. Proverbs is not meant to be the tiny piece of “candy Scripture” to start your day or the fortune cookie to open up at random and see what you should do. No, wisdom is meant to be studied deeply (Proverbs 2) with hard work.

#3: Proverbs without Jesus

Another dangerous way to approach this book is separating it from the rest of Scripture, especially the New Testament and the Gospel of Jesus. Now you might thinking, “Wait a sec…the Gospel in Proverbs?”

Yes! Jesus is the central storyline of all of Scripture and if you approach even Proverbs with His life, teaching, and sacrifice in mind, you can see Him all over. In fact, one author described Jesus in His earthly life as the “Proverbs wrapped in flesh,”[1] since He is the “wisdom of God” incarnate (1 Cor. 1:24, Col. 2:3). Every moment of His life, Jesus lived out the book of Proverbs, and it makes a great study to read principles in Proverbs and then to see what Jesus lived or taught on that subject.

In fact, that’s why at the end of each week in Community Group, we’re bringing our study over into the New Testament to see how it connects with Jesus. Without this connection, we tend to make Proverbs a rulebook for how to make God happy with you, not remembering that we all fall into the category of the “fool” without Jesus. It is only by believing in Him that we gain power through the Holy Spirit to live with wisdom every day.

We hope you enjoy the study of Proverbs this year. With so much confusion and so little courtesy in our culture, we all know we need wisdom from above to honor God with our words and actions. If you’re not part of a community group already, we invite you to jump in with us as we learn what the Bible has to say about our daily lives, how Jesus, our perfect Substitute, lived out this wisdom on our behalf, and how we can “follow in His steps” each day (1 Peter 2:21).

---

[1] JA Medders, https://jamedders.com/jesus-is-our-wisdom/