This article will focus on how we make use of Proverbs. We believe that ‘in all the Scriptures’ we find the things concerning our blessed Saviour. Some parts of Proverbs glow with descriptions of Wisdom, often identified as being a view of Christ. This article will not directly address these better-known but isolated sections. The purpose is instead to seek and encourage the reader to access views of Christ and His commandments throughout this book, rather than in a few select passages. I hope that we will find an approach to Proverbs that naturally brings us to Christ throughout its verses. In short we want to see and find Christ everywhere in this book, but at the same time we confess that here are some mountaintops from which we get an especially good view, just as in Psalms or Isaiah.

Now, as already outlined, it is the purpose of this article to suggest one way in which, when we do study this book, we might do so with an eye clearly cast upon Christ. Remember that this book was part of the teaching, training, study, practice, doctrine and meditation of the Lord Jesus as He grew up into His public ministry. This book fed Him, guided Him, helped Him and described Him. No matter what part of Proverbs we investigate, we are reminded that this verse here, or that terse statement there, entered into the heart and soul of the Saviour. This was His food. If in the Song of Solomon we see the love of His heart, then in Proverbs we see the beauty, grace and wisdom of His character.

William Hendriksen states: ‘Whoever practises the wisdom precepts contained in this book is using the best means to achieve the highest goal’. I like that phrase. It is a profound challenge for us – are we using this book for wisdom? Are we living by these words? Yet it becomes an even more profound statement when we remember that our Saviour too handled this book, and made full use of it.

Jesus Christ practised, as no man ever has, the wisdom of this book. He personified the wisdom of this book. And when He did so, He was using ‘the best means to achieve the highest goal’: a life exemplary in both the fear and wisdom of Jehovah.

You will have often heard that Proverbs is the application of God’s Moral Law to everyday life. As such it is an exhaustive application of God’s law. And when we begin to apply its exhaustive application to our own lives, we are constrained to cry out, ‘Who is sufficient for these things?’ And of course the answer is: Only One. Just as none can love with the love attributed to Solomon in the Song but Christ, so none can live with the wisdom described in Proverbs but that same Saviour. Here then are four ways of bringing our minds to focus on Christ.

1. Proverbs taught the Saviour⤒🔗

Think of the advice of a father to his son. Imagine being able to listen in to the advice God the Father gave to His Son, as He, in our nature, was growing up! We can think of Proverbs in this way.

When we read ‘My son’ twenty-four times in Proverbs we should remember that these words were given to the Saviour in His youth too. Such little insight as we do have of Christ the youth, is of Him having to be about His Father’s business, of Him asking questions of His elders and hearing intently their answers, of Him being subject to the lawful God-given means for His training. We should, in that context, take it as read that He would have been both learning, and learning from, the Scriptures. They fed, guided, and nourished our Saviour. This surely includes Proverbs (Proverbs 1:8, 10, 15; 3:1; 7:1; 23:15, 26; 27:11).

Not all His temptations are recorded, yet we know that He was tempted ‘in all points’. We can be sure that He would not have failed to make use of all Scripture under these temptations. Consider the great meekness of the Saviour. It was innate to His character yes, yet also He learned obedience, and grew in favour with God and men by such words as Proverbs 3:7: ‘Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the Lord, and depart from evil’.

Think of the Saviour’s good works in the Gospels, and then read Proverbs 3:27-8: ‘Withhold not good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of thine hand to do it. Say not unto thy neighbour, Go, and come again, and tomorrow I will give; when thou hast it by thee’.

Or what of the Saviour’s words, when He kept silence before Herod? ‘Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him’ (26:4). Why then did He begin to speak after His silence before Pilate? ‘Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit’ (26:5).

On every page of this book we find the Proverbs by which our Saviour lived His life. He was committed to keeping and upholding every word. When you meditate on any Proverb, consider how the Saviour made use of each particular Proverb in His own life. Proverbs becomes more sweet to us, more suited to our shoulders, when we are reminded that Christ was taught by these same truths.

2. Proverbs describes the Saviour←⤒🔗

Proverbs is not only telling us how God expected Jesus to apply His law throughout His life, it is also painting a picture for us of the Saviour. Each Proverb is a stroke of the paintbrush in the hand of the Spirit, portraying what our Saviour was like. We learn not only what He did, and why, but even who He was, and still is.

Who was Christ? He was a wise son who made His Father glad; diligent, who gathered in summer and was not slack in harvest, reaching out to lost souls in His preaching and ministry. His innate wisdom meant that He was humble and received instruction, walking with great integrity, uprightly at all times. His love was so strong that it covered sins, His lips dripped with wisdom, His words were a well of life, (think of the woman of Samaria). He was a man of hope and gladness, with His strength coming from the way of Jehovah alone.

Everything in that description comes only from one chapter of Proverbs, chapter 10. If we want to build up a view of the character of our Saviour, we should be in Proverbs. Here we get to know Him, and gain a sense of His character. Viewing Christ will add salt to the meat, and make these verses tasty to our hungry souls. Without Him, we would find bland fare.

3. Proverbs describes the Saviour for Our Example←⤒🔗

Now this description is given for us to gaze upon and enjoy, but equally, to feast upon and follow! This brings us into direct, practical application. Imitating the Saviour, and not only getting an outward mimicry that tries to do what He did, but an inner spiritual reflection that wants to be as He was and is: that is our goal!

Proverbs gives us the fullness of His character for our example in all the nitty-gritty of life. Are we like Him in the way we eat our food? ‘When thou sittest to eat with a ruler, consider diligently what is before thee: And put a knife to thy throat, if thou be a man given to appetite’ (23:1). Now our Saviour was not ‘given to appetite’ as the verse puts it, but we do know He possessed self-control; that He had great power over His bodily needs and desires, so that they never once were indulged or pampered. We also know that He was tempted of Satan to exalt bodily needs in the wilderness when He was hungry, to turn stones into bread.

Are we like Him in the way that we work and labour? ‘Labour not to be rich’ (Proverbs 23:4). Wealth must not be our motive. ‘For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me’ (John 6:38). He called it His ‘meat’, His ample reward, what satisfied His soul. O to be like Christ, and to be labouring not for the rewards of this life, but for the smile of our Father’s face!

What about modelling His constancy of faith? Be in the fear of the Lord, ‘all the day long’ says Proverbs (23:17). How often we get caught out, by not being in a spiritual frame of mind, caught up with worldly affairs – but see the example of your Saviour! See the pattern He gave us, when He prayed all night, when He was fully in the fear of the Lord all the day long.

Can we take up the deep love of the Saviour, as He taught us, for our enemies? That doctrine so closely associated with New Testament theology, so particularly entwined with the deep love of the Saviour – is given for us to live out in our own lives, in Proverbs: ‘Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, and let not thine heart be glad when he stumbleth’. Or again, ‘If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he be thirsty, give him water to drink’

Can we school our words, our tongues and lips to speak in a way that echoes the speech of our gracious and kind Jesus? ‘A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver’. Or again, ‘A soft tongue breaketh the bone’. Or perhaps hardest of all: ‘Faithful are the wounds of a friend’.

The way we eat our food, the way we go about our work, the way we love our enemies and the way we use our words – all exemplified for us by the Master, and all detailed for us to follow after in Proverbs.

We are called to be like Him. We are to strive for masteries, to run the race. Being like Christ in a world that detests our Saviour is tough. It is not going to fall into our laps; we won’t wake up one morning with it done. We need help – all the help we can get. And if we don’t use Proverbs, we are neglecting something given to us for this very purpose.

4. Proverbs is the Saviour’s Command for Our Obedience←⤒🔗

It would be misleading to suggest that it is always easy or obvious to treat every single Proverb as either instruction to Christ, a description of Christ, or given as our pattern after Christ. But Proverbs is always the Word of Christ, the command and instruction of our King for us, protecting us from the evil, warning us of the subtleties of temptation, and extolling to us the fear of the Lord and wisdom in our lives. It is always in the greatest interests of our souls for us to recognise, in Proverbs as in all Scripture, the tones and accents of our Lord and Master.

In John 10:27 we read: ‘My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me’. Do not exclude Proverbs from this. When you are invited into the arms of this book, you are invited to hear a word from your King. Here is heaven’s letter sent to help you. Here is the authentic voice of the Redeemer, in guiding, teaching and blessing us. All the motivation any Christian needs is in this Proverb: ‘My son, be wise, and make my heart glad’ (27:11).

This wisdom to which we are called has already become incarnate in Christ, ‘in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge’ (Col. 2:3; see also 1 Cor. 1:30). As Christ said of Himself: ‘A greater than Solomon is here’ (Lk. 11:31). Surely then we can find the One who is greater than Solomon, in the pages of Proverbs!