Au revoir, Proverbs

I preached the last in our series of sermons in Proverbs on Sunday at Cowley Church Community.  We've only covered the first nine chapters, which function as a sort of prologue for the whole book.  The prologue serves to eulogise wisdom, and to urge us to get it - get it now, before it's too late.  There are three statements about the beginning of wisdom, presumably designed to get us started.  In chapter 4, the beginning of wisdom is this: get wisdom!  The first step on the path to being wise is to desire wisdom above all things.  In chapter 1 and chapter 9 the beginning of wisdom is fear of YHWH.  The gateway to wisdom is standing in awe of God, because wisdom is first of all his quality and possession.  Creation conforms to his wise design.

The overall impression I've taken away from these chapters is that the question of how we ought to live is vitally important, and that this question simply can't be abstracted from the question of who God is.  The pursuit of wisdom is the pursuit of (the knowledge of) God.  In fact, it only really makes sense to ask the question about how we ought to live if there is a wise God; otherwise, life is meaningless and the question is arbitrary, as are any answers that might be given.

Another impression that will stick with me is the stark black-and-whiteness of Proverbs.  In Proverbs, good people get good things, and bad people get bad things.  In Proverbs 9, Wisdom's feast gives life, but the party at Folly's house is full of corpses.  I'm struck by how quickly I want to rush to nuance this picture: we all know it's not that simple, and the Bible acknowledges that (and even Proverbs sometimes hints at it).  Nuance is good, but I do want to suspect my motives!  Am I just trying to blunt the point that Proverbs wants to make?  Do I actually think that God's way is intrinsically better?  Do I agree with the testimony of Proverbs (and indeed all of Holy Scripture) that all other roads lead to death?  Am I a bit embarrassed by the intolerance of it all?

A third thing that struck me is that Proverbs assumes there are people who are beyond correcting.  There is no point trying to teach a scoffer.  My first instinct is to insist against this on the power of grace to overcome all opposition - perhaps this is just an Old Testament view point.  But then I remember the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, and pearls before swine, and the sin that leads to death.  Perhaps this is a New Testament theme as well, and perhaps it should warn us against cheap optimism.

Determined simpletons

A couple of very different pieces of reading this morning have chimed with a theme that has been emerging from our studies in Proverbs at CCC.  One was a Guardian article by Rafael Behr, which I think shows some excellent insight into the way politics works.  The thing that particularly struck me, though, was this quote (emphasis added):

Anyone who has tried to extract political opinions from strangers - a niche pursuit of canvassing activists and vox-popping journalists - knows that the obligation to take a definite view is often felt as a burden.

 And then I was reading Derek Tidball's book on pastoral theology, Skillful Shepherds, and came across this (again, with my emphasis):

There probably never was a time when there was only ever one version of reality passed down from generation to generation.  But the degree and commitment to choice has never been so mind-boggling.  It has left many punch-drunk to the extent that they never choose at all.

In the Biblical book of Proverbs there are three broad groups of people: the wise, who although they already have understanding know full well that they still have much to learn, and so pay attention to the teachings of Solomon; the foolish, who have decided against wisdom and have embarked on their own false and immoral path (for in Proverbs wisdom and morality belong together), who will not listen and are therefore impossible (or near impossible) to correct; and the simple, or the naive, or the gullible.  This latter group also includes the young.  They are those who have not yet chosen.  They are not set on a course of wisdom or folly; they are teachable.  But they remain as yet simple.

It strikes me that our culture is on the whole committed to being uncommitted.  We avoid anything that might irrevocably commit us to one path or another.  We regard it as a virtue not to have strong opinions or a decided lifestyle.  We are simple.

And the warning of Proverbs is that one cannot remain in this group forever.  In fact, to stay simple is just to become foolish by default - to become hardened in a position of opposition to the wisdom which begins with the fear of the Lord.

Adultery

Tim preached us an excellent and powerful sermon from Proverbs 5 this past Sunday at Cowley Church Community.  Applying the chapter broadly, he addressed the 'pornification' of contemporary culture - something which I see the BBC is just waking up to.  It's important stuff, and it's important that we face up to it as churches and families.

This morning I started work on Proverbs 6, and of course that chapter too ends in a discussion of the dangers of adultery.  And it's there again in chapter 7.  Why this heavy emphasis?

I think the answer has something to do with the way wisdom is presented in Proverbs, and something to do with the whole Bible story.  In terms of the portrayal of wisdom in Proverbs, the fact that she is personified in chapter 8 giving a directly contrary appeal to the loose woman of chapter 7 is indicative.  The adulteress represents folly, the life lived without wisdom and without reference to the God of wisdom.  But why?  Well, wisdom is often represented in the early chapters of Proverbs as faithfulness to the received teaching.  I give you good teaching, says the father - don't forsake it!  Don't forget it!  Wisdom is being faithful to the wise teaching handed down, and not flirting with new ideas.  (This is not reactionary; it is about the father handing down the covenant testimonies of God, not just the received wisdom of the ages).  Adultery is the sexual counterpart of folly, forsaking what is good and what is yours for something else that is both forbidden and harmful.

And in the big story of the Bible, isn't that what's always going on?  Adam is unfaithful to God; humanity forgets God; Israel deserts God.  Adultery, adultery, adultery.  Hence the appeal of the apostle Paul - I betrothed you to Christ, to be spotless for him!  Don't desert him!

In a culture where adultery, and sexual immorality more widely, are rampant, we need to realise that behind the scenes this is not because of sexual liberation of any kind.  It is because we have betrayed our God, and been unfaithful to him.  Unfaithfulness breeds unfaithfulness.

Wisdom that sees beyond death

Another thought from Proverbs.  This is a book which often seems to draw an unrealistically direct line from godliness to happiness, from wisdom to prosperity.  One of the most beautiful, but also one of the most outrageous, of the statements that I've been pondering recently is in 4:18:

But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until full day.

 It's a beautiful image - the road of wisdom leads from brightness to brightness, life to life.  And the contrast with the road of folly and wickedness in the following verse is very striking.  Whilst the wicked stumble around in darkness that is so deep that they don't know what they're tripping over, the righteous advance smoothly from one glory to another.

But is that even remotely true?

Arguably, in the wider canon Ecclesiastes and Job raise questions about the link between wisdom and prosperity that is expressed in Proverbs.  But actually, even within Proverbs itself there is often the assumption that it would be worth giving up all of that prosperity in order to gain wisdom - and the wicked are almost habitually equated with the wealthy.  So obviously even here the link is not that clear cut.  But what do we do with the places where the link is made?

I think this is another reason why we can't see Proverbs, or the wisdom tradition in Israel generally, as just expressing 'common sense', or being based on some notion of 'general revelation'.  In fact, without the context of the covenant with Israel, and ultimately without the context of the resurrection of Christ and the promised resurrection of believers, these statements in Proverbs are not just questionable, but are actually cruel lies.  Only if there is resurrection is it true that wisdom leads to light, and therefore only in this context would it make sense to give up prosperity to gain wisdom.

Genuine wisdom has to look beyond death.  But that is somewhere human reason can never go - which is why the beginning of wisdom is fear of the Lord, and why we must not trust our own understanding.

Teenage Culture

One of the things you notice when you spend a little while in the early chapters of Proverbs is how much the wisdom literature emphasises listening and learning.  Here is the opening part of Proverbs 2:

My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding...

What we're dealing with here is tradition - the handing one of wisdom from one generation to the next.   And in fact, tradition is a clear theme throughout Scripture.  Consider the emphasis in Deuteronomy on the transmission of Israel's story and law, for example, or the apostle Paul handing on the gospel to younger co-workers (and expecting them in turn to do the same).  In the post-apostolic period, this theme of tradition is continued and developed, as the churches seek to ensure that what is being passed on is what they received from the apostles.

Now, there can be no doubt that the idea of tradition can go to seed.  In general terms, it can lead to some sort of gerontocracy, or a setup where there can be no questioning whatsoever of 'received wisdom'.  In the church, Roman Catholicism in many ways represents the notion of tradition gone to seed.  But tradition is nonetheless a basically sound, Biblical concept.  It is based on the idea that something has been received which must be passed on, and the clearest example is of course the witness to the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.  These events took place once, in a particular place, in the midst of particular people - and without tradition, they would remain absolutely closed to the whole of the rest of humanity.  What the apostles received, they had to pass on.

By contrast, our culture is youth culture.  We must be continually reinventing the wheel.  We know that nothing that has gone before is of any value, except perhaps as a dark backdrop to illustrate our own dazzling brilliance.  It's like the whole culture is one big teenager, who knows for sure that his parents know nothing at all, who knows that they don't understand what it's like to be the astonishing, unique individual that I am, who is sure that a bright future lies just over the horizon if we can only wrest control away from the deadening hand of the past generation.  In this sort of culture, tradition represents the great evil - the extension of the past into the future, the refusal to give us the blank canvas which our genius surely deserves.

Can I suggest that the church needs to work harder at being counter-culture in this regard?

Where is wisdom?

I was attempting to preach from Proverbs 1 on Sunday, and have been particularly struck over the last few days by the speech of Wisdom in the latter part of the chapter.  Broadly speaking, I think these early chapter of Proverbs present us with three groups of people: the wise, who have knowledge and understanding (and also the awareness to know that they still need to learn more!); the simple (or the naive, or the young), who are not yet wise but are also not yet hardened in a life of folly- they are teachable, and have the potential to become wise; and the fools, who have decisively rejected wisdom and are living in their own way as they please.  The key difference between the groups - the thing which divides them - is the fear of the Lord.  To reverence and stand in awe of God and his word is the gateway to wisdom, a gateway through which the wise have already passed, before which the simple stand in indecision, and away from which the fools have contemptuously turned.

Wisdom's call is to both the simple and the foolish: those who have not yet begun to follow her, and those who have decisively turned away.  Both are called to turn and (re)consider the value of a wise life.  But Wisdom also holds out a stern warning for those who do not turn: there will come a time when they will seek wisdom and will not be able to find her.

Then they will call upon me, but I will not answer;
they will seek me diligently but will not find me.

When disaster comes, foolish and simple alike will be asking 'where is wisdom?' - and the answer will be that she is laughing, mocking.  They would not have Wisdom on her terms, and now that they have finally come to see their need of her - too late! - they will not have her on any terms.

Because they hated knowledge
and did not choose the fear of the Lord,
would have none of my counsel
and despised all my reproof,
therefore they shall eat the fruit of their way,
and have their fill of their own devices.

The application to our national life and contemporary culture does not seem too difficult!