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The world's most potent honey trap (Proverbs blog #3)

  So far in this series in Proverbs, we have thought about (a) the book’s introduction, which highlights the centrality of the fear of the LORD, and (b) the book’s use of Deuteronomy, reinforcing the fear of the LORD as a key theme and application of the book. If you haven’t read these previous two blogs, I would recommend starting with those and reading them in order – but that is up to you! This blog continues looking at how the author of Proverbs draws on other parts of the Old Testament to teach us and transform us. As we have thought about Proverbs, there has been a big elephant in the room, making awkward eye contact with us from the very first verse: Solomon. These are ‘the proverbs of Solomon’ (1:1, again in 10:1 and again in 25:1). The whole book has a Solomon-y feel. [1] Why so much focus on Solomon? The worst translation error in the Bible To work this out, we need to start with (what I think is) the worst bible translation error, at least in the NIV and ESV translati
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…of David: Why does God want us to hear David’s songs in particular?

Psalms… In the last post I talked about songs. God has given us a whole book of the Bible in the genre of song. 150 chapters. Songs by different authors, which will help us to feel different experiences, including ones we might never normally come across in our own lives. Songs help us to get into other people’s inner world. We can experience their emotions as if they were our own, even if they are totally different to us. It’s why we can sing along defiantly about our power and joy in a breakup after a dreadful relationship, even if we happen to be happily married. Or conversely, we can enjoy the calm, pleasant emotional space of someone in a secure, happy relationship, even when that’s not where we are at all. …of David David sticks out. As soon as we start reading the Psalms, we notice that lots of these Psalms are “of David”. Psalm 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 … Almost all of the first “book” of Psalms (i.e. Psalms 1-41) are Davidic. They tell us the inner emotional world of David.
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Psalms...: Why is there a whole book of the Bible written as songs?

Why does God choose to speak through songs? Genre and impact Different types of writing impact readers in different ways. We teach kids this in school. Those of us who are primary school teachers know that students need to understand what the “aim” or “impact” of their writing should be. For example: Factfile = to inform Advert = to persuade Fable = to teach a moral I believe that the best communicator ever is God. He must be. He made us, he invented language, and he created all the things which words can refer to. His factfiles would be the most informative, his adverts the most persuasive and his fables would most clearly and thought-provokingly teach their morals. But what would songs do? What impact do they achieve? And what would a collection of songs which God has inspired likely aim at? Clues from the start of the Psalms Psalm 1 tells us what the “blessed man” avoids (1:1) and then what he does (1:2). This is the positive side: the things the blessed man does do:
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Laying down the law (Proverbs blog #2)

 (note: this blog is slightly longer than normal; you may want to make a pot of coffee or read it in a couple of sittings)   Proverbs – still a tricky book Last blog, we looked at the key to Proverbs which is given to us at the start of the book: the fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction (1:7) . While this is helpful, from talking to some of you, this is far from a silver bullet for understanding this book! Even with this key, Proverbs can be hard to understand, remaining enigmatic and riddle-esque in large parts. What should we do when, even with the key, Proverbs remains hard to understand? The main thing that will help us understand the book is to read it – read it lots, read it slowly, read it carefully. But having said this, I think the next best thing to help us understand this book is understanding its use of the Old Testament. [1]   How Proverbs is like Shrek Imagine you had never heard of any fairytales before, an
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