Proverbs 1

(Click here if you missed the introduction to this series)

Proverbs is always an interesting book for me to get into. At first read, some parts of it are absolute genius and the other parts feel downright offensive. It is important to understand that the entire purpose of this book is to teach wisdom as stated in the first sentence.

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; wisdom and instruction fools despise. ~ Proverbs 1:4

This verse is often quoted and to me, rightly so. There's so much in here, but it is often overlooked. What I find abstract about this verse is the phrase, "the fear of the LORD." I think it's because I either get confused by the word "fear" or I non-critically take in this "Christian lingo" phrase due to overuse. However, as some of you may have noticed in your Bible's footnotes, "the fear of the LORD" refers to reverential fear and respect for God on account of his sovereignty, goodness and justice toward men. If we understand it like this, then we realize that it's not a fear where we need to be terrified that God is going to smite us for every little wrong thing we do, but rather a humility before the Lord which acknowledges that He is God and we are not. I think this is huge because many of us live, whether we admit it or not, like we are our own God. We might acknowledge God with our lips, but our actions and our thoughts all give the impression that we are in control and that we must make things happen.

How then is this the beginning of knowledge?

The only way to learn something is to be open to learning it. It's as simple as that. The beauty is, then, that if we don't see God as God (omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient), then our hearts won't be open to hearing/learning what He has to say. It seems that many of us lack enough affirmation/love/security in our lives that we spend a big part of it trying to assert ourselves and convince others that we've got it figured out or we know what we're doing (or maybe it's just me). But what this does is that it effectively makes ourselves God and our hearts become hard, no longer open and teachable. I have found in my life that when I am in awe of God and the fact that He would send His only Son to die on the cross for me, it is then when I become open to making changes in my life and as a result, I gain wisdom. This then snowballs into being able to make wiser future decisions and creates opportunities to be able to pass that on to others. Funny how that works...