6.1 - Introduction: The Proverbs Project

Welcome to Season 6!
Before we take short break, we introduce our new theme which will focus on drawing practical application from God's wisdom literature.
Be sure to tune back in on Septemeber 2 as we begin this journey together!

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Noah preaches and teaches with the Cedar Park church of Christ in Cedar Park, TX. You can visit our site at: https://www.cedarparkchurchofchrist.org/

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 6.1 - Introduction, The Proverbs Project

6.1 - Introduction, The Proverbs Project

Paul: [00:00:00] Well, hello, hello, hello again today. It's another wonderful, beautiful day in the studio doing the podcast. Stan Strong, Noah, glad you're with me this morning. 

Noah: Glad to be here. Looking forward to this new Season and this new stage of stand strong. 

Paul: Season five is officially over. We enjoyed doing that.

Did Jesus really, I mean, we started out Noah talking about, did Jesus really say this? We were trying to look at the things that he actually said, but get beneath the surface. All right. What did he mean by this? Where did he want to take us in this teaching? When he clearly said these things, then we moved into Jesus really do this.

And again, we made some points that yeah, actually the gospel is revealed to us. He, he did this, but why? To what end, what was the purpose or the goal in this? So just kind of going through the life of Christ, the ministry of Christ, some of the teaching of Christ, and I thought it was a really good, we got some good positive feedback from that.

Please know if you're listening to these, you can [00:01:00] always go back and pull them up listen to them again. Please always feel like you can communicate with Noah or myself, ask us some questions or make some suggestions about, could y'all talk about this? What about that? But Noah, in this new season.

Season six, we decided we wanted to talk a little bit from wisdom literature from the Proverbs. 

Noah: That's right. Season six, we're going to be doing the Proverbs project. And I'm really looking forward to this. Proverbs has always been one of my favorite books in the Bible. And all of the Bible has practical application to life, but the, the Proverbs are just immensely practical in nature.

They were intended to be. Nuggets of wisdom for us to latch onto and to dig into and the kinds of things that you can wake up on a Tuesday morning, read it and go, Oh yeah, I'm going to use, I'm going to use that today. Like that's important for me today. So I think this is going to be really, really helpful.

Paul: Yeah. You know, Proverbs, let's just [00:02:00] state here in the beginning in this season six, the Proverbs project, Proverbs is not chicken soup for the soul. It's not a collection of man's wisdom. This is not Paul and Noah hour. What we're actually trying to do is get into, like you said, the wisdom that God gives us in the book of Proverbs so that we can understand how, how to live life from a certain perspective, how to relate to people in a better way to try to, to understand.

Simplify life and strengthen our priorities in life. And again, that's not a saying that every nugget of wisdom, every passage in the Proverbs is going to be easily defined and easily applied in our lives. But it is, I think, going to pull the curtain back a bit and show us ourselves better. Show us life better.

Help us to just simplify life to, to the, to the degree that, that, that we can. We can one day at a time make better decisions. 

Noah: Yeah, yeah. I mean, the whole idea is of [00:03:00] Proverbs is to pursue wisdom. And very few people, there are, there are people who might scoff at the idea of pursuing knowledge, you know, perhaps they hear that and they think only in, in perhaps some academic sense.

And they think that that's a bunch of, you know, fluff for the people in Ivy league schools or whatever. But I don't know that I've ever met anyone that, that really doesn't have any appreciation for wisdom for somebody in their lives who has experience. And, and knowledge that they want to share. Now, people don't always like to hear it, but I think that people understand intuitively the value of, of wisdom.

It's not just knowledge. There's, this is knowledge being applied to, I, I like what you said just a moment ago, to make life simpler. And make it easier for us to do and pursue the will of God. Yeah. 

Paul: So just in the beginning, Noah, in the [00:04:00] very first chapter of Proverbs, there's just a small section there, small reading in Proverbs one that I think sets the stage very well for, for what God is trying to tell us about the value of wisdom and what we find in Proverbs.

Noah: Yes. Yeah. The first seven verses of Proverbs. Is I think a great place to start for us as we begin this study of the Proverbs project. So I've got the ESV this morning. Would you like me to read that? Sure. Go ahead. All right. So Proverbs chapter one, verse one, the Proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel to know wisdom and instruction.

To understand words of insight, to receive instruction in wise dealing, in righteousness, justice, and equity. To give prudence to the simple, knowledge and discretion to the youth. Let the wise hear and increase in learning, and the one who understands obtain guidance. To understand a proverb [00:05:00] and a saying, the words of the wise and their riddles.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge fools despise wisdom and instruction 

Paul: I like those verses You know, they kind of like I said, they they pull the curtain back a bit, you know one of the things that I was hearing in that is There's wisdom here. There's more wisdom to the already Wise person, right?

Right. And there's also common sense reasoning that's made available to even people in their youth, 

Noah: right? Right. This is going to be what we're seeing is in this book, there's going to be information. There's going to be experiential wisdom and divinely inspired wisdom that will help Whoever's reading in whatever stage of life they are in with whatever issues they are facing, there is wisdom in this [00:06:00] book for those people.

It's kind of it to me, there's almost this sense in which Solomon is saying here as he's writing at the beginning, this is for everybody. It doesn't matter how young, how old, how inexperienced, how mature, how wise you already are. Or aren't this is going to be for you. 

Paul: Yeah. You know, we're calling this the Proverbs project.

So let me tell my story. It's, it's a Yogi Berra story as, as, as to my relation to the importance of wisdom in the Proverbs. I mean, most people listening, especially if you're older you, you recognize the name Yogi Berra. You think the, the New York Yankees, Yogi Berra, 14 time American League all star, three time American MVP played in 14 world series.

Inducted into baseball hall of fame. I think in 1972, he's known for what's called Yogi isms. Yogi isms are those things that Yogi Berra said that just kind of leaves you [00:07:00] scratching your head. That did not make sense. Some Yogi isms. I jotted down Yogi Berra said it's deja vu all over again. Or if you don't go to someone's funeral, they won't come to yours.

My scratching your head. But he did say some things. That do make sense, make a lot of sense. And one of the things that Yogi Berra said, we don't want to lose by making the wrong mistake. And that stuck with me. We don't want to lose by making the wrong mistake. You know, we all make mistakes. Right. And there are mistakes that we make in life we didn't intend to, but we made the mistake, we recognized it as a mistake, and then we recovered from it.

Yeah. So not every mistake that we make in life is lethal, but there are some mistakes. That we make that could be very lethal. 

Noah: Yeah. 

Paul: And so we don't want to lose by making the wrong mistake. Now, the proverb project, common sense, [00:08:00] sound advice, more wisdom to the wise. I mean, think about synonyms there that you read in the first.

A few verses of chapter one, instruction and understanding justice. What is right and true and what is fair prudence, foresight, the ability to look ahead and to make a sound judgment discretion to discerning between not just good and bad, but what matters most just, just some insight 

Noah: into life. Yeah.

The, the insight into life and what we, what we see So much in just in these first seven verses is that there's, there's going to be information about priorities. There's going to be wisdom about how we, how we organize our minds and our lives in a way that allows us to pursue, as he says in verse three, righteousness and justice and equity.

This is going to be a matter of pursuing the better things. And that, that is something that [00:09:00] sometimes we don't devote enough attention to because we just, we, we sometimes are, get caught up in this idea that we have to, this is going to sound wrong that we have to get it a hundred percent right a hundred percent of the time.

And while that would be lovely to be able to do, we're not going to do that. As one of my mentors has said many times, we all lay eggs from time to time and we never intend to, right? So the question is, how do we, how do we organize our thoughts and our hearts and our lives in a way that aligns with wisdom, pursues the wisdom of God, And when we mess up and we make mistakes and we act unwisely, how do, like you said just a moment ago, how do we recover and pursue wisdom again?

Paul: Yeah, I mean, if, if I were, if we were to say in this, Hey, [00:10:00] again, let's let, we're wanting to remind our audience, this is not the Noah and Paul hour where we're giving our insight into life from our experience. We're trying to look into God's wisdom and then make it usable in life. But if you and I were to say, Hey, in this season six, we want people to tune in.

Because we're going to find ways that you can better save time and, and better use your money. Well, who out there is like, yes to that, or we want to spare you some heartache and some headaches and some future trouble in life. Well, that I'm into that, or we want to supply you with insight on how to best serve God and his purposes.

Yeah. And I hope everybody says, I'm into that. Well, that's all in the Proverbs. There's wisdom there, but there's an interesting passage in the Proverbs. We'll probably find it very early, even though in Proverbs 1 you had the fear of the Lord being the beginning of knowledge. It's interesting in Proverbs 9 and verse [00:11:00] 10, you've got the fear of the Lord being the beginning of wisdom.

Noah: Yeah. 

Paul: Knowledge of the Holy One is understanding and the commonality between these two that that I want to just insert in the introduction today on the Proverbs project is that everyone listening that's that's you and I in this room. It begins with the fear of the Lord. Yeah. So again, to see life from from the Lord's perspective to understand we want to simplify life.

Sometimes I complicate life. Because I'm not focused on. Who or what the Lord says, okay, Paul, today you need to be focused on this. And again, I didn't intend to lay an egg. I didn't intend to get sidetracked, right? So he's going to pull back the curtain a bit. He's going to open my eyes. He's going to remind me of something or just show me something for the first time.

And then I'm going to have an aha moment. Like, Hey, using that today, right? It is going to help me to, to live [00:12:00] life with the least amount of difficulties or help me to get the most satisfaction fulfillment out of life today, or I just, I know better now how to honor God with my money and honor God with my time and who and what matters most and just simplify life.

Noah: Yeah. Yeah. Wisdom is an incredibly valuable asset if you just want to use, excuse me, if you just want to use, you know, very you know, practical terms. It is an immensely valuable asset for life. True wisdom, godly wisdom is incredibly valuable. And we get a picture of that in Proverbs chapter four, when he writes things like get wisdom, get insight, Do not forget and do not turn away from the words of my mouth.

Do not forsake her and she will keep you. Love her and she will guard you. Those kinds of things. He says things like prize, he's describing wisdom as a woman, but [00:13:00] prize her highly and she will exalt you. She will honor you if you embrace her. So, there's this, there's this just fact that we have to get our, we have to get our minds around that this is, it's valuable.

It's valuable. for our lives and more importantly and more eminently, like you said, it's valuable for our walk with God. It's valuable for putting us in a position to glorify him and to serve him, which is therefore why it makes perfect sense that the fear of the Lord is where this begins, right? This is ultimately going to be a, a tool for making our lives more in service to God, more reflective of his character and more in line with his will.

And ultimately that's going to make our lives it's going to make it more complicated than some areas of life, but in, in many ways it will make things simpler. Like you [00:14:00] said, just a moment ago, because we'll be able to say, here is what God wants of me. And that's enough. 

Paul: Yeah. Love it. The Proverbs project, we're excited about it.

We're looking forward to it. God is telling us in Proverbs that wisdom is crying out. He's telling us how important and valuable wisdom is, but we have to listen to wisdom's voice and we have to esteem wisdom and embrace it. And then God says, I'm going to do the rest. But you've got to partner with me.

So I'm looking forward. We're looking forward to the prover project. So no, we want to remind our audience of a couple of things, really some dates when this is season six officially will kick off. 

Noah: Yes. So we're excited about this and we hope that you're excited about this as well. But we have decided to take a few weeks of a break between season five and season six.

So we've have, we have this introduction episode today. But then we're going to take several weeks to let y'all have your busy summers and for us to [00:15:00] really kick things into gear for season six and get things locked and loaded. So the, the first full episode of season six will be published on September 2nd.

That's Labor Day, Monday, Labor Day, September 2nd. That's when season six is really going to kick off. That's when we're going to come back. So we're going to have a few weeks here. Where we won't be uploading new episodes. If you want to catch up on old episodes, and you've got time for that, great. If you've got as busy a summer as most of us, and you don't have time for a podcast, great.

Go enjoy that that summer and come back. On September 2nd, Labor Day for Season 6 as we really dig into this Proverbs project. 

Paul: Yeah. Well, thank you to everybody today. Noah thank you for your time that you've invested into this. We want to keep hearing from you. Please continue to remember, even though it's getting hot, we, we don't want to get cold.

And so there are God's people to serve. There are people in [00:16:00] need. If you have a need, if you want to talk to Noah or I at any time, please approach us, email us, text us, let us know. We're here to help. We're thankful to you. We're thankful for what God is doing in this good church here at Cedar Park. And so our encouragement for the next few weeks till this beginning of season six, let's together with God's grace, stand strong.