HANDMAIDENS OF THE LORD

Illustration by Marti Somers
One of the instructions Jesus gave His followers was to be “wise as serpents�?(Mt. 10:16 , NKJV). If we hope to obey this command, we would do well to immerse ourselves in the rich counsel found in the Bible‘s wisdom literature: Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Job.
These books are distinct from other parts of Scripture. One thing you‘ll notice right away is that they are “lost in time and place.�?That is, they are not grounded in a specific nation or period. All the other Old Testament books chronicle the history of Israel and its covenant with the Lord. The wisdom books are more focused on the individual. They aren‘t concerned about Israel‘s heroes, the exodus from Egypt, the temple and its rituals, or the behavior of kings. Instead, they are connected to the here and now, the daily morality of the individual.
Ecclesiastes and most of Proverbs are traditionally attributed to Israel‘s King Solomon. In addition, ancient Israel had other wise men, sages and respected teachers who passed on their observations (such as Agur and Lemuel, the writers to whom Proverbs 30 and 31 are respectively attributed).
These wise men were neither priests nor prophets, but simply astute observers of human nature and ethics. They looked at the world around them and, somewhat like scientists, noted that “if you do A, then B will usually result.�?If you engage in adultery, you will get into trouble. If you save money, you will enjoy financial security. In other words, the wise men had common sense—which, alas, is never too common.
Each generation has to be reminded of these truths. That is what the wisdom books, especially Proverbs, are designed to do. They are a kind of academy of morals, based on common sense. Follow their principles, and you will become wise and righteous. Ignore them, and you will become foolish and wicked.
Sounds sensible, right? But there are some other aspects of the wisdom books we need to consider as well.
The Great Divide
The wise men wrote not only Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes, but also some of the psalms. There are several wisdom psalms, notably 1 , 10 , 14 , 37 , 49 , 90 , 127 , and especially 112 , with its praise for the righteous person‘s prosperity:
Wealth and riches are in his house.�?He will have no fear of bad news; his heart is steadfast, trusting in the Lord. —vv. 3 , 7
Not all the wisdom psalms, however, celebrate the triumph of the virtuous. Some, such as Psalm 10 , question why the wicked prosper and call for God to impose justice. Others, such as Psalms 37 and 73 , offer the assurance that eventually the wicked will be punished and the upright rewarded.
The difference between these two kinds of psalms illustrates a great divide in the wisdom books. Proverbs and some of the psalms present us with the formula that righteous people will prosper in this world, while the wicked will eventually suffer. But Job and Ecclesiastes present the other side: Sometimes the cause of the wicked advances, while the righteous languish in horrible suffering.
Proverbs seems to reduce morality and its consequences into a neat equation: act right, and God will surely bless you. That equation is represented by Job‘s three friends, who assure Job that his trials are the result of his sin, whether he admits it or not. But Job knows he hasn‘t sinned (Job 1:22 , 13:20-23 ), and he is forced to grapple with why God has taken away his health, wealth, and children. If you have read Job, you know the book provides no definitive answer to these perplexing questions.
Ecclesiastes includes many passages that could have been plucked from the pages of Proverbs, verses praising the life of wisdom and virtue. But the book is often skeptical of formulaic approaches to determining the outcome of life:
The wise man has eyes in his head, while the fool walks in the darkness; but I came to realize that the same fate overtakes them both. Then I thought in my heart, “The fate of the fool will overtake me also. What then do I gain by being wise?�?I said in my heart, “This too is meaningless.�?BR>—Eccl. 2:14-15
I have seen something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all.
—Eccl. 9:11
Ecclesiastes is supremely realistic. It teaches us to walk in the way of wisdom but tells us not to be shocked when life seems unfair.
So, do the wisdom books contradict each other? I don‘t think so. They give us two sides of the same coin. On the one side is Proverbs, with its sensible maxims about living virtuously. Proverbs is full of sound advice: Control your temper, give to the poor, don‘t gossip, be honest in your business dealings, work hard. On the other side of the coin, we find Job and Ecclesiastes, which remind us that living virtuously doesn‘t always bring a tangible earthly reward.
Job and Ecclesiastes are not in opposition to the practical advice we see in Proverbs. According to Prov. 12:21 , “No harm befalls the righteous, but the wicked have their fill of trouble.�?To that verse, I believe the authors of Job and Ecclesiastes probably would have tacked on something like “usually�?or “if God wills.�?BR>These books remind us, however, that righteous people sometimes suffer inexplicably, as Job did. Obedience does not automatically lead to prosperity; morality is not a transaction in which God owes us a happy life because we behave well. Job and Ecclesiastes enable us to see that righteous living ought to be pursued for its own sake, not just for the benefits it can bring us.
The Big Picture
We may not realize it, but Christians today have an advantage over the original authors and readers of the wisdom books: We know that “the big picture�?includes eternity, with everlasting bliss for the righteous.
The ancient Hebrew concept of the afterlife was not well defined until after the Babylonian exile. The Eerdman‘s Dictionary of the Bible notes:
Pre-exilic Israel had no afterlife beliefs �?in the sense that later Jews and Christians eventually came to conceptualize [them]: a blessed, material, physical existence for the pious (and conversely a perpetual horrid experience for the wicked).
Thus, Proverbs�?statements about God‘s reward for the good and punishment for the wicked may make more sense to us than to the original readers. The righteous will be perfectly happy—not necessarily in this world, but certainly in the next. Good people may suffer horribly, as Job did, yet they have the assurance that something better is coming.
The authors of Job and Ecclesiastes lamented that the world doesn‘t always seem fair, that God doesn‘t always shower His saints with success. Many believers have voiced the same lament but counter it with the assurance that justice will ultimately be done.
In the School of Wisdom
As you immerse yourself in the wisdom literature, bear in mind these principles.
Read Proverbs as a book of moral guidelines, not as promises or prophecy. For example, Proverbs says that the righteous will live long and prosperous lives (3:2 ), while the lives of the wicked will be cut short (10:27 ). It overflows with verses contrasting the lot of the righteous and the wicked. We can affirm that these proverbs are true in a general way—and in an eternal sense as well.
Yet if we take these verses as absolute promises about life on earth, we may be disappointed and frustrated (feelings that lie at the root of Job and Ecclesiastes). Instead, we need to take Proverbs for what it is: a storehouse of wisdom about living a moral life in an immoral world. Balance Proverbs by reading Job and Ecclesiastes, reminders that people of faith may experience difficult seasons in which life is unbearably painful.
Read Ecclesiastes from a Christian perspective. That is, realize that the author of this book wrote without the full awareness of eternal life in heaven. He was commenting, pessimistically, on the meaninglessness of most of the things people value. Perhaps he would have been more optimistic if he had looked forward to heaven.
Read Job for its eloquent statements about divine justice and human suffering. Be aware that Job‘s three friends were not bad men, but men whose ideas about justice and suffering were too tidy. They tried to make sense of Job‘s afflictions with a limited, transactional view of morality and God‘s involvement in our lives. The overall message of Job teaches us that suffering does not always make sense from the human perspective, nor is it always the result of our rebellion.
Finally, pray for the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The valuable teachings of these books will remain dead letters to us unless the Spirit is moving in us, helping us to understand and apply truth to our lives. He alone has the power to turn sound biblical counsel into righteous living.
As you linger over these morsels of wisdom, you will discover God‘s rich blessings waiting for you in the Bible‘s wisdom literature.

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