Proverbs 3-4

 Proverbs 3: How wisdom will bless your life

Proverbs 3:1-4 Love and faithfulness in your heart will win favor with God and man. Luke 2:52 states that as Jesus grew up, He increased n favor with God and man. Proverbs isn’t just about avoiding gangs and adulterous women; the promise of pro-active acts of righteousness is long life, peace, prosperity, love, and faithfulness. This is how heaven works.

Proverbs 3:5-6 Often quoted admonition to trust the Lord in all our ways, which, as the hymn says, means to obey Him; this passage promises that He will make straight paths for us. It is sometimes (often) a challenge to fully trust Him. That is the promise. 

But what does it mean to trust the Lord with all of your heart?

Proverbs 3:7-8 Health is promised to those who fear the Lord and shun evil.

Proverbs 3:9-10 Prosperity is promised to those who honor Him with their firstfruits. Tithing is not explicitly mentioned but the principle is there.  (Leviticus 27:30)

Proverbs 3:11-12 The Lord disciplines those He loves. It is a sign of being His child. Quoted in Hebrews 12:5-6, which elaborates. This principle requires that we recognize the spiritual realm’s influence on the natural. When we experience trouble after disobeying the Lord, these aren’t coincidences.

Proverbs 3:13-18 The true riches of God’s wisdom is not found in earthly wealth, but the tree of (eternal) life (Genesis 3:22). This life will be blessed with honor and peace.

Proverbs 3:19-20 The Lord used wisdom in the creation story revealed in Genesis 1:1-10.

Proverbs 3:21-26 The Lord will through wisdom bless your life with safety. But I have to wonder how to reconcile 3:25 with Job 1-2. Job’s ‘comforters’ used this principle to infer that Job had sinned and that caused his troubles. We know that, in the end, Job was vindicated and blessed, but the initial disaster that ruined his wealth and health and took his children seems inconsistent with this verse. The transcendent revelation that Job received after his tribulation reveals that merely human understanding of God and His ways is not on the same level as experiencing God’s presence hearing His voice directly. But He gave us this wisdom to guide us when we aren’t in His presence.

Proverbs 3:27-29 Deal respectfully with your neighbors.

Proverbs 3:30-35 Apart from avoiding violent gangs covered earlier (1:8-19; 2:12-15), on your own, do not take a perverse lifestyle - don’t be a fool, don’t mock others, don’t be wicked. In the end, fools like this will receive shame. 

Proverbs 4

Proverbs 4:1-11 A father’s admonition to his son to get and treasure wisdom, and do what wisdom says. The role of training of the young in right and wrong in their adult lives is incontestable. Some may reject their upbringing as adults, but most are profoundly and permanently shaped.

Jesus echoes 4:7 in His parable of the field and the pearl of great price (Matthew 13:44-46), that the kingdom (and wisdom) of God are so valuable that all other things are less valuable and can be discarded in favor of it. The beginning of wisdom is to recognize its value and live accordingly. The epistles promise believers a crown of righteousness (2 Timothy 4:8), a crown of life  (James 1:12), and a crown of  glory (1 Peter 5:4). A crown is a symbol of authority, of honor, a recognition, in the case of Proverbs 4:9 the glory that comes through wisdom.

Proverbs 4:12-19 Wisdom and wickedness contrasted with a metaphor of walking on a path. Once again, walking with the wicked is warned against. Those who practice (until they become perfect at?) wickedness and violence do not even understand where that path leads. They are stumbling in the darkness. Don’t set foot on that path!

Proverbs 4:20-23 Guard your heart and fix it on wisdom. Everything you do flows from your heart, just as Jesus said. (Matthew 15:15-20)

Proverbs 4:24-27 Keeping your mouth, eyes, and feet from evil is one of the practical aspects of wise living. In Hebrews 12:13, this is connected to the admonition to accept the Lord’s discipline and chastening. This follows a quote from 3:11-12 that the Lord chastens His sons whom He loves.(Hebrews 12:5-6) Do not turn to the right or left is not a political admonition, but a moral metaphor: live according to moral wisdom revealed by God.