The End of Wisdom
Opening Prayer
Mighty God, throughout this year You have watched over me with Your endless love and grace. I praise Your name.
Read Proverbs 31:1-31
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Scripture taken from the THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION, NIV Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Meditate
“If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you” (Jas. 1:5).
Think Further
Many a hapless bride has suffered under the vision of superwoman in the acrostic poem that makes up the last part of the book of Proverbs, but it was never meant to be read like that. Rather, we should read this poem of the noble wife alongside the instructions of King Lemuel’s mother to her son (1–9), and as a culmination of the feminine personification of wisdom that has characterized the entire book of Proverbs.
When we read it like this, we find that it is a continuation of the theme of leadership. Lemuel is enjoined to be a king whose life is focused on others. His privilege is not for self-indulgence but for the betterment of his subjects: his wealth to alleviate the daily grind of those in poverty (6,7) and his position to ensure that the oppressed get a fair hearing (8,9). This mother’s instructions form a fitting finale to the sayings collected under the name of Solomon (1:1; 25:7), whose own failings sowed the seeds for the division of his kingdom. How may Lemuel live a life that is not like Solomon’s? By marrying, as it were, true wisdom; by embracing as a wife the values encapsulated in the poem to the “wife of noble character.”
Such wisdom is practical, hard-working, capable, entrepreneurial, far-seeing and hence confident (21). It is focused on the welfare of the household (27) but is aware of the needy beyond it (20). It brings respect, strength and dignity (23,25), and earns the right to speak the very words of God (26). This wisdom “fears the Lord”; reverence for the God of Israel frames the book of Proverbs as both beginning (1:7) and now the end of wisdom (30), and is encapsulated in this picture of a woman of noble character.
Apply
How has the study in Proverbs helped you find godly wisdom? Identify two or three key points of wisdom that you’ll ask God to help you cultivate in the days ahead.
Closing prayer
God of wisdom and love, in whom I find the wisdom to live a godly life in a world where self-indulgence reigns, help me to share it well today and into the coming year.
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