Solomon has made his case for choosing wisdom. Now, at last, he says that we are finally ready to hear some real proverbs, some of the punchy two-liners for which the book of Proverbs is famous. Read them. Memorize them. I know you have some proverbs from outside the Bible memorized - maybe "A penny saved is a penny earned" or "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Those are handy sayings, but Solomon's Proverbs are on another level, because they are God's word for our salvation.

But remember, even these Proverbs won't do you much good unless you have the fear of the Lord. That's the pre-req. What's ahead isn't so much a few hundred rules for a few hundred situations as it is one rule applied to hundreds of different situations. The one rule is: Fear the Lord. Read more . . .