Every once in a while you see a truly game-changing scenario. Like when your team was trailing by 6 runs, but the bottom of the 9th saw a 3-run homer followed by a re-loading of the bases. And now your best slugger stands at the plate, and you’ve got a fighting chance.
Proverbs 8:32-36 speaks of one of those situations. Solomon is almost through with his 9-chapter manifesto on God’s wisdom. He’s built the foundations, and he’s about to invite you into the feast: the detailed wisdom in the rest of the book. But first he’s got a few more pitches to throw. (Sorry to keep mixing metaphors, but it’s not much different from what Solomon does!) Will you stand or fall? Walk or strike out? Get a hit and stay alive, or get caught looking to retire the side?
N. Kodama (2009), Creative Commons
If you’re still not sure what to do with this thing called wisdom, Solomon issues a command, a promise, and a motivation.
And now, O sons, listen to me:
blessed are those who keep my ways.
Hear instruction and be wise,
and do not neglect it.
Blessed is the one who listens to me,
watching daily at my gates,
waiting beside my doors.
For whoever finds me finds life
and obtains favor from the LORD,
but he who fails to find me injures himself;
all who hate me love death. (Prov 8:32-36, ESV)
The Command
“Listen to me…Hear instruction and be wise, and do not neglect it.” This has been the most repeated command in these opening 8 chapters of Proverbs. Listening is:
- the responsibility of the wise (Prov 1:5)
- the prelude to discernment (Prov 1:8)
- the failure of fools (Prov 1:24)
- the pathway to God (Prov 2:1-5)
- the discipline of the favored (Prov 3:1-4)
- the urgent appeal of a father (Prov 4:1-2)
- the perception of light and life (Prov 4:10-11)
- the prerequisite for personal change (Prov 4:20-21)
- the protection of purity (Prov 5:1-2)
- the defense against destruction (Prov 5:7)
- a young man’s preservation from death (Prov 7:24-27)
- the conversion of fools (Prov 8:5-6)
And now, O sons, don’t neglect to hear instruction (Prov 8:32-33). You’ll be wise if you but listen. And if you don’t hear, you’re not a victim but a perpetrator of your own downfall.
The Promise
“Blessed are those who keep my ways…Blessed is the one who listens to me…” (Prov 8:32, 34). Repeatedly, Solomon has commanded wisdom’s reception, not out of a sense of disinterested duty but on account of a Godward self-interest. Gaining wisdom is hard work, but it’s worth it because your life will be better with it than without it. The one who listens and keeps the commands is “blessed.”
As Paul reasons elsewhere, “No one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church” (Eph 5:29). So, he says, take that innate self-passion of yours and direct it to your wife. Jesus reasons similarly in his summary of the law: You shall love your neighbor as yourself (Matt 22:37-40). He does not command us to love ourselves; he assumes we already do. And he expects us to love others with the same degree of fervency.
So with Solomon. Do you want what’s best for yourself? Really? If so, you’ll value what God thinks best over what you think best, since God’s best is better than your best. Hear the one you fear, be willing to change everything, and be blessed.
The Motivation
On the one hand, there is wisdom, life, and the Lord’s favor (Prov 8:35). On the other hand, there is self-injury and necrophilia (Prov 8:36). Your choice. Do such things motivate you to listen up? When you get this, nothing will stay the same.
The command, promise, and motivation: These are game-changing facts about God’s wisdom. “Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Phil 3:8).
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