The Book of Proverbs in The Bible is regarded by many to be one of the greatest wellsprings of practical knowledge ever collected by humanity. Many people (myself included) have used Proverbs to make their lives better by using the wisdom within the books. But do you know WHY Solomon wrote Proverbs in the first place?
Actually the answer to this is provided by the king himself right at the beginning of the book. Notice Prov 1:2-4, where Solomon explains that the book is “for attaining wisdom and discipline, for understanding words of insight; for acquiring a disciplined and prudent life, doing what is right and just and fair, for giving prudence to the simple, knowledge and discretion to the young…”
That’s a pretty clear message that Solomon was not just trying to collect a book of a bunch of witty sayings, but instead had a more powerful, world-changing vision in mind. Personally I believe that we should keep this quote in mind while we read through Proverbs because these are worthy goals to remain aware of. After all, not only do we want to acquire wisdom and understanding and use this knowledge to live a disciplined and prudent life for ourselves and our own benefit, but imagine what can happen when we follow the rest of the directions — we can ALSO make the world a better place by DOING what is good and by GIVING knowledge to others (teaching the simple to be make better choices, sharing wisdom/guidance with the younger generation).
As you can see, when we truly understanding wisdom realize that using wisdom requires doing ALL of these things and when we do that, everybody wins.
How will YOU use your wisdom to help someone today?