MTP01 From The Beginning

I’ve always been asking questions since I can remember. And usually the reason for the questions are for answers.  (Sometimes I ask to be awkward and make other people work hard or put people off questions.  Hey, it does its job.)  I want to know answers so that I can know what to do with the answers.  There’s a saying that knowledge is power and I believe that to be very true.

It’s one thing to have knowledge, though and another thing to understand why the knowledge is the way it is.  Going on further now that you know and understand, when do you apply all that and how?  One of the reasons I reckon for a lot of the man-made problems in the world is that people didn’t understand the power they possess and even on understanding chose not to take instruction as to when and how to apply it.  For me that combination of factors is called wisdom.  For the benefit of the exercise that equation is knowledge + understanding x appropriate application = wisdom.

Back to the questions though, one of the questions I asked often earlier in life was what is the point?  What is the point of life?  Forget why are we here, I just wanted to know why am I here?  That purpose of life question.  I was not satisfied with the answers coming my way.  Church was boring.  The night life my peers carried on with seemed pointless as well.  I was concerned that it was just getting a job and then falling into a monotonous routine of work, home, church and the whole pattern over again.

Proverbs seems to have been written for people like me and the key to that purpose question is back to that crucial matter of wisdom.  If you gain knowledge and instruction and follow the way of wisdom there is a guarantee that the purpose of life will emerge and also there will be a way to enjoy life – not just for you but for others.

There have been others who have also sought the way of wisdom and much has been written in terms of wise sayings and the like from a plethora of sources.  What marks Proverbs out though is not the writer, but the source that the writer uses as marked out in verse 7.

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.

I could go on about what the fear of the LORD is, but just for the benefit of this opening it is so important to get it right from the beginning.  In the beginning the point of the book is like the point of life – know wisdom, instruction, understand to get to know how to deal wisely, rightly and justly in life, so that us young and simple people will walk prudently and discreetly.  To do all that from the beginning, takes a healthy reverence that it is all about the LORD – and not about ourselves.  So if it’s all about Him that reverential approach would suggest that if we want to get things right from the start, it’s best going to the Source of knowledge, wisdom and understanding.  Proverbs don’t make sense otherwise.

For His Name’s Sake

Shalom

dmcd