In this episode we finish our Old Testament overview by looking at the wisdom books—Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon (sometimes Psalms is included)—as personal guidance for living in light of God rather than part of Israel’s main narrative.

In Proverbs we see wisdom as the “grain of the universe,” ultimately embodied in Jesus, and 1 Corinthians highlights the cross as God’s wisdom: self-giving love that overturns worldly ideas of power; Jesus also fulfills Proverbs’ righteousness, showing our need for his righteousness.

Job raises unjust suffering, and while it doesn’t give an intellectual answer, Christ gives a heart answer by suffering with us.

Ecclesiastes exposes the emptiness of grasping for pleasure, while Jesus shows purpose through giving and serving.

Song of Solomon celebrates marriage and points beyond it to Christ and the church, made possible through the cross.

00:00 Intro Flying Solo

00:15 What Is Wisdom Literature

01:55 Proverbs Wisdom And The Cross

06:35 Job Unjust Suffering

08:25 Ecclesiastes Meaning Of Life

09:56 Song Of Solomon Love And Marriage

11:44 Reflection And Lord's Prayer

Welcome today, 20 of in light of

the Cross and I'm flying solo today.

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Nathan has a new baby in their

household and he's got a lot

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going on this week between work

and the extra demands of that.

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So yeah, just me.

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today we are going to talk about the

wisdom literature in light of the cross.

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So we're wrapping up kind of our Old

Testament overview of seeing all the

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different parts of the Old Testament

in light of the cross Now, what is

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the wisdom literature in the Bible?

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the wisdom literature describes four

books of the Bible, although sometimes

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people include Psalms with this, so

that would make it five, but normally

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it is the four books of Job, Proverbs,

Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon.

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Now, why do we call

them wisdom literature?

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mainly because what's happening in

these books is that you're stepping

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outside of the main storyline of

Israel and its law and history.

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So as we've been discussing, there

is a narrative structure to the Old

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Testament, how God redeems mankind,

and he's doing that through the

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family of Abraham and Sarah and their

offspring, the people of Israel.

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And so we've seen describe their

conquests and their failures.

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We've seen describe their

faithfulness and their faithlessness.

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We've seen describe the rebellion,

and then the judgment that comes

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about through that, the exile.

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And we've seen God's restoration of that.

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All that fits on this timeline,

but these books do not.

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These books step out

of the main story line.

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They're personal applications for how

to live life in light of this God.

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So they're presupposing as a background.

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All this narrative, all the God

revealed about himself in his ways,

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but they're not part of the narrative.

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They're personal applications

of how to live in light of God.

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Let's start with Proverbs.

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What are Proverbs about and how can

the cross And the person of Jesus

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illustrate their meaning well, a

proverb is basically a short, pithy

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statement describing some way of right

living or some small part of wisdom.

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They are not universal rules.

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They're not laws, they're not commands,

they're not promises that this is

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the way things will always work.

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They are short, pithy statements designed

to be memorable about how to live life

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as a general rule within the grain of

the universe, the grain of the universe.

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Let's talk about that.

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So one of the things you see in

Proverbs is this idea that there

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is a, grain of the universe.

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It's usually described by the term wisdom.

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Homa is the Hebrew word.

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It's usually translated wisdom or skill.

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So it's not intellectual knowledge.

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It can be used of a craftsman

who's creating this beautiful

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or functional piece of art, or

even the builder of a house.

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it's more of a practical wisdom

or skill on how to do something.

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In this case, it's how to live life.

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So Proverbs describes this wisdom.

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It extols this wisdom, and it

tells how to live in this wisdom.

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how does Jesus in his cross.

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Help us to understand

this in a deeper way.

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Well, one thing is that we see that this

wisdom is not just an impersonal force.

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It is a person.

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Jesus is the embodied wisdom of God.

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So Proverbs talks quite a bit about

how God made the universe by wisdom.

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It says wisdom was there by God's

side as he made the universe.

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It's even personified his lady

wisdom in Proverbs, chapter eight,

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calling out saying, I was by God's

side when he made the universe.

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So I know what the grain

of the universe is.

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Come and listen to my

words and learn from me.

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When you come to the New Testament,

you find that Jesus is the way

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that God created the universe.

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He is the fulfillment of that

wisdom of the Old Testament.

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It says in the book of Colossians, chapter

one, that through him and for him and by

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him, that is Jesus, all things were made.

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It says the same thing in

Hebrews chapter one, for example.

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So he's the fulfillment

and the embodiment of that.

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Going a little bit deeper, we find

in one Corinthians, especially one

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Corinthians one through three, that

it's not just Jesus who is the wisdom

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of God, but in particular it's the

cross that is the wisdom of God.

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One Corinthians 1 22, Jews demand

science and Greeks look for wisdom,

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but we preach Christ crucified.

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A stumbling block to Jews and

foolishness to Gentiles or Greeks,

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but to those whom God has called.

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Both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the

power of God and the wisdom of God

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for the foolishness of God is wiser

than human wisdom, and the weakness of

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God is stronger than human strength.

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Verse 30 says that Christ has

become for us the wisdom from God.

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So the cross shows us something about

wisdom that goes far beyond Proverbs.

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It doesn't repudiate the wisdom of

proverb, but it goes far beyond it.

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And that is that the self-giving

love of God exemplified by the cross

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of Jesus Christ is the true wisdom.

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The grain of the universe is

loving others, even to the

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point of sacrificing for them.

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the rulers of Jesus' time, the wise

people did not understand this, and

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the rulers and the billionaires and the

powerful people of today don't either.

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They think wisdom trying to get

ahead in life is by your own effort

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and self are granted men seeking

treasures and pleasures for yourself

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And the cross shows that the wisdom

of God is exactly opposite to that.

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The second way that Jesus and the cross

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help us interpret a deeper

understanding of Proverbs.

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Is that Jesus is the only one

who fulfilled all this wisdom and

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righteousness that Proverbs talks about.

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So the Book of Proverbs shows us

how to live rightly, but Christ

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is the only one who has lived

perfectly by those principles.

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He's the only one who has fully

lived a life full of this kind of

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wisdom and blamelessness before God

and reading them christologically.

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Shifts our focus from just receiving

advice from the Book of Proverbs

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to needing Christ's righteousness.

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It's not about whether I'm doing all

these things, rightly or not, but Jesus

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has done them and he does them in a way

I can't, so I need his righteousness.

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Now what about the Book of Job?

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Well, if you know the Book of Job, you

know the key question is unjust suffering.

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Why is someone who is a right person

before God job, he's described

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as blameless by God himself twice

in the first couple chapters of

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the book, suffering so severely

suffering so incredibly deeply.

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And you know how the book answers that.

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It doesn't basically.

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The book ends with the answer of

simply saying that job would never

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be able to understand God's ways,

because the gap between human

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wisdom and God's wisdom is so great.

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Jesus though, fleshes that out a little

bit more because while he does not give

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us an intellectual answer to suffering,

he gives us a hard answer, a life answer

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to suffering, to unjust suffering.

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Because Christ is the ultimate suffering

servant, the ultimate one who was

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right before God in a way far beyond

Job, one who was perfect before God

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and yet suffered the cruelest death

that cruel Rome could ever devise.

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He is a suffering servant

who came to our world.

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With the promise that one day God

would end suffering and would end evil.

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But for right now, he was

willing to share it with us.

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He got into the boat of our

humanity, including our suffering,

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and shared that with us.

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This is not, again, as much

of an intellectual answer,

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but an answer to the heart.

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I can understand why sometimes

I have to suffer for things.

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In which I did nothing wrong,

but I know who is beside me in

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the boat of that suffering, and

that makes all the difference.

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I can trust him and his heart, even

if I can't understand his mind.

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What about Ecclesiastes?

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Ecclesiastes highlights the purposeless

of life of someone who is seeking.

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All the treasures and pleasures

that this world can give.

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He's grasping.

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He's receiving all of them, and he

ends up saying, it's all vanity,

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it's all empty, it's all purposeless.

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And Christ comes and lives a life

directly opposite that instead of grasping

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and receiving, he gives and serves.

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And in that He shows us the true purpose

of life is not to grasp, but to give Jesus

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himself and especially through what he's

done in the cross, shows that the true

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wisdom of God and the true point of life

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is to give myself for others.

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And in doing that, as Philippians chapter

two talks about, then God gives his

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ultimate seal of approval upon Jesus

and exalts him to the highest place

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he doesn't give, so that he's exalted.

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His exaltation is simply God's stamp

of approval on this kind of life.

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So the cross tells us that the author

of Ecclesiastes wanted the right thing.

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He wanted understanding about the

purpose of life in its meaning, but

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He was seeking it the wrong way, by

self-fulfillment, by grasping, by

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getting all the treasures and pleasures

he could, and Jesus comes and shows.

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The opposite is true, that real

fulfillment in life and real

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blessing in life comes from

giving instead of receiving.

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All right, one last one.

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We have to go through these so quickly

because we're covering four of them in

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one episode, song of Solomon, and of

course, it's a beautiful celebration

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of human, sexual and marital love and,

read on its own apart from the cross.

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It's this beautiful affirmation.

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The guy created Human marriage

between a man and wife.

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He blesses that, including their romantic

part, including their sexual union.

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And God approves of that

because he's its creator.

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He celebrates that with us.

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Now, Jesus, of course,

doesn't repudiate that at all.

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In fact, he performs his first miracle

at a wedding in Cana of Galilee.

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Thereby giving his stamp of approval

upon this marriage ceremony between

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a young man and a young woman.

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But he goes far beyond that too,

because ultimately he shows us through

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his words, especially in John 14.

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\ In fact, Paul, when he's writing

about marriage between a man

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and a woman, he says, I'm not

just talking about marriage now.

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Because all this is pointing to

Jesus in his church, Jesus, and those

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whom Jesus has chosen and loved.

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the marriage union as beautiful

and intimate and joyful as that is,

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especially when it's at its best.

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It points to the intimacy and love

in union and bliss, not of a physical

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kind, but of a spiritual kind that we

will have with Christ when he returns

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and all things are made new and God

dwells with us We have glimpses of

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that now, but that is still to come.

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And that's achieved because of the

cross, because of all the things

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we've talked about in the previous

weeks that God has dealt with our

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sin problem through the cross so that

that relationship can be restored.

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So those are some of the ways that the

Cross of Christ illustrates the wisdom

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literature and gives light to it for a

time of application and reflection that.

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I just want you to think of those

and one of those in particular.

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I want you to choose one and

to dwell upon that and think

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about that, in your own life.

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Christ is the embodied wisdom of

God that progress talks about.

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He fulfills the righteousness that

progress talks about in a way that we

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could not, so it shows our need for him.

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He is the answer to suffering.

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not an intellectual answer,

but nonetheless shows us

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that he suffers with us.

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He's the answer to the purpose

of life that the right of

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Ecclesiastes struggle to find.

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and he grants us and promises us

of fulfillment far beyond even

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human romantic love and marriage.

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Because of all that he has done for us

and because of his deep affection for you.

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I'd ask you then to choose one of

those to contemplate that, to bring it

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before God and say, thank you for this.

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How can I live my life

today in light of this?

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And we're going to end as we always

do by praying the form of the prayer

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that our Lord told us to pray.

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Our Father in heaven,

hallowed be your name.

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Your kingdom come, your will be

done on earth as it is in heaven.

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Give us today our daily bread

and forgive us our debts as we

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also have forgiven our debtors.

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And lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from the evil one.

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Amen.