Though I’ve missed quite a few days along the way, for the past decade I’ve been trying to read a chapter of Proverbs every day. It’s a wonderful resource for how to live a life that is pleasing to God. But let’s be honest, if you’re going to share the gospel with someone Proverbs probably isn’t a book to which you will turn. You might turn here to help a Christian know how to live out the faith — but is the gospel message in the book of Proverbs?
Some Old Testament scholars contend that the Proverbs are void of legitimate allusions or connections to Jesus. At first glance, they appear to have a case. There aren’t references to the Messiah, there isn’t much talk of a sacrificial system, there simply aren’t many of the typical connectors that we use to build a bridge to the gospel. Yet, I am still convinced that the Proverbs also point us to the gospel of Jesus. But, how?
I suppose before understanding how to find the gospel in the OT, it’d be helpful for us to define the gospel. The simplest definition is one given by JI Packer: God saves sinners. If you’d like to put a bit more meat on your gospel presentation, I use two different frameworks with four points each. The first is God—Man—Christ—Response. The second is more of a story: Creation—Fall—Redemption—Glory.
The first presentation centers upon God’s character and how humanity fails to meet God’s holy standard, as such the judgment of God is upon us. But the good news is that Jesus Christ fixes this by fulfilling what is required through his life, death and resurrection. Our only fitting response, then, is to respond to Him in repentance and faith. When this happens, we are united to Christ and his record becomes our record.
The second presentation centers upon the overarching story of the Bible. God lovingly created us to love Him and enjoy Him forever. We were made for rest, rule, and relationship. But we made shipwreck of this, and so rather than having the blessings of obedience, we are under the curse of disobedience. Rather than having peace (rest), purpose (ruling), and healthy relationship, we often experience the opposite. Ultimately, we are alienated from God. But thankfully God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to bear our curse and to fulfill what God intended for humanity. As such we now experience the blessings of Jesus’ obedience in our place. He restores the rest, rule, and relationship we were created to enjoy. Someday everything will be ultimately restored and we will live in a new heaven and a new earth.
We could write entire books focusing on these various themes of the gospel. But every gospel story follows this basic skeleton. No matter where you find yourself in the Old Testament (or the New Testament) you can find one of these various threads. Every place in Scripture is either telling you something about God, something about our rebellion, something about His rescue, or something about our future restoration. If you can spot this, then you can fill out the rest of the story.
The Proverbs appear to be a collection of scattered sayings. But there actually is a bit of a structure to the book, especially the first ten chapters. The Proverbs consistently lay out for us a path between wisdom and folly. And the beginning of wisdom is to fear the Lord. Wisdom isn’t an issue of knowledge or learning as much as it is a moral declaration. The wise are wise because of their connection to the God of the universe. Fools are foolish because they have rejected the way of the Lord. It’s a heart condition. I appreciate the way that Paul Tripp explains this:
“Now, if we’re all fools and foolishness is a condition of the heart, and the epicenter of foolishness is a God-denial and self-orientation, then Law and Wisdom principles are not enough. We should be thankful for God's Law; we should love His Wisdom, but that Law and that Wisdom doesn't have the power to transform our hearts. And so, the Proverbs points us to the fact that the only hope for fools…is the intervention of divine grace.”
The Proverbs show our need for a Savior. If you do not believe me then pick any chapter of Proverbs and try to live out every shred of godly advice for an entire week. That will likely mean that all your conversations will be marked by grace, all your financial dealings will be marked by perfect stewardship, and you will respond with perfect wisdom and love to the poor and vulnerable. When you fail at some point in these, you’ll quickly realize your need for a Savior. The Proverbs outline God’s path for living and it’s clear that we are fools rather than wise.
But Jesus perfectly lived out what the Proverbs proclaim as the path of wisdom. In fact, 1 Corinthians 1:24 tells us that Christ is “the power and wisdom of God.” He is God’s Wisdom. In Christ is the storehouse of all wisdom. This means that if we truly want to embrace the path of wisdom instead of the path of folly, it will come through our union with Jesus Christ. The call to embrace Lady Wisdom in Proverbs 8-9 is actually a call to embrace the Lord Jesus.
Through our union with Jesus, we are able to truly walk the path of wisdom. The Proverbs now outline for us what sanctification looks like in the life of a believer. Embracing the Proverbs is to embrace the life of Jesus.
If we wanted to share a gospel presentation from Proverbs, it could look something like this: God created us and the world to work a certain way; he created the world in wisdom. Yet, humanity decided to reject the Lord and choose the path of folly. Proverbs 12:15 declares that “the way of a fool is right in his own eyes.” This describes the human condition. And our foolishness leads us into sin and to be under the wrath of God.
But Jesus Christ, being Wisdom, chose the fear of the LORD over the way of folly. When he died in our place and gave us His righteousness, He also imparted to us His wisdom. His record of wisdom is now our record of wisdom. And so, our only fitting response is to hear the cry of Lady Wisdom and whoever finds her (whoever finds Christ) “finds life and obtains favor from the LORD.”
But how would you find a connection to the gospel through individual proverbs?
I chose Proverbs 30:15 because it was this verse which provided the title for a chapter in Graeme Goldsworthy’s According to Plan. That book was life-changing for me because it opened up this new way of seeing and reading the Scriptures. How can you connect a verse like Proverbs 30:15 to the gospel?
“The leech has two daughters.
‘Give! Give!’ they cry.There are three things that are never satisfied,
four that never say, ‘Enough!’”
There is an immediate difficulty in connecting this verse to the Bible; it’s hard to know even the original meaning. I cannot connect a verse to the gospel story if I don’t know what that verse means in its original context. The first step, then, is to look at the immediate context and try to understand its meaning. But in Proverbs there are times when you will not get context clues. Thankfully, this verse has at least a little bit of context. As we look at the surrounding verses, we see that it has to do with never being satisfied.
Though it’s not the kindest expression, think of how we use the term “leech” to describe another person. That term is used of someone who just keeps sucking the life out of you. That is what a leech does. The two “daughters” are likely a reference to the two suckers that a leech possess. And each of those are used to feed the leech and drain the host.
What, then, does this proverb refer to? It refers to the way life never fully satisfies. It is, I believe, a proverb which highlights human futility. Leeches don’t come from Eden, they come from outside Edenic paradise. These verses are similar to Ecclesiastes 1:3-7. You have to keep cutting your grass, you have to keep doing the dishes, the laundry, etc. Now we are able to connect this human futility to the story of the Bible.
When God created the world, humanity had everything needed. Satisfaction and fulfillment were words which would describe their life. Adam and Eve would have enjoyed working and keeping the garden. But when they believed the serpent (when they chose the path of folly), futility and toil entered into the world. Adam and Eve would now have to deal with thorns, thistles, and leeches. Unsatisfied, insatiable, unfulfilled. These are now the words which describe our world and the human condition.
St. Augustine said it well: “our heart is restless until it rests in you.” Humanity forfeited our rest when we rejected wisdom and chose to follow the crafty serpent. We can only re-enter into that rest through Jesus. Jesus has procured our rest. Rather than follow the path of the leech, Jesus breaks the curse. He was the one who “gave and gave.” And through His sacrifice, we can now rest in God. Our hearts can find rest.
How will we respond? Will we follow the path of the leech and try to find our rest and satisfaction through more attainment? Will we try to find satisfaction through the things that never satisfy? Or will we drop this foolish quest and find our rest in the Lord?
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Can We Find the Gospel, Even in the Darkness of Judges?
How Can We See the Gospel in Exodus?
Photo credit: Unsplash/blakecheekk
Mike Leake is husband to Nikki and father to Isaiah and Hannah. He is also the lead pastor at Calvary of Neosho, MO. Mike is the author of Torn to Heal and Jesus Is All You Need. His writing home is http://mikeleake.net and you can connect with him on Twitter @mikeleake. Mike has a new writing project at Proverbs4Today.