Proverbs
Proverbs is the Bible’s book of wisdom for the street, the shop, the table, and the home — and it begins where all true knowledge begins: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge.” The opening chapters set two voices before every young traveler: Lady Wisdom crying aloud in the street and the forbidden woman whispering in the dark, two paths and two houses with two very different ends. From chapter 10 onward the sentence proverbs fall like hammer blows, sharpening one another line by line — the righteous and the wicked, the soft answer and the fool’s mouth, the sluggard and the diligent, wealth gained hastily and the little with the fear of the LORD, the friend who loves at all times and the plans of the heart established by God. The book closes with the sayings of Agur, the oracle of King Lemuel’s mother, and the excellent wife whose portrait ends where the book began: a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised. Read through a biblical lens, Proverbs describes the wisdom by which the LORD founded the earth — wisdom that took flesh in the one greater than Solomon, who became for us wisdom from God. Each chapter has a full deep study and a short summary handout.