Rewind: Rules for Interpreting Wisdom Literature

Everybody's choosy about something.

It might be your favorite snack. Two scoops of Rocky Road, please. Your style.

Those earrings look amazing on you.

Or the things you like to do with your best friend. You can be choosy when it comes to getting a COVID -19 vaccine, too. If you're thinking about getting an updated vaccine, there's more than one type available.

You can find out more at wedovaccines .com. This message was brought to you by Novavax.

Shop incredible Don't Miss Deals at ShopRite. This week, one dozen of Land O 'Lakes large brown eggs are now just $1 .99 when you shop with your Price Plus card. Look for the Don't Miss Deals icon in stores and online at shoprite .com.

ShopRite. Check out happy.

Wisdom Literature in Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes

Welcome to the Rapid Bull Daily Edition, where we provide a quick biblical interpretations and applications. This is a ministry of striving for eternity.

This week, we've been examining the different styles of literature in the Bible and the rules that each of them have in interpretation. Today, I'd like to address the one of wisdom literature. Wisdom literature is one you're going to see in the book of Job.

You're going to see much, if not all, of the book of Proverbs and even Ecclesiastes contain wisdom literature. Now, wisdom literature is one of the more difficult ones to interpret, and it is very similar and requires an understanding of the Hebrew poetry that we dealt with earlier this week.

Parallelism, Comparisons, and Figures of Speech in Proverbs

Now, as we look at wisdom literature, we will see the parallelism that we see in Hebrew poetry that we already addressed. But there's other things that are going to help in understanding the meaning of wisdom literature.

You want to look for comparisons throughout the Proverbs. The fool is compared with the wise, the poor with the rich. Throughout, you're going to see those kind of comparisons. You're going to see the contrasts.

Look for metaphors and similes. These are some of the key things that give us the interpretation. You'll also see in wisdom literature sometimes either portraits or vignettes, and those are going to, again, be something that is not necessarily trying to teach a specific doctrine, but understand that wisdom literature, specifically in Proverbs, are generalities.

Wisdom Literature Gives General Principles, Not Promises

They're not promises. They're general principles that usually work. Don't take wisdom literature as a promise for you today, because it's not a promise.

It's a principle. This podcast is part of the Striving for Eternity ministry. For more content or to request a speaker or seminar to your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.

Everybody's choosy about something.

It might be your favorite snack. Two scoops of Rocky Road, please.

Your style. Those earrings look amazing on you.

Or the things you like to do with your best friend. You can be choosy when it comes to getting a COVID -19 vaccine, too. If you're thinking about getting an updated vaccine, there's more than one type available.

You can find out more at wedovaccines .com. This message was brought to you by Novavax.

Introducing Carvana Value Tracker, where you can track your car's value over time and learn what's driving it.

It might make you excited. Whoa, didn't know my car was valued this high. It might make you nervous.

Uh-oh, market's flooded. My car's value just dipped 2 .3%. It might make you optimistic. Our low mileage is paying off. Our value's up. And it might make you realistic. Car prices haven't gone up in a couple weeks.

Maybe it's time to sell. But it will definitely make you an expert on your car's value. Carvana Value Tracker. Visit carvana .com to start tracking your car's value today.