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The Proverbs - Wisdom From God - Ch. 2 Verse 20-22


I have learned as an adult, that very few of the warnings we give to children are simply embraced as truth. Children always want to find out for themselves. You tell a child, “That’s hot…don’t touch it or you’ll get burned.” What’s the first thing they want to do? Reach out and touch that thing to see for themselves. We are all very stubborn when it comes to listening to the wisdom of others. As we grow into adulthood, we can’t understand why young people won’t listen to us and heed the warnings we give. As adults, we forget that when we are young, we have very little appreciation for the wisdom that comes from age and experience. Once we get to the age of about 13, we think we must be as smart as any other human being on the planet, and at least in my case, thought I could handle just about any situation that came my way without any help. Of course, in my own life this describes my 6 year old perfectly.

So, is it worth pouring wisdom into the life of a young person, knowing that they probably aren’t going to heed the advice you give them? I’d say absolutely! We see it given to us as an example right here in the Proverbs. Those that desire the wisdom from God and heed its warnings will be spared many of the dangers and pitfalls in life. For those that belong to God, He is our loving Father. What loving Father would not instinctively desire to warn their children about the dangers in life. In fact, it would be incredibly unloving not to.

So. Let’s look at this last section from Proverbs chapter 2.

PROVERBS 2

 20So you will walk in the way of the good
   and keep to the paths of the righteous.
21For the upright will inhabit the land,
   and those with integrity will remain in it,
22but the wicked will be cut off from the land,
   and the treacherous will be rooted out of it. (ESV)

The missing phrase to start verse 20 might be, “I am giving you this warning…”. In this section we see some of the goals of listening to wisdom, and then a promise and a warning. It’s God’s will that we, “walk in the way of the good”, and “keep to the path of the righteous.” Simply put, God wants us to do and be good by imitating those that lead good lives. In other words, “listen to and apply Godly wisdom to your lives.”  Verse 21-22 give us a parallelism that speaks of a good result for heeding this wisdom and a consequence for disregarding it.  A paraphrase might be something like, “good and honest people will generally find success and prosperity, but the wicked and foolish people will usually meet with failure.” 

If God thinks it’s a good idea to share His wisdom with us, even though we might not always listen and heed it, I think we should do the same and follow His example.
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