Connect 360: The Search for Wisdom

• Lesson 2 in the Connect360 unit “The Search for Wisdom: Words to Live By” focuses on Proverbs 2:1-15.

A “rite” could be a type of formal ceremony or a type of custom, and in either case, it represents something being passed on from one person to another. In this case, think of God as the wise Father passing his wisdom to his faithfully obedient child. Interestingly enough, there are biblical scholars who point to this chapter as a type of poem, which could be easily shared from one person to the next. This gives a formality to what you are reading right now.

As you read these verses, imagine that you are sitting with God, your Father, and he is passing on what he has to you. Much like giving an heirloom or a meaningful piece of family history to a descendant, wisdom is that sacred treasure that is being shared. Because of your faithful obedience with God, relating to him as family, God is saying now you will understand and be wise.

If “wisdom” is the umbrella term, the parts that make up this umbrella include understanding, discretion and means of rescue. This proves that wisdom itself, while it is so simple and yet so deep, has a way of impacting your life in every way from big to small. Wisdom will help you as you seek out God’s overall will for your life, just like wisdom will help you decide whether or not to buy that car or eat that fatty meal. There is no limitation to God’s wisdom, because it can inform and transform the whole life.

On your lifelong search for God’s wisdom, you will find that as he reveals it to you, you will recognize how it benefits you and how it protects you. Much is said here about how it rescues you from wicked ways as well as wicked people who are trying to lead you astray. This theme of wicked ones will come up throughout the rest of the book, because there are adversaries to God’s wisdom as well as God’s children who live his wisdom.

As a closing idea for this section, think about what rites of passages you have heard of. If you are thinking of tribal groups around the world, one example would be the “walkabout” that takes place in the Australian aboriginal groups. If you are thinking of religious groups, Jews have their “bar mitzvahs” or “bat mitzvahs.” Around the world, there are rites of passage—some that are sacred and some that are hardly noticeable. But in all these, there is an idea of something passing from an older one to the younger one. What would it look like if our churches had a rite of passage that passes on the wisdom of one generation to another? Most importantly, what if we reflected these as sharing God as the source of all wisdom?

God is inviting you to meet him as your Father, just as Solomon invited the first listeners of Proverbs to come near and meet him. Solomon is not the original source of the wisdom he had and shared; God is the original. Let’s make time to come near to God and ask him to share his wisdom with us.

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