How to Become Wise
Proverbs 2: 1-22
We all want to be happy. We do not know of anyone who in his right mind would purposely do things which they know will make them unhappy. It is safe to assume that everyone pursues a path which they think will ultimately lead them to happiness.
The fault is not in the pursuit as much as in the object of the pursuit. Many people have a selfish perspective of life – that they exist solely to be happy, and they spend their lives trying to make themselves happy through various avenues of self-gratification. Some people rightly under-stand that happiness is only possible when we are living life according to God’s directions. In other words, if we want to be happy we need to pursue God not self. If your focus in life is on self, you can expect to be extremely miserable. If your life focus is upon God and learning about Him and seeking to please Him, you will be happy.
In Proverbs 2, Solomon gets down on our level and shows us practical steps we can take to become wise. He’s already given the big picture in chapter 1; now he gives details on the proc-ess. Here we’ll find, not just what we need to know, but what we need to do.
Proverbs 2 has a tight logic:
If you listen – 1-4
Then you’ll get started on the path of wisdom – 5
Why? Because God wants to make you wise – 6-8
Then you’ll continue to grow in wisdom – 9
Why? Because wisdom will change you – 10
Result: you’ll make different choices that protect you – 11
(1) From violent men – 12-15
(2) From adulterous women – 16-19
For endurance on the right path – 20-22
What is clear in this passage is that there is a responsibility put upon man to seek after wisdom which will bring about the fear of God . God doesn’t force us to do His will or to obey Him. , but we must choose this day Whom we will serve.
The reader is warned that just as there are great benefits to living in wisdom, there are likewise serious consequences for pursuing the selfish path which is devoid of true wisdom (vv. 20-22).
Therefore those who seek wisdom leads them to true happiness, because it protects them from evil influences which ultimately harm us and cause us shame and sorrow.
Through wisdom, God delivers His own from the wicked influences of men. Being influenced by wicked men means a person is ultimately lead into the very actions of the wicked, which is why Solomon said that wisdom is given “to deliver you from the way of evil.” - 2:12. Falling into the way of evil is the result of being influenced by “the man who speaks perverse things.” To be fooled by the perverse ultimately results in living like the perverse. Wisdom enables a person to identify the wicked and identify their perverse ideas( discretion will protect you - verse 11) God’s Word prepares the mind of the believer so that he is not duped by the wicked philosophies around him.
Furthermore, according to verse 13, wisdom is given to deliver a person “from those who leave the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness.” This is simply a restatement of the previous verse for emphasis. The wicked (those who are not rightly related to God and there-fore, do wicked things) are those who have left the “paths of righteousness” – they don’t care about living according to that which is right. They forsake God’s way so that they can walk “in the ways of darkness” – ways characterized by sin.
Furthermore, God’s Word gives wisdom so that the believer is protected from those “Who rejoice in doing evil, And delight in the perversity of the wicked.” The repetition continues to add emphasis to the seriousness of the issue. The wicked “rejoice in doing evil.” So, it is not that they wicked aren’t happy, they are happy because of evil and perversity. However, such happiness is founded upon ungodliness. Therefore, the happiness they experience blinds them to the ultimate destruction which lies ahead.
Finally, Solomon concluded this section by saying God’s Word functions to protect the wise from those “Whose ways are crooked, And who are devious in their paths.” - 2:15. This not only re-states the character of the wicked (crooked), but also reveals the methodology of the wicked (devious). The wicked use deceitful means to trick others into following their wicked schemes. Therefore, God’s Word gives wisdom to protect the wise from the devious ways of those who have forsaken God’s ways which lead to true happiness.
God’s Word, when properly understood and applied, protects the believer from deceitful and wicked influences which threaten to destroy one’s life.
Note the contrast with the greedy and violent men in Proverbs 1:13 who sought ‘all precious substance’ and to ‘fill their houses with spoil’. There they wanted ill-gotten gain and would do anything to obtain it. But here the search is to be for the precious substance of truth. The seeker after truth is to have the same eagerness for truth as the biblical fool has for wealth, but in his case it is to be an eagerness to obtain the discernment and understanding which will enable him to understand the fear of God and to find the knowledge of God. His longing is to be that he might be a true servant of God.
It is important to note the final goals, which are so very different from the wisdom literature of other countries. Paradoxically the aim is to understand God’s awesomeness and holiness (the fear of God), whilst at the same time coming to know Him as He is (the knowledge of God), not theoretically through theology, but practically through the experience of God. Whilst He appears to be far off, He is to be seen as ever near. Solomon said , ‘even the Heaven of Heavens could not contain Him’ (1 Kings 8:27). And yet now he confirms that He reveals Himself to those who seek Him. This is the wonder of our God.
Solomon Stresses That The Source Of True Wisdom Is God, And That He Gives It To His Own, In Order to Maintain True Righteousness, And Enable Them To Appreciate It And Walk In It (Proverbs 2:6-11).
Solomon intends his teaching to have a real and significant impact in men’s lives. Wisdom (the spirit of wisdom - Proverbs 1:23) will enter their hearts, their inner beings. Knowledge (the knowledge of God’s ways) will be pleasant in their inward lives. They will bring about genuine spiritual experience. They will have a new heart and right spirit created in them (Psalms 51:10). God will put His instruction within their inward parts and in their hearts will He write it (Jeremiah 31:33; compare Ezekiel 36:27).
Verses 16-19 continue to describe the benefits of being guided by God’s wisdom which is recorded in His Word. Through wisdom, God delivers His own from the many temptations they face in society. Verses 16-19 focus upon the temptations a young man faces from the “ adulteress " who is a “seductress.” One of the tools at her disposal is her speech: she “....with her seductive words. " causing the young man to lose perspective.
This seductress is clearly described in this passage. First, she is one who “forsakes the partner of her youth” i.e. her husband. She is unfaithful to her husband and is bent upon satisfying her sexual appetites with other men. Furthermore, she is one who “forgets the covenant of her God” Her desire to go after other men is a demonstration of the fact that she has turned her back on God the Mosaic Covenant and her marriage covenant.
Understandably Solomon warned his son of the ultimate consequences of associating with such a woman: “her house leads down to death, and her paths to the dead.” The sin of adultery under the Mosaic Covenant was punishable by death. A young man who is enticed by a woman into an illicit relationship must understand that there are serious consequences for yielding to temptation. Alternatively, the author may be using death in the sense of finality. Either way, the sense of irreversible finality is supported by verse 19: “None who go to her return, Nor do they regain the paths of life.” That same finality is mentioned in the NT. Paul said that the one who commits sexual sins harms himself, contrary to the notion that free sex is gratifying and fulfilling.
" Or do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is one body with her?" For “the two,” He says, “shall become one flesh.” (1 Corinthians 6:16)
"Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body." (1 Corinthians 6:18)
The direction and end of the wise (vv. 20-21). The “upright” , who take the instruction and grow from it, will be led in the “way of goodness” and will “keep to the paths of righteousness.” The upright will continue to dwell in the land. This OT hope of continuing in the land was based upon national obedience to the Mosaic Law. Nationally, Israel would continue to live in the promised land if the nation was obedient. However, this promise seems to be directed toward the individual rather than the nation. The individual believer is given the hope of continual existence within the land which God had promised to Abraham and his descendants.
In verse 22, however, we have a warning in the form of a description regarding the direction and end of the unwise. The “wicked” , will be “cut off from the earth” and will not be allowed into God’s kingdom to come.
Those who seek after wisdom will receive the poured out ‘spirit’ of God’s Wisdom (Proverbs 1:23). And the consequence is that the one who receives it will be watched over by Discretion - (verse11) and preserved by Understanding. What is " discretion or discernment" It is not the ability of knowing the truth from falsehood. But it is the ability of knowing the truth and what seems to be the truth.
First Thessalonians 5:21-22 teaches that it is the responsibility of every Christian to be discerning: "But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good; abstain from every form of evil." The apostle John issues a similar warning when he says, "Do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world" (1 John 4:1).
Understanding discernment or discretion will protect what we love and enjoy and care about and enable us to walk in an entirely different direction from that of folly, so the enticements of the wicked described in verses 12 through 19 become no enticements at all. Instead, they be-come obviously self-defeating and undesirable.
Truth will be his preserver, delivering him from false steps. Note the personification of ‘discretion’ and ‘understanding’, which can be seen as like twin sheep dogs preserving the flock. And it is because he has received the wisdom and knowledge of God that he will be guarded by discretion and understanding. He will thus be discreet and understanding when he faces up to the temptations of life which are now to be described, a discretion and understanding communicated to him by God.
Solomon was very conscious of the fact that one of a man’s greatest dangers in walking in the way of wisdom was the allurement and attraction of women. It is a subject that he brings up a number of times in some detail elsewhere (see also Proverbs 5:1-23; Proverbs 6:24-35; Proverbs 7:6-27; Proverbs 9:13-18). And this was an attraction that would bring about his own downfall (1 Kings 11:1-8). Indeed he was clearly aware of his own weakness. In a day when women were more closely guarded, and allowed little freedom in meeting with men, the great dangers for a young man lay in prostitutes and loose women who sought openly to attract men, or lonely and sexually experienced wives who would seek to take advantage of young men whom they fancied.
For the young man in our world today the dangers are far greater, for he lives in a world where there is more freedom in sexual matters, where women dress themselves in a manner that will cause men the maximum temptation, and where incitements to succumb abound, both in real life and on the internet. For modern man Solomon’s words must be seen in that light.
On the other hand we must not overlook the contrast between the godly woman Wisdom who calls to men with the truth (Proverbs 1:22-33), and the ‘seductive' woman who comes with her own deceptive appeal, bringing flattering words. It may well be a warning against ‘foreign wisdom’ of the wrong kind. Indeed this deliberate contrast is brought out in chapter 9 where Lady Wisdom is contrasted with Lady Folly.
The one who seeks after wisdom will be delivered from the seductive woman who forgets the covenant she made before God. Her house leads to death and none who go to her return again, nor attain to the paths of life. The ‘adulterous woman ’ is the one who is outside his normal sphere of life. She opens up a new world, and a very dangerous one. Thus the clear mes-sage is that sin leads to death, whilst the way of the good man (the man whose heart is set on God) leads to life. She is the opposite of Lady Wisdom.
In those days the greatest danger came from those women who made themselves available to men, and were skilled in the art of allurement. They were outside the young man’s normal sphere of life. The Scriptures forbade an Israelite woman to be a prostitute (Deuteronomy 23:17), but unquestionably some were.
‘She forsakes the partner of her youth’, that is, her natural husband. And she ‘forgets the covenant of her God’. Thus she betrays both man and God, as is so often the case when men break God’s covenant, for God is concerned about man’s behaviour towards man, as well as towards Himself. This last phrase is especially significant in that it establishes God’s wisdom firmly in the covenant. The idea in mind is the marriage covenant (Malachi 2: It has in mind the covenant to which Israel subscribed, and included therefore the command not to commit adultery (Exodus 20:14).. Thus Solomon's assumption is that those who follow wisdom will observe God’s covenant. Whilst the covenant is rarely specifically mentioned in Proverbs, it clearly lies at the back of much of the teaching concerning wisdom in Israel, and is almost certainly in mind in Proverbs 6:23, ‘the commandment is a lamp and the Scriptures is a light’, where both commandment and Scriptures are words regularly used of covenant requirements, e.g. Exodus 24:12; Deuteronomy 30:10’; Joshua 22:5; 1 Kings 2:3; etc.
Note in vs 18-19 the two contrasting groups of ideas, such people ‘ her house leads down into death’, are ‘ her paths to the spirits to the spirits of the dead’, and ‘and non who go to her re-turn ’.
In other words they take the way of hopelessness. And what they miss by this is ‘ or attain the paths of life’ (18-19). ‘Walking in the way of good men’, and ‘keeping the paths of the righteous’ ( 20-21) are ways which lead to God and to a wholesome and God-fearing life. Note especially that this is strictly linked to moral living. It is not just a wholesome life, it is a righteous life. In this it goes beyond wisdom teaching. This idea of the two paths is expanded on in Proverbs 4:10-27, and a parallel thought is found in Proverbs 5:5-6 where ‘her feet go down to death, her steps take hold on Sheol (the world of the dead), so that she does not find the level path of life’.
Chapter 2 ends with a contrast between what happens to the upright, and what happens to those who are not. In Proverbs 1:32-33 the contrast is between the simple and the fools, as against those who hear and respond to wisdom. Here the contrast is between the wicked and the treacherous as against those who are upright and morally mature. Thus the simple and fools reveal themselves as wicked and treacherous and in darkness, whilst the wise reveal themselves as upright and morally mature and in the light.
‘The upright (straight)’ are those who walk in the straight path. They walk in accordance with God’s instruction. In direct contrast are the ‘wicked’, i.e. the non-upright, those who deviate from the straight path. The latter are defined elsewhere in terms of violence (Proverbs 10:6; Proverbs 12:6; Proverbs 24:15), greed (1-.3; Proverbs 21:10), deceit (Proverbs 12:5) and perverse speech (Proverbs 10:32; Proverbs 11:11; Proverbs 15:28; Proverbs 19:28). Not all the wicked have all these faults.
Wickedness is any deviation from the straight path. Wickedness is thus revealed in us all.
But the wicked in Scripture are those who continue in that path, Some are violent, some are greedy, some are deceitful and some use perverse speech, but all come under the general term of ‘wicked, non-upright’.
The perfect (those who are true) contrast with the treacherous.
The ‘perfect’ walk in God’s ways and seek to do His will, the treacherous choose crooked paths, and rebel against His will.
