Wisdom wants your attention

Today, we continue our series in Proverbs. We will see how wisdom wants our attention. Wisdom wants us to pay attention to it and to be wise.

²⁰ Wisdom calls out in the street. She raises her voice in public places. ²¹ At the noisy street corners she cries out. Here is what she says near the gates of the city. ²² "How long will you childish people love your childish ways? How long will you rude people enjoy making fun of God and others? How long will you foolish people hate knowledge? ²³ Suppose you had paid attention to my warning. Then I would have poured out my heart to you. I would have told you what I was thinking.

Proverbs 1:20-23 (NIrV)

This week, since my younger son has an NIrV, we will be using scripture quotations from it

Discussion

• First of all, in this passage, we see wisdom personified. Even though we know that wisdom is not really a person, by treating it as if it was a person, we can describe it more easily.
• Wisdom is crying out. The Hebrew word here implies crying out with joy. Why do you think wisdom is crying out?
• Verse 20 also says that wisdom raises her voice. Why does wisdom have to raise it's voice?
• What are some things that try and drown out wisdom's voice?
The gates of the city were places where people gathered. Why was wisdom trying to make herself known there?
• Wisdom warns people of three things:
  • being childish
  • being rude to others
  • being foolish and hating knowledge
  Do you ever have problems with any of those? How so?
• If people had paid attention to wisdom, what would they have gained? they would gain wisdom in spirit and in speech