followHIM - Proverbs & Ecclesiastes • Part 1: Dr. Lincoln Blumell

Episode Date: August 26, 2022

Would sage advice from a parent be worth treasuring? Dr. Lincoln Blumell explores the book of Proverbs and the book of Ecclesiastes and the nature of wisdom, grief, and what fearing God means for modern and ancient readers.Please rate and review the podcast!Show Notes (English, French, Spanish, Portuguese): https://followhim.co/old-testament/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/followhimpodcastInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/followhimpodcastYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/FollowHimOfficialChannelThanks to the follow HIM team:Steve & Shannon Sorensen: Executive Producers, SponsorsDavid & Verla Sorensen: SponsorsDr. Hank Smith: Co-hostJohn Bytheway: Co-hostDavid Perry: ProducerKyle Nelson: Marketing, SponsorLisa Spice: Client Relations, Editor, Show NotesJamie Neilson: Social Media, Graphic DesignWill Stoughton: Video EditorKrystal Roberts: Translation Team, English & French Transcripts, WebsiteAriel Cuadra: Spanish TranscriptsIgor Willians: Portuguese Transcripts"Let Zion in Her Beauty Rise" by Marshall McDonaldhttps://www.marshallmcdonaldmusic.com/products/let-zion-in-h

Welcome to Follow Him, a weekly podcast dedicated to helping individuals and families with their Come Follow Me study. I'm Hank Smith. And I'm John, by the way. We love to learn. We love to laugh. We want to learn and laugh with you. As together, we follow him. Hello, my friends. Welcome to another episode of Follow Him. My name is Hank Smith. I am your host. I am here with my merry-hearted co-host, John, by the way. John, as I was reading Proverbs, preparing for this lesson, I hit Proverbs 15, 13, and it said, a merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance. And I wrote John, by the way, right there. This is a merry-hearted podcast, I think.

Absolutely. Hey, John, we have a Bible expert in the room with us. Tell everybody who's joining. So excited to have Dr. Lincoln Blumell with us. And as I read the bio, it's another time, Hank. I'm just going, wow, we're so blessed to have these people with us. Lincoln Blumell received a bachelor's with honors in classical and early Christian studies from the University of Calgary. An MA from the University of Calgary in religious studies and ancient Christianity, specializing in that, an MST from Oxford Christ Church in Jewish Studies, a PhD from the University

of Toronto in Religious Studies, emphasizing early Christianity. And before coming to BYU, he held a visiting assistant professorship in the Department of Classical Studies at Tulane University in New Orleans. His areas of expertise are New Testament, Second Temple Judaism, history of ancient Christianity until the Byzantine period. He was the editor of a book called New Testament History, Culture, and Society, in which a lot of our, probably a lot of our guests have written, right, Hank? Yeah, yeah, there's quite a few of our guests in that book. Yeah, so we'll be excited, especially next year, coming up with New Testament for that. New Testament history, culture, and study, and his areas of research include early Christianity

in Egypt, ancient Christian letters, and Greek. So, we're really glad to have you today and so excited to hear how you can help us with the book of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes today. Welcome. Thank you so much for that very generous kind of introduction and great to meet you and be with you both, John and Hank. Lincoln, you absolutely deserve it. John Lincoln and I have worked together for 10 years and he's, he was my mentor at BYU. They assigned me a mentor and I think he was like, oh,

you gotta be kidding me, but we've become friends over the years. And I'll tell you that book, New Testament, History, Culture, and Society. It is a big book and it is worth your time. If you want to know about the New Testament, this will give you, I'm reading from Amazon. Here's just a small sampling of the writers, Robert Millett, John Welch, Andrew Skinner, Kent Jackson, Terry Ball, Noel Reynolds, Frank Judd, just a myriad of other professors in which Lincoln edited these chapters. So if any of our listeners are interested, look that up, New Testament History, Culture,

and Society, a background to the text of the New Testament, came out in 2019. Lincoln, it sounds like from your bio, you're well-traveled. Yeah. Well, I try New Testament period, work a lot on there and kind of been around with schools, Canada, England, and then finally made a great stop here in the great state of Utah. Really happy to be here at BYU. It's been a great 10 years. All right, Lincoln, how do we want to approach these, what I've heard called the wisdom literature?

How do you approach Proverbs and Ecclesiastes? That's a great question. It's probably best to give a little background to this that will help kind of frame what wisdom literature is, and even within the Bible, what wisdom literature is. And so I'll talk about the A&E or the ancient Near East. You have this tradition that is millennia old of collections of sayings, proverbs, which is like a maxim or an aphorism. They're short, pithy sayings that are communicated. Typically, the standard format it takes is not unlike the book of Proverbs,

where you have typically somebody addressing a younger individual, like an elder, often a father to a son. And what you have is basically communicating important wisdom and it's transmitted on that will then help that individual prosper in their life, have success. I think of ancient wisdom literature kind of in general, and this is maybe a little humorous, but I think the analogy is apropos, kind of like the ancient how to win friends and influence people kind of literature that you get. And it's kind of funny, but it really is in a lot of ways. You have this Egyptian culture, right? Sumerian cultures, these ancient Christian cultures, Israelite wisdom literature,

and it's how to be successful. And we'll talk about Proverbs. It's unique because Israelites will have their own spin on this, which will, of course, tie in with God. But in a lot of wisdom literature, it's rather quite mundane, really quite general. There are sayings that, of course, remain in our time, like pretty basic stuff, like a bow strung all day will lose its spring. And so things like, okay, well, then I need to then unstring my bow when I'm done using it. And when you look at this wisdom literature, and probably the closest parallels you find, again, what we'll see in Proverbsverbs is coming out of some Egyptian wisdom literature. You have works like the sayings of a man called Ankh-Shashanky in Egypt, as well as others who

have this, right? For example, there's an Egyptian who lives, it's believed in the Ramesside period, which is 1300 BC to about 1100 BC called Amenemope, who leaves a text for his son. And there's some really fascinating parallels we'll look at beginning in Proverbs 22. And so, it's just communication that an elder will pass on to typically younger individual. And so, it's kind of framed in Proverbs, right? Like a father to a son to help them succeed in their life and to prosper. With the Israelite case, of course, it will tie very intimately back to God. And when you think of this wisdom in Proverbs and elsewhere, it might be attributed to gods, but often it seems to be based on observation.

Just like based on life, here are wise sayings that you should abide by. And if you follow these, it seems to be there's a correlation then between the saying and some kind of prosperity or success in life. Okay. So, this is imparting wisdom, life experience to the younger generation. John, that's like me and you. You're the elder and I'm the younger, of course. And you impart all this wisdom to me. Yes, you impart all this wisdom to me. Yes, you impart all this wisdom to me.

And I feel like you're the proverbial John, by the way. Proverbial? Yeah, who has all this wisdom. I was thinking of that. I was an amateur verb, but I've gone pro. So I'm a pro verb now. I've left the amateur ranks. I was going to ask Lincoln about that because I feel like some of these sound like fatherly

wisdom or motherly wisdom. And I thought, I mean, there's not a thus saith the Lord in these. When we look at these, it sounds more like there's a family motto that we've had passed down or things like that. It's maybe a dangerous question to ask. Do we hold the book of Proverbs to the same level we might hold the book of Isaiah? That's a great question. It's in the canon, and so we regard, right, as a standard works as scripture. When I look at Proverbs and see Ecclesiastes, it's interesting that

when you look at these two texts, here's one way of kind of looking at this question. There's hardly any JSTs here. There's none in Ecclesiastes, for example, and there's a handful in Proverbs, and only one that really makes much of a difference to the text in 18. We'll talk about probably in the context when we get to Proverbs 31. And so, it even seems the JST doesn't spend a whole lot of time focusing on these texts. As I look at Proverbs, I think a lot of this is about wise sayings handed down. It talks about the wise, or we could say sages. Here is what we've learned. But there is no thus saith the Lord. And I guess what is maybe to vindicate some of these sayings, I guess, is some of the authority would be, well, if you do this, then you will see the fruits of then doing this saying or maxim or aphorism.

You do have at the beginning here the attribution to solomon in verse one although as you read into the book and you start moving through this you know it becomes very clear that we have here is a composite work solomon is not the only author here you get down into for example chapter 22 and it now talks about well here are now sayings of the sages or the wise men. And it's clearly drawing upon some wisdom that has been passed on from Israel. You then have in 25, it talks about, well, you now have the reign of Hezekiah. So Hezekiah is now some two centuries after Solomon. And they're now compiling this. And there's a redactor who's working with this.

Chapter 30, it talks about a man called Agur. And then in chapter 31, a king called Lemuel. We'll talk more about Lemuel. And so it's kind of collected wisdom. And so I think some of this wisdom perhaps is probably even there before Solomon. And you have right editors who then redact this and bring this into a unit. It's not entirely cohesive. It's often you have these short sayings that doesn't always clear why you have a grouping or one next to another. At times, there's a kind of a thematic, I'd call it a multiverse proverb, but this is related on. It's kind of wisdom from the ages. And so I look at this here as more like it's about probabilities. If you do this,

this is probably what's going to happen to you. And it's good counsel. If I were to erase a New Testament, I'll probably do this a lot, where Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, he says, I'm giving you my opinion. Nevertheless, I'm an apostle. And so, you need to go and disregard that opinion by Paul. But it's saying, I think he recognized, Paul's careful there in 1 Corinthians where he does this, 15, but also especially in 7, where he says, okay, the Lord says this. And he says, now I'm saying this. But remember, I'm an apostle. So I think with Proverbs, I kind of take it in that light. It's a valuable opinion.

If you do these things, I think part of the message of Proverbs is generally good things are going to happen. You'll have success, win friends, influence people kind of thing. But your life will be more meaningful. You can avoid pitfalls. There's lots of warning about pitfalls out there. So that's how I would approach this book and even Ecclesiastes in this kind of tradition. Yeah, I feel like it sounds like advice about your relationship with God. It's not necessarily God talking, but they're talking about how to choose.

I mean, I love the pond or the path of thy feet, things like that. And trust in the Lord, which is a youth theme this year. In fact, there's an interesting statement in the manual. If we want to jump into the second book, we're going to look at Ecclesiastes. This is from the first page in the Come Follow Me manual. It says, Proverbs can be seen as a collection of wise sayings from a loving parent, whose main message is that blessings of peace and prosperity come to those who seek wisdom, particularly the kind of wisdom God offers. But Proverbs is followed by the book of Ecclesiastes, which seems to say it's not that simple. The preacher quoted in Ecclesiastes

observed that he gave his heart to no wisdom, but still found vexation of spirit and much grief. That was, I thought, a good way of framing it. There's some great Proverbs. Doesn't mean life will be easy just because you know these Proverbs. You know, when I think about scripture as we approach it, certainly, you know, our ancient scriptures, is sometimes I think it's useful to think about in this term, there are things that can be more timely than timeless. And I think this could apply to Proverbs. There will be wisdom that they might have that say, this might be a great piece of advice if you're living in the 9th century BC. Might not work so

well in the 21st century. And so, what I might say to those who are reading this text, maybe struggling with some things, I'd say, are there principles behind it? Because I think there's often principles behind it. We can say, yes, this principle resonates with us, even if maybe some of the specific advice we might not be as applicable for our day or might do something different is,

what are they trying to communicate there? And so look at the principle behind that and then say, okay, this is how then it might inform practice today and how we're then going to apply that. And so I think that's worth keeping in mind. I'm writing that down. Some things in scripture are more timely than timeless. And that's part of understanding culture, part of understanding their worldview, their cosmology. Then you're able to extract the timeless.

Does that make sense? Yeah, there are principles there where, yeah, we look and say, yes, there's some timeless principles where practices here may have changed. Really, the premise of Proverbs seems to be the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge or righteousness. That's where it all starts with. How do you then apply this in your daily life? How could you group these three books, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and even Job, as the wisdom literature? I think you have to see them at least somewhat as a unit because Proverbs is going to give you one end of wisdom. Ecclesiastes is going to give you another facet of wisdom, while Job is going to even offer another.

And if you don't take them together, you might miss something. Do you think they're meant to be read together, these three? Well, I think we have them as a collection together. When we look at Proverbs, if you do these things, it will be well with you. You'll be blessed. You even have beatitudes, like what you find, right? Blessed is the person who does this. Happy are they. Yeah, in the Sermon on the Mount. So, it doesn't entertain the possibility that if you do this, it might not go well, where Job then says, okay, you could be doing everything as best you can, your power, and being

a really upright life, and it might all still go to pot. And then it will probe that question. For example, we talk about theodicy. Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people? An age-old question. Proverbs doesn't engage with that, where Job now says, okay, what do we do now when you're doing things and it doesn't turn out as planned? And so then there's that discussion.

And of course you have in Job, then there's a restoration made at the end. It probes on their angle. And then Ecclesiastes seems to be more of a thing where, okay, you can go and do good things, and yet it can still be all vanity, right? And we'll talk about this, this Hebrew word hevel, which is like breath, or basically this emptiness. That at the end of the day, what you do here, it may not turn out at all how you expect it. Although it does end with trusting God. It does have that at the end of the it, although it does end with trusting God.

It does have that at the end of the text, but does recognize there are a lot more complexities in this whole process in life that you think of in Deuteronomy. If you follow me, you do this, Israel, you will be blessed. If you don't, you'll be cursed. And that works nicely, but I think we can all think of our own lives or people where you feel like you're doing some of that stuff and you're like, well, I'm doing all I can, but it doesn't always work out. I'm not seeing the blessings that are promised. Yeah. Yeah. Hank and I have talked about this before. It's like the doctrine of retribution. It sounds so mathematical and it works sometimes, right? Yeah.

Ben and I did everything right and suffered like Job. Isn't that going to the New Testament a little bit, the mindset when who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? Yeah, John 9. It's got to be a result of sin or else it wouldn't happen. And that kind of thinking that Jesus had to fix with them sometime. Those people that the Tower of Siloam fell on them, do you think it was because Jesus seemed to have to say, this is great advice, but sometimes things go badly? I think that's where Ecclesiastes comes in. It complexifies things. It does say, nevertheless, have trust in God. But one thing Ecclesiastes gets in a little bit in the later chapters, you don't know the mind of God. It's almost like inscrutable.

Have this trust. And yes, things can work out well, but there are no guarantees. What I would go back to Ecclesiastes is, even in Proverbs, I step back and say, right with the plan of salvation. Yes, you'll prosper, but I think the Lord, I would say this, eternally. In the big scheme of thing, it will work out. In the big, big picture, it's going to work out, but it may not work out here in this finite period of mortality and you might do things right. And again, I think generally, right, people will be blessed, but Ecclesiastes kind of the spectrum tends to open it up and say, okay, some of these things, there's maybe not quite the correlation that seems to be elsewhere that can be a bit more complex. And so it opens that possibility up.

And so you come back to Hank, we do kind of read these together. In the Hebrew canon, Ecclesiastes is actually separated. It comes after Lamentations. You have these three wisdom books. Israelites, Jews are still writing more wisdom literature that we have like in the Apocrypha, like the wisdom of Solomon or Sirach, which is known as Ecclesiasticus or the wisdom of Ben Sirach, which is actually the largest wisdom book we have from the ancient world, probably written maybe around 200 BC thereabouts, which are still probing these questions. And we'll, of course, build on this. This really occupies people's minds. You all want to succeed. You want to be blessed. You want to have a successful life by the standards of society. And so it tries to convey some of that. Yes,

there is a correlation, but Ecclesiastes, yes, not always the case. So, I'm trying to process this in my mind. Proverbs is good things will happen to good people. Ecclesiastes and Job explore the question of what if that doesn't happen in your life? What if that's not the case? What are you going to do? Life is much more complex maybe than Proverbs seems to say, but at the same time, that doesn't mean we should throw out Proverbs. The probability is there, like you said, that good things happen to good people. This is fascinating. So we have Proverbs that says life is simple, and then we have Ecclesiastes and Job that say, hold on a second, it's not as simple as you might think, but yet trust in God. Generally, if you do good, you will prosper.

Unlike Job and Ecclesiastes, which kind of entertains the opposite, Proverbs doesn't really go to the opposite. And I like what you said. It's kind of like a timing thing. In the long run, the outcomes that you want, Proverbs are right. Trust in God. Don't lean to your non-understanding. In the long run, there are great outcomes. And what you said a second ago reminded me of in President Gordon B. Hinckley's biography that Sherry Dew wrote that if you're around him, you will hear him say things will work out.

He said that a lot. But that could be a very long-term view, right? So that kind of helps me with it. It makes me think of what section 122 of Daughter and Covenants, what is it? Verses 7 and 8, about, you know, if all these things happen, they shall be for your good. All these terrible, terrible things. He lists these awful things. Really hard, terrible things, they'll be for your good.

And I kind of think the Lord's thinking, well, in the eternal perspective, the perspective that I have, these experiences should be for your good. It's knowledge. And again, Proverbs is all about knowledge, wisdom. It's even used interchangeably. You will have these things. You will understand. Yeah. In those same Liberty Jail sections, there is thy suffering and thine afflictions will be but a small moment. And I don't know, three or four months in liberty jail doesn't feel like a small moment, but maybe it does in that eternal perspective. When I think about this, you know, Peter picks up on this in 1 Peter 1.7, where he talks about your faith of trials. Now, the King James will talk about temptations, but it's clearly it's

trial. They're saying, this will be for your good. More probably these precious metals, things like that. And I think if you take this bigger perspective and you look at like, well, Ecclesiastes, life is ephemeral. It's going to have an end. It's terminal. It's transitory. So therefore, what is permanent?

And so these things that come along go for things for which will be right eternal. Wisdom. We can carry knowledge out of this world. I think of DNC, I think it's what, 88.6 that talks about this. Therefore, go after things which will be perpetual. And this is why they then become so valuable as opposed to things that are just fleeting. And so focus on what will actually last. Life is temporary. Wisdom is eternal. That's why it's more valuable than money,

because money will end, but wisdom does not. I heard a great quote, you never see a U-Haul following a hearse, because no one can take anything with them beyond. And so, that never actually happens. And the author here is saying, do those things which will be of long-lasting value or eternal value. And I like the Peter, of course, picking up the same kind of imagery here. These trials can be for your good if you endure them well, which then brings back to 122. I was reading from a Bible scholar, not Latter-day Saint, but a wonderful Bible scholar by the name of Christopher Wright. He wrote, the most challenging difference between wisdom and the rest of the Old Testament arises when the wisdom authors express doubts about or questions the validity of some of the mainline affirmations of other parts of the Bible.

And yet this is precisely the purpose of this material in the canon of scripture to compel us, I like this part, to compel us toward an honest faith that is willing to acknowledge the presence of doubts we cannot dismiss and questions we cannot always fully answer given our human limitations. So it sounds like we're going to jump into Proverbs here and hear the likelihood of doing good, wonderful things are going to happen. And the other books are going to question that validity. And it's important for us to question that. Does that sound right, Lincoln? Proverbs, what, 22, 6. If you raise up your child in the Lord, when they're old, they will not depart from it. Well, I think a lot of people, I think Book of Mormon would say,

well, we did that. Didn't work. We did train up the child. Yeah. Now, I do think there's a probability. There's a correlation clearly by going and doing that. And again, children can always come back, but there's a correlation there, but there's no guarantee. That's what I like. Probabilities, but no guarantees. Yeah. So you might almost say here, the odds of the child being active in the gospel is more likely if you teach them while they're young, train up a child in the way it should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it. That's better than not training up a child and hoping that they choose the right. So, I can see what you're saying there. There's always going to be exceptions. There's an allowance for agency as well, but this is still the right thing to do. I think that's really helpful to frame this before we jump in, and I'm excited to jump in.

I remember a home evening once with my father where we just sat at the table and read Proverbs, and some of them we laughed, and some of them we nodded, and some of them we marked. And what are some of your favorites? The prologue here, verses one to six, Solomon talking to a young man training children. I can go back to Nephi and talk about his goodly parents learning in the language of his fathers having been taught. Verse 7 is really, really key because this seems to frame the book. It kind of begins the book. So then if you go down to 31.30, the very end, this is then repeated. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools spies wisdom and instruction. And so starting off, if you really want to know something, it begins with a fear of the Lord. When I look at fear here, I wouldn't say, well,

we're terrified of the Lord, but I might think something like reverence, acknowledging that there is a source beyond us for which we can draw on for knowledge and power, and then starting with that. So, we had bookend verses there, Lincoln, with Proverbs 1-7, the fear of the Lord. You mentioned Proverbs 31-30, a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised. I like that. So, here's our beginning verse and our end verse. Like you said, that's framing what we're going to get in the middle. We're going to get wisdom and knowledge between these two, right? Yeah, the acquisition of this. And it does make it clear this does not come easily.

These are things that are hard won, kind of by the sweat of your brow, obtaining some of this. But wisdom, instruction, right, knowledge and wisdom can be interchangeable, but really the source of it is the Lord. So, starting with that premise and then moving from there seems to be how the book really begins and focusing on the Lord. And then what you have as you get into talking about wisdom and its acquisition for in chapter one here, you get down to something like verse 19. It starts talking about wisdom being now personified. It's lady wisdom that is being about here.

It's in the feminine. Lady wisdom. Proverbs 8 talks more about that. My wife might want that name. In Greek, it was a nice one. Sophia, right, is wisdom in Greek. What you have, this kind of comes from the Lord. It comes out and this is what you are acquiring, but it's then personified.

And even the Book of Mormon picks up on this. Mosiah 8.20, Limhi. Talking about people, they don't seek wisdom, neither do they desire that she should rule over them. It talks about the blessings you're at when you allow wisdom to take over and govern your life. Tends to be that good things can then follow. When you think about wisdom, this is a good thing, acquiring wisdom. But if I were to like a bit of an interplay here, if you get to 1 Corinthians, Paul warns all about wisdom. Like

he says, well, beware of that wisdom. And you're like, well, wait a second, what's going on here? There are different kinds of wisdoms. Paul's saying, well, the wisdom people are seeking is that not of God, but it comes after the world, which at times the wisdom of the world can be quite different. And this is why I think then Proverbs 1.7 says, well, it starts with the Lord. You recognize the Lord and then your wisdom then will proceed from that. That will then dictate, predicate upon what you value as wisdom. And that's kind of the source of that. Lincoln, when it starts in verse 7, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. My kids are going to hear that and think they're supposed to be scared of the Lord. What does the word fear there mean? You can use the word fear here,

but I think it would probably be something better is reverence, piety. The phrase fear of the Lord appears about 14 times in Proverbs. And so I think starting with a reverence for God. Reverence or humility. This is a big topic in Proverbs because one of the things you'll say between the wise person, the fool is the wise person is humbled enough. They can listen when the Lord or an elder chastises them. The KJV puts, give them reproof.

And this is right through Proverbs. They can be humble enough. They can accept, you know, chastisement and they can then learn and grow from that. You're willing to be taught. Is that, can I say it that way in verse 7? If I reverence the Lord, if I fear the Lord, I'm willing to be taught. I'm humble enough to be taught. There's the beginning. The door is open. You recognize there's a higher source and say, I will submit and be

humble to that. And then if there is somebody speaking to that source, I will then submit and I will listen to their reproof. Proverbs 31 30. And what it says there is, but a woman that feareth the Lord and the footnote says, or reveres the Lord. So there's our footnote using the same revere or reverences. We use that phrase a lot. These are God fearing people. I mean, we don't mean they're hiding in fear, but they're... These are God-fearing folks. Where are they? They're running away. No, they're revering. They respect God. The idea here is the beginning of knowledge is the fact that you realize you don't have it all.

I kind of like, and you'll know the passage here, where to be learned is good if you hearken to the counsels of God. There's warning about pride here. I talk about pride cometh before the fall that I think if people say, look, I don't know it all. I can learn. I can be corrected. Well, then the wise can then help you. The wise Lord can really help you and you can progress. And one of the things that Proverbs does and just kind of build this, is it talks about jumping to 312 for a moment.

It talks about, for whom the Lord loveth, he correcteth, even as a father the son in whom he delighteth. If you love somebody, right, you really do, you care enough to actually correct them. And if they're humble enough, they're like, they have wisdom, they can receive that. It sounds like me as a parent. I'm teaching you this because I love you and I want you to be a successful adult. I don't know how many times I've said that exact phrase. I want you to be a successful adult. If I didn't love you, I would just let you keep going this way.

That really is. If you don't love something, then you don't do anything about it. If you really love something or somebody, you tell them hard things. Proverbs is a type of scripture that is somewhat easy to read. I remember being in high school and really liking Proverbs. I understood what it was saying. At some point, there's other books of scripture I would read and go, I have no idea what they're talking about. But this one, they were short enough and simple enough for my sophomore mind to grasp. And then I would mark them because I thought that's, I still remember finding a merry heart doeth good like a medicine, but a broken spirit dryeth the bones.

I still remember that. I was in high school when I first read that. And it's short enough to memorize. And it stuck with me all these years. You have this title of the book, right? Just to go back to this. The Hebrew word is mashal. The Greek and even

Latin, you get proverb, but Greek sometimes as parables, these things side by side, short pithy sayings, like aphorisms that you don't read the entire book of Proverbs to get it. You can go and read a few verses here and there. It might have a distinct unit on something and say, oh, okay, I can see how that can help. And so I think in that regard, as you said there, right, you're younger, you can take time and read a few verses and say, okay, there's something for me that I can improve on or that I can take to heart. Yeah, they are really bite-sized, aren't they? There's not long stories.

Sometimes there are three or four verses kind of rehearsing a theme or parallelisms. Yeah, I think for the most part, right, they are bite-sized. Some are just a single verse. Some you get a multiverse where you might have a theme for three or four verses where the same theme is kind of kept up, but they're kind of these distinct clusters that are then kind of strung together. I think they're so helpful because you can remember that. You don't have to remember verse after verse. You can remember a couple of verses. Okay. Why don't we walk through this? Just start in Proverbs chapter one, two, three. Let's just take them in order and highlight the verses that you want to highlight, Lincoln. There's no way we could hit it all. Let's look at the ones that you want to focus on.

Again, I think verse seven is really key. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction. This is kind of really the starting point for acquisition of wisdom and knowledge. So if you're a fool, you'll stop reading now, right? Yes, you stop. That's it. This begins there in 7. You then have, it warns about don't try to be wise in your own eyes, rely on the Lord. And it warns about go try to obtain wisdom and even the simple people. And this is maybe goes back to a comment earlier, even your youth, even simple people can do this.

They can obtain shrewdness, sagacity. And I really think in kind of chapter one, if I was going to give a theme there, not looking at every single verse is that if you want to obtain wisdom, you're willing to be corrected. You're willing to be, quote unquote, chastised. And so there's a kind of discipline that goes with that. Yeah, and also they introduce wisdom as a woman. She uttereth her voice in the street. She cries in the chief place of the concourse, in the opening of the gates.

You can find her. It sounds like you can find her anywhere. Called and ye refused refused in verse 24. I want to come to you. Wisdom wants to come to you, but you're refusing her sometimes. I guess this humility that you mentioned before. Do we have this? Are we self-reflective?

Do we listen to quote-unquote wise people of our day? Right? I think apostles and prophets, the wisdom they impart from life experience. It's not like it's hard to find, especially these days. It's readily available to us, but we turn from it. I have stretched out my hand and no man regarded. An apostle is speaking and you're not listening. Is that the same?

Does it continue into chapter two? As you get into two, it's kind of here again with wisdom. What is this path to wisdom like? And again, it requires work. Well, verse four, if thou seekest her as silver and search for as for hid treasure, then verse five, thou shall understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. So it requires work. So you got to seek after wisdom as much as you seek after money. Yeah, I think people can relate to going and doing this. I like here the parable of the pearl of great price, right?

In Matthew 13, was it 45 and 46? Where the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant man seeking goodly pearls. And he sold all he had when he found it to purchase that pearl. And so to go and to seek, it takes work. Six kind of, again, it takes work. I think six is really key. For the Lord giveth wisdom out of his mouth, cometh knowledge and understanding. To pick up the Lord is the one giving wisdom.

James 1.5. If you lack wisdom, what do you do? Go to God. Give to all people, doesn't upbraid. And so I think we're seeing this kind of picked up. Proverbs says, yes, you can do this, but it's a path. You really got to search. He layeth up sound wisdom for the righteous.

So it's there for the taking. Is that what I'm supposed to hear there? If you will just listen and seek. Even today, so many distractions are willing to kind of put things down, quiet down, and really listen and seek and ask the source of all wisdom. This is one of those that families can sit down together and read and even children can understand quite a bit of this. In verse 4, Hank, you mentioned that, and searches for her as for hid treasures. I mean, imagine the tenacity and the focus if you think you've got a hidden treasure and we could have that same kind of tenacity

and focus to seek for wisdom. So, I like that comparison that you made. It reminds me when Jesus says, blessed are they who hunger and thirst. And you're thinking, that's me. And he says, after righteousness, you're like, oh, there's not very many bending machines dispensing righteousness. As naturally as I seek after cash, I'm supposed to take that same longing for it and go after wisdom. Look at wisdom as a treasure.

Fill your bank account with wisdom instead of silver. One of the things we'll see in later chapters says this very thing, right? It's actually, it'll say better to have a little and yet have wisdom or peace than to have a lot and not have that. This is something that in the big scheme of things is of far more value. And I think some of we can maybe step back and try to take an eternal perspective. Yes, we have to have the cares of the world and go through a routine and do what we need to do, provide for ourselves, our families, all those things.

But are we doing eternally what's of most importance? And here it's saying, okay, make sure you're seeking after this because it's so important at the end of the day to go and acquire this in progress. Lincoln, as we're going through these first two, three chapters here, I'm sensing that Proverbs,

in order to read it correctly, you have to do a lot of self-reflection, kind of like Alma 5. Are you thinking through this? Because he says in chapter three, let not mercy and truth forsake thee, bind them around thy neck, write them upon the table of thine heart. That takes a lot of reflection to our mercy and truth written on my heart. It is something definitely that you can go through and really assess. I kind of like this because there's a lot of interesting referencing to James in the New Testament. It's really like that, that James would often say, am I doing this? And so it's a great text to kind of go and kind of self-assess how you are doing.

Say, yes, I'm doing this or I can improve. It's a lifetime of self-reflection right there. Do I have mercy and truth written on my heart? Yeah, this table or tablet of your heart. And this phrase, of course, appears elsewhere, right? In Jeremiah, Paul picks up on this in 2 Corinthians. If it's there, then it's really a part of you. It's your most inward core. So you've really taken it on. And then, of course, just going down just two verses from that. Some of my favorite verses in all of Proverbs is there in five and six and three. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart. So it's come in there, right? Have this lean not unto thine own understanding in all thy ways, acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths. This is the youth theme at this year.

Really trust in the Lord, right? You fear it, well, you'll trust in God. Just a tweak there on verse six, because you could even translate it as this, looking at the Hebrew, in all thy ways, I would say it's acknowledge him or know him. So in everything you do, know him, and he shall direct thy paths, or you could even say, and he shall basically make your path straight. That's excellent. In all thy ways, know him, or maybe involve him. In all thy ways, involve him, and he shall direct thy paths. Making it straight will help. And I think that's, in a sense, a blessing. It's trying to say, here's a good thing. If you do this, your paths will be straight. Because it talks about the way of the wicked is crooked. They're

all over, but you can move forward. I think in verse 5, where the writer says, trust in the Lord with all thine heart, lean not unto thine own understanding. He might be saying implicit in that statement might be, you're not going to understand. You're going to try. You're not going to be able to see what the Lord is able to see. So maybe the writer of Proverbs here is saying, yeah, there might be something might happen where you don't understand, but still trust, trust the Lord when that happens. I think of Abraham.

Really? You want me to go and take Isaac? You know, Genesis 22? What are you doing here? It doesn't make sense until after the fact. I like the point you brought up, Hank, that sometimes things will not make sense, but you got to adhere to that trust. Maybe it's only after the fact we'll see, okay, this trust was really borne out because

I did that. It might not be a short time. It might be actually quite a long time before you actually see that. Yeah. And your own understanding was, well, I think I know how to solve this, or I think I know how to do this or negotiate this, but trust God, he's got a better way. Like I said, make his path straight, because that's like a John the Baptist phrase. From Isaiah 40. It's actually very similar to that. Yes. And so, kind of make them straight. Proverbs 3, 5, and 6 is one of those that I think Elder Scott would say, you memorize and it becomes a friend to you. Because you need a friend in those difficult times where you feel like things went wrong. You need a friend

there to say, keep trusting in the Lord. He can see things you don't see. What was it last year, John? You cannot behold with your natural eyes for the present time the design of your God. Concerning the things which will come hereafter, there's that long-term thing again. And I think another thing, Hank, that many of our young adult listeners, well, my mission call said I was going here, but then I went here and then COVID hit and I came home and then I got reassigned here. Was that from the Lord? We had a kid in our ward who was called to South Africa and then was called home and then went to

Farmington, New Mexico or something and then got called home again. And then it was so great because his last line in his homecoming talk was, my mission did not unfold the way I expected, but it turned out to be more beautiful than I had planned. And he kind of personified that for me. Yeah, it was out there and I was over here and over there, but it turned out more beautiful than I planned. And it's because he had that trust. Kind of piggyback on that story. Paul has a plan that he outlines in Romans writing on his thermo from Corinth saying, look, I'm going to go back to Jerusalem, drop off these goods, and I'm going to come and preach the gospel in Rome. That's my plan.

By the way, it's a good thing, right? You want to go preach the gospel there, but he gets back to Jerusalem. He gets arrested. He's put in jail for two years, but you get to Acts 26, 27. He eventually makes it to Rome under a different set of circumstances. And the Lord says, okay, you're going to go there and then get to Philippians, which is a prison epistle. He says, you know what? Me being in chains has really served to further the gospel. Those in the praetorium are hearing all about the gospel. And so, he said there, John, well, no, it's got to be this way. Paul thinking, okay, I got to go to Rome. So, even a righteous desire, but the Lord says, no, there's going to be another way. And in fact, it'll even be better if you can do it this way, but it's going to require some hardship

and some real trust. You really got to trust. So many stories, so many testimony meetings are full of stories where, wait, why did this happen? And then, oh, okay. Testimonies are born every Sunday about that sort of thing, where I thought it was this. And Hank, you and I have talked in previous podcasts about Jesus on the road to Emmaus. Well, we had thought he was the one that was going to redeem Israel. See, it wasn't what they expected or Zion's camp. Well, I thought we were going to Emmaus, well, we had thought he was the one that was going to redeem Israel. See, it wasn't what they expected. Or Zion's camp, well, I thought we were going to do this, and Zion's camp turned out to be this. But God was doing something else, and you just have to trust him. John, these verses here remind me of your book, When It Doesn't Make Sense.

Is that kind of why you wrote it, this idea of trust the Lord when it doesn't make sense? In fact, the story I just mentioned about young friend Cole, I put that in a chapter about modified missions. Well, I was called here and I went here and writing about these young people that had discovered that trusting in the Lord was exactly what they had to do. I had one missionary who I quoted in there who said, my mission president helped me so much to know that the success of a mission was not going exactly where my mission call said. The success of a mission was how I connected to the Savior during that time and how I strengthened my relationship with Christ during that time. That was a better measure of success than whether everything unfolded the way I thought.

And that means you can go anywhere. The success was, have you had a connection to the Savior? Has your conversion deepened because you served? And that was such a great comment this young man made. He's actually my nephew that started out in Panama and then ended up in Southern California and had such a wonderful epiphany about my mission is to be fully converted to Christ. Well, just one other thing I would add here on this really great discussion is when I think of kind of, you know, acknowledge him or know him, I kind of think of covenants here. And the reason why I picked this up is if you go back to this verse one, it says, my

son, forget not my law. And law here in Hebrew is Torah. What verse was that? That's 3.1. So, just a few verses before, right? Forget not my law, and the law here is Torah. Which is scripture. Yes, it's a scripture. I think of kind of covenant language here. And again, going back to 22, keeping in mind, chapter divisions are totally artificial. These are all added later on after this is written. And 22, the wicked will be cut off. Well, that's covenant language. That's 222. And you go right into, don't be cut off. Remember my law, know me. And it seems that we know it through covenants. You obtain knowledge through

keeping covenants. I think we kind of expand this. And you trust in your covenants. When you come down to verse five, you trust in your covenants. You trust in it. And so, you have that in one and then in 222. And it says in verse eight, it shall be health to thy navel and marrow to thy bones. And then in two even, you'll have length of days and a long life. You find this already in the law. There's some things you will get by keeping these covenants. And so I think you see this covenant language right embedded in this section. We could spend the rest of our time on chapter three, five, and six because so many people go through things that they did not see coming. How many of our listeners are going, yeah, I did not see that coming. I didn't see a divorce coming.

I didn't see a mental illness coming. I didn't see a death in the family coming. I did not see this coming. And now I'm in it. What do I do? Trust. Trust the Lord that he knows you, that he knows what's happening, and that he is directing your path,

even though you can't see it now. Because so many things do make sense in the gospel. We want everything to make sense. And I just think we'll go to our death with unanswered questions. All of us will. But as we've talked about, you trust in the Lord and lean not to your own understanding.

That is the best path for maximum joy and happiness, But as we've talked about, you trust in the Lord and lean not to your own understanding. That is the best path for maximum joy and happiness, even though there will be setbacks. Lincoln, what do you want to do next? We've just started three. Seven, don't be wise in your own eyes. Probably the 11 and 12, which we touched on a bit, is just taking chastisement. Again, you'll see this throughout. Receiving that from the Lord,

from the wise. Again, when you're chastised by the Lord, it's not a sign that he doesn't love you, as in verse 12. It's the very opposite. Again, I would say to your kids, when you're chastised by a parent, it's not because they don't love you. It's the very opposite. It's because they love you dearly and they want the best for you. You do this even as a father does this to his son. And Hebrews kind of picks up on that. If God does this, then you really are a child. Once you do this, you get on this path of wisdom, 13, happy is the man. It's a beatitude. So you get on this and you're blessed when you find it. Then you get understanding. And as he says, be not weary of his correction. John, you've talked to me about an airplane being constantly corrected.

And that's how it reaches its destination. Yeah, Elder Uchtdorf who pointed it out. They'll put this huge jet right on the numbers on the runway that crossed an ocean and was off course most of the time. But it just keeps correcting, makes these tiny corrections. And it lands exactly when and where it's supposed to because it's corrected. And you know what else I thought of was we've had Brother S. Michael Wilcox on here. And I remember him saying once that Peter was constantly getting corrected in the New Testament because the Lord loved him and knew he was going to take over. And he was constantly getting corrected. And as you think about it, that wasn't a sign that he didn't love him.

That was a sign that he loved him so much he was willing to correct him. A helpful way to look at it. Yeah, I think that's really helpful. And Lincoln, what you said is that when you feel the Spirit giving you that divine discontent, it's not out of hatred. It's not out of even disgust or it's out of love. You're better than this. I might be watching Netflix and a show comes on and I keep watching it and the Spirit says, this isn't for you. I shouldn't take that as a sign of I'm evil, I'm bad and God is good and he hates me. It should be whom the Lord loveth, he correcteth. You guys are like, what are you watching on Netflix, Inc?

Well, and I'm just thinking, and what a blessing that you have a divine discontent. What a blessing that there is something that is trying to turn you. I mean, what if that were gone? I mean, we're so grateful that there is something that's saying, you shouldn't be here. Right. It reminds me of one of my students once we were having a conversation and I said, doesn't that music that you listen to, it sounds kind of dark. And she said, yeah, I felt really bad when I first listened to it, but I just kept listening. And eventually that feeling went away. I don't think that's a good thing, right? I just think how important wisdom is, this treasure.

So 1415, you seek it. You know, more precious than rubies. And this is interesting that in Proverbs, something's really precious. It's more precious than rubies. And so, we'll actually get to a woman, right? At the very end again, has wisdom, is more precious than rubies. Kind of the ideal companion. We'll get to that in 31. But try to emphasize just the importance of the acquisition of this. And even say, look, the Lord used wisdom to create the earth, 19. And so, what you're getting here is wisdom, these great things. And what is it?

I think 18 will be interesting. It's a tree of life. You come there and you get this tree of life, which is repeated about four other times to go there and to partake of that. You lay hold on her and you're happy and blessed. She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her. Yeah, that's pretty cool. That's definite Book of Mormon language. Lay hold upon the iron rod, right? They'll take you to the tree. And it's funny because you do this,

and how do you lay hold upon it? Well, you keep on the straight paths. I think you kind of, you kind of interplay between this and what you have in 1st Nephi. You stay on that, you press forward, and you don't let go. Even when it talks about those who are crooked, they have crooked paths, they're perverting the course. No, you stay on the straight path or direction straight path and you get to that tree. President Nelson gave us that advice recently. One of his five points, I think, was get on the covenant path and stay there. Do you remember that?

Yeah. That sounds the same thing. The covenant path is the iron rod is the way to the tree of life. This is really helpful. So here is Alma coming out of Ammonihah, waiting through tribulation, anguish of soul because of the wickedness of the people in the city of Ammonihah. While Alma was thus weighed down with sorrow, an angel of the Lord appeared unto him saying, blessed art thou Alma, therefore lift up thy head and rejoice, for thou hast great cause to rejoice.

And I kind of think right there, he could have said, why? You know, they didn't even like me. For thou has been faithful in keeping the commandments of God from the time which thou receivest thy first message from him. And then a whole nother topic. How cool is this? The angel says, behold, I am he that delivered it unto you. Remember back in Mosiah 27, when I knocked you over, that was me, right? The angel saying, you are doing so well.

Lift up your head and rejoice. He's not talking about the action of the people. He's saying, you did what you were asked. And those missionaries that had their mission cut shorter, whatever, you have great cause to rejoice because you did what you were asked. And that is not from me. That's from an angel talking to Alma, whose mission in Ammonihah, at least, was not what he expected. So I love that little story right there. I would add, John, that we could do modified marriages as well, that sometimes by no fault of your own, your marriage ends,

and you did what you were asked. And we could say that about many areas of life, that things change. Please join us for part two of this podcast.