Week 16: Proverbs

Bible Journey 16: Proverbs

Pre-understandings

• A collection of wise sayings, truisms
• Poetic forms (couplets, etc) and imagery
• Generally understood to be from Solomon (though not all)
• Directionally speaking, Proverbs are mostly horizontal—speaking of relationships within the world—but having an eye to the Lord
• Think “Book of Sayings”

Main Characters

• Wisdom personified as a woman, a mother
• The Adulterous Woman as lust personified
• Wise Father (and mother)
• Sons in need of instruction
• Kings (good and bad)
• Fools
• The Wife of Noble Character

Truisms versus Truths

• Statements of the way life works generally, not necessarily promises that declare the outcome of all behaviors
• Not everyone who works hard gets rich
• Not everyone who dies young has lived an evil life
• Trust God to work it all out in the end

Proverbs 3:5-6
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.

The message of Proverbs is “Live life on God’s terms and you’ll know the smile of God.”

I like Proverbs 30:7-9

"Two things I ask of you, O Lord; do not refuse me before I die:
Keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread.
Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, 'Who is the Lord?' Or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God.”

Bible Journey 15: Psalms

Pre-understandings

• A collection of free-standing Psalms, each with it’s own unity and completeness
• Collection of poetry-calls for a different set of questions than prose
• A number of different settings, ap0plications, and purposes
• Directionally speaking, Psalms are mostly flowing from people of God
• Think “Hymn Book”

Main Characters: God and Me

• Questions such as date, author, and situation may be helpful-but are not the key interpretive issues
• Key questions:

How was God using this text in the life of His people (Why was it included)?

How does God want to use this text in my life, how will it help shape my life in Christ?

“US and WE” or “ME and MINE”?

• Some are very personal and private (23, 51)
• Others are corporate (90,95)

“PRESCRIPTIVE” or “DESCRIPTIVE”?

• Prescribes what I ought to think, feel, say or sing (105, 106, 107)
• Describes what I am thinking and feeling, but I am afraid to say (3,4,5,109,138)

“HAPPY” or “SAD”?

• Incredible joy and jubilation (121-126, 136, 144-150)
• Incredible hurt, misunderstanding and need (3,5,6,17,39,42,137)

Psalms 145:8

The Lord is gracious and compassionate; slow to anger and rich in love.

The good news: (Ps. 139) God knows us-all about us, and still loves us!

Search me, O God, and know my heart: test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. Psalms 139: 23-24

Week 14: Job

Bible Journey 14: Job

Pre-understandings

·      The story of Job describes relationship with and understanding of God

Apart form the religious institutions of Judaism

·      Theology in its most basic form

·      The book presents earthly “reality” and spiritual “reality” in parallel

Have you considered My servant Job?

God’s assessment of Job “Blameless and upright-fears God and shuns evil”

1:1, 8, 22, 2:3, 10b

God brought Job to Satan’s attention-why?

Satan’s assessment of Job: he doesn’t fear God for nothing (1:9, 2:4)

Job and his Comforters

Sat silent for seven days

Job’s honest expression of a hurting heart

            Followed by a defense of God and his ways

Theology of Reciprocity

People love (serve, fear, honor) God for what we can get from Him

Good people are blessed, bad people are cursed

            Therefore: if you are blessed you must be good. If you are cursed you must be bad

Job’s response “Can I just die and get this life over with?”

The Trilemma:

God is Omni benevolent (all good), God is Omnipotent (all-powerful), Evil exists-any two can be true, but not all three

The answer is beyond our earthly reality

Job 42:3

Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know.

When “Bad Things” happen to “Good People” remember this-we don’t have enough information (or any business) to decide who is “good”-and we don’t have a long enough timeline to know how God might redeem the “bad things”

Bible Journey 13: Esther

Pre-understandings

·      Setting in Time and Place: The Diaspora (The Scattered)

Place: Susa, the Capitol city of Persia (Exile)

Time: Early in the reign of Xerxes (Ahasueras)

Between the early homecoming described in the first half of Ezra and the later homecomings described in the second half of Ezra and Nehemiah

            Note the differences between Jews of the Diaspora and the Returnee Jews

o   Diaspora Jews bled in and along

o   Returnees separate and galvanize a national identity

o   Intermarriage

Emphasis on God’s provision for the continuation and survival of His people

The tools God uses

o   Xerxes-Easily Manipulated, Alcohol soaked Ruler of a World Super-Power

o   Esther (Hadassah)-a beautiful orphaned girl with a secret

o   Haman-a power hungry schemer nursing a blood-feud

o   Mordecai-the wise and shrewd good uncle of Esther who always seems to be in the right place at the right time

Just when things were going so well… (Reversals and plot twists)

o   Vashti flexes her royal muscles only to be deposed-making way for a “Cinderella-like” rinse for Esther (Hadassah)

o   Haman is hung on the gallows he built for Mordecai as Mordecai takes over Haman’s home and job

o   The “Holocaust” is averted, the slayers become the slain, and many convert to Judaism

Esther 4:14

“Relief and deliverance will arise…Who knew but that you have come for a time such as this?”

What the Enemy intended as evil, God has turned it for good

Consider also the stories of Joseph, young David, and the early chapters of Daniel