Some of the best advice I have ever received was told to me shortly after I entered college: In every month that has 31 days read one chapter a day from the book of Proverbs. Its implementation in my life has blessed me abundantly. It can and will do the same for you.
The profoundly simple purpose of this inspired book is to help anyone who so desires to look at life the way God does. It is to give earthly beings heaven’s point of view.
Solomon explains it like this: “The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel: to know wisdom and instruction, to perceive the words of understanding, to receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, judgment, and equity; to give prudence to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion” (Proverbs 1:1-4). The fourfold purpose of the book of Proverbs is:
- To inform—to state what is right and wrong, wise and foolish, and to instruct how to act correctly and shrewdly.
- To make perceptive—to develop the ability to discern truth from error, wheat from tares, and to winnow Satan’s chaff away from divine truth.
- To instruct—to show the hook that is hidden by the bait of temptation, and to tell of the yet unseen destination that the broad way of sin always leads to.
- To avoid foolish mistakes—to elude the ravenous spiritual predator called Satan who seeks to prey upon the naïve and gullible.
The promise of success given in verses 5 and 6—”A wise man will hear and increase learning, and a man of understanding will attain wise counsel, to understand a proverb and an enigma, the words of the wise and their riddles”—makes this a pursuit worthy of all diligence.
