June 15, 2024 - Proverbs 8-11

In chapters 8 & 9, Wisdom completes her discourse and notes, “Riches and honor are with me, enduring wealth and righteousness.  My fruit is better than gold, even fine gold, and my yield than choice silver” (8:18-19).  Lots of application, there, when you think about it.  Without wisdom and a life lived according to it, you get one thing; with a life lived wisely, the outcome is quite different.

The proverbs of Solomon begin in chapter 10.  So much good counsel, here.  From what we often refer to as “the view from 30,000 feet,” i.e., the big picture, perhaps all of Solomon’s counsel can be summed up thusly, “Riches do not profit in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death.”(11:4).  To put it another way, always before us are two paths, the path of righteousness and the path of wickedness (see Psalm 1).  Solomon reminds us that the constant push for earthly, temporal riches will, end the end, benefit no one.  The end of a worldly pursuit of temporal riches leads to death.  On the other hand, a life possessed of the imputed righteousness of Christ and committed to the way of righteousness delivers from death.  Jesus’ words ring true:  “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:19-21).

All depends on our possessing

God’s abundant grace and blessing,

though all earthly wealth depart.

They who trust with faith unshaken

in their God are not forsaken

and will keep a dauntless heart.

Many spend their lives in fretting

over trifles and in getting

things that have no solid ground.

I shall strive to win a treasure

that will bring me lasting pleasure

and that now is seldom found.   --Anonymous (1676)