Pick up a book with Bible-reading advice, and you’ll barely get your nose in before it gets mashed with the ubiquitous yet astonishingly forceful declaration: Proverbs aren’t promises! This piece of conventional wisdom is everywhere. Though it has roots in careful thinking about the genre of wisdom literature, this advice often goes too far and misses the point of the proverbs.
In almost every case, the counsel comes with strong emotion and a reference to Proverbs 22:6. Too many people have seen too many people bludgeon the hurting parents of wayward children through immature and thoughtless reference to this crucial verse about parenting. (“If you had trained your child right, he would not have walked away from the Lord.”) And the pastoral reflex is just right. This is not how to use Scripture.
But the conclusion—that proverbs are not promises—is not right. In this case, the cure is worse than the disease.
Deep Roots
Consider first, the many respectable authors and pastors who promote the conventional wisdom. They often offer sound counsel, and their sensitivity to abuse is spot on. But when discussing how to read wisdom literature, they move in synchrony:
“A common mistake in biblical interpretation and application is to give a proverbial saying the weight or force of a moral absolute.” (R.C. Sproul)
“The proverbs commend certain paths to family members because they reflect the ways God ordinarily distributes His blessings. But ordinarily does not mean necessarily…Proverbs are not promises.” (Richard Pratt)
“The particular blessings, rewards, and opportunities mentioned in Proverbs are likely to follow if one will choose the wise courses of action outlined in the poetic, figurative language of the book. But nowhere does Proverbs teach automatic success.” (Gordon Fee & Douglas Stuart)
“The proverbs are meant to be general principles.” (John Piper)
“The proverbs appear to represent likelihoods rather than absolutes with God’s personal guarantee attached.” (James Dobson)
In other words, all agree: Proverbs are general, but not universal, statements. Proverbs are usually, or ordinarily, true. They speak about what is likely, not about what is guaranteed. But proverbs certainly are not promises. They are not absolutes. We cannot bank on them completely.
Where the Roots Run Aground
But consider some amazing statements from the proverbs. And consider where we end up if we read them as probabilities instead of promises. The conventional wisdom feels right with a verse like Proverbs 22:6, but it doesn’t hold up with much of the rest of the book.
According to Lady Wisdom: “If you turn at my reproof, behold, I will pour out my spirit to you; I will make my words known to you” (Prov 1:23). According to the conventional approach, this means that only most people who turn at wisdom’s reproof will know her words. It cannot be absolutely certain that wisdom is available to those who turn to her. Some who turn will be disappointed when she rejects them anyway.
Or consider chapter 2: “My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding…if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God” (Prov 2:1-5). This can’t really mean what it says. What Solomon wants to communicate is that those who receive and treasure, pay attention and incline their hearts, seek wisdom like silver and search for it as for hidden treasure—such people might understand the fear of the Lord. Some—but not all—who seek the wisdom of God, and who seek it in the way God requires, will know God in the end. Hopefully you can be one of the lucky ones.
But it gets better. “For the Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding; he stores up sound wisdom for the upright; he is a shield to those who walk in integrity (Prov 2:6-7). Today, of course, we know that only sometimes does the Lord give wisdom. This isn’t absolute, because of course you can find wisdom in other places besides him. He’s usually the source of wisdom, but if you try other places, other deities, other schools of thought, you might also get the life you need.
Or let’s hear personified Wisdom once more: “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 8:35-36). Because this can’t be a promise, it must be only a likelihood. So those who find the fear of the Lord and walk in his wisdom might get his favor. Or they might end up still injuring themselves and dying the eternal death. Ya never know. In this broken world of ours, it’s a crap shoot. So go with the better odds; but don’t bank on any certainties.
Proverbs are Promises…With a Context
There has to be a better way to read this genre. And I contend that, when a proverb sounds like a promise, it is making a promise! And you can always trust God’s promises. When a proverb issues a command, it is making a moral absolute!
However, these promises and commands all have a context. Just as Jeremiah 29:11 was a promise with a context (not modern-day graduates, but ancient Israelites in exile), so also proverbs have a context, a specific situation at which they are aimed. And instead of seeing proverbs as “general” or “broad” statements, we need to see them for what they truly are: very specific and particular statements. They speak to the minute details of life, which is why they can even sound contradictory at times. For example, see Prov 26:4-5. One saying is always true in a certain context (where answering a fool will make you as foolish as he is), and the next statement is always true in a different context (where not answering a fool will leave him wise in his own eyes). Wise people will discern which context they find themselves in. But both statements are always true within their contexts, and absolutely so. Neither statement is a mere likelihood.
And to get more specific, the context of the Proverbs is God’s covenant with Israel. The promises of Proverbs typically involve blessings or curses for those who keep or reject the covenant stipulations to know the Lord and walk in his wisdom. Just read Proverbs 3:1-12 immediately after Deuteronomy 28, and you can’t help but observe the contextual connection. However, nobody argues that Deuteronomy 28 contains only “probabilities,” or that these covenant blessings and curses are “not promises.” No, these promises of blessing and cursing exist within the context of God’s covenant with Israel and simply require care to apply them properly to our new covenant context.
Objection #1: Why are You the Only One Saying This?
I’m not. Everyone agrees that Bruce Waltke has written “the standard commentary” on Proverbs. Yet few listen to him on this point:
“The popular evangelical solution that these are not promises but probabilities, though containing an element of truth, raises theological, practical, and psychological problems by stating the matter badly…A psychologically well person could scarcely trust God with all his heart (Prov 3:5) knowing that he usually, but not always, keeps his obligations.” (The Book of Proverbs, Chapters 1-15 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004), pp. 107-8)
Brothers and sisters, let us no longer state this matter badly.
Objection #2: What About Proverbs 22:6?
So we must return to that which set us down the false trail. What will we do with those who mistakenly read Prov 22:6 as a promise, and thus trample on faithful, wounded people who cannot control the hearts of their children?
We must understand the context to which this proverb speaks. In his book, God’s Wisdom in Proverbs (pp.353-379), Dan Phillips argues convincingly that Prov 22:6 means almost the opposite of what we tend to think. The verse doesn’t promise superhero children to those who follow the correct parenting techniques. Instead, it threatens selfish, miscreant children to those who refuse to use God’s means (the rod and the word of patient, faithful exhortation) to drive the folly from their children’s hearts.
In other words, the verse does not promise good kids to all good parents. But it does threaten bad kids to all bad parents. Train up your child according to his way. Teach him to continue loving himself and putting himself at the center of the universe. Show him over time that there are no consequences to his foolish choices. And even when he is old, he will not depart from his natural inclinations toward himself and himself alone. This is a promise.
But even this covenant curse has a context within the covenant of grace. There is always hope. The grace of our Lord overflows with the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. “And the saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.”
Photo Credit: Clark Maxwell (2010), Creative Commons
This post was first published in 2016.
Disclaimer: Above, Amazon links to great books are affiliate links. If you click those links, I promise you I will usually receive a small commission, ordinarily at no extra cost to yourself. But you never know when Amazon may change the terms of their agreement with me. Don’t read such probabilities as absolute promises. Click only if you dare to dig into this topic further.
what is the exegesis to show that prov. 22:6 is a “negative?” how does “Dan Phillips argue convincingly” about this?
That’s a great question, Jake, and you shouldn’t agree with it merely because I assert it. 🙂 However, it’s far too big a question for me to answer in a comment. That’s why I direct you to the cited pages in Phillips’s book.
Here is a great textual answer from Dr. Douglas Stuart
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJnnbIypnz8&app=desktop
Advance to 26:00. He provides a very convincing textual argument for the “Warning” view of Proverbs 22:6.
Thanks for brining this up! I was wondering if Peter had an opinion on the ironic sarcasm interpretation of this verse. Jason DeRouchie advanced this position in his book, “Understanding and Applying the Old Testament” but has since changed his mind: https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/train-up-a-child-in-the-way-he-should-go
Thanks for that link. That is helpful to read DeRouchie’s thoughts on the verse.
Some of the verses you’re quoting as defeaters for the claim that proverbs aren’t promises, are not themselves proverbs.
Just because the genre of Proverbs is “wisdom literature,” that doesn’t mean that every proposition in it is of a kind.
It’s actually not hard to tell the difference between a generalization about how the world works, and a claim about the character of God.
Not every verse in the prophets is a prophecy, either.
I agree with Rasqual here. I believe this is the most concise way to explain it:
1) “Indeed, Proverbs are not promises.”
BUT
2) “Not all statements in the book of Proverbs are proverbs.”
It is helpful, in particular, to notice that much of Proverbs 1-9 is not proverbial but contains promises from God’s mouth to our ears regarding wisdom, e.g. If we seek it, God guarantees we will find it. No ‘maybe’ about it. Most of the proverbs in Proverbs are contained in chapter 10ff. I think it is noteworthy that *all* of Peter’s examples in the article were from Proverbs 1-9 and would simply fall into category 2 above.
Even if Dan Phillip’s explanation of Proverbs 22:6 is the correct understanding (and I think it probably is), this still hasn’t proven that Proverbs are promises because, as you point out Peter, “there is always hope” even in the times before the new covenant. For example, if Proverbs 22:6 was a promise in the covenant of law then how did king Hezekiah turn out so great with such an awful parent in Ahaz. Again, I agree that Dan Phillip’s explanation is likely the correct understanding, but I don’t see how this makes the verse into a promises. Good parents are not guaranteed good children any more than bad parents are guaranteed bad children. Generally speaking, bad parenting leads to a bad outcome and vice-versa but not always.
I am curious, Peter, how Proverbs 15:1, for example, can be taken as a promise? In what sense is it a promise from God that “a soft answer turns away wrath but grievous words stir up anger” — does God supernaturally intervene in these situations to make it so? In experience, if a person is intent on being angry my soft words do not guarantee they will turn from their anger, additionally, if I am intent on remaining patient no amount of grievous words spoken towards me can shake me from the fruit of the spirit in me. Well, it seems to me that it is helpful to note that Proverbs 15:1 is not a promise from God but “a true explanation of how life generally works”.
-Josh
Hi! I am a pastor from Ohio in the Christian and Missionary Alliance denomination. I was speaking on Exo 20:12 – Love your “Father and Mother” this past Sunday, and during my message, I made the statement, “Proverbs are not promises – but rather, God-Blessed principles for life.” I gained this perspective through my seminary studies and being exposed to world class biblical scholars and conservative pastors like:
Douglas Stuart – John Piper – Timothy Keller – Ravi Zacharias – Paul David Tripp – Thomas Schriner – and others who hold the “Probability/Principles View.”
I had a church parishioner come up to me after the service, ready to leave the church, because he believed I was speaking herasy with that statement. I’m meeting with him tomorrow to try and seek unity – please pray for me!
I appreciate your citation of Bruce Waltke, as he is a world-class scholar, however, I believe you have misrepresented him with your (…) I don’t have the proverbs commentary that you mentioned, so I tracked down an article which is a direct quote from that work:
https://faculty.gordon.edu/hu/bi/ted_hildebrandt/otesources/20-proverbs/text/articles/waltke-provtoomuch-aus.pdf
After reading the words you mentioned above, I urge you (and visitors to your site) to continue to read Dr. Walkte’s view of this matter:
“Acceptable Solutions – Let us now turn to four solutions that I find helpful. First, most would agree that these promises are partially realized in our experience. Though keeping the proverbs does not guarantee “success” under the sun, nevertheless, experience often vindicates them.”
Keep Reading…
“Individual proverbs express truth, but, restricted by the aphorism’s demand for terseness, they cannot express the whole truth. By their very nature they are partial utterances which cannot protect themselves by qualifications.”
– WALTKE: DOES PROVERBS PROMISE TOO MUCH? 325
I think you have mis-cited Dr. Waltke in your article and respectfully request you remove this defense from your argument. I truly want to serve the Lord, and am looking for credible arguments to support this alternative position, but I cannot find any. Can you suggest some?
Thanks Brother!
Hi Jeffrey, thanks for writing.
First, I am sorry that you have been accused of heresy, and that this gentleman would consider leaving the church over this statement of yours. I have prayed for your meeting with him.
I would be delighted to sit under the preaching and teaching ministry of the men you listed who might assert that proverbs aren’t promises. This is certainly not a central issue to the faith. I’m not opposing heresy; it is simply an issue of a misleading label, of a position that contains elements of truth but states the matter badly. The position I argue against has roots in careful thinking about the genre of wisdom literature. It just often goes too far.
It’s rather ironic, isn’t it, that our attempt to explain why proverbs can’t be universal principles (either universal commands or universal promises) produces a universal principle for their interpretation?
Second, I don’t believe I have misquoted Dr. Waltke. My proposal for how to read proverbs (as promises *with a context*) comes right from Dr. Watlke’s explanation, including the further selections you quoted in your comment. If we assume that proverbs are speaking to “success in this life, under the sun,” we must end up asserting that they must be only probabilities. But this is only part of the truth. It can be more helpful to see that “success in the here and now” is not the complete context to which the proverbs are speaking.
As Dr. Waltke is careful to assert: “Individual proverbs express truth.” They do not express probabilities or likely generalities. That distinction is the key point at issue here.
One purpose of the genre of wisdom literature, and especially the sub-genre of proverb, is to make us think. Every proverb requires deep meditation on the truth it contains. In which situations will this truth apply? In which situation will it not apply? What is it addressing? What is it not addressing?
Such meditation makes sense because the proverb speaks truth and not simply probability. It is the glory of kings to search out the meaning and proper application of this truth. And that quest defies over-simplification and over-generalization to a universal, interpretive rule of thumb.
Third, unfortunately I cannot suggest any further scholarship that tackles this misleading label head-on the way Waltke does. But even for those who claim that Proverbs aren’t promises: I encourage you to look a little further. How many of the men you listed argue for that conclusion, and how many simply assert or assume it?
May the Lord bless your ministry of the word!
This section confuses me
“Today, of course, we know that only sometimes does the Lord give wisdom. This isn’t absolute, because of course you can find wisdom in other places besides him. He’s usually the source of wisdom, but if you try other places, other deities, other schools of thought, you might also get the life you need.”
I can’t tell the tone this is said in, though I’ve read it many times over. Do we get wisdom from other deities? God is not the only source of wisdom?
Sorry for the confusion. I am being satirical in that paragraph. I am not saying that that is true, but that this is implication of believing that proverbs are only probabilities and not certainties. Does that help?
Mr. Krol,
Thank you so much for this post. I, too, hold the view that proverbial statements in the Bible are promises rather than probabilities. As you know, we are in the minority in believing that. So thank you for this post.
As to the promises being true over a wider spectrum than just “under the sun” (which I understand you to maintain, and I agree), Ps. 73:3-20 (especially v.17, “…Then I perceived their end.”) may illustrate that.
I suppose there are many, many more proverbial statements in the Bible which could be used to support the view you and I hold. Here are some I have come across in my study.
Prov. 11:22, “As a ring of gold in a swine’s snout so is a beautiful woman who lacks discretion.” A beautiful woman who lacks discretion isn’t always a bad thing; sometimes it is a good thing?
Prov. 14:27, “The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life…”. Sometimes the fear of the Lord isn’t a fountain of life?
Prov. 16:5, “Everyone who is proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord; assuredly, he will not be unpunished.” Doesn’t “assuredly” mean it’s always true?
Prov. 16:20, “He who gives attention to the word will find good, and blessed is he who trusts in the Lord.” If we give attention to God’s word we won’t always find good? We won’t always be blessed by trusting in the Lord?
Prov. 30:5, “Every word of God is tested; He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him.” God’s word cannot always stand the test? He is not always a shield to those who take refuge in Him?
For proverbs that appear to be probabilities rather than promises, I am more comfortable believing they are always true, and accepting that I may lack understanding of them, or I may be lacking in all the facts of a certain situation which may seem to make it look like the proverb isn’t always true.
One struggle I have always had with the view that proverbs are merely probabilities is I have a hard time understanding what value they are to me if I can’t bank on them, if I can’t expect them always to be true, if I can’t hang my hat on them, if I can’t trust in them with all my heart. I don’t understand what use they are to me if they aren’t true all the time.
I think that to say proverbs in the Bible are true only most of the time puts them on a level of proverbial statements the unsaved come up with. Theirs are true most of the time but not all of the time. I think it seriously diminishes God’s word to put Biblical proverbial statements on a par with those of the unsaved.
Thanks again for your post. It gives me comfort I am not alone on this issue.
Jim Raymond
Ft. Worth, TX
Hello! Thank you for your thoughtful consideration on this subject! I appreciate coming across a stance that helps bring balance to a subject that is so heavily weighted on the “Proverbs aren’t promises” side.
My conclusion is that Proverbs contain both promises and probabilities. And you can differentiate the 2 by noting if it is speaking of God’s character, then it’s an absolute and where is talking of life situations it’s a probability.
What is your opinion on that conclusion?
Thanks so much for your time!
Thanks for the insight and question. I think that’s a better position than an absolute “not promises” position, as it’s not hesitant or uncertain regarding God’s character. Even so, it still runs afoul of the same weaknesses regarding the remaining proverbs. If we presume the proverbs may or may not be true, we haven’t gotten very far. And one fruit of that position, in my observation, is that people have largely stopped studying the Proverbs. Why put in the time with something whose truth value is up for grabs?
I think it’s still far better to see proverbs as being true, where they proclaim truth, but only in those *very narrow contexts* to which they speak.
I definitely lean toward the position that 22:6 is a promise, but that it is largely misunderstood as to what it is teaching. I believe that the promise applies to the TRAINING rather than to the behavior of the child. “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it”
(Proverbs 22:6 KJV).
To paraphrase, “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from that training.” He/she may go astray, but the promise of God is, they will never be able to get the godly training out of their mind. Their heart will always remind them, “My folks taught me better than this.” “I’m breaking my mother’s heart.” The grown child will have to step over that training if they choose to live in sin and and away from God. That gives encouragement to all parents knowing that they didn’t necessarily mess up In raising their children; their child simply chose to follow the dictates of their own fleshly nature and they will bear the fruit of their decisions. Regardless, he’ll never be separated from the godly teaching they received at home. When he pillows his head at night, his conscience will remind him.
This post is so refreshing. It is fair and balanced while expressing the conviction that God’s Word deserves.
I believe it is impossible to read Proverbs without giving assent to the truth set forth therein. The very fact that a statement can be true makes it a promise. And indeed the statements themselves claim to be true. If they are not, they are then to be shunned as false claims. We can’t read a book built upon antithesis with qualified nuance. Just as the syntax of the proverbs posits two extremes–the godly way and the ungodly way (as does Psalm 1), we must read the Proverbs from a moral clarity that acknowledges two promised outcomes of life.
The link below presents yet another (very weak) argument that proverbs are not promises. I detect an underlying desire to imply that the book of Proverbs is not unique among ancient wisdom literature.
https://prodigalthought.net/2024/05/01/proverbs-are-not-promises/comment-page-1/#comment-173111
as the “better than proverbs” reveal, life under the sun does not always vindicate the observations. The book acknowledges that there are exceptions. The exceptions, however, are only temporary because the end (in God’s final judgment) will bring a grand reversal to the wrongs of this life (see: Proverbs 11:7; 14:12).
Can the promises in the book of Proverbs be taken seriously?
https://thinkpoint.wordpress.com/2013/03/12/does-proverbs-promise-too-much-2/