What is Wisdom?

Justin sits down with his 4-year old daughter and they have a conversation about Proverbs 1. He uses some interesting visual aids to help illustrate the point of this age-old proverb.  

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Hi there, my name is Justin DOMS, and this is listen, my children, I'm a husband, I'm a dad, and I'm learning to do what a lot of you are doing, one of the most difficult but most important things I'll ever do, bring up my children to follow the father. Over the next eight episodes, we're going to be walking through the first five chapters of Proverbs, you, me and our kids. But listen, my children podcast is made possible by a donation from the Oliver family, we're thankful for their generous support of Appian Media's content. If you or your organization is interested in helping to fund content like this, please contact us through our website at Appian Media dot org. Now, today, my daughter Jubilee is going to be joining us. Jubilee is four years old and she can be a little bit shy. But she and I love talking about and thinking about God together. And we're going to listen in on a conversation that Jubilee and I had in our living room about Proverbs Chapter one. So if you have a Bible, you can open that up as you listen in, as we talk about what wisdom is. Are you ready? We're going to do some Bible reading, you ready for this? Yeah. Who who wrote the Book of Proverbs, remember? King, yeah, kings on. And why are we listening to him, because he's got wisdom from God right in all this wisdom after Solomon prayed for it and the Book of Proverbs, the Bible is a really big book. And so there are lots of different books in the Bible about lots of different things. But the Book of Proverbs gives us some really helpful information. Do you know the Book of Proverbs is about you don't. No, you don't. That's OK. So I want to talk about because the Book of Proverbs, it's about wisdom. Now, wisdom is a special word that means, well, sort of how to look at the world and how to see what's really going on. Kind of late in the morning, huh? So what I want to do is I want to talk with you about this book, Proverbs, and in Chapter one, let's read a little bit together and then we'll talk about it. Ok, you ready? All right. You listen, because I want you to tell me some of the things that we're reading about, ready by 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 and a saying the words of the wise and their riddles. And Verse seven is really special. The fear, the Lord is the beginning of knowledge to the rest of it. Fools despise wisdom and you. Instructions, you know that one, right? So what this what this is saying, this is kind of like a way for Solomon to tell us about the Book of Proverbs. I'll take that. That's OK now. Thank you. Now, Solomon, you were. Solomon was. He says he's the son of David, you remember who David is? Who's David you fighting for like he did, he fought Goliath and Goliath was this little guy that David fought. Now, he is huge, yeah, Goliath is huge, and David went out and fought him now after David became king. He passed the kingdom on down to his son, Solomon. And Solomon, it says, was one of the wisest guys that there was. You know why Solomon was so wise? Well, Solomon was getting ready to rule the kingdom has a big job to lead people and to tell them how to do the right thing to do, and he needed wisdom. So he prayed to God and God gave him. All this was done. He was a boxer. Simon was wiser than anybody who'd ever come along. Now, he wrote this book called Proverbs and in the Book of Proverbs, you know what a proverb is. A problem is when you take two things. And you sort of lay them side by side. Now I want to show you kind of what that's like. You ready? Because I brought some things. You help me carry some of these things out. What's this thing, honey? You like, honey? It's pretty good stuff. What do you do with honey? You eat it when you put it on sometimes Swarthmore's plate on waffles, or sometimes you put it in. Team, we're on top of the yogurt, right? So if we paired this with something else, it would tell you something about it. So if I took honey in peanut butter and what does this make you think of Mommy's homemade peanut butter? I'd think of pancakes, wouldn't you? Some pancakes. But what if I took honey? I met with Madison. Now I've got a problem, right? If I've got honey and medicine, then it means and I'm sick right now, so I need honey and medicine. So when I put two things together, it makes me think of something. What if I took honey and a mousetrap? What's the honey for? Eighteen but four who didn't. You and me. Well, yes, but what if I put it with the mousetrap? What am I trying to do? I see what this is, you put you put the little. Coming down, it's kind of tricky, you got to do it without snapping your finger because it'll snap your finger because if you push there, I'll show you, but you don't put the mouse in. That's what the hunt is for. But you put the honey right there and the mouse goes. Honey, it comes along and he goes to grab that honey and, oh, I got him and it'll catch a mouse. And so depending on what I put the honey with, it will make me think of different things. So a proverb is when you take one thing and you put it beside another thing and it helps you to see things that you didn't see before. And that's what the proverbs do, is they help us to see the way the world really is. Now, the first rule of proverbs you're reading is that verse seven, because Proverbs, the way we need to see the world is, is how to see what's good and right. And all begins with the fear of the Lord Proverbs one seven. How does it go? Can you say it with me? The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge fools. What's the rest of it? Fools despise wisdom and instruction, that means if you're going to be wise, if you're going to see the way the world really is, then you have to see that God is really big and really awesome, because the truest thing there is is that God is really big and awesome. How big and awesome is God? I felt super awesome. And if you start there, sweetie, you start there. Then you'll be able to see the way the world really is and you'll be wise and you'll be able to do the right thing. Ok, that reminds me of the song, Awesome. God, yeah. Our God is an awesome God. Yeah. And that's the very first thing we need to know in how to live life. Really well to Proverbs helps us to see how to live life really well. Sound good. How about we pray together. OK, we can do that. All right. Father in heaven. Thank you for Jubilee and for the time that we have together today to talk about your wisdom and to listen to you. We want to be wise. We want to choose what's right and good. But sometimes we don't seem rather helpless to see how big an awesome you are and to begin from there, to grow and to know you. Jubilee needs wisdom. I need wisdom. We all need wisdom, Father. Help us. Help us to be wise and to do what's right and good. Please be with us all as we read Proverbs together is the name of Jesus. We pray and thank you. Thanks for joining me, and you believe for that conversation in Proverbs one about what wisdom is wisdom begins with the fear of the Lord, and that means that if we're wise, will live as though God is big, as though he's awesome. So what do you think about that? Maybe you can share some of your thoughts with your family, with your mom and dad, with your kids about God's wisdom. Is it really good when families can open up the Bible together and talk about it as a family? Now, parents, maybe you're watching and you're reading your Bible regularly with your kids. And I know that we read the Bible as a family every night, as a family, as what we do as part of our bedtime routine. And there are a number of different ways at different times to do that number of opportunities to bring the Bible into our lives in a regular way. I just want to emphasize today that it's a really important thing that we do that that we make Bible reading a regular part of who we are as a family. God made family, and he builds families from the ground up with God's word as his power. So having a regular time of digesting God's word, it it sort of sets the stage for us as a family. It becomes so that God's word is the culture of our home, that his grace is the air that we breathe, the gospel becomes the path that our families are walking down together. So a regular time of family worship, it makes it feel more normal to talk about God at those times where you really need it in the moment. Now, I continue to be surprised by just how much my kids pick up on what I want you to notice about the conversation that you and I got to see with me in Jubilee about Proverbs one is how short it was. I hear from a lot of parents about what is family devotion look like. What does it look like to read the Bible with your kids at home? Do I need to prepare for a sermon? You can if you want to. But what we do is we try to limit the time to something that's easily digestible for our children depending on their age. Jubilees for. So this conversation wasn't very long. I want to leave them with something that's bite sized and do it regularly so that every day they're getting something and over time it's going to accumulate. And again, you'll be surprised at what they can pick up on a short Bible conversation. Doesn't need to be shallow. It can have a lot of depth, even though it's really short. So they don't need to get it all. They just need to get a little bit. And that's OK. And their understanding can be tweaked over time. Just like my understanding, your understanding needs to be tweaked sometimes my understanding needs a good overhaul. But just keeping the conversations short to the point, having a singular point can really help with that. We're not trying to discuss everything that's in Proverbs chapter one verses one through seven. But it's really exciting as you do this again and again and again to see just how much gets stored up in their hearts. So thanks for joining me for that conversation with CHIPLEY. I hope that this is helpful to you. Now, just to talk with you about what's coming up next time, we'll be having a conversation with Amos. He's my six year old son and we were looking some more at chapter one of Proverbs Amos is. A bit more talkative and so you'll get to see how to interact or at least how I try to interact with my boy who likes to share a lot of what he's thinking.