Thank you for joining us for our 5 days per week wisdom and legacy building podcast. Today is Day 641 of our trek, and it is Wisdom Wednesday. Every Wednesday along life’s trails we dig for the nuggets of wisdom that are found within the book of Proverbs. Today we will explore Proverbs 16 from The Voice Translation, which will give us a fresh perspective on this book of timeless wisdom.
We are broadcasting from our studio at The Big House in Marietta, Ohio. As we celebrate Independence Day in the United States this week, it does give us an opportunity to pause, reflect, and be grateful for the freedoms that we enjoy. If you live elsewhere in the world, I pray that you also have the opportunity to enjoy the freedom to live, work, play, and worship without fear of reprisal. Regardless of our societal freedoms that we have, as Christ followers we do have freedom from the bondage and penalty of our unwise choices and actions. This freedom comes through the perfect advocate, Jesus Christ. As the Apostle Paul wrote in his letter in Galatians 5:1, “So Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don’t get tied up again in slavery to the law.” Understanding and accepting this freedom is found in our topic for today in Proverbs 16 which is…
Chapters 10-15 contained proverbs that use contrast as a teaching tool. Here Chapter 16 shifts to a comparison style model. Basically, the “but, but, but” of Chapter 12 is replaced with “and, and, and.” These comparison sayings often state one basic idea and go on to explore it in two ways. It’s like studying an object first with one eye shut and then again with both eyes open. You gain a new appreciation for its depth and substance.
This chapter continues to frequently use God’s personal covenant name, Yahweh. Of the 375 Proverbs of Solomon (10:1-[22:16]) only 55 use the name Yahweh, and nearly half of those are in these two chapters (9 times in Chapter 15, 11 times in Chapter 16). What do you think accounts for this high concentration of God’s name?
This collection of proverbs has three main sections: wisdom for living before...
