Wednesday Bible Study: A Deep Dig into Proverbs XIX

I am feeling called to move on from Proverbs for a while, and so I'm going to wrap up- for now- right here.  Still in chapter eight, as the Holy Spirit/Wisdom explains its history to us.  Once again, I have noticed a stairstep structure to vv 12-36- a bit harder to find than most- but instead of beating it out, I thought I'd just touch on some of the connections therein, so you can see how complete the love and ministry of the Spirit are.

1- What you find when you seek

Pro 8:12  "I, wisdom, dwell with prudence, and I find knowledge and discretion. 

Pro 8:35  For whoever finds me finds life and obtains favor from the LORD, 

Pro 8:36  but he who fails to find me injures himself; all who hate me love death." 

Seeking the Spirit equals life... failing to seek the Spirit equals death.  Rather simple when you hear it put that way.

2- Take what she has to give

Pro 8:14  I have counsel and sound wisdom; I have insight; I have strength. 

Pro 8:32  "And now, O sons, listen to me: blessed are those who keep my ways. 

Pro 8:33  Hear instruction and be wise, and do not neglect it. 

Pro 8:34  Blessed is the one who listens to me, watching daily at my gates, waiting beside my doors. 

The Spirit has it; we have to be willing to HEAR it.

3- The love of the Spirit

Pro 8:17  I love those who love me, and those who seek me diligently find me. 

Pro 8:30  then I was beside him, like a master workman, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, 

Pro 8:31  rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the children of man. 

Pro 8:32  "And now, O sons, listen to me: blessed are those who keep my ways. 

Do you get that God is DELIGHTED when you SEEK Him?  Do you see that the Spirit's rejoicing was not just in creation, but in God's INHABITED world?

4- How better the spiritual than the mortal

Pro 8:18  Riches and honor are with me, enduring wealth and righteousness. 

Pro 8:19  My fruit is better than gold, even fine gold, and my yield than choice silver. 

Pro 8:27  When he established the heavens, I was there; when he drew a circle on the face of the deep, 

Pro 8:28  when he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep, 

Pro 8:29  when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, 

Pro 8:30  then I was beside him, like a master workman, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always...

Both enduring forever and existing before anything you can desire....

5- And where does it start from?

 Pro 8:20  I walk in the way of righteousness, in the paths of justice, 

Pro 8:23  Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth. 

Pro 8:24  When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water. 

"Ages ago" is a bad translation; what it is closer to is " (From) properly concealed, that is, the vanishing point; generally time out of mind (past or future), that is, (practically) eternity" (Strongs);  I love the term 'vanishing point', where man with all his science and all his theories CAN'T SEE PAST; and at that point was righteousness and justice.

6- My portion

Pro 8:21  ...granting an inheritance to those who love me, and filling their treasuries. 

Pro 8:22  "The LORD possessed me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old. 

While we learned last time that "possessed" means rather 'poured out', the meaning still the same:  God pours out the Spirit to us AS our inheritance.

I good point, I think, to move on from Proverbs for a season.  My plan is to start a series I kinda think of as 'the end of all things'- trying to find something to take from the last chapter of each book in the Bible- even the ones that have just ONE chapter!  We'll begin that next time, God willing.