Proverbs: Prep School

Proverbs is not a list of memorable sayings for turning into bumper stickers or magic incantations for repeating over and over to guarantee success in business, raising children, marriage and life. It is not about the end of things. That’s Revelation. Nor is it about the beginning of things. That’s Genesis. It is not about the meaning of life. That is Ecclesiastes. It is not about Good and Evil. That would be Job. Proverbs is about learning to rule. People say you can find Christ in every book of the Bible. What you find here is establishing a pattern of character over the course of a life that leads to a desire to know Christ when, like Nicodemus, you meet him for the first time. It prepares Wisdom for encountering Goodness when it is still a long way off.

Proverbs is the work of a king who himself asked for wisdom when he was young. Now he is passing to his heirs what was given to him: the character traits and disciplines required to rule. The sons will one day be rulers and someday carry the burden of that responsibility. These proverbs are part of their prep school curriculum. This is their inheritance. The word inheritance does not simply mean a gift that will enrich the child. It is also the word for assignment or a weight to shoulder. That is exactly what the father is doing here.  He is preparing the young man for his inheritance of responsibility and his assignment of caring for the lives of other people. We totally misread Proverbs if we think of it only as tips for personal improvement or a better life. Proverbs is first and foremost about learning to rule.

What are the proverbs you remember from your father and mother? My guess is they have stuck with you far more than many you have read or heard others say.

“Do the right thing - even when it is the hard thing.”

“Wealth is a good servant and a terrible master.”

“Reputation is what people say about you. Character is who you are.”

These remain in my life because I learned them from people I respected. I still hear their voices as they were spoken to me. The same is true here. They are not just lists of sayings. They are not promises and guarantees to be glibly applied. They are the learnings and instructions from a person of experience we respect. That is why Solomon says at the outset, “The respect of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge and it is fools (people who have no respect for God) who despise wisdom and discipline.”  Without these traits a person cannot be trusted with responsibility. They are unfit to govern. What is the inevitable result of not paying attention to the voice of wisdom? Calamity - personal and national. That is the end of fools. Maybe not right away but inevitably. "They will eat the fruit of their ways and be filled with the fruit of their schemes. For the waywardness of the stupid (senseless) will kill them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them.”

Eton College was founded by King Henry VI as a charity school to provide free education to 70 poor boys who would then go on to King’s College, Cambridge, founded by the same King in 1441. Eton has educated prime ministers, world leaders, Nobel laureates and generations of the aristocracy and has been referred to as “the chief nurse of England’s statesmen”. Think of Earth as Eton. Think of yourself as one of the poor who are being prepared not just for college but for a place, a role, in a future Kingdom whose King will reign forever and ever. That is what your life is about now. It is not about the outside but the inside. It is not exclusively about now but later. It is not about who you are but who you are becoming – and who you will one day be. Jesus said, “I go to prepare a place for you” and every single day you are being prepared for that place now.

We live in an attention economy where everything competes for our notice. Wisdom calls out but, yes, it is easier to give attention to the noise and tweets of fools, mockers and slanderers but the voices of wisdom are there if we will listen. Wisdom shouts but we too often ignore her voice for the angry and shameless voices of others who call us to destruction.

Yes, this book is for life now but please consider Proverbs as ultimately our preparation to rule and have responsibilities in the life to come we cannot begin to imagine. Let’s not have to spend the first semesters of eternity in remedial work undoing what we have become in following the wrong people and voices. Pay attention to Wisdom’s voice and turn away from the noisy nonsense of fools. 

Let’s prepare for our inheritance and the place that is prepared for us.

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