Proverbs 7

Proverbs 7-10 give us a coherent story, one of the few sections in Proverbs to actually make a narrative. It is a challenge between Wisdom and the character we came to know last chapter but will eventually learn is "Folly" (as I will refer to her from here on out). And what opens is the tragic case of a victim of Folly. This young man (lacking judgment) slips out of a crowd and is walking down a street to a house with a bad reputation. Whether he is innocent and making a poor decision or whether he has plans and hopes for this house, we cannot be certain. But out of the house comes Folly, ready to draw him into her home with the promise of love. And away he goes, drawn by false promises and "love." The narrator of this story watches this tragedy unfold from his own home, knowing that going into the home of Folly is the slippery slope to some kind of death.

We do not know this story from the outside, looking in, though. The story of being drawn into unwise decisions is one we know from the perspective of the one lacking judgment. Folly claims victims everyday, and we are often among them. But thank God for grace, that the work of Jesus rescues us from the home of Folly and into the home of Wisdom. Our challenge is the one posited by the narrator at the beginning and the end of Folly's tale- to store up understanding. We are containers, in many ways, filling up with the things around us. The challenge of Proverbs is to fill up with God. Otherwise, we leave ourselves open to be filled up with other stuff. Now, this doesn't mean only listening to Christian music, only reading Christian books and only hanging out with Christian people. Quite the opposite. Proverbs calls us to live in the world as it is. But filling ourselves with God (in prayer and learning some of the proverbs that are to come) allows us to interact with that world in a way that honors God. May that be our challenge today.