Posted by Kristi on September 02, 2002 at 22:19:31:
In Reply to: proverbs posted by Bryon Schulz on September 02, 2002 at 18:06:17:
Well, I typed this once and forgot to save it. So you might be confused by the PS that got posted first. Sorry. Oh well, it's worth repeating:
Hey, Bryon! Long time, no talk! I love the Proverbs, although I wasn't thrilled when my mom made me read a chapter for each day of the month.
They are Proverbs, or altruisms. They are meant to teach wisdom, not to be Levitical laws--not that it we are governed by the Levitical laws. As the Pharisees proved by dedicating their lives to the laws yet murdering Christ, we cannot be made holy no matter how we try to keep the laws. Only by God's grace are we made holy. You know this, but I feel like you are searching for more of an answer. There is no more. The only way is to accept that His grace is enough, then through the humility that comes from giving up that kind of self-(righteous)-control, we are created--step by faulty step--into pure creatures. No more than mercy.
However, it is definitely a book of Wisdom. Wisdom taught but not always adhered to, as we insist on learning the hard way. In the Proverbs, truths are told. By falling into the bed of the loose woman or man, it becomes difficult to rise again. And when we try, we are riddled with such guilt that we are tempted to return to the track of the Law and decide we failed to the point of no return. It is easy to become so distracted from the Grace we accepted that we refuse to look up into the arms of Jesus and see that He knew and forgave already. It's also easy to give in to total decadence, or to fall in love, as God created an instinctive bonding through sex that is hard to break (trust me, I know this stuff). That's what Solomon was trying to say, and trust me, he knew.
In the Proverbs, we learn the wisdom of the ages. We learn that drinking causes lack of self-control, and also that it helps the sad-hearted to forget (although it can put the sad-hearted in debt). We learn what a good wife is, and what a good ruler should do. I think those lessons are also good for the unmarried and those whose only rule is their own flesh.
Good question! I wish we all could learn from the wisdom of the ancients instead of having to learn from experience. But then we go back to the root cause of the original sin. It's interesting that even the Cherokee believed that the lust for knowledge was the cause of the fall, and then you have Pandora's box--was it the Romans or Greeks? I guess that wisdom goes back quite a way.