Wisdom for the Day: Proverbs 9

Proverbs 9

1    Wisdom has built her house;
she has set up its seven pillars.
2 She has prepared her meat and mixed her wine;
she has also set her table.
3 She has sent out her servants, and she calls
from the highest point of the city,
4 “Let all who are simple come to my house!”
To those who have no sense she says,
5 “Come, eat my food
and drink the wine I have mixed.
6 Leave your simple ways and you will live;
walk in the way of insight.”

This sounds very much like a feast has been laid out and an invitation given to the simple. Those who have no understanding, come to the banquet. Leave the way of ignorance and dine on knowledge. Remember the parable of the great banquet. Where the busy people, the people full of their own self importance, their own wisdom refused the invitation to the feast. The ones to dine at the great banquet were those who left what they were doing, accepted the invitation to sit with the King.

Blessed is the one who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God. That passage begins. The feast is already prepared and the big question is will you come. How often has our own wisdom led us astray, how often have we been too busy to stop and listen to Godly wisdom. Too busy too chew over God’s word.

It’s not quite that simple though. Later in chapter 9 of proverbs, folly is pictured as sitting at her doorstep with an invitation of her own. Let all who are simple come to my house. Stolen water is sweet she says, food eaten in secret is delicious she tempts. She plays on our appetites.

So the choice is ours, enters wisdoms door or accept folly’s invitation. Accept Jesus’ invitation to dine with him at the great banquet or take a step inside folly’s doorway. Verse 17 tells us what is inside folly’s doorway.

17 But little do they know that the dead are there,
18 that her guests are deep in the realm of the dead.

So the question is, where will you dine?