Today’s passage: Proverbs 5

Helpful thoughts:

• Our lips can guard knowledge (Speaking wisely) only after we have first listened and learned truth.
• A person can sound wonderful to listen to, be incredibly entertaining or make us feel great, and be entirely wrong.
  • We must place greater value on wisdom and understanding, though sometimes we’re more prone to value humor, glamor or other forms of entertainment.
• Verses 15-18 are figures of speech used to depict the loving faithful physical relationship of a husband and wife.  She is for him.  He is for her.  They are to procreate together and enjoy the blessing of parenthood together.
  • To be lured and lustful toward the forbidden woman (Anyone who is not your wife), is a massive step down.  The quality of love between a husband and wife can not even be compared to the cheap, wasteful, destructive lust between two people outside of marriage.  The world’s depictions of sexuality are lies.

Questions to consider:

1. What were the consequences of the one who chose not to listen to instruction in verses 9-14?  How would you describe those consequences in our day and culture?  What would that look like today?
2. What words are used to describe what becomes of the man in sexual sin (Verse 22)?  What words of wisdom do we need to hear if we would ever think we could pursue sin and not see consequences?  What has been laid before us?  Who is watching?  How do we escape and walk in freedom?
3. Who all could rightly apply this warning against sinning with the “forbidden woman?”  If the only person who we are to delight in physically is our spouse, then how many other people should we see as forbidden?  Is this true before someone gets married too?

Prayer:

Father, thank you for the picture of Christ and the church…Christ the groom and the church the bride.  Thank you for Christ’s selfless loving sacrifice and for your promise to present us spotless and without blemish, even though that can only be true of us when you see us through His shed blood.  Please forgive us when we think the “pleasures” of this world could even compare with the pleasures of following and worshiping you!  And we thank you that after learning, “the wages of sin is death,” that we also then learn that your gift to us is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord…that we can receive forgiveness, a cleansed heart, a righteous record, and eternal love and freedom because of your great grace.  Lord, please protect the marriages in our church.  May our men love you first and therefore love their wives as Christ loved the church.  May our women love you first and therefore trust you and love and support their husbands.  May our children grow up seeing their moms and dads loving you together as a couple and grow up to do the same with their spouses…that you may be honored and that they would receive the blessing of living according to truth and wisdom.

Today’s passage: Proverbs 4

Helpful thoughts:

• Wisdom, understanding and good doctrine are all tied together.  You can’t have one without the others.
• We are to pursue and hold onto good instruction like our life depends on it, because it does (Verse 13).
• What is in our hearts comes out through our words and actions.
  • Matthew 5:10-20 – ¹⁰ And he called the people to him and said to them, “Hear and understand: ¹¹ it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person.” ¹² Then the disciples came and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?” ¹³ He answered, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up. ¹⁴ Let them alone; they are blind guides. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.” ¹⁵ But Peter said to him, “Explain the parable to us.” ¹⁶ And he said, “Are you also still without understanding? ¹⁷ Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled? ¹⁸ But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. ¹⁹ For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. ²⁰ These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone.”

Questions to consider:

1. Which actions did Solomon call on his hearers to do in the first 13 verses?  What ways do we get wisdom, understanding, instruction and good doctrine?
2. Why must the wicked do wicked things?  What does verse 17 compare their wicked acts with?  If they hunger and thirst for wickedness, and then are bewildered at how things could have gone wrong in life (Verse 19), what hope do they have of figuring out what’s wrong on their own?  What do they need?
3. When we do something wrong, sometimes people say, “That wasn’t me! I’m not like that!”  Is that a true statement?  Why do we do the things we do (Verse 23)?  How does this chapter in Proverbs answer the question, “How do I change my desires to be godly?”

Prayer:

Father, thank you for giving us your word through the Scriptures!  Please work in our hearts as we seek the truth, understanding, good doctrine and wisdom.  May the truths we read and hear from your word root out of our hearts sinful desires that they may be replaced by godly desires and love for you.  Purify our hearts that good fruit may come out of our mouths and be displayed in our actions.

Today’s passage: Proverbs 3

Helpful thoughts:

• Jesus isn’t just the Lord of your destination, He’s also the Lord of your path.
• Binding God’s word around our neck and writing it our hearts conveys the idea of diligently working to put God’s word in our thoughts which results in seeing God’s word displayed in our lives.
  • A person who is wise in his own eyes does not look to anyone else for help and therefore will not seek and learn from the Lord.
• God’s glorious will for your life is to make you like Jesus (Romans 8:29).  Because He loves you, He’s giving what is best.  Because He delights in you, He corrects you.
  • What God gives us is better than wealth.
• Solomon even included God’s credentials in verses 19-20.  He is worthy and qualified for us to trust in Him!

Questions to consider:

1. How do verses 5-7 contrast with the ideas of “finding yourself” and “speaking your truth?”  When do we truly find ourselves?  When do we truly understand wisdom?
2. How much of our hearts does God require?  In how many of our ways should we acknowledge Him?  How many of our possessions are for His honor?
3. What kind of a person would God have us to be among our community according to verses 27-35?  What reasons should the community have reason to come to us?

Prayer:

Father, we praise you for Your wisdom!  Your knowledge exceeds our capacity to imagine!  And your perfect knowledge and wisdom is always translated perfectly to righteous and wise actions.  We fall short, and we often forget that we aren’t as wise and smart as we think we are.  Thank you for your amazing grace to us through Jesus Christ, who didn’t just die to make us wise, but died because we refused your wisdom and sinned.  As we walk in faith, in Christ, please guide us according to Your word.  May we learn to seek your wisdom in ALL our ways, in ALL our thoughts, with ALL the possessions You have given for our stewardship…even when that includes correction and discipline.  Thank you for being our loving Father!

Today’s passage: Proverbs 2

Helpful thoughts:

• If you treasure the word of God, you will incline your ear to it.  If you incline your ear to it, you will understand the fear of the Lord and grow in knowledge.
  • With greater knowledge and fear come greater delight in God’s word.  What a wonderful cycle.
  • When we are not delighting in God and His word, we are delighting in something.
• The immoral seductive woman of Proverbs 2:16-19 could be applied as a contrast to the woman “Wisdom” who cried out in 1:20-33.  The immoral woman seduces with her words and leads victims down paths toward death.
  • There is a battle being waged for your mind and heart.  Who you hear shapes how you think, act and feel.
• Understanding righteousness, justice and equity bring deliverance from evil.  This is a rescue mission!

Questions to consider:

1. Where are all the places you hear words, ideas, philosophies, etc. (Think people, television, radio, internet, family, and more)?  How do you think you are doing at looking at the world through the lens of Scripture as opposed to looking at the world and Scripture through a lens from the world?  How would you know you are rightly evaluating your progress in this?
2. Is pleasure only for evil things?  What role does pleasure and delight play in both evil desires and righteous desires?  What shapes or changes our desires so that we would take pleasure in God and in what is good?
3. We may think sometimes that the battle against sin starts when temptation comes.  What does this chapter have to say about that?  When does the battle against sin and for righteousness begin?  If we regularly wait to try to battle against sin after the temptation has already come, will we be ready to face it victoriously?

Prayer:

Father, thank you for your kindness in giving us your word!  In our sinful state we all choose sin, we all fall short of your glory.  So we also thank you for the grace you showed us in sending Christ to die in our place, for our sin.  Thank you for putting his righteousness to our account.  And thank you for giving us new life and freedom from our bondage to sin, so that we might read your word and truly delight in its truth.  Lord, please help us and guide us in the truth, that we would see its wonder and beauty, that it would draw us to praise and to delight in you more than we would delight in the seductive, prideful, and deathly pleasures of this world.  May we walk in victory as we eagerly pursue you in love, reverence, and adoration.

Today’s passage: Proverbs 1

Helpful thoughts:

• James 1:5-6 – If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind.
  • As we begin to read through this book, let’s ask God to richly bless us with wisdom and with faith to stand firm in the truths we learn.
• Wisdom is tied to being willing to hear, listen, learn, receive counsel, etc.
  • Fearing the Lord results in a willingness to humbly hear from Him.  Fools think they know everything and despise being corrected.
• One common tool in Hebrew poetry is parallelism.  For example, hearing from your father and your mother in verse 8 goes together.  They are not separate commands and could be applied either way and together as one command, “listen to your parents.”

Questions to consider:

1. What does it mean to fear the Lord?  Why is it right?  How does the gospel remedy our problem of a fear of justice and free us to have a reverential fear?  How do we read our Bibles, view our days, handle our relationships when we are firmly rooted in a reverential fear of the Lord?  When we don’t reverence God, how do you build that up?
2. What does seeking after greedy gain result in?  Why would people be prone to listen and go along with a group like this in the first place?  Even if a Christian simply desires the idea of friendships, and that motivates them to go along, what was still the main motivator for their actions?  How will we see people and interact with them when we are truly loving them and loving God first?
3. When do people tend to decide they are ready for wisdom…before or after calamity comes?  Why does being “simple” seem/feel more appealing than being wise?  What changes does gaining wisdom require of us?

Prayer:

Father, please give us your wisdom!  May we humbly and reverently come to your word with eagerness, ready to receive truth, ready to learn more about who you are, and ready to change and grow.  We thank you that through the shed blood of Jesus Christ, we do not have to fear you in terror, but that in Christ we can respect you as our Father.  Please give us ears to hear, minds that are continually transformed in truth, desire to keep learning and growing, and hearts to love you and love others in sincerity, in righteousness, and in wisdom.