The Nature of a Proverb

Every culture has discovered truths with varying degrees of profundity.  In an effort to impart these truths, simple and profound statements have been given.  A proverb is a concise and memorable statement expressing an insight, observation, or piece of advice.  A portable saying in a memorable form expressing a general observation about life in a particular culture.

Proverbs is a unique book of the Bible.  It appears to me that no other book of the Bible is as quotable to non-Christians as Proverbs.  The nature of it being portable, quotable, and wisdom-filled make it useful to even the most anti-God intellectual.  I have heard many quote Scripture without knowing from whence the wisdom came.  This is consistent with the nature of a proverb.

On the other hand, I have heard some of those same people who attempt to discredit God.  In their attempt to justify using Proverbs, they reduce the authority of the book of Proverbs to African proverbs, Irish proverbs, Yiddish proverbs, folk proverbs, or any other of your favorite cultural proverbs.  To me, this is akin to a scientist who incredibly knows the ins and outs of how the earth works but he remains an atheist, believing that the very science he studied came about due to total chance.

A biblical proverb is going to give you an insight from God's vantage point.  Because of the nature of a proverb, it would seem obvious that in today's world, we cannot get every facet of the proverb that would have been understood by a Hebrew in the time that these Proverbs were first disseminated.  However, these observation of life have been filtered through biblical revelation.

Hebrew poetry tends to be more terse and concise, which often means we are not seeing things like articles or conjunctions.  There is also the use of satire, which uses humor to penetrate our mind, mocking certain behaviors.  These create aphorisms, where sometimes the whole truth cannot be easily conveyed.  This is why I like to think of much of the wisdom of proverbs being like golf clubs.

When you are on a putt-putt course, there is no choice of golf club, but when you become the seasoned golfer with a bag full of clubs, he has to apply the wisdom of what is the correct shot to determine which club to use.  Knowing proverbs is one thing, but being able to correctly apply them is where the real wisdom is shown.  Pulling out the correct proverb at the correct time is the correct application. 

Dr. Sam Horn once said, "The opposite of wisdom is not ignorance.  It is wickedness."  Those who would speak negatively about Proverbs are mostly doing so, not because they ignorant, but rather because they refuse to see the true source of Wisdom.  "In [Christ] are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge! (Col. 2:3)"