The Ambassador Group

The Book of Proverbs

1. Proverbs: The Call of Wisdom

0. Proverbs: Introduction to the Book of Proverbs

2. Proverbs: From Ears to Feet

3. Proverbs: A Matter of Life and Death

4. Proverbs: Divine Wisdom

5. Proverbs: The Blessings of the Righteous

6. Proverbs: What You See Is Not What You Get

7. Proverbs: Dealing With Fights

8. Proverbs: Words of Wisdom

9. Proverbs: Words of Truth

10. Proverbs: Behind the Mask

11. Proverbs: Living By Faith

12. Proverbs: The Humility of the Wise

13. Proverbs: Women and Wine

Welcome to Words of the Wise, an introduction to the Book of Proverbs, by Dr.

Jacques Biducan, brought to you by the Ambassador Group.

A Matter of Life and Death Ponder the path of your feet, and let all your ways be established.

Remove your foot from evil." Proverbs 4, verse 26 and 27, New King James Version.

Science has demonstrated that hearing impacts how we walk, and that even our balance is influenced by how well we hear.

So, instruction, or education, that is, what we hear is crucial to how we live.

Proverbs 4, verse 7 reveals that, Wisdom is the principal thing.

Yet no matter how good the instruction is, the student must pay attention.

Not without some irony, an ancient Egyptian teacher noted that, The ear of the boy is on his back.

In Egyptian art, the student was often represented with big ears on his back.

It's not enough just to know about right and wrong.

We need to know how to choose right and wrong.

Training in wisdom consists in hearing proper instruction and in following and obeying what we have learned so that we don't end up walking in the wrong direction.

As you listen, think of how we will answer these 2 questions.

And, how can you apply this truth to your own life as you seek to live in faithfulness to God.

Proverbs 4 Hear ye, children, the instruction of a father, and attend to no understanding.

For I give you good doctrine, forsake ye not my law.

For I was my father's son, tender and only beloved in the sight of my mother.

He taught me also, and said unto me, Let thine heart retain my words, keep my commandments, and live.

Forget it not, neither decline from the words of my mouth.

Forsake her not, and she shall preserve thee.

Therefore get wisdom, and with all thy getting get understanding.

She shall bring thee to honor, when thou dost embrace her.

She shall give to thine head an ornament of grace.

A crown of glory shall she deliver to thee.

Hear, O my son, and receive my sayings, and the years of thy life shall be many.

I have taught thee in the way of wisdom, I have led thee in right paths.

When thou goest, thy steps shall not be straightened, and when thou runnest, thou shalt not stumble.

Enter not into the path of the wicked, and go not in the way of evil men.

Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away.

For they sleep not, except they have done mischief, and their sleep is taken away, unless they cause some to fall.

For they eat the bread of wickedness, and drink the wine of violence.

But the path of the just is as the shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.

My son, attend to my words, incline thine ear unto my sayings.

Let them not depart from thine eyes, keep them in the midst of thine heart, for they are life unto those that find them, and health to all their flesh.

Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.

Put away from thee a froward mouth, and perverse lips put far from thee.

Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee.

Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established.

Turn not to the right hand, nor to the left.

Remove thy foot from evil." The act of hearing marks the first step in education.

In Hebrew thought, the seat of wisdom or of intelligence is located not in the brain, but in the ears.

This implies that even before we seek to conceptualize or solve a problem, we first need to hear it.

When Solomon asks for wisdom, he specifically asks for a hearing heart.

That's the literal translation of 1 Kings 3 verse 9.

The first act of wisdom, then, is to listen, which suggests that wisdom comes from an external source—in this case, the parents.

The self-made individual is an impossible concept in the domain of biblical wisdom.

Wisdom is first of all something that we receive, not something we shape with our own skills or that we unearth through our own brilliance and reasoning.

The capacity of paying attention, in the Hebrew, to put one's heart, implies the involvement of the heart.

The search for wisdom, then, is not merely a cold, objective enterprise.

The heart, which is the core of the individual and, in Hebrew thought, the seat of emotions, participates in the search for wisdom.

Let's compare Matthew 13, verse 44, and Jeremiah 29, verse 13.

What link can you find between these verses and the search for wisdom as it is expressed in Proverbs 4?

Matthew 13, verse 44 tells us, Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field, the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field.

And Jeremiah 29, 13 says, And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye search for me with all your heart.

Emotions play a crucial role in our basic existence as humans, and thus cannot and should not be ignored in our relationship with God.

How do you learn the proper place and value of emotions in regard to your spiritual life?

How have your emotions steered steered you right and wrong?

And what have you learned from these experiences?

Once we determine to walk in the way of wisdom, we still need great caution because we will meet obstacles along that way.

For example, 1 Peter 5, verse 8 instructs us to 1.

Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour." 1 of the greatest dangers we face deals with our families, the most precious, sensitive, and intimate domain of life.

My son, attend unto my wisdom, and bow thine ear to my understanding, that thou mayest regard discretion, and that thy lips may keep knowledge.

For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil.

But her end is bitter and wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.

Her feet go down to death, her steps take hold on hell, lest thou shouldest ponder the path of life, her ways are movable, that thou canst not know them.

Hear me now, therefore, O ye children, and depart not from the words of my mouth.

Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house, lest thou give thine honor unto others, and thy years unto the cruel.

Lest strangers be filled with thy wealth, and thy labors be in the house of a stranger.

And thou mourn at last, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed, and say, How have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof, and have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined mine ears to them that instructed me?

I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly.

Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well.

Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of water in the streets.

Let them be only thine own, and not strangers with thee.

Let thy fountain be blessed, and rejoice with the wife of thy youth.

Let her be as a loving hind and pleasant roe.

Let her breast satisfy thee at all times, and be thou ravished always with her love.

And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger?

For the ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord, and he pondereth all his goings.

His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins.

Series

The Book of Proverbs

2. Proverbs: From Ears to Feet

Transcript

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