Proverbs 8

I read this in the New King James, this morning. I love that version. I have Johnny Cash reading that version's New Testament for my iPod. I got the extra room in the margins version, blacked out the gold lettering on the front with the editor's name and started to flat-out ANNOTATE. Please. Please don't enshrine it after I die. Just let it go. get your own deeeeeep study notes...

Anyway, sometimes NKJV sounds a bit loopy, so please pardon. It was good enough for Johnny Cash, and it's based on the version Jesus used, so deal with it.

In this Chapter, we see Lady Wisdom, crying out on a hill, next to the way, and at the gates of the city. From up there, she cries over us as we pass by. Will we listen?

I thought of breaking this chapter down like I did the last two, but it doesn't lend itself to a good "breaking down". We would lose what's happening here: She is there. Up there, right now, calling to us.

Better than Wealth.
Plain as day to anyone with a lick of good sense.

She's got prudence.
She's got knowledge.
She's got discretion.
She's got counsel and sound wisdom.
Understanding and strength...

fearing the LORD? that is the start.
pride? arrogance? evil speech? She hates'em. Doesn't hang with that.

Wisdom is older than dirt!
SHE WAS THERE.
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Now, at this point, a bit about the whole concept of "Lady Wisdom". Some unstable people have twisted this teaching ab out her into a "fourth person of the trinity" thing. Loosen up. This smacks figurative: that Wisdom isn't a personal entity. But she could be, and that still doesn't make her God.

Her promises are different.
She only helps those who seek her out.
none have sought for God, yet he has reached out and seized us in Mercy! He seeks his foolish lost sheep with tenderness. He makes a people out of blasphemers and evil people. How Kind God is to us, and how harsh Lady Wisdom is.

I do seek wisdom, recognizing and bemoaning my own folly, leaning into the breast of Jesus, dropping my stones of accusation against myself and others... Jesus has shown me that I, a fool can seek HIM for wisdom (James 1) and he will give it. Jesus hasn't shown me that I must seek some lady.
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Wisdom and wealth are related, but those who are in it out of a love of money have already lost her.

check out the early cosmological stuff in v.22-31.
Wisdom liked us from the start. She wants to see us grow up straight.

v.32-35
Listen
keep
Hear
Be wise
disdain not instruction,

Listen
watch
wait
find
obtain favor...

v.36
you're only going to hurt yourself in forsaking wisdom? Not ONLY yourself. you become a fool and you'll end up liable for all the people you undercut along the way.