The Usefulness of Proverbs

Proverbs 1; I die daily devotional.

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

Okay! There are 33 verses in this chapter which will take us into the new year—2021 and beyond! But here’s the thing. As I continue on this trajectory (a verse at a time through the book of proverbs) the 14^th chapter of proverbs will bring us into the year 2022. So by the looks of it we won’t finish every verse in the book of proverbs until sometime in 2023, and that’s ok. The important thing is devoting ourselves to the Word of God and building our “house” [personality] of wisdom.

PROVERBS

These proverbs produced in Solomon are the words of God expressed in the human flesh of Jesus Christ—the Lamb of God. When we learn and apply these proverbs with the parables of our Lord Jesus Christ, a knew flavor to the fruit of our Spirit is experienced, and the taste is heaven. These words of wisdom are the tools we need to build her house, she has hewn her seven pillars. For it is by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. There is nothing about our world of sin that has any part in the kingdom of God, that is why our gift of God is a relationship between the value of God’s grace and the value of faith in His Word to resurrect us to Himself through Jesus Christ; or does not wisdom call, And understanding lift up her voice? We are the Church, the Bride of Christ, and we represent the Kingdom of God here on earth until our Lord Jesus, come. Amen.

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Recourse

Proverbs 1 (NASB)—blueletterbible.org
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 naïve, 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. ⁷ The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; Fools despise wisdom and instruction. The Enticement of Sinners 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. 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. 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. Wisdom Warns 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 naïve 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. 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. ³² “For the waywardness of the naïve will kill them, And the complacency of fools will destroy them. ³³ “But he who listens to me shall live securely And will be at ease from the dread of evil.”

Matthew Henry (P1-V1) Commentary
We have here an introduction to this book, which some think was prefixed by the collector and publisher, as Ezra; but it is rather supposed to have been penned by Solomon himself, who, in the beginning of his book, proposes his end in writing it, that he might keep to his business, and closely pursue that end. We are here told,

• I. Who wrote these wise sayings, v. 1. They are the proverbs of Solomon.
  • 1. His name signifies peaceable, and the character both of his spirit and of his reign answered to it; both were peaceable. David, whose life was full of troubles, wrote a book of devotion; for is any afflicted? let him pray. Solomon, who lived quietly, wrote a book of instruction; for when the churches had rest they were edified. In times of peace we should learn ourselves, and teach others, that which in troublous times both they and we must practise.
  • 2. He was the son of David; it was his honour to stand related to that good man, and he reckoned it so with good reason, for he fared the better for it, 1 Ki. 11:12. He had been blessed with a good education, and many a good prayer had been put up for him (Ps. 72:1), the effect of both which appeared in his wisdom and usefulness. The generation of the upright are sometimes thus blessed, that they are made blessings, eminent blessings, in their day. Christ is often called the Son of David, and Solomon was a type of him in this, as in other things, that he opened his mouth in parables or proverbs.
  • 3. He was king of Israel-a king, and yet it was no disparagement to him to be an instructor of the ignorant, and a teacher of babes-king of Israel, that people among whom God was known and his name was great; among them he learned wisdom, and to them he communicated it. All the earth sought to Solomon to hear his wisdom, which excelled all men’s (1 Ki. 4:30; 10:24); it was an honour to Israel that their king was such a dictator, such an oracle. Solomon was famous for apophthegms; every word he said had weight in it, and something that was surprising and edifying. His servants who attended him, and heard his wisdom, had, among them, collected 3000 proverbs of his which they wrote in their day-books; but these were of his own writing, and do not amount to nearly a thousand. In these he was divinely inspired. Some think that out of those other proverbs of his, which were not so inspired, the apocryphal books of Ecclesiasticus and the Wisdom of Solomon were compiled, in which are many excellent sayings, and of great use; but, take altogether, they are far short of this book. The Roman emperors had each of them his symbol or motto, as many now have with their coat of arms. But Solomon had many weighty sayings, not as theirs, borrowed from others, but all the product of that extraordinary wisdom which God had endued him with.

OUTLINE

-Meditate and Pray
-Verse by verse structure of chapter 1
-Start with the first verse

-[Nathan’s] personal insight
-Resources
-Outline
-Prepare to publish, then publish

-Prepare for tomorrow (Lord willing)

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LORD WILLING

-Meditate and Pray
-Build V.2 devotional
-Apply the same procedure from V.1