This is the transcript of Restitutio episode 538: How to Read Wisdom Literature with Sean Finnegan

This transcript was auto-generated and only approximates the contents of this episode.

Hey there, I'm Sean Finnegan. And you are listening to Restitutio podcast that seeks to recover authentic Christianity and live it out today. 

The Bible contains a treasure trove of wisdom literature that can help you navigate the ups and downs of life. Today, you'll learn how to read and understand the books of proverbs, song of Songs, Job, and Ecclesiastes. Proverbs and Song of Songs teach us how to handle ourselves when the world is working the way. It should while. Job and Ecclesiastes address how to think and live when chaos strikes. Taken together, these four books offer a full or perspective on practical wisdom that you can incorporate into your life. Here now is episode. 538 part seven of our read the Bible for yourself class, how to read wisdom literature. 

As you know, there are 39 books in the Old Testament. There are 17 historical books. 5 poetic books and 17 prophecy. Books. We're looking at the middle 5. Job, psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of songs. Think of it as the chewy center of the caramel. You know, this is this is what we're working on today and I don't know if you ever noticed the symmetry of the Old Testament, but we have 17 before the poetic section in the middle and 17 afterwards. Seems like somebody knew what they were doing and in the middle here we have 5 books. I'm not going to cover psalms right now just because it's just such a big book that we're going to look at it next time. By itself. So today we're covering 4 books and I'm going to cover them in the order of proverbs. The song of Songs Job, Ecclesiastes. Now each one of these four books that we're going to look at. That I could go into much greater detail on. You could literally do a class on each of these different books. So what's my goal with you today? It's not to tell you everything there is to know about these books. It's to help you read these books for yourself. So it's a very limited goal. I'm not trying to explain everything. Just trying to give you a feel for it so that you will better be able to handle it on your own when you're going through it and show you how these books fit together. Because so often when we read the Bible, we. Have a very narrow perspective of just one verse or one paragraph or one chapter and getting the bigger scope of like how the five middle books of the Old Testament fit together. Maybe isn't something that we can do or we think about, but we're gonna. We're gonna cover that. And I I think you're going to really appreciate how it's put together how these books. Work and how they strengthen each other as well. So proverbs. Proverbs is obviously. A wisdom book if you've ever read it before, it's a famous book of ancient wisdom. It has practical knowledge on how to live well. David Howard said proverbs should not be read as promises, but as guidelines, as principles for living. They show the way life works best. 80 to 95% of the time. The Bible is clear throughout Scripture. If you live a life oriented to God, you will tend to have a good life. I love this quote. It's very helpful. So he says proverbs is about showing you the way life works best. 80 to 95% of the time you got to be careful about statistics. 80% of statistics are made-up on the. Lot. Including that one, who knows what the percentage is? But but I I really appreciate how he put this. The Book of Proverbs is not to be read as promises. It's not the case that if you do this, this result will always happen. However, generally, if you do this, this result typically follows and that's the way to read proverbs. It's the way life works when it's oriented to God, and when things are going the way they're supposed to. Go. This is what we call conventional wisdom. Work hard and you'll succeed. Go to bed on time and you'll be happier the next day. These kinds of basic conventional wisdom is what we see in the book of proverbs. So. A word that is helpful here is a truism. It's a truism. It's not a promise, it's not a prophecy, and it's not a legal command. What we find in the Book of Proverbs, it's a general principle, or I like the word truism. Let's look at one proverbs, chapter 14, verse seven says leave the presence of a fool, for there you do not find words of knowledge. What does this mean? Well, we have to 1st ask ourselves, what is the word fool mean? And let me tell you, proverbs has a lot to say about fools, foolishness and folly. What is a fool is a fool. Just somebody that has a low IQ. Low intelligence. Is it a child because they're immature and naive? Is it somebody with a disability, a mental disability? No, no, no. It's none of those things. The full improvements has nothing to do with intelligence. The full improvers. Has to do with. And attitude and a way of life. Let me show you. The fool. This is according to proverbs, the mouth of a fool brings ruin near. Utter slander. Does wrong for fun broadcasts. Folly. The Fool has no restraint, is careless. The Fool despises the parents. Instruction. The Fool does not receive a rebuke. The Fool has plenty of personal opinions. The Fool has perverse speech. The Fool is quick to quarrel. A fool devours wealth. A fool despises wise words. A fool vents anger. A fool is hasty in speech. In other words, fools are like animals. Animals, just they follow their impulses wherever they go. If an animal smells food, regardless of if it's a good idea, if it's healthy, or if it's the animals already just eaten doesn't matter. It wants the food and it will eat the food. That's the way fools are. They just consume without restraint. They speak their minds, regardless of the effects, regardless if they know anything about what they're talking about. They're not concerned about others. They're just like a unreasoning animal. All right, back to proverbs 14. Seven, it says leave the presence of a fool for there you do not find words of knowledge. Now this is not saying to leave the room every time a fool is there. It's saying don't hang around with such people. If you had to leave the room every time a fool is there. You might have a tough life. In most rooms there's there's there's some foolishness, right? It says don't hang around with such people, so this is a principle for reading the proverbs. Don't take it to an extreme, don't make it a law. Don't make it a command. Understand it's a general principle. Generally speaking, it's the case that if you're with a fool, you're not going to gain any knowledge. And you should be around them all the time and and have that be your inner circle, right? Because they're going to rub off on you. This, this all makes sense, right? But. These are general advice, not legal commands. So let's say you're married. To a fool. What you going to do? You just gotta live with him or her, right? Like that? Just is what it is. Let's say you work at work. You work with a fool. You gonna leave the room every time they come in? Right? So, like, this is a general principle. Don't take it to an extreme and recognize that even once in a while a fool is right about stuff. Right. This is not saying a fool doesn't know anything at all. It's just saying. Just generally speaking, don't depend on foolish. People's proverbs is a book that contains much practical wisdom. A lot of times people recommend proverbs for young people because young people have less experience in life and as a. Result. It's helpful to read the proverbs to learn these principles. These truisms to guide them. But I think it's honestly very helpful as a middle-aged person, just could have thrown that out there and I bet older people can learn a lot from proverbs as well. So let's just let's just recognize it for what it is. It is with. Them, but what does wisdom look like? What is wise living in proverbs? Let me show you just a little smattering. The Wise Person honors their parents. Handles money well, avoids debt discerns between right and wrong. Has understanding. Is faithful in marriage. Works hard. Instead of being lazy, there's a whole genre of proverbs about the sluggard. They're the best. The Sluggard buries his hand in the ditch and Wearies himself to lift it to his mouth, right as a door turns on its hinges. So does the Sluggard in his bed. You know, just want to get out of bed. It just turns over to the other side. Again, we kind of did that this morning a little bit, but I did get up eventually. I did get up eventually, right. You don't want to be the slugger, do you wanna you wanna be a hard working? Person that says go to the Ant, learn from the Ant. How industrious they are, how they prepare ahead and they work together. Some more wise living from the proverbs, fearing the Lord, or fearing Yahweh, very important in the proverbs. A wise person is teachable and humble. A wise person controls what they say. Has righteousness, honesty, morality. Wise Living is a lifestyle of generosity. Choosing good friends, disciplining children, having patience, being slow to anger. Having self-control. These are the recommended lifestyle of somebody who reads the book of Proverbs and much more. I'm not giving you everything in the book of Proverbs here. I want to tell you about Billy Graham ever so quickly. This is a picture of him from 1954 taken in West Germany, a city named Dusseldorf. Billy Graham was one of the most significant evangelists, or probably the most significant evangelist of the 20th century. Salute. Famous celebrities spoke to thousands upon thousands upon thousands of people over and over and over in all different cities all around the world. He would sell out these stadiums and he would speak to a whole group of people. He rose in prominence, so much so that American presidents started to seek his counsel. He offered spiritual counsel and pastoral care to United States presidents, including Dwight Eisenhower, John F Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald. Ward. Ronald Reagan. George Bush, Bill Clinton and George W Bush. But the crazy thing about, well, crazy. The remarkable thing about Billy Graham. Is that he never fell into some scandal. He never got caught with his secretary. He never got in trouble for embezzling funds. He never got canceled. Once you get to a certain level of influence and celebrity status, they find something on you and they cancel you. And this man lived 99 years, born in 1918, died in 2018. They never found anything on him. He was an honest man and he lived wisely. What did he do? Every day he read a proverb. 31 chapters in the Book of Proverbs, just about once a month, you get through the whole book of Proverbs. And so reading through over and over and over again was, I think, instrumental in him being able to conduct himself wisely. The proverbs contain all kinds of warnings about the very things that bring great people down. Let's move to the next one, which is the song of songs. Also called the Song of Solomon. You can see on the top there it says Solomons song of songs, so the song of Songs is a book of romance. It's a collection of poems. And I think of it as a commentary on Proverbs 518 and 19. Let's just go back to proverbs for just a second. It says in proverbs 518. Let your fountain be blessed and rejoice in the wife of your youth. Lovely, dear. A graceful doe. May her breasts satisfy you at all times. May you be intoxicated always by her love. The song of Songs is a collection of romantic poems that that are commenting on or or expanding out. This kind of idea of physical romance. Song of songs means the greatest of songs, just like Holy of Holies is the holiest place of all. The song of Songs is is like this is the premiere collection of romance poems in ancient Israel. And the song of songs. A woman is the key actor, not a man. Most of the other books of the Bible. The focus is more on the man than on the woman in the song of Songs. It is the woman who pursues her man. She fantasizes about romantic love, and she describes his. His physical body, he describes her physical body. She's the dominant voice throughout, though, and her speech begins the book. This is how she starts it, she says. I am black and beautiful. Ohh, daughters of Jerusalem, like the tents of Kedar, like the curtains of Solomon. Do not gaze at me because I am dark, because the sun has gazed on me. My mother's sons were angry with me. They made me, keeper of the vineyards, but my own vineyard. I have not kept. I love this. It's realistic. She's confident. She knows she's got it going on, but she's also a little concerned about what others think. You know, it's a very realistic image of someone. She goes on these quests to find her lover and then she finds him and then just as she finds him, it starts getting really steamy and then suddenly the the scene ends and then now they're separated again and she's on another quest trying to find them again. And it's not entirely clear. Are these what's the historical situation here are these? Married couple. Are they people that are engaged to each other? Are these just fantasies that she has and that these are dreams and and thoughts of what it will be like when she's married? I can tell you that in the ancient world it was a lot different than in our world. Marriage preceded sex and romance often came after that because a lot of their marriages or most of their marriages would be arranged. So when you have an arranged marriage. Romance comes later. Once you finally get to know each other, and so it's hard to figure out exactly what's going on there. Look at Chapter 8, verse six. It says set me as a seal upon your heart. This is sort of like the main point of the book. Set me as a seal upon your heart as a seal upon your. Arm for love is strong as death. How about that for a line, huh? Love is strong as death, passion. Fierce as the grave. It flashes our flashes of fire. A raging flame. Many waters cannot quench love. Neither can floods drown it. If one offered for love, all the wealth of one's house, it would be utterly scorned. Is that a beautiful poem about love? And she is the one that utters this poem. The main point of the whole book. Far from relegating women to a passive role, song of songs affirms a woman's desires and her pursuit of them. She does not ignore that her body has yearnings, nor is she ashamed of them, or harrowing knows who she is. She's in touch with her sexuality. She goes after him attempting to woo him with her charms. Over and again the two get separated and one searches for the other until they find each other panting with desire. Then the section abruptly ends and the two find themselves apart again, ready to repeat the cycle. I believe this book has tremendous. Value to us today. It celebrates the aesthetic of human sexuality and recognizes the goodness of human bodies and ****** love. In fact there. Are 4 Wasps. In the song of Songs, these are body poems. Three of them, I think, are the guy. If I remember correctly the the guy describing the lady and one of them is the lady describing the. I conclude from that whatever you will, but you know they they go through the different body parts from top to bottom and compare it to opulent. Objects and creatures in their own worlds. It's it's really a stunning book of the Bible. Really cool. In the book how to read the Bible book by book by Fee and Stewart, they say this poem should be read in light of Genesis one and two, following the command to be fruitful and increase in number, God plants a garden in which he placed the man and woman he created in his own image. The narrative concludes with the words. A man will be united to his wife and they will become one flesh. The man and his wife were both naked and they felt no shame. The picture of sexual love in this book recaptures that scene. Where the woman and the man take utter delight and pleasure in each other's bodies, and do so without shame. This is thus God's way of recapturing both the fidelity, the unity and intimacy of marriage, which the enemy has tried to take away from God's people by making it seem either titillating outside of marriage or something shameful and unmentionable within marriage. Now it's debatable whether or not the song of songs is a wisdom book. Our topic for today is wisdom literature, so I had to put it somewhere though, and I think that there are some who argue it is a book of wisdom. I think it's a book of romance, but I think there's wisdom in romance when done within the boundaries that God sets up and we know what the boundaries are from proverbs and from other books of the Bible, Deuteronomy and other places where it talks about how sexual expression rightly belongs within the boundaries of marriage and song of songs doesn't really get into that. It's just. Really focused on the romance side of things. Still, I think song songs is important for us today because it shows that God set his seal of approval upon romance. And I think as Christians sometimes we've gotten this wrong and we've we've either gone with our culture and and elevated romance to such a degree that it becomes. An idol or? Christians of Pastimes, or maybe in some cultures in the world today, say romance is just an unfit topic of discussion. Or, you know, something to be ashamed of, right? And I think both of those extremes are not helpful. Alright, let's move on to our last two books. First up, we got job. I told you that proverbs has conventional wisdom. You could say song of Songs has conventional wisdom as well. Job has subversive wisdom. Job and Ecclesiastes are books of subversive wisdom. They handle the issue of when the unpredictable happens. The wicked or rich? The righteous are poor. What do you do with that? Someone dies tragically. In job chapter 15, verse 20, we read the wicked writhe in pain all their days. Through all the years that are laid up for the ruthless. Terrifying sounds are in their ears and prosperity. The destroyer will come upon them. They despair of returning from darkness, and they are destined for the sword. They wander abroad for bread, saying where is? It. They know that a day of darkness is ready at hand. Distress and anguish terrify them. They prevail against them like a king prepared for battle. Is this true? Do the wicked rise in pain all their days? Are they full of distress and anguish? Sometimes. Yeah, sometimes wicked people really mess up their lives, and they suffer as a result of it and other times wicked people seem to have great lives. What is this? Are you allowed to disagree with the Bible? Is that what I'm teaching you? It's in the Bible. It says the wicked write and paying all their days. Therefore, if somebody's not writhing in pain, they must be righteous. Umm, I don't think you want to. Go. There didn't I tell you if the Bible disagrees with you, you're wrong and you need to change. I think I said that in an earlier class together. Well, look, here is the key. You got to understand what job is doing as a book. It's not straightforward. It's subversive. Conventional wisdom. You sure you can cherry pick it? That's what proverbs is for. It's literally made for that. It's for you to memorize a couple of lines and apply it to your life. Job is not made for that. Job is a thought experiment. It's a philosophical treatise turning over the question if tragedy strikes, does that mean you did something wrong? That's the question. Answer of the Book of Job no. That's the main point of the Book of Job. If you miss that point. Having read 40 plus chapters, that's tragic. You want to get the main point of what the book is saying. Job suffers a massive series of calamities. His friends come to comfort him. They sit with him for seven days and then they start making speeches. Everyone's got a speech. Each of them expresses the idea of retributive justice. Retributive justice is the idea that bad things happen because you do bad things. It's it's like the idea. Of karma, really. And Joe repeatedly refuses their accusations. Over and over. They say, Joe, now we know God doesn't punish the righteous. What'd you do? And over and over, Job says I am righteous. I'm telling you guys, I didn't do it. And so we get this like tension building and building and building throughout the book. And then in the end, God just interrupts the whole thing and he speaks. And one of the things that God says is he flat out says that they have not spoken of me. What is right as my servant job has God literally undoes the words of all these counselor. So then here comes the Christian. Thousands of years later, and they quote some random part of the Book of Job that God has already. If you read to chapter 42, you'll see God has undermined. And now we're confused why it doesn't work. It's context, context, context. You got to get what? The book is doing. Job is deeply dissatisfying. If you're, if you're satisfied by reading the book of Job, you probably missed it. OK, job is deeply dissatisfying. Why is it deeply dissatisfying? Well, it disproves this idea that bad things only happen to bad people. That's clear clearest day. But what it doesn't do is explain to us why why God did you let this happen? Why would you let all this stuff happen to your number one guy? And when Joe finally gets his conversation with God, it's not really a conversation. Now God's making his speech and his speech is questions question after question. After where were you when I made the universe, Joe, where were you? Where were you standing over there to the side that is that. Did I miss you when you were? You know, and he just goes on and on asking all these questions and the impression of that the reader gets is that it's complicated. It's complicated, Joe. And you're not really qualified to judge God. But again, the great value of the Book of Job is disproving this idea that people who suffer are sinful. It thoroughly disproves that. Sometimes they do though. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. Let's move on to our last book, Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes also contain subversive wisdom. It deals with the shadow side of life. It says in Ecclesiastes 911 to 12 again I saw that under the Sun the race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong nor bred to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to the skilful. But time and chance happen to them all. For no one can anticipate one's time. Like fish taken in a cruel net. Or, like birds caught in a snare. So mortals are snared at a time of calamity, when it suddenly befalls them. So this idea of time and chance. There's a randomness in life. You can apply general wisdom. You can go to bed on time. You can eat healthy. You can avoid risk and you can still end up in an accident or you can still get a disease. From a genetic flaw that you had no control over. That's Ecclesiastes is dealing with the dark side of life, the unpredictable, the chaotic. Time and chance happen to all. This is an extended meditation. Ecclesiastes is an extended meditation on the uselessness of wealth and success. Fame and even wisdom. Will fail you. A lot of times in the Book of Ecclesiastes we find this word vanity from the Hebrew level 38 times is a word that means vapor, breath, or smoke, and therefore it means something that's pointless. Smoke appears solid, but you can't grab it. Chasing the wind. You never catch it. Pursuing money, success or knowledge is helpful, temporary and fleeting. Time moves relentlessly forward. Death is the great equalizer of everyone. The preacher in the Book of Ecclesiastes asks the question where will all this go? These great things that I've built all of this money that I've amassed all of this, not where to go to some to some descendant, to some child who doesn't appreciate it, who will squander it. Everything is eventually forgotten. None of it endures. Still. Throughout the Book of Ecclesiastes, when the world is disoriented, when life is hard, when it's unfair, when you're diagnosed with a rare condition. You can take pleasure in working hard in eating, drinking and in your spouse. If you have a spouse and sleep. It talks about sleep as being a good thing too, especially if you worked hard and your sleep is sweet to you, right? So in other words, the basics in life, you can still enjoy. To whatever degree you can, and that is the wisdom of Ecclesiastes. That and the final conclusion, which says in chapter 12 verse 13, the end of the matter all, has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments. For that is the whole duty of everyone. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every secret thing, whether good or evil. Yeah, the world's messed up. Yeah. Sometimes a freak thing happens. But you should still fear God. You should still keep his commandments. That's your duty. That's your duty. If you do that, you're going to you're going to be good. You, you, you. You stay in the situation with God and your relationship with God. And yeah, meteorite could strike. You know, lightning could strike. You could end up with a a terrible situation. That's the chaos element of this fallen world in which we live. But even in the midst of that, there's still wisdom to be gained, and that's the book of Ecclesiastes. Let's review. Proverbs offers conventional truisms that generally work in an ordered world. Pursue wisdom and avoid folly. Song of Songs is an anthology of poems celebrating the delights of physical beauty, romance and sexuality. Jove disproves the notion that those who suffer calamity deserved it by sinning in some big way. Ecclesiastes bemoans the futility of pursuing wealth, success, pleasure or even wisdom. Life is uncertain, so fear God and keep his commandments. Although ultimately all one's achievements disappear like smoke in the wind, we can enjoy the blessing of a good meal, working hard, and the delights of marriage. Conventional wisdom offers principles that generally work, whereas subversive wisdom acknowledges that chaos and catastrophe strike resulting in the righteous suffering. Reading just one of these books limits you to a partial view of wisdom. Reading them together presents a robust understanding of how to live wisely through the complexities of life in the real world. So when you think about it. Proverbs is your bread and butter. Proverbs is where you want to focus most of your time, because proverbs is going to teach you what are the general principles to apply in a in a regular everyday situation? What did the guy say? 80 to 95% of of life? But then, unless you're thinking about the subject of romance and marriage, in which case song songs is obviously where to go. But then when when catastrophe strikes? Job and Ecclesiastes are there for. You. So that you can navigate the difficulties of life. The Bible is honest. It recognizes that sometimes things in life happen that are crazy. And so if you have all of the the wisdom literature together and we'll get to the Psalms next time. If you have it all together, then what do you have? You have a full orbed way of dealing and navigating with the good times and the hard times of life. Well, that wraps up our overview of wisdom literature in the Bible. Next time we'll delve into the Psalms as we continue through our class on how to read the Bible for yourself.

Well that brings things to an end #7 of this class. How to read wisdom literature if you would like to make a comment or provide feedback or ask a question, come on over to restitutio.org and find episode 538. How to read wisdom literature and leave your thoughts there? Well, I wanted to read a comment in from my good friend Brandon, who wrote on Facebook. You know, a teacher is in the zone when he keeps your seven-year olds attention about proverbs, job and Ecclesiastes. We finished the video and Cole turned to me and said, can we read some proverbs? And I did a mental fist pump. And said Ohh sure if you really want. 2. 3 chapters later and he knows to seek wisdom before he needs it not to be a bandit and run from married women who try to make you fall in love with them. Chapter 4 and on for bedtime to Morrow. Thanks, Sean. Great series. Read the Bible for yourself. Well, Brandon, I noticed that you didn't include the book song of songs in your list of what your seven-year old. Enjoys honestly, probably out of all of the different episodes for this class, which I think is probably going to end up being around 18. This one was probably the least appropriate for children, because I did talk about romance. Hopefully that just went over his head. Anyhow, try to speak in such a way that it's not going to be problematic for little ears and give disclaimers if there is going to be a problem there, but I'm far from perfect. On that. And yeah, why not teach your children the proverbs? Why not give them a head start? Why not give them some preloaded wisdom before they find themselves having to figure everything out based on trial and error makes sense to me. And this is kind of one of my hopes for this class is that it will be used for parents to teach their child. Children, I'm not thinking 7 year olds necessarily, but older kids that are able to grasp more of this. But you know, maybe if you have a precocious younger one then put the headphones on them and have them listen to the podcast or fire up your TV with the YouTube channel on it. Have him or her watch. Really, this is my attempt to. Equip and empower as many as possible to read the Bible for yourself. It's all in the title, right? And I believe that as Christians, if we are Bible readers, it's just going to be so good for us. It's so good for you, even if you're somebody like me who's read the Bible over and over in multiple translations over many years. It's so easy to forget what was in this book of the Bible or that book of the Bible, because it's been so many years since you've read that book because you've been doing other things. You've been studying the New Testament, and you haven't been reading the Old Testament or vice versa, or you always just kind of skip over a section of the Bible because you think, you know it. So I encourage you read, read. Read your Bible. It is so good for you for so many reasons, not the least of which is not to be duped by some silver tongued preacher who has a speculation that is not actually biblical. And speaking as a pastor who preaches. Really. We do need accountability. We do need to be challenged, not in a mean spirited way or in a because of someones ego or something like that, but challenge with Scripture held to account, to stick to the book and teach what's in there, because these are, I believe, the life saving words that God has given. To us to figure out life, not just how to live, but also how to think. And how to interact with others as well. So thanks so much for writing in. That's going to be it for this show today. If you'd like to support restitutio, you can do that on our website, restitutio.org. We'll catch you next week. And remember, the truth has nothing to fear.