Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon PDF

Preview

Summary

The professor is Patty Bray. Note guide from class with completed lecture notes. Notes are used directly for exams. ...

Description

Chapter 16: Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon

Proverbs: 1. Author: Solomon and others 2. A Proverb is a: “Short…sayings addressing things as ordinary as how to be a good neighbor” (Lennox, page 193). 3. “Proverbs are principles, not promises. They state what usually happens, not what God guarantees is going to happen.” (Lennox) 4. Primarily about how to get godly wisdom Chapters 1-9: Choose wisdom. The rest of the chapters reveal what wisdom looks like. The words “wise” and “wisdom” used at least 125 times. “For Israel, true wisdom began with a proper relationship with God, what the biblical writers called the ‘fear of the Lord’” (Lennox, page 194). 5. In the NT, this book is quoted more than 20 times. What does this book say about the following? Wisdom: Proverbs 1:1-3 _________________________________________________ Proverbs 2:1-5 _________________________________________________ Proverbs 4:6-7 _________________________________________________ Proverbs 8:11 nothing you desire compares to wisdom Trust: Proverbs 3:5-6 _________________________________________________ Your Mouth: Proverbs 11:13 he that is faithful conceals the matter of a secret Proverbs 12:18 the tongue of the wise brings healing Proverbs 13:3 he that keeps his mouth keeps his life Proverbs 15:1 soft answers turn away wrath, but cruel words result in anger Proverbs 15:4 a wholesome tongue is a tree of life but perverseness is a breach of the spirit Proverbs 18:8 kind words cause contentions to cease Bad Temper: Proverbs 15:18 A hot-tempered person stirs up anger and conflict Proverbs 22:24 _________________________________________________ People: Proverbs 13:20 You are who you hang with… be careful! Proverbs 27:15-16 _______________________________________________ Proverbs 28:27 __________________________________________________

Ecclesiastes: The meaning of Life: 1. “Ecclesiastes provides instruction on how to live meaningfully, purposefully and joyfully within the theocratic arrangement – primarily by placing God at the center of one’s life, work and activities…” (NIV Study Bible) 2. It has somber words that “trace one man’s search for meaning through all the places he expects to find it: wisdom, wealth, pleasure, accomplishments” (Lennox, page 197). 3. Author: Perhaps Solomon OR “the anonymous author may have chosen to identify himself with Solomon in order to strengthen the book’s message.” (This is known as royal fiction and was used in that time.) 4. It’s the most pessimistic of all books of the Bible Key word: Meaningless! Used 39 times “It is the message that everything on earth, even at its best, is fleeting and unsatisfying, and that the heart of man was made for God and will not find rest and satisfaction till it finds realization in Him who is changeless, absolute, and permanent.” (Merrill F. Unger)

Song of Songs: 1. A collection of love poems of two people celebrating the joys of romantic love” (Lennox, page 192). A book about sex. “We feel like ‘peeping Toms’, for here we have a book about physical love and human romance” (Lennox, page 199). 2. What is it doing in the Bible? To show that “through the physical intimacy celebrated in the Song of Songs, we regain something of what sin destroyed” (Lennox, page 199). 3. Never explicitly mentions the name of God.

God’s Plan: “In Proverbs we catch a glimpse of what life will be like under God’s plan. By living according to Proverbs, God’s people can live in harmony under God’s blessing” (Lennox, page 200). “Ecclesiastes documents one man’s struggle to regain that meaning and reinforces the need for reconciliation with God. By locating the source of meaning in our relationship with God, the book also hints at the blessings we will experience when we are fully reconciled to God” (Lennox, page 201). In Song of Songs: Remember that in the Garden the relationship of Adam and Eve suffered. “Song of Songs shows how God can, through His gift of human intimacy, partially restore that relationship” (Lennox page 201)....