Proverbs are poetry...and why that matters at all...

When I was in my early 30's, I was in a terrific Sunday School class at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Dallas. Our teacher was a young physician named Ray Bandy, and some of the folks I met in that class almost 20 years ago are still some of my closest friends...it was really a wonderful group of people, and Ray was an exceptional teacher.

Ray took alot of teasing from the other teachers in the Singles Group, because he loved to teach through books verse by verse...and I do mean...verse...by...verse. It took us months and months to get through the book of 2 Corinthians, but to this day, I still remember quite a bit of what he talked about. Let's just say that Ray was thorough!

One year Ray decided to teach Proverbs, and I will never forget the day he read this verse from Proverbs 22:

"Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it."

All my life, up until that time, I had been taught that this verse is a promise about child-rearing...that if you do the right things as a parent, and teach your kids the right things...they'll never stray.

Ray said, "This is not a promise. It's not a 'name it and claim it' kind of a thing..." I was stunned...angry...confused. Of course it was a promise...I've always heard that it was a promise...what in the world was he talking about??

Ray went on to talk to us about the fact that the different books in the Bible are comprised of different types of literature...some are historic...like the book of Exodus for example, which tells the story of the nation of Israel and their exodus out of slavery. Proverbs is not history...nor is it predictive prophecy...the Proverbs don't literally predict or promise us how life will be, but they give us poetic insight into how life usually goes. Reading the Proverbs is an exercise, for the most part, in the application of practical wisdom and insight about life.

Looking back at my Sunday School experience more than 15 years ago, I now have the life experience to better understand that teaching children the right things to do in life is never a guarantee that they won't stray. I don't have children of my own, but I feel sure that any parent will tell you, life is usually more complex than what the Proverb might indicate...and children often do stray, even when they've had the best of parents!

I don't know if this information will be meaningful to you today, but I wanted to share the story, because I believe it's so important for us to understand how to look at the Bible as literature, and not as a book that is simply filled with promises that we can claim for our own purposes. Read well, and applied wisely, scripture is an extraordinary tool for a life well lived. When the Bible is read without an understanding of the context, audience, and literary form, it can be confusing and misappropriated...sometimes with disastrous results.