Proverbs 2.1-5
“My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding; yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.”
Proverbs 2 is a call to be an apprentice. It is a call to listen to the voice of truth and learn the standards of how life works in the world that was created by God, broken by sin, and redeemed by Jesus. It is a call to trust God, pursue truth, and do the work.
Chapter 2 is a single, extended discourse of a father to his son. The chapter is written as if the father took a deep breath and then gave this speech in one long sentence. It is structured as a lengthy conditional sentence: If you relentlessly pursue wisdom, then you will experience blessing. The first four verses are the if statement in the father’s message, and the rest of the chapter provides two different then statements.
The message of chapter 2 is also unique because it has no imperatives. The imperative mood in grammar is the mood of command. As you read through this chapter, you will notice there are no imperative verbs. There are statements of fact and descriptions of action, but there are no commands. The father simply tells his son how the world works, and describes the conditional nature of the way of wisdom. If you diligently seek wisdom, then you will find it and be blessed. If you don’t diligently seek wisdom, then you will not find it and you will not be blessed.
Here is the message of Proverbs 2 to young people: Be an apprentice. Listen to your parents and let them teach you about how life works. Let your parents train you in the principles of how God has designed his universe. Learn the knowledge, wisdom, and skills you need in order to live and work successfully. To repeat, be an apprentice.
This is a consistent message throughout scripture: It is the role of parents to train their children in the ways of the kingdom of God. It is the role of children to listen and learn.
“Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.” (Proverbs 22.6)
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.” (Deuteronomy 6.5-7)
“Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” (Ephesians 6.4)
This is not simply a biblical teaching. Throughout history, young people have always learned the fundamental skills of life and work through the teaching of their parents, and they learned the skills of a profession or trade through apprenticeship to someone who was experienced and skilled in the work. This has always been the process of learning the skills necessary for any job: farmer, hunter, merchant, craftsman, baker, accountant, physician, teacher, coach, pilot, firefighter, police officer, coder, web designer, etc..
Knowing the necessity of apprenticeship, I was struck by a theme that I heard in commencement addresses at several graduations that I attended this spring. The speeches that I heard did not challenge students to apprentice themselves to the standards of how life works. Graduates were not being encouraged to relentlessly pursue truth and wisdom. There was a consistent prompting to reject the standards and principles that others might demand of them. There were many appeals to “challenge authority” and “question the status quo” and “create your own standards.”
What I heard were well-intended, but nevertheless misguided invitations to make self the reference point. What should have been said was this: “Seek wisdom and insight. Relentlessly pursue what is right and true. Find people who are wise and skillful and then apprentice yourself to them. Get trained in the standards and skills of the work that you want to do.”
Don’t get me wrong. I fully understand the need to challenge conventional wisdom and the value of pushing boundaries in order to innovate. I myself do that all the time. But we must first build a foundation of timeless truth, and we must commit to living that truth with wisdom and courage. That is the path to lasting success, and it can only be found in relationship to the God who created us, redeemed us, and calls us to himself.
To summarize: Proverbs 2 is a call to be an apprentice. It is a call to listen to the voice of truth and learn the standards of how life works in the world that was created by God, broken by sin, and redeemed by Jesus. It is a call to trust God, pursue truth, and do the work.
