Proverbs Chapter 2: A Study & Commentary

How to know God (vs 1-5)

¹ My child, you must follow and treasure my teachings and my instructions. ² Keep in tune with wisdom and think what it means to have common sense. ³ Beg as loud as you can for good common sense. ⁴ Search for wisdom as you would search for silver or hidden treasure. ⁵ Then you will understand what it means to respect and to know the LORD God (vs 1-5 CEV).

These verses indicate that wisdom doesn’t just come to us, we have to search for it with diligence (seriousness and persistence) like the hidden, precious, beautiful treasure that it is. Through this search, we’ll discover what it really means to respect and know God. In other words: our respect for him will increase from simple, head knowledge to a deep esteem, honor and awe. And we will understand what it means to know or to be intimate with God – this is the highest level of wisdom.

All wisdom comes from the LORD (vs 6)

For the LORD gives wisdom;
From His mouth come knowledge and understanding (vs 6)

Verse 5 tells us that when we search for wisdom, we’ll begin to know God. So basically, the more wisdom you have, the more you know God. All real wisdom comes from God. If we make wise decisions it’s because God gave us that wisdom. I thank God for some of the wise decisions that I have made. You should thank God as well. Your wisdom didn’t originate from you. Therefore, we’ve got to give God the glory for every wise decision we make.

How we chose Christ

I often think about my Salvation. Without God giving me an understanding, and finally wisdom, I would have never chose Christ. I would be as blind as the majority of this world. God truly does choose us (Ephesians 1:3-4) and then it’s up to us to choose him. Initially, no one understands God, no one seeks after him (Romans 3:11). So God has to grab us, drop the understanding into our minds, and later, wisdom is birthed if we apply what was given to us. I don’t mention knowledge as something God had to give us because all men have knowledge of God:

¹⁸ From heaven God shows how angry he is with all the wicked and evil things that sinful people do to crush the truth. ¹⁹ They know everything that can be known about God, because God has shown it all to them. ²⁰ God’s eternal power and character cannot be seen. But from the beginning of creation, God has shown what these are like by all he has made. That’s why those people don’t have any excuse. ²¹ They know about God, but they don’t honor him or even thank him. Their thoughts are useless, and their stupid minds are in the dark (Romans 1:18-21 CEV)

Christians are definitely saved by God’s grace so that no man can boast (Eph 2:8-9). We truly cannot boast because God had to give us an understanding as to: how wicked we are, what Jesus did for us, and who Jesus is so that we could have faith in him to be saved from our rightful punishment. While some have been given the understanding of the gospel, they reject it anyway. Others, who haven’t received an understanding yet, cannot have faith in Christ because the gospel makes no sense to them. Therefore, as the scripture says, “The gospel is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Corinthians 1:18). We have the understanding. Thank God for his grace and wisdom! I like this scripture:

But God showed how much he loved us by having Christ die for us, even though we were sinful. But there is more! Now that God has accepted us because Christ sacrificed his life’s blood, we will also be kept safe from God’s anger (Romans 5:8-9 CEV).

Three blessings from God (vs 7-8)

⁷ God gives helpful advice to everyone who obeys him and protects all of those who live as they should. ⁸ God sees that justice is done, and he watches over everyone who is faithful to him (vs 7-8 CEV).

After putting our faith in Christ, we begin to experience three of many different blessings that come from our relationship:

1. Advice – who doesn’t need advice from an almighty God?
2. Protection – who doesn’t need protection in this evil world?
3. Justice – He watches over us and if we are wronged by someone, he makes sure justice is served. This means we don’t have to avenge for ourselves, God will “take care” of our enemies.

Meeting the conditions

But if we’re not experiencing God’s blessings, we may not be meeting his conditions. God has a lot of grace and mercy as we’ve already experienced (Romans 5:8), but our God is a conditional God. Too many Christians believe that God is a genie who doles out stuff as we pray oblivious to what shape our relationship with him is in. These blessings will not come just because we call ourselves Christians or attend church regularly. If we want God’s blessings, we must meet his conditions. The three blessings are: advice, protection and justice.

1. God’s advice comes from obedience
   If we don’t obey the advice that he gives in the Bible, why should he give us more?
2. God’s protection comes from righteous living
   If we aren’t living a lifestyle that comes from applying his advice, why should we expect his protection from harm and danger?
3. God’s justice comes from our faithfulness to him
   Our we consistently following God or do we take breaks away from him to do our own thing? Can God count on us when he decides to use us? Are we readily available? Faithfulness means to be reliable. So why should we expect him to keep a watchful eye over us, and avenge the wrongs that are done to us when we won’t even be faithful to him.

All through scripture God gives IF statements and conditions for his blessings. King Solomon, the writer of Proverbs, clearly shows us what kind of God we serve. If we want something from God, we need to give him what he wants in return. We can’t practice sin, deny God in public, preach false doctrines, and expect good things to come from God. Therefore, obedience will lead to a righteous lifestyle, and a consistent lifestyle we will lead to our faithfulness. From these three things, God blesses us with protection, justice and wisdom.

The Benefits of Wisdom

The Proverbs begins to show us what the benefits of wisdom are and what wisdom will look like in our daily lives:

Learning what is right, honest and fair (vs 9)

We don’t always know what the right thing is. What would be fair in this situation or that situation? Is the path that I’m about to take, honest? These kinds of questions come to us all the time. Wisdom helps us out in these situations for the best. This can specifically apply to governing people. Many things can arise between social groups, ages, races and gender. It takes a wise leader to govern people. I wish some of our leaders in America had wisdom.

Pleasure to the soul and preservation (vs 10-11)

Aah. Not a bad feeling to have. I receive that! Why would wisdom bring pleasure to the soul? Because we rest knowing that we constantly make the right decisions. It is satisfying to know that things have been taken care of. Our lives are in order, not in disarray. Our families our preserved from decay and we live in peace. Wisdom has protected our lives from the people, places and things that would bring injury and peril. Wisdom brings great enjoyment because it leads to a life that pleases God. Knowing that we are right with God is extremely pleasurable.

Protection from con men and liars (vs 12-15)

With wisdom, you’ll be able to detect bulls**t and smell it a mile away. Those slick talking guys and girls can’t fool you. Wisdom won’t allow you to put your money into some shady investment you know little about. Wisdom won’t allow you to give your bank account and social security number to your supposed bank institution via phone or email. Wisdom won’t have you wasting your time and money in a pyramid scheme. Wisdom won’t allow you to purchase blessed prayer clothes, holy soap and oils via TBN. Wisdom won’t have you sending all your hard-earned money to Cleflo Dollar for a return from the Lord. Wisdom helps you avoid the religious, hi-tech and evil schemes of con men and women.

All these kinds of people, as the proverbs says, “leave the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness” (vs 13). This means they used to do right until they were enticed to the dark side where they found out how to get rich by promising to make you and I rich. I like the wording of the King James: leaving the paths of “uprightness” means they are now low-down. This is a fitting word for what these criminals do. These people, as the proverb says, actually enjoy being mean and deceitful and everything they do is crooked (vs 14-15 CEV). Thank the Lord for wisdom to avoid such people.

Avoiding adulterous women (vs 16-19)

¹⁶ Wisdom will protect you from the smooth talk of a sinful woman, ¹⁷ who breaks her wedding vows and leaves the man she married when she was young. ¹⁸ The road to her house leads down to the dark world of the dead. ¹⁹ Visit her, and you will never find the road to life again (vs 16-19 CEV).

Keywords: smooth talk and flattery (KJV). These are the same tactics used by the con men to take your money. But this kind of woman is trying to take your soul! There’s something very evil about an adulterous woman. This kind of woman is not a prostitute, or that promiscuous girl down the street, but a woman who has broken her vow to be with one man. Who is this woman’s husband? Does she even care about him? This means she is completely disrespectful, unloving, unfaithful and cannot be trusted.

Men, we mustn’t be enticed by the smooth talk of married women. I won’t write about my revelation of the darkness of fornication and especially adultery here, but it is simply a dirty, evil, despicable and damaging act. It’s not just a pleasurable experience. It’s a soul killer and a trap that seeks to emasculate a man and prepare him for hell. But with wisdom on our side, we’ll avoid destructive women like this.

Finally, with wisdom, we’ll live a honest life

As we diligently seek after God, we’ll find him and he’ll bless us as we obey, live righteously and stay faithful to him. Wisdom will keep out lives in order and our souls full of pleasure. But because we tend to forget God when our lives become prosperous, the proverbs warns again: sin will lead to the loss of our blessings (vs 20-22). So we must learn to avoid sin (especially these freaky, married women) as we strive to chose Christ, to who we give all the glory, from which our wisdom comes.

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