back to indexBerean Community Church Wednesday Bible Study 4/23/25
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>> I wish we could spend every night together. 00:05:09.980 |
But we had a nice break, and I'd be glad to see everybody back. 00:05:13.980 |
Let's take a moment to gather our hearts to pray 00:05:19.980 |
Heavenly Father, we want to take a moment to go before you. 00:05:27.980 |
God, in every time that we get together in this way, 00:05:30.980 |
we always want to lift up our heart of thanks to you. 00:05:53.980 |
and even just hearing again the passage over and over, 00:05:57.980 |
we pray, Lord, that you would make it fruitful. 00:06:00.980 |
God, that our hearts would bear the kind of response 00:06:06.980 |
Cause us, Lord God, to be strengthened in the inside. 00:06:09.980 |
And then now, Lord, as we lift up, you know, our song to you, 00:06:19.980 |
that, Lord, we would lift up to you both our song, 00:06:25.980 |
We thank you again. It's in Christ's name. Amen. 01:06:45.980 |
>> If you are in the rooms, please make your way on out. 01:06:53.980 |
And then, you know, as a comment, you know, I know you guys 01:07:09.980 |
So from -- as we're doing this kind of rules on good Bible study 01:07:13.980 |
practice, there are going to be principles that overlap and maybe 01:07:19.980 |
But, you know, we want to continue practicing the various 01:07:24.980 |
principles that we're learning today on the topic of Proverbs. 01:07:27.980 |
I'm focusing on Proverbs, but obviously it's just -- there are 01:07:34.980 |
But primary being Book of Proverbs, then Lamentations. 01:07:38.980 |
And so let's take a moment to pray, and then we'll jump into 01:07:47.980 |
Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for your grace. 01:07:50.980 |
We're grateful because we definitely feel regularly your 01:07:57.980 |
As you are the good father, we know you instruct us, you give 01:08:01.980 |
to us guidance, and thank you, Lord God, that you are not 01:08:05.980 |
silent, but rather, just as every good parent, you speak to us 01:08:10.980 |
eloquently, you speak to us closely, you speak to us in ways 01:08:15.980 |
We pray that as we study, you would grant to us the wisdom 01:08:19.980 |
Help us, Father God, to have minds that are being renewed, 01:08:23.980 |
hearts that are being changed, and ultimately, God, we would 01:08:26.980 |
make decisions in our lives that are honoring to you. 01:08:41.980 |
As a way of review, last time I said prophecy and poetry, it's 01:08:45.980 |
kind of interesting because prophecy, it comes with an 01:08:49.980 |
intensity that to a very unique historical circumstance, God is 01:08:54.980 |
proclaiming and speaking typically rebuke, typically a 01:09:00.980 |
kind of wake-up call saying, "You're unfaithful to the 01:09:03.980 |
covenant promises," and it's God's direct word to his people. 01:09:09.980 |
And then when we read poetry, it's so different because it's 01:09:12.980 |
typically praise and prayer from the people to God. 01:09:16.980 |
It's their expression of love, expression of affection, and 01:09:21.980 |
it's about the Lord speaking to the generations. 01:09:24.980 |
And in that way, there's overlap because the book of Proverbs is 01:09:34.980 |
The book of Proverbs is a book of observation of the ways of 01:09:37.980 |
God and the ways of man from one generation to the next. 01:09:41.980 |
Much of the Scriptures in the book of Proverbs is attributed 01:09:45.980 |
to King Solomon given to his young prince, young man, who 01:09:49.980 |
needs to learn the instructions of God and heed the instructions 01:09:54.980 |
Now, these are things that you guys are well aware of, but I 01:09:57.980 |
want to review because this is where the interpretive mistakes 01:10:02.980 |
The typical mistakes when studying the book of Proverbs is 01:10:09.980 |
Well, the book of Proverbs, when you look at the way that it's 01:10:13.980 |
written, the book of Proverbs are truisms versus universal 01:10:19.980 |
truth that's absolute in every sphere, every situation, and 01:10:26.980 |
Doctrines about God that he knows all things, that's true no 01:10:29.980 |
matter where you go, no matter what situation, all that kind of 01:10:34.980 |
But the reason why I say it's a truism is because you can find 01:10:41.980 |
And if you take a moment to think about it, Scripture in the 01:10:44.980 |
book of Proverbs chapter 21 tells us that those who love 01:10:47.980 |
righteousness, those who seek love will prosper, yes? 01:11:05.980 |
As a matter of fact, I was pleading to God, like, 'Tell me 01:11:11.980 |
Because the truism is, yes, those who seek righteousness and 01:11:20.980 |
And then point two, it says, "There are norms and not exacting 01:11:23.980 |
laws or rule because," I said earlier, "the interpretive problem 01:11:31.980 |
Proverbs chapter 22 verse 7 says this, "The rich rules over the 01:11:36.980 |
poor and the borrower becomes a slave to the lender." 01:11:41.980 |
Have you ever met somebody who has said, "It is a sin to borrow 01:11:53.980 |
You would tell them, "Pastor Mark said these are norms. 01:12:05.980 |
Here are the stipulations of your relationship with me. 01:12:12.980 |
It's guarding your heart against you constantly taking out loans. 01:12:15.980 |
And, yes, there are people who habitually are in debt. 01:12:22.980 |
And so what you find, actually, that book of Proverbs, just like 01:12:25.980 |
poetry, uses quite exaggerating or you could say metaphorical 01:12:30.980 |
language to show you the plight, to show you the kind of pains 01:12:37.980 |
And then, obviously, we're thinking about the ways of God 01:12:43.980 |
So there are people who read the book of Proverbs like promises. 01:12:47.980 |
And you could see why I say this because it's important and 01:12:52.980 |
There are a lot of people who read chapter 3, verses 1 through 01:12:59.980 |
If I do this, this is what God has promised me. 01:13:04.980 |
Is that the way you should read it interpretatively? 01:13:10.980 |
Moving forward, the purposes of the Proverbs is to show you the 01:13:16.980 |
Some of the Proverbs you'll read and you're kind of like, 01:13:22.980 |
Some of the Proverbs you'll read and you'll read it like, 01:13:27.980 |
Well, our expectation shouldn't be every verse comes from the 01:13:32.980 |
holiest, most godliest perspective, but rather the point 01:13:44.980 |
Sometimes it's to show you the observation of the person giving 01:13:47.980 |
Proverbs, like this is the way the world works, okay? 01:13:51.980 |
All right, that being said, the purpose of Proverbs is to make 01:13:54.980 |
us wise in our thinking, wise in our hearts, and ultimately wise 01:13:58.980 |
in our character so that we are spared all the pains and all the 01:14:03.980 |
snares that the generations before us have experienced, okay? 01:14:08.980 |
So when we think about this, I want to say as a reaction, as a 01:14:17.980 |
first kind of instinctual reaction to the book of Proverbs, 01:14:22.980 |
everything I just said now I hope you didn't take as to mean, 01:14:25.980 |
so therefore, you know, don't take it so seriously. 01:14:29.980 |
I hope you didn't think I was going to say that, right? 01:14:32.980 |
The book of Proverbs is wisdom sayings and it's observations. 01:14:40.980 |
The book of Proverbs still is the wisdom from above, and the 01:14:44.980 |
Scripture says in Proverbs 4, verse 7, "The beginning of wisdom 01:14:50.980 |
And with all your acquiring, get understanding." 01:14:54.980 |
The book of Proverbs we should see as this is the most practical. 01:14:59.980 |
This is the most applicational book of the Old Testament, right? 01:15:03.980 |
This touches upon every single practical element of my life, 01:15:07.980 |
including my money, my time, my mouth, my lust, my desires, my 01:15:17.980 |
And so the way we should be thinking about this book is I 01:15:22.980 |
As a matter of fact, you know the book of Proverbs, it says, 01:15:25.980 |
"Guard the truth and the wisdom that God gives you. 01:15:34.980 |
And therefore, a kind of approach, whereas with epistles, 01:15:40.980 |
it's so still important that we take a look at every verse and 01:15:46.980 |
We start chopping it up into little segments, and we follow 01:15:49.980 |
the flow of thought and all that kind of stuff. 01:15:52.980 |
With the book of Proverbs, you know that we should be 01:15:58.980 |
If you read the Bible and you don't do application, a lot of 01:16:03.980 |
times people have said, "Then all you've done is think about 01:16:06.980 |
stuff and lofty concept, and then it dies," right? 01:16:10.980 |
Well, the book of Proverbs says, "If you do that, you're a fool." 01:16:16.980 |
Wise living has to do with your skill, your skill of how you 01:16:20.980 |
made decisions, your skill of how you matured, ultimately how 01:16:26.980 |
And so, leaning heavy, the tip that I gave you in studying the 01:16:29.980 |
book of Proverbs is the book of Proverbs actually is incredibly 01:16:34.980 |
What you saw in chapter 3, you will see all through chapter 4, 01:16:38.980 |
What you saw in chapter 4, you will see all through chapter 6. 01:16:44.980 |
The question is, "Are you meditating deeply on this text?" 01:16:49.980 |
Now, as a quick--another introductory remark on this, 01:16:54.980 |
what is then meditation and how are we thinking through what 01:16:59.980 |
Well, as the book of Proverbs typically has like one-line 01:17:03.980 |
zingers and sometimes they'll have big block paragraphs, but 01:17:08.980 |
It lands super heavy because it sometimes, in such a succinct 01:17:12.980 |
way, identifies your problem, that kind of thing, right? 01:17:17.980 |
We want to make sure we're meditating very deeply. 01:17:20.980 |
And the Hebrew term for meditate is not just to think deeply but 01:17:29.980 |
You're kind of like retelling, retelling, retelling so that it 01:17:35.980 |
What's more, in the Greek, it says to pay special attention, 01:17:40.980 |
to attend to it carefully, to contemplate it deeply, and then 01:17:47.980 |
Essentially, you're taking this truth and you're testing it 01:17:50.980 |
here, testing it there, testing it here, testing it there. 01:17:56.980 |
And that's the kind of picture I want you to have with Proverbs. 01:17:58.980 |
You want to kind of see actually--I word it funny in the 01:18:03.980 |
document that I gave as a tip, which is like lean heavy on 01:18:06.980 |
meditation and observation of the world, okay, meaning you 01:18:13.980 |
The Scripture says things like, "Do not speak in the presence 01:18:17.980 |
of fools for when he hears your wisdom, he will scoff at you." 01:18:33.980 |
And then obviously, once you look at the world and wonder in 01:18:37.980 |
what situations and circumstances apply, you're looking at 01:18:46.980 |
This is the kind of way that we should be approaching Proverbs. 01:18:54.980 |
"My son, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart 01:18:57.980 |
keep my commandments for the length of days and years of life 01:19:05.980 |
When I put it like this, I hope you guys in the back can see it. 01:19:08.980 |
You guys can immediately appreciate the kind of pattern, right? 01:19:15.980 |
Do you guys remember what kind of literary device this is? 01:19:29.980 |
You have two lines that are saying the exact same thing 01:19:38.980 |
And then the exhortation, bind them around your neck. 01:19:46.980 |
And so when you see this, I would see it as one unit. 01:19:49.980 |
So if I was making the outline of the text for today, 01:19:51.980 |
verses 1 through 10, I would split it right there at verse 4 01:19:55.980 |
and say this is one thought at the beginning, 01:19:57.980 |
and then the next thought has more to do with the trust 01:19:59.980 |
and the honor and the acknowledging of God, right? 01:20:03.980 |
So when we look at this, I want you guys to do this. 01:20:07.980 |
Remember that whenever we're doing then this kind of parallelism, 01:20:11.980 |
he's obviously using that for you to, yes, meditate. 01:20:16.980 |
You do one run-through, and then you do another. 01:20:19.980 |
So then I ask you, how would you summarize into one singular concept 01:20:31.980 |
I just like to see you guys squirm and have your eyes avoid contact with me. 01:20:36.980 |
The idea is just simply keep the commandments, right? 01:20:45.980 |
Giving instructions like, "Dude, have you seen the Old Testament? 01:20:52.980 |
That could have been the word because that's the wise word to say. 01:20:55.980 |
But why does it have all of these different devices, 01:20:59.980 |
and why does it have all these different elements to it? 01:21:02.980 |
Well, for us to just take a moment to meditate together on this, 01:21:06.980 |
did you observe--I hope you did--not only the parallelism, 01:21:10.980 |
but this whole negative and positive command, 01:21:13.980 |
which is a device to focus you in and hone you in. 01:21:17.980 |
And I get this picture because if any of you have ever given instructions to a child, 01:21:22.980 |
and you tell them, "Hey, you glue it like this," 01:21:25.980 |
and then you realize they don't understand, so you have to say, "Not like that," right? 01:21:30.980 |
And so you get humbled to realize you are that child. 01:21:33.980 |
Well, let me take a moment to just meditate with you. 01:21:37.980 |
By thinking about the negative part of the command, it says, "Do not forget." 01:21:43.980 |
And what's more, "Do not let kindness and truth leave you." 01:21:48.980 |
And the first thing I thought as I reflected on myself is, 01:21:51.980 |
"Dude, I am like the most forgetful person in this church." 01:21:59.980 |
Did you know that there was a time someone wanted to borrow a book off my shelf 01:22:03.980 |
and asked me, "Oh, shoot, did you read this? It looks good." 01:22:08.980 |
And they opened it and said, "How come your pen mark and notes are all over it?" 01:22:18.980 |
And then he says, "But don't allow that to happen." 01:22:21.980 |
There is such also a passive nature to who I am, isn't there? 01:22:28.980 |
I imagine maybe if you put this into some kind of other scenario 01:22:32.980 |
where the son is telling the father, "Oh, Father, she left me." 01:22:36.980 |
And the father rebukes the son and says, "No, you let her go. 01:22:49.980 |
The natural propensity of my mind and my heart is I get so distracted. 01:22:58.980 |
And as the days go by, I always tend to forget. 01:23:02.980 |
And God has told us you have to cling to it like your life depends on it. 01:23:08.980 |
You have to exert that energy to keep it near you. 01:23:12.980 |
Why is it that sometimes we just assume if I just sit back and listen to sermons, 01:23:21.980 |
And so when this passage commands us to bind these truths on our necks 01:23:27.980 |
and write them on our hearts, question to you, how will you apply that? 01:23:31.980 |
How will you make application so for those of you who are just as forgetful as I am 01:23:36.980 |
to not just simply allow your months, your years to go by? 01:23:40.980 |
And it's kind of like even with young children in the spouse ministry. 01:23:44.980 |
Actually, the parents are awesome because they take home the assignments and the papers 01:23:48.980 |
and they'll always ask the student, "What did you learn?" 01:23:55.980 |
How will you as a mature adult prevent that from happening? 01:23:59.980 |
How will you as an adult prevent the truth from just leaving you? 01:24:06.980 |
Yes, it's metaphorical, the binding on your neck and the writing on your heart. 01:24:12.980 |
So obviously, that's a strong push in the text, and we have to meditate on it. 01:24:17.980 |
The next portion, the next portion from verse 5 through 10. 01:24:22.980 |
We're not obviously going to get to go through everything, but you see such a pattern again. 01:24:27.980 |
Once you break it down into the poetic form and you start to do things like kind of indent segments, 01:24:34.980 |
and you guys see my rationale into the indentation. 01:24:38.980 |
In the previous section, it was the negative command, "Don't." 01:24:43.980 |
Then it was the exhortation command, "Do this, keep it." 01:24:46.980 |
And then it was the motivation or the blessing. 01:24:49.980 |
Likewise here, once you see that pattern, you realize, "Wow, this author is clearly building the whole thing 01:24:58.980 |
Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean out on your understanding, et cetera, et cetera. 01:25:03.980 |
One of the things that I ask you guys to do is whenever you see so many instructive words, 01:25:09.980 |
you have to make a list, and you have to identify all of them. 01:25:17.980 |
Chapter 7, it's like, "Don't go near the crazy lady who's flirtatious, and her husband's gone, 01:25:25.980 |
The command doesn't come until the end of the story. 01:25:28.980 |
It's like, "And if you go there, you're stupid." 01:25:33.980 |
Not all the Proverbs are like this, where it's just like, bam, bam, bam, instruction and command. 01:25:37.980 |
When you see that, you have to be a good student and just list all of it. 01:25:42.980 |
And then think, what are these commands pushing? 01:25:46.980 |
Is there a one singular emphatic command of these list of commands? 01:25:52.980 |
Is there a rhyme or reason as you work through these commands? 01:25:56.980 |
And so clearly, for me, I just started underlining, and I'm sure you guys did too, 01:26:12.980 |
And I'm not going to, for the sake of time, dive into this is what I think the progression is, 01:26:18.980 |
but clearly there's this mounting weight of how we are to give our full confidence to God 01:26:26.980 |
and entrust ourselves in such a way where we go from before just passively listening to the words 01:26:33.980 |
and it just floats away, to now I'm filled with worship, 01:26:37.980 |
to now where I'm proactively taking my first fruits and giving them to God. 01:26:43.980 |
Because this individual who is receiving the instruction is maturing. 01:26:48.980 |
But as you see the weight of the instructions, you also see the weight of the blessing. 01:26:53.980 |
The equal parts are these are the commands, and then here are all the blessings. 01:27:00.980 |
So just like we did with circling the commands and identifying and listing them, 01:27:06.980 |
we should list off all the blessings because they're quite profound. 01:27:12.980 |
Is there any one of these blessings that stand out as an emphatic top blessing out of all the others? 01:27:19.980 |
Is there kind of a cohesive way to think about all these blessings? 01:27:23.980 |
One way to think about it is, man, in trusting God, you get everything. 01:27:34.980 |
You get the direction, the clarity, the guidance, the straight and narrow path. 01:27:38.980 |
You get the healing, the internal peace, and you get the abundance. 01:27:43.980 |
That's everything good you could possibly think of. 01:27:55.980 |
Because remember how I said that the interpretive error that comes from studying Proverbs is when you take the extreme. 01:28:06.980 |
Prosperity Gospel Preachers takes the extreme on this specific text. 01:28:11.980 |
A long, long time ago, right after I graduated seminary, for some reason, when I had some time, I watched Prosperity Gospel Preachers. 01:28:19.980 |
And part of it was for fun because it was hilarious. 01:28:23.980 |
Other parts of it was, you know, I preach against it heavy. 01:28:29.980 |
And it's wild because people like Joel Osteen, they'll actually say, "Everybody take your Bible." 01:28:35.980 |
And they'll take it and they'll say, "I believe everything it says." 01:28:38.980 |
And then they'll chant after him, "I believe everything it says. 01:28:46.980 |
And you're like, "Whoa, that's the same stuff I would say." 01:28:50.980 |
And then they would open up to, I remember Joel Osteen specifically opening up to this text and saying, 01:28:56.980 |
"You have to trust God with everything and with your whole heart completely, not just with some things." 01:29:06.980 |
Until you get to this point where you realize. 01:29:09.980 |
But then he says, "But in you giving yourself and surrendering to God, he will honor you." 01:29:16.980 |
And then you realize, "Wow, this guy is so good at little pithy statements." 01:29:22.980 |
These prosperity gospels are amazing at these one-liners, "Honor God, he'll honor you. 01:29:27.980 |
Let go, let God," and all this kind of stuff. 01:29:43.980 |
And I'm guessing you will actually run into somebody who maybe is discontent. 01:29:51.980 |
But I'm struggling so much, and I'm always stuck." 01:30:02.980 |
I mean, the weight of blessing and promise is so heavy. 01:30:05.980 |
So the question is, to what extent can we hope for earthly blessings and prosperity as we live faithfully? 01:30:12.980 |
Well, one extreme on the suffering side is someone might be like, "No." 01:30:16.980 |
2 Timothy says, "Anybody who lives a godly life will be persecuted." 01:30:26.980 |
And basically, all your blessings are only in eternity when you die and leave this world. 01:30:38.980 |
Or do you lean kind of like, "Well, it does say you'll be blessed." 01:30:44.980 |
Because we don't have time to go over everything, all I'm going to say is this. 01:30:50.980 |
Obviously, I gave earlier the principle that the wisdom literature is not to be taken as a universal promise or laws of God, 01:30:59.980 |
but that it's a way of God or pattern of life. 01:31:02.980 |
And I hope that when you're counseling somebody, don't say it like this. 01:31:06.980 |
Don't be like, "Pastor Mark said that wisdom literature is not like that." 01:31:12.980 |
But rather, give the kind of hope that says, "You know, the scripture is always right and true. 01:31:20.980 |
The best, most glorious, the most blessed way is to trust God." 01:31:27.980 |
The scripture tells us that our eyes might not see it that way. 01:31:35.980 |
But 1,000% I believe when God says your inner peace, when God says your overall health, your inner bones, 01:31:44.980 |
when God says your prosperity, all of that is in the sovereign hand of God and you need to trust him. 01:31:57.980 |
But just one more thought though is in the immediate context in our paragraph, in the context of the rest of Proverbs, 01:32:08.980 |
and in the context of the whole Bible, we know the prosperity gospel is just idolatry, right? 01:32:15.980 |
Because here, just in looking at the text that we have, what is the emphatic responsibility for me? 01:32:23.980 |
The emphatic responsibility for me is to just trust God. 01:32:29.980 |
Trust him to the degree where I know that he's going to be true and faithful and I need to just honor him. 01:32:35.980 |
The rest of that is just God's responsibility, right? 01:32:42.980 |
But also, in the context of the rest of Proverbs, scripture teaches us, "Do not weary yourself to gain wealth. 01:32:57.980 |
For wealth certainly makes itself wings like an eagle that flies toward the heavens." 01:33:04.980 |
So I hope that that's kind of--I know nobody in here believes like prosperity gospel is true. 01:33:13.980 |
But will you run across some people who are kind of wondering like, "Man, I'm so stuck in life. 01:33:21.980 |
And they remember singing Proverbs chapter 3. 01:33:24.980 |
They remember hearing Proverbs chapter 3 because it's one of the most famous passages in the book of Proverbs. 01:33:36.980 |
And my encouragement is I hope we can, just from the study, realize the admonition for us to meditate deeply, 01:33:45.980 |
not on just simply the out-product of life, but rather meditating deeply on the call that's emphatic in the text. 01:33:57.980 |
Right there in the middle where it tells us to trust in the Lord and to lean not on our own understanding. 01:34:05.980 |
The whole segment that we're looking at, it actually points to it, that one line. 01:34:12.980 |
You guys don't have to exactly know what a chiastic structure is, and you guys don't have to like, "Oh, is it here? 01:34:20.980 |
Sometimes it pops out at you, and sometimes it doesn't, you know? 01:34:23.980 |
But nevertheless, identifying these key literary devices helps us understand when it comes to our responsibility to live skillfully, 01:34:34.980 |
the passage is telling us we have to trust the Lord with everything we've got. 01:34:46.980 |
Again, we thank you because when we meditated this past week during Passion Week, Lord, 01:34:54.980 |
we know, Father God, that above and beyond just food for the day, above and beyond overthrowing the government 01:35:03.980 |
or having our life so secure, you gave us yourself. 01:35:09.980 |
You gave us, Father God, access to you, so thank you. 01:35:21.980 |
We may be in need of daily bread, but you call us to trust you with everything we've got. 01:35:27.980 |
And I pray, Father God, that we would heed this wisdom. 01:35:30.980 |
I pray, Father Lord, that we would also experience it, that we would experience the joys where we no longer trust our own might or our power, 01:35:44.980 |
So over here, next week is our last Lesson 10, and we're going to be studying Revelation Chapter 5, 1 through 14, okay? 01:35:57.980 |
The handout is—you don't have to, like, read in detail everything because it's going to be just a resource for you. 01:36:06.980 |
Here are the general principles of biblical hermeneutics that follows our historical, literal, grammatical way of interpreting things, 01:36:15.980 |
and then also genre-specific hermeneutic rules, okay? 01:36:28.980 |
My discussion questions didn't update, so your small group leader should have them. 01:36:34.980 |
I'm going to try my best to put this up here and put it on, but you guys can go ahead and go into your discussion time to discuss application, okay?