Proverbs

Purpose & theme

Proverbs is a book of practical wisdom for living skillfully in God’s world. Where the Psalms teach us how to pray and worship, Proverbs teaches us how to walk — how to handle our words, our money, our work, our relationships, our appetites, and our decisions in a way that fits the grain of reality God has built into creation. Its foundational conviction is stated at the outset and repeated throughout: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge” (1:7). Wisdom is not merely cleverness or information; it is the God-centered skill of living rightly, and it begins with reverent submission to the LORD.

The book sets before us two ways and their two ends. There is the path of wisdom, righteousness, diligence, and self-control, which generally leads to life, honor, and flourishing; and there is the path of folly, wickedness, laziness, and unrestrained desire, which leads to ruin and death. Its many short sayings are not iron-clad promises but wise observations of how life usually works under God’s moral order, calling the reader to choose the way of wisdom. Personified as a gracious woman calling in the streets, and pictured as present with God at creation, Wisdom herself points beyond the book to Christ, “the wisdom of God,” in whom all the treasures of wisdom are hidden.