Proverbs 9:1 Commentary and Bible Study

We remind ourselves that as the title of the book tells us, it is a book of proverbs, similes, or parables. It is foolish to come to any part, whether it is one of the long parables of the early chapters, or one of the very many short proverbs or parables of the major part of the book, and to attempt to interpret them in a literal manner. So here in chapter 9 wisdom is seen with a great house, and the picture language is changing. Do not let us rush too fast with our interpretation. The house of wisdom is not the church. Ultimately I suppose you can see it as the church, but that is going a little too fast, and if you go that fast you will miss a lot of the riches of the passage. The church is not yet perfected but is being worked upon; but wisdom here is perfect. The church is still being constructed, but wisdom’s house is fully formed. Wisdom herself is pictured as a person, although she is not in fact a person, and now she is pictured as having a house. It is a splendid house. It has – the number of perfection throughout the Bible – seven pillars hewn from the ground. Granite pillars? No, in the imagery of Solomon, more likely marble pillars, beautiful shining polished, marble pillars, befitting a vast house, a great palace. This house introduces us to wisdom as a tremendous body of truth. Here is a vast palace, which is shortly going to invite people to a tremendous feast. It is an enormous building that can house a vast number of people. First of all it describes the truth itself, wisdom itself, the way of salvation. This is a cohesive body of truth. It is a tremendous unit of truth, it is united, it is consistent, it is a system. Wisdom now is calling you into her house. That is, into her system of knowledge, a vast house in which everything is right and symmetrical; you come into a structure that makes sense, that is perfect.By comparison, what is human wisdom? It is a small house at any given time, with many rooms, many disciplines, and many faculties. None of them are particularly stable; they are full of contradiction. Here is human wisdom: the word of God has been thrown aside. It is human beings with their own minds and powers, trying to figure out the world: how it is, its rights and wrongs, and how economic systems function. And of course, they are at sixes and sevens. Here is one room where the professor says it is like this, and another room where another professor says, No, it is not like that at all; it is like this. You cannot say, well I want to mould and blend all this into one cohesive whole so I know just where I am. I want all knowledge to agree with itself, I want to see all its teaching interlocking into a perfect system. You will not get that in the world. It is only this spiritual wisdom, this God-given wisdom, which can make a perfect whole.