Job 1 – I am the only one who has escaped to tell you

Psalm 1 – The Lord watches over the way of the righteous

Proverbs 1 – Wisdom and Discipline

Ecclesiastes 1 – Wisdom and Sorrow

Song of Songs – Your Love

 

The wisdom section of the Old Testament is the focus for this round. In rereading Job 1, I again focus on the repeated phrase “I am the only one who has escaped to tell you.” In this reading, I thought how in our lives, we might be the only Jesus someone ever sees. In essence, we have broken through the tragic life of the world to bring the good news to someone. I do not continually feel a need to lead someone to Christ, but I do continually feel a desire to be a source of seed. If not I, then who?

Psalm 1 tells us that the Lord watches over the way of the righteous. One nugget from this could be a promise that God will take care of those who do good. I do not follow that. I believe that the promise aspect of this is that God will bring the righteous through the world to live with Him in heaven, and tragedy is as likely for the good as the bad. The other nugget I feel from this phrase is that God will lead those who follow Him. If we obey, He will lead. The hard charging world often chafes at the patience required to wait for God to lead.

Proverbs tells us that wisdom is not the only goal, it is only half the goal. Discipline is included as the second half and of equal importance. Tying into the paragraph above, discipline is the practice of patience. Wisdom tells us what to do or not do, and discipline tells us when to do or not do. We watched a movie that carried a phrase that the rich love free stuff. This follows with the wisdom that the “rich” do not necessarily like having stuff so much as getting a good deal on the stuff they get. Anyone can buy a fancy car with enough money, but only the patient can wait until they get a deal.

Ecclesiastes goes one step further and teaches us that the wise learn enough to see the sorrow in the world more readily than the fool. Free stuff for the single parent is great unless it robs them of dignity and the drive to provide for themselves and their responsibilities. Prolonging life is great unless the patient lingers in a coma for decades. Solomon had more wisdom that anyone, and yet he wrote this piece on the worthlessness of everything.

Song of Songs is very much the performance piece that I think Job might be. It has characters with parts and taking turns to speak or sing, as the case may be. The basis for the Bible is to show us the love God has for us. The basis for this book is to remind us of the power of love a spouse can provide. God models the love for Christ of the church after the love a man can have for his wife. Not all can understand the example due to limits of imagination and paradigms from a tragic life. Nevertheless, God has an all-powerful love for us, and we can get a taste of this love through right relationship with our spouse.

Wisdom literature has been categorized as a bunch of words that can help us understand the world in which we live. This understanding helps us to know our role, to know our leader, to practice patience, to be aware of the needy around us, and to cherish our partners in the journey. The paradigm of a wise old man sitting on top of a mountain is a lie. The wise man is next to his wife sharing his knowledge for the everlasting benefit of those his lives amongst.