PROVERBS Chapter 2
I. Outline: I. Wisdom As A Treasure And Safeguard: 2:1-22 A. Wisdom, Hard-Won: 2:1-5 B. Wisdom, God-Given: 2”6-9 C. Wisdom, A Moral Safeguard: 2:10-22 1
II. Opening Comments: “The young man faces two major temptations. The first (in chapter one) is the temptation to violence and crime and to the feelings of power and easy money that way offers, and the second is to easy and apparently uncomplicated sexual pleasures offered by the prostitute. Both ways, however, have complications the young man cannot see, complications that will drag him to his death. This whole text hinges on an enormous “if” clause (vv. 1-4). The “if” represents a decision that every young man must make. He can either go in the way of Wisdom and find life, true love, and most importantly God, or he can turn his back on her and find only bitterness, isolation, and death. One cannot opt out of making this decision or choose a little of one and a little of the other. If the church, however, fails to present this stark decision to young people, many will go in the wrong way and never even know they had a choice” (Garrett p. 74).
III. Commentary: 2:1 “if”, the language of free will and choice. While the parents need to train up a child in the way he should go (22:6), the child still has to make the final choice. Here again we see that the Bible isn’t that complicated, and that parents can accurately pass on to the next generation the correct interpretation of the 1
Outline Taken From Proverbs by Derek Kidner 1