Dr. Bruce Waltke recently came to Daytona Beach Florida and preached at Christ Community Church. He usually comes once a year when he is in Orlando teaching at Reformed Theological Seminary. His sermon was about wisdom and righteousness in Proverbs. You can download it by clicking on this link: “Wisdom in Shoe-leather: Righteousness in Proverbs”.

He developed an interesting analogy. He said when it comes to driving a car you’ve got an overarching idea like, “drive carefully”, then you have specific traffic signs that tell you where to stop, when to yield and how fast to drive. In addition you usually have to learn a little finesse like how to parallel-park, do a three point turn, or recover from a skid.

He compared this to Scripture. In the Old Testament, the command to love God and love your neighbor is an overarching, general command, sort of like, “drive safely”. The Ten Commandments are like the road signs that give more specific directions. What are the proverbs? They teach us the finesse of wisdom. After all the word, “wisdom” in Hebrew basically means “skill” and in Proverbs the wisdom given is “the skill of living”.

He said, for instance, the Ten Commandments say: “Do not murder” but Proverbs 25:21 says, “If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; if he is thirsty, give him water to drink”.

The Ten Commandments say: “Do not commit adultery” but Proverbs says stand up to honor your noble wife. Proverbs 31:28-29: “Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: “Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all.”

The Ten Commandments say: “Do not steal” but Proverbs 22:9 says: “A generous man will himself be blessed, for he shares his food with the poor.”

The Ten Commandments say: “Do not bear false witness” but the wisdom of Proverbs tell us to protect another person’s reputation: Proverbs 10:12, “Hatred stirs up dissension, but love covers over all wrongs.”

He went on to develop the idea that in Proverbs the righteous man is wise. The words “righteousness” and “wisdom” become interchangeable (correlative terms). What is the key quality that emerges to identify the man of wisdom and righteousness? Waltke said it is this: “The wise and righteous are those willing to disadvantage themselves in order to advantage others”

The wicked are not just those who murder, commit adultery, steal and bear false witness but those who fail to feed an enemy, to honor a noble wife, to be generous with the poor and to protect the reputations of others.

All of us have failed to fully live in the wisdom of righteousness but as Dr. Waltke pointed out there is one who did. There is one who disadvantaged himself to advantage others. 2 Corinthians 8:9 “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.”

Dr. Waltke said:

The supreme example of righteousness is Jesus Christ, where we read (2 Corinthians 8:9) that he became poor… that you might be rich. That he gave his life as an atonement to take away my sins in order that I might have a relationship with God. That’s what Christ provided.

We know from other Scriptures none of us will attain to perfect righteousness and yet unless you are perfectly righteous you have no access to God. And that’s what Christ in his grace to us provides us. This righteousness that we receive by trust and accept by faith.

Dr. Waltke pointed us to Christ, not just as example, but as the Savior who lived out the righteous wisdom of Proverbs and then disadvantaged himself for our redemption on the cross. There was nothing allegorical in this exposition of Proverbs. It was just a natural and much needed connection between the Proverbs and Jesus. Proverbs tells us the wise-righteous man disadvantages himself for the sake of others. Where do we see that truth most clearly if not in Jesus?