Proverbs 2–4

A newspaper cartoon shows an automobile balancing precariously over the edge of a cliff, with an embarrassed husband at the wheel and his disgusted wife sitting next to him. Meekly, he says to his wife, “Honey, there’s got to be a lesson here somewhere.”

There’s a lesson there, all right, and it’s this: The only way to end up at the right destination is to choose the right road. If you’ve ever made a wrong turn in a strange place and found yourself lost, then you know how important that lesson is.

The metaphor of life as a journey is a familiar one; it is found in the Bible as well as in classical literature. The Odyssey of Homer describes Ulysses’ ten-year journey from Troy to his home in Ithaca, and Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress is an account of a Christian’s journey from the City of Destruction to the heavenly city. The Bible frequently exhorts us to choose the right path, but the contemporary world thinks there are “many ways to God” and any path you sincerely follow will eventually take you there.

Jesus made it clear that in this life we can take only one of two ways, and each of them leads to a different destination. Everybody has to choose either the crowded road that leads to destruction or the narrow road that leads to life (Matt. 7:13-14). There’s no middle way.

In the book of Proverbs, the words path and way (and their plurals) are found nearly one hundred times (kjv). Wisdom is not only a person to love, but Wisdom is also a path to walk, and the emphasis in chapters 2, 3, and 4 is on the blessings God’s people enjoy when they walk on Wisdom’s path. The path of Wisdom leads to life, but the way of Folly leads to death; when you walk on the path of Wisdom, you enjoy three wonderful assurances: Wisdom protects your path (ch. 2), directs your path (ch. 3), and perfects your path (ch. 4).