Okay, the first topic that we're going to handle is entitled an introduction to the course, and its contents, of course, we have already looked at the syllabus, so you may think we've already been introduced to the course, but I want to talk a little bit more about the material itself, not just the mechanics of the course, but what it is we will be looking at. The books upon which this course will focus or upon which it is based include probably the most familiar of the Old Testament books, the Psalms, but also some of the least familiar or at least the least understood books in the Old Testament. If you were in Sunday school as I was as a child, often to learn to navigate the Bible, they would say open it right in the middle, and there's the Psalms, and if you're carrying the right kind of Bible that works, if you have a study Bible that has umpteen thousand pages of study notes at the end, it may not work. But for the most part, the Psalms is right in the middle of the Bible, literally, and also in many other ways, theologically, for instance. But we're also going to deal with the book of Job, with the book of Ecclesiastes, a book that many people find depressing, have a hard time understanding, but I think a very important book. There's a lot of depression around in society today, perhaps in our own lives, from time to time, some of us may even have real deep problems with depression. What is nice to know that God understands it, and we'll enjoy reading, I think, the book of Ecclesiastes. Also the book of the song of songs, or the song of Solomon, it's real title is Solomon's song of songs, or Solomon's most excellent song. What kind of literature is that? Is it love poetry? Between a man and a woman? Is it allegory? What is it? What is it? What is it we were reading when we read the song of songs? I daresay, you probably didn't hear a sermon on Song of Songs last week, and maybe for many, many weeks prior. Well, if it's not preachable, why is it in the Bible? What are we to take from a book like that? So we'll be focusing on these. We'll also be focusing on the book of Lamentations, and so we'll talk about how did that get in here in this grouping. First then, let's do a little defining. Let's define the course and delimit the course, and defining is a difficult thing. On your outline, this would be 0.1 under 1a1, on the difficulty of naming the course. In many curricula, this course would be called poetical books, and that's not bad, but it's a bit of a misnomer because these are not the only books in the Bible that have poetry. What else comes to mind? What other books in the Bible are largely poetic? Someone say something? It's your chance to star on the video. You know, let your voice be heard. When you're, you know, it's easy to find out if you just, if you start looking, let's see here. If you have an English Bible that lays things out poetically, I'm in Hosea right now. See, it's laid out sort of poetically. The prophetical books, so-called prophetical books, are largely poetical in their composition. They're made up of prophetic poems as it were. But even in the narrative portions, in the historical books, in the Pentateuch, for instance, we have the song of Moses in Exodus 15, after the crossing of the Red Sea in Exodus 14, then Moses sang a song about it. That's a poem. In Judges 5, the song of Deborah, after the interesting battle with when she tried to get Barak to join her, and to lead the people, and he refused, and she said, okay, I'll go, but the glory will not go to you. It will go to a woman. Everyone would think it would be Deborah, but it was actually J.L., who, if you've read that story, recently, really pegged at that guy, drove a tent peg through his brain. Or in 1 Samuel 2, the song of Hannah, one of my favorite biblical characters, rejoicing when God answered her prayer about giving her a son. 2 Samuel 1, David's lament over Saul and Jonathan. That's composed in poetry. Or 2 Samuel 22, the song of David, or 2 Samuel 23, the last words of David. All of these are written in poems. They're all songs or songs of some sort. And so when I think of the poetical books, I think, well, there's poetry everywhere. There's a lot of poetry in the Bible, and I didn't feel it was quite fair to just call these books, the poetical books. Now, there is a tradition in terms of the way we subdivide the canon. We talk about the Pentateuch, the law, and then we talk about the historical books, and the poetical books, and the prophetical books. So we tend to subdivide the canon something like that, and that's where the name came from. But nevertheless, I think maybe it's better just to call them the Psalms and the wisdom books. After all, the book of Ecclesiastes is not, at least not entirely, poetry. There are some proverbs in there that laid out as poems or poetry and poetical lines. But the book itself contains a lot of prose. So the poetical books don't really represent a proper division in the Hebrew canon. Does anyone know how the Hebrew tradition or Jewish tradition divides up the Old Testament? How do we receive it? What are the three main divisions? Who knows? Yes. Well, creation is at the start, and you know, that's the name of their first book in the beginning, but they sheet, but you may be thinking creation-forward dimension, which is a good theological scheme, but I'm talking more of a canonical breakdown. Right. Law, the prophets, and the writings. So I'm going to write this up here, and you may want to write this down just to kind of get the breakdown in your mind. Law, the prophets, and the writing, writings. What's the law? First five books, okay, what we sometimes call the Pentateuch, and what are the prophets? This may come as a bit of a surprise. Which books are the prophetical books? Aha, we have a division here between the major and the minor prophets, but that's not the first division. What's the first division? In Jewish tradition, which makes a lot of sense. Talk about major and minor a minute, but what about prior to that? If I give you one, I bet you could get the other, the former prophets, and the latter prophets. Excellent. Okay. The former prophets, and the latter prophets, and didn't write this in a terribly organized fashion because major and minor is a subdivision under latter. The former prophets, who are they? Who are the former prophets? What we often call the historical books. Joshua, judges, Samuel, kings, those are called the former prophets, and there's a rightness to that because those historical books, every history is written from a particular viewpoint, and the viewpoint of biblical history is God's viewpoint. If the prophets were those who spoke for God in their societies, also the books written about events in the life of God's people are written from God's perspective, their prophetical in orientation. So the former prophets would be what we call historical books. Joshua, judges, Samuel, kings, the latter prophets divided into major and minor, just like major league and minor league. Why do we call some major prophets and other minor prophets? These are AAA prophets. It's really only the length. It's the body of the material. So the major prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, the ones that have these big long copuses, and then the minor prophets are the others. But then we come to the writings, and we're not covering any of this in this course. Now we're at the writings. This is where we get into our own material. What do we have in the writings? Well, pretty much everything else that's left. We have not only the books that it begins with the book of Psalms, Ecclesiastes, Psalms, Job comes next, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes. We have not only those books, but we have books like Ruth, believe it or not, although we put it back in its historical time period, Ruth, Esther, Daniel, then Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles, right at the end of the Hebrew canon. Now our own divisions were introduced, I think, via the Septuagint, the Greek translation, and then also through the Volgate, which was the Latin translation. So in terms of defining the course, it's a little bit difficult, because we can't say this is a course on writings because of a bunch of them are not covered. It's probably better just to say, and it's not simply poetical books because these guys are also poetical. It's better just to say Psalms and wisdom books, and then we'll learn what those wisdom books are. Now in terms of the scope of the course, we're dealing with what Jewish tradition calls the Book of Truth. The Book of Truth is Job. Well, I should actually write it out for you because this is going to be hard to figure out. I'll do it this way. I promised I wouldn't put much Hebrew in here, but here's just a couple of letters and I'll explain what they mean. This is the letter that begins the name Job. This is the letter that begins the word Meshalim, the Proverbs, or the Sayings, and this is Tehilim, the Psalms. So these words together form an acronym, which forms the Hebrew word truth, Emmett, truth. So they referred to the Book of Truth comprising, or including, Job, Proverbs, and Psalms. So we're going to focus on what Jewish tradition calls the Book of Truth, and indeed there is truth therein, but then also on these other books that are mentioned, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, and Lamentations. That will be the scope of the course. How did it all fall together? Well, some of the other books in the writings are taken up in other categories, like Ezra, Nehemiah, Chronicles. Those are historical books, and so they naturally are treated in courses on the historical books. Daniel is a prophetical book and thus is often treated in courses on the prophets. It's little wonder then that it's a little hard to find, I've confused us all so much, that you can see how it's hard even to find a title for this course. We're dealing with portion, a portion, of the writings. Now, let's move on to the next point. The date of the writings, when were these books written? Well, first let me begin with the qualification. To talk about the date of this corpus of material, of the writings, is not the same as talking about the date of the individual portions within them. The various sections of the books may have been written at various different times. If you think about the Psalms, for instance, we have one that's ascribed to Moses, Psalm 90, and then we have another Psalm Psalm 137, which is clearly exilic or post-exilic. So you have about perhaps a thousand year span, not quite a thousand year span, from the writing of the first, the writing of the last. So what's the date of the book of Psalms? Well, I suppose as a final collection, then it would be post-exilic, but many of the Psalms were pre-exilic prior to the exile, were early. So when we talk about date, it's not always easy with these books to give them a date. Another interesting instance is in the book of Proverbs, Proverbs is attributed largely to Solomon, Solomon was the wisdom teacher, par excellence, and Israel, but there's a very interesting notice in Proverbs chapter 25 that says, this is some Solomonic material that was transcribed or copied by the men of Hezekiah. Now Hezekiah reigned some 200 years, at least, after the reign of Solomon. So there's some Solomonic material that was retained, but wasn't part of the book of Proverbs, for those over 200 years until the men of Hezekiah said, hey, this is good Solomonic material, that should be in the book. Now, if that troubles you in terms of the inspiration of scripture, bear in mind that God is the one orchestrating all of this. God is in charge, and if he can present us with scripture through a single individual, he can also present us with his word through a complex process, such as I've just described. And there are also other authors mentioned in the book of Proverbs, Agua, and King Limuel, for instance, at the end of the book. The first explicit reference to the writing, and it's always interesting to look for this, to try to find the earliest possible date at which, or the, sorry, the latest possible date by which the books must have been well-known. The earliest reference comes from the prologue to a book called Ecclesiasticus. That's distinct from Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes is a canonical book that we'll be studying. Ecclesiasticus is an apocryphal book. It's also sometimes called Syrac, after the Greek name of Jesus bin Syrac. This is a book that is called the wisdom of Jesus bin Syrac, or Syrac or Ecclesiasticus. Well, in the preface to the book of Ecclesiastes written by the grandson of Jesus bin Syrac. And by the way, this is not Jesus Christ. This is another Jesus. It's a reasonably common name. It's like Joshua. In the preface to that, we have the first known reference to the writings, and to this sort of breakdown of the Hebrew canon, or the Old Testament canon. Let me read just a paragraph from this preface. This is what the grandson says. By the way, the book of this preface was written probably around 131.32 BC, and Jesus bin Syrac apparently did his work in the 190s BC. So a couple hundred years before Christ. And this is what the grandson says. A legacy of great value has come to us through the law, the prophets, and the writers who followed in their steps. And for this, Israel's tradition of discipline and wisdom deserve recognition. It is the duty of those who study the scriptures not only to become expert themselves, but also to use their scholarship for the benefit of the outside world, through both the spoken and the written word. So my grandfather, Jesus, who had applied himself industriously to the study of the law, the prophets, and the other writings of our ancestors, and had gained a considerable proficiency in them, was moved to compile a book of his own, on the themes of discipline and wisdom, so that with this further help scholars might make greater progress in their studies by living as the law directs. You are asked then to read with sympathetic attention and make allowances if, in spite of all the devoted work I have put into the translation, some of the expressions appear inadequate, for it is impossible for a translator to find precise equivalents for the original Hebrew in another language, not only with this book, but with the law, the prophets, and the rest of the writings, it makes no small difference to read them in the original. Now, I'm saying that to recruit Hebrew students, no, I'm not saying it, he said it, and he's simply saying that it's hard to translate a text. That's why I'm encouraging you to have two or three Bible versions available, so that you can compare, because there's always an interpretive aspect in a translation. But the main point, of course, is that he mentions three times the law, the prophets, and the rest of the writings, or the writings that the other writings of our ancestors. There's a certain vagueness in his reference, you know, the law, the prophets, that seem pretty clear, the rest of the writings, it's almost as if that portion of the canon was just being solidified. And it's possible that this would have been about the time, that the final canonization of God's Old Testament word was being crystallized. Now, in the New Testament, moving on to the next point, we have a couple of key verses, Luke 24, 44, is the only explicit New Testament reference to this shape of the canon. Look with me at Luke 24, 44. I just want it to be clear that I do use the New Testament in my courses. Luke 24, 44.
This is Jesus speaking, and he said to them, this is what I told you, this is a post-resurrection appearance. He says, this is what I told you while I was still with you. Everything must be fulfilled that has written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the Psalms. Now, lest you think that that means that only the Psalms was known at this time, and the other books of the writings were unknown, we need to bear in mind that it was Jewish practice to choose the first and sometimes foremost book as sort of the title for a whole collection of works. So in calling the writings, the Psalms, he is alluding, I would believe, to this corpus that we call the writings. What came first stood for the whole. An implicit reference is found in Matthew 23, this one's a little more tricky, Matthew 23, verses 34 and 35, and this one could easily bypass us if we weren't careful in watching it. Versus 34 and 35 of Matthew 23, it's fun to start with verse 33 instead of 34, I guess. You snakes, you brute of vipers. How will you escape being condemned to hell? That's Jesus speaking by the way. We sometimes paint our own picture of Jesus, and sometimes we paint our own picture of the Old Testament God, and in the New Testament God, and the Old Testament God is the God of wrath, and the New Testament God is the God of grace and mercy. Grace and mercy and justice are all part of God's character, Old Testament New Testament. Here Jesus, the incarnation of God says, you snakes, you brute of vipers. How will you escape being condemned to hell? Whatever I need, I dare not digress too much, but whatever debates may be going on, we need to hear the words of the Savior. He was a Savior for a reason because we have a real problem and we need real redemption. He then goes on to say, and this is our more esoteric point, therefore I am sending you prophets and wise men and teachers, some of them you will kill and crucify, others you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town, and so upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed on earth from the blood of righteous able, what book of the Bible are we talking about? Genesis, okay, from the blood of righteous able, to the blood of Zechariah's son of Berekaya, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar, to what book is that alluding? A harder question. Second to the last or the last itself in the Hebrew canon, second chronicles, second chronicles, specifically second chronicles, 24 verses 20 to 22, and so Jesus in this illusion refers to the first book of the Bible and the last book of the Bible as he knew it, second chronicles chapter 24, and so we have these new testament witnesses to the shape of the canon and the fact that by the time of Christ at least these writings were well known. We can't say precisely what the finalization of the canon was but it does seem clear that by the time of Christ the canon would have had the shape that it has now and that we have before us now. Now any questions before we talk a little bit about distinctive of Psalms and wisdom books? Yes sir? Right, yeah the question is what is the line of demarcation between the former and the latter prophets? Well two things, really the latter prophets are sometimes referred to as the writing prophets. The former prophets may have done some writing but if they did, their literature is not retained as preferetical writings. The book of chronicles for instance mentions writings of Samuel. Now so Samuel may have been a historiographer as it were of his day. We're speculating here to say that but the former prophets appear as prophets in texts whereas the latter prophets are the writing prophets and the line of demarcation is about the eighth century BC, latter prophets pick up and take off at that point. Okay well let's talk about distinctive of the Psalms and wisdom books. You see there I have three headings the human perspective, contemporary relevance and hermeneutical difficulties, even that word is difficult but let's talk about the human perspective first of all. A distinctive feature of these portions of God's word to us is their point of view or their voice. Man or human beings or the human voice plays a very prominent role in them. In the opening to the book you'll be reading by Derek Kidner, he has this to say really right right at the beginning. He says if in the law and prophets the dominant voice is God's speaking to man. In the books we shall be studying we find inspired examples of man's response to God the Psalms or to life the wisdom books which despite its perplexities is nonetheless seen as God's word. God's world over which he is sovereign. So what we're dealing with in these books is really guides for us in terms of our prayers and our praises and our response to God. Our outcries in the midst of the struggles that we encounter in life. And yet God has provided us with guidance as to how we can respond to the difficulties of life. It's not by glossing over them. It's not like pretending by pretending that they don't exist. It's by facing them square on but also then as we look at them as we face them to put God in his rightful place which is in the center of our vision. And as with the book of Psalms we put God in the center then in fact the problems we're encountering take their proper proportion. And we see they're still there and yet God is there as well. And so the direction of voice is distinctive. This is our prayers our praises to God. And yet the Psalter begins with the Psalm 1 which mentions the Torah, the law. It's called a Torah Psalm. And so the way the Psalter is introduced says not only is this man's response to God but it is also God's instruction. Torah means law or instruction. It's also his instruction now for us. We're to learn from it. We're to live by it. Now that will raise some difficulties. Talk about imprecatory Psalms. What do we make of those? There are some some sticky questions when we say this is God's pattern for us. How do we deal with certain difficult types of Psalms? These books are also great in their contemporary relevance. They're relevant for ourselves. These books as much as any others meet us where we are. Whether we are rejoicing in God's goodness and singing his praises or whether we find our minds troubled by thoughts of our own transience, the frailty of human life or the dark riddle of the innocent who suffer. These books will show us the way forward the way towards gaining God's perspective or simply learning to trust him even when we have no perspective. Sometimes life presents us with difficulties and we simply can't get an angle on it. It just never makes sense. That was Job's experience. And remember when God appeared to Job at the end of the book and had every opportunity to explain to Job, this is what's been going on in your life? You don't know the challenge that was issued in the Heavenly Council. You were defending not only your integrity. You were defending my integrity because I was the one who said, here's a man blameless and upright and the accuser said, oh, you think so? Take away your blessings and see how blameless and upright it. See how self-serving his devotion is. Job's suffering was extremely significant. We the reader know that. Job never knew it. I think he knows it now, but when God appeared to him and had opportunity to say, here's the answer. That was not the main point. Having the answer was not what Job most needed. What Job most needed was to understand, that's God. I'm man. Can I trust him? Do I really have to have all the answers before I can trust God? So these books will meet us where we are. They may not give us all the answers. They often will give us God's perspective, but sometimes they will just call us to trust. I think also these books are extremely relevant for our society because I think here we find points of contact with our society in all of its ills, in all of its questions. When I was growing up, the buzzword was identity crisis. Who am I? Why am I here? I think people still ask that question, maybe not in so many words, but that's an important question. Why are we here? What is the point of it all? Is everything meaningless as the writer of Ecclesiastes seems to be saying? What is the purpose of life? Or the issue of suffering and evil? That great theological imponderable, God is not unaware of it. And it's important that we struggle along with Job, that we struggle along with the writer of Ecclesiastes, to find what answers we can, but also to rest in God when the answers are not completely forthcoming. Depression, that sense of futility. The rivers continue to flow into the sea, but the sea is never full of them. Generation comes and generation goes, but the earth just stays the same. Sometimes we wake up on Monday morning and think, why am I doing this? Why? I don't because I love what I'm doing, and I get to teach you guys and stuff. But often, in our work, we wake up and say, why am I doing this? What difference will this ever make? I suppose we quit working at starve, and that would make a difference. But we do ask ourselves, sometimes, what is the point of it all? Well, again, the Bible provides guidance. It first identifies with us, and then it guides us, and prepares us for the full unfolding of God's redemption, which does come in Christ. There's very practical wisdom in these books, the book of Proverbs, for instance. If there's one self-help book or 12-step book, there are a thousand out there today. People are looking for how to do it, how to live successfully, how to rear children, how to manage your finances, how to have a successful marriage or a successful relation. How do we do these things? How to, how to, how to. Well, the book of Proverbs gives us a lot of counsel on the how to. It's often quite distinctive from what the world is saying, but for that very reason, I think that what the book of Proverbs has to say is exceedingly relevant for our society, also that as we allow the book of Proverbs and the wisdom books of the Old Testament to really permeate who we are and permeate our being, and we begin to live by it. We will be distinctive from the world, and as the world looks at us and says, you're different. Now, they may not like it, but sometimes there will be those whose heart's God is touching, and they'll say, why do you do that the way you do? How are you able to reply with a soft answer? Did you hear what he said to you? How could you be that way? Don't you need to stand up for yourself? Well, you could say, well, you know, a book of ancient wisdom says a soft answer, it turns away wrath. I can diffuse that situation by being a little meek in this situation, and that would be one example among many. Why do you rear your children that way? You spank your children? Wait a minute here, you know? I read a couple of books recently and he said, you should never spank a child. Well, you should never beat a child. We'll talk about spanking at some point. We need to be careful how we do it. It begins as a loving act for the good of the child. It ends with loving restoration. It's never angry. It's never violent. And a five-year-old child can tell the difference. My son, Philip, when we were in Germany, was in a kindergarten situation. Although other kids spoke German, and we had told him, Philip, we don't want you fighting. He's the meekest guy you've ever met and he's very small, so he was very small at that time. He wouldn't have fought anyway, but we said, now Philip, you know, because apparently there's a lot of rough housing. He said, now don't hit people. The problem is, his German was limited to Doss's niche good, which means that's not good. That was the extent of his five-year-old German at that point. So he had these guys just pummeling him and he'd go, Doss, he's niche good. And that was about it. You know, he couldn't rip him to shreds verbally. So, you know, he was taking some abuse, but one day when my wife Polly went to pick him up from kindergarten, was walking out. As they were leaving, he saw a man sort of just kind of cuff his kid across the side of the face, you know, and he said, he hit his son, you know, just aghast, at what he had just witnessed. And Polly, being the wise mother, and taking opportunity while she's walking in the way to instruct her child, she said, well, now Philip, you know, we spank you, and he looked at her, you know, just in astonishment, he said, that's totally different. Totally different. You know, to whack someone up on the side of the face, can you say that, to walk them upside-to-head, when you're angry, that is an act of violence. But a proper spanking properly administered, and then lovingly restoring that individual is a lesson in life, and it teaches them something about God, and it's good for the child. So, don't go out of here, and I'm on tape saying this, I am not advocating child abuse in any fashion, but I also know that I've had a neighbor one time who said I could never, ever strike my child. That would be to abuse my child. Well, I think there's a right way to do it, but I live below this neighbor, and talk about a child who was abused. A tongue lashing can hurt a whole lot more than a spanking properly administered, and over and done with loving restoration, the tongue lasting can last the life coming, and it doesn't really restore anyone, and it doesn't help anyone. So, we need to be careful, because the world is talking all about child abuse, and there's an inability to distinguish, and we could come under pressure. Not to do what the world regards as wrong, we need to have our moorings in scripture. And I think there are many practical areas, like that, where we can learn from these books, and say, hey, look, this is what the Bible says, and when people observe us and say, why do you do that? Didn't that give us an opportunity to allude to this ancient book of wisdom? And if that speaks their curiosity, you know, you say, well, you know, actually, that's the book of Proverbs. Well, where's that? Well, that's in the Bible. It's in the Old Testament. The Old Testament, you know, 77% of the Bible, and it can become a bridge to bringing people into an engagement with God's Word, which then can be the means of bringing them into the kingdom. So, I'm very excited about these books for so many reasons. I know a lot of you in this class are counseling students, and I can't imagine more important books for counseling purposes than the book of Psalms, for instance, which is described as the anatomy of all the parts of the soul, or the book of Proverbs, or the book of Ecclesiastes, talk about a great book for dealing with midlife crisis. That describes it to the T, in my view. So, I'm excited about these books. I think that they are tremendously relevant, not only for our own sake, but for the sake of our world around us. Now, there are some hermeneutical difficulties. Now, hermeneutics, again, means principles of interpretation. It means the kinds of difficulties we have when we encounter a strange kind of literature. Remember, these books were written a long time ago, an environment in a culture quite different from our own. They were, first of all, written in different language, or languages, mostly Hebrew, a little bit of Aramaic, and if we think that they're immediately transferable into our environment, and immediately understandable for us, then just pick up the original text, and you'll see how immediately understandable it is. We need some help. We need someone, first of all, to translate the text, unless you have the opportunity to be forced through Hebrew training here at the seminary. You need someone to translate the text and maybe several different people translating, so you can get different opinions on how to understand a particular text. But we also need some guidance as to what this literature is all about. What kind of literature are we dealing with? How do you deal with a song that is a cry of rage against God who seems so silent? What do we make of that? What kind of literature is that? The forms of the literature themselves are intriguing. Poetry. What is poetry? I'm looking at the clock to see if we'll have time to do this, probably not tonight. Next time, we're going to pose that question. What is poetry? What do we think about when we talk about poetry? Well, we in our own cultures have a certain idea of what poetry is, but it may be quite distinctive from culture to culture, and it's certainly quite distinctive from time to time, and the poetry we have poetry we have in the Old Testament is similar in some respects to ours, but it's also quite distinctive, and it's good to learn those distinctives because then we understand it better and we grasp its messages more clearly. What about a proverb, a saying that's another of those literary forms that we'll encounter a good bit in the book of Proverbs? What is that? Again, I posed that question earlier. Is it a promise? Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it? I cling to that promise. I cling to that promise that God will... I brought my kid up right, and even though he's living with reckless abandon as a hobo, I cling to that promise of God that everything will turn out all right, and if it doesn't, if this kid never comes around, God has failed the faith is false, and I'll reject it all. Well, if we misperceive the nature of a proverb, we could find ourselves in theological crisis if we think it's an out and out promise of that sort. I'm not going to tell you it's a generality that's sometimes true. You know, kind of like the weather. You know, tomorrow 80% chance of rain. Proverbs 22-6. I think it's 6. 80% chances of work out. There are other proverbs. I had a guy in class who said we were quoting a few proverbs about industry and the fruit that is born when you work hard, and he said, I'm a missionary in a third world country, and there are a bunch of people that work very hard, and this proverb is not only not always true, not only generally true, 80% of the time, 20% of the time at best is this proverb true in that sense. So what are they? I'm not going to answer that question. Now, we're going to talk about it later, much later. But these are the kinds of questions we need to struggle with so that we're rightly dividing the word of truth. We're rightly interpreting it and thus applying it. Now, let me pause there and ask if there are questions or comments. This would be a good time to do that. We'll take about maybe five minutes if you have any, and then we're going to break up into our small group interaction. But any questions or comments at this point? Let me say one thing, you have the first page of the outline that we'll start with next week, so be sure to bring that back with you. Yes. The question is, is there anything that would approximate a short parable in the book of proverbs? Yeah. I'm trying to think what springs to mind, but I would not be surprised if we couldn't find something that would meet that description, because a parable often is a story told to convey a deeper truth, and the metaphorical nature of the proverbs using, or the use of simile to say, this is like that in the book of proverbs, is sort of parabolic in nature. By the way, when you ask a question, if it would help me have some potential of learning your name, if you'd say your name each time until I say, yeah, yeah, I know, but that may be a long time. Maybe the end of this semester before I say, yeah, yeah, no. So, if when you ask a question, just say, I'm so-and-so, then as I respond to you, I say, well, that's a very good question. What's your name? Nisha, that's a very good question, Nisha. Yeah. Any other questions? I'll try to repeat them. The stunned silence. Not surprising. All right, well, let me say this then. What we're going to do in just a minute is break up into our groups. Let me go over this one more time a little more thoroughly and tell you exactly what you need to be doing if I can find my sheet. This is on the back of your syllabus and you can keep the tape rolling for this if you want to because this instruction will also apply to our video audience. Yes, Nisha, what? I kind of flowed right into it in terms of the basic conclusion I think at that point was she's asking about the point for conclusion on the outline. I think the basic conclusion there was that this shape of the canon would have been finalized about at least, I believe, by the time of Christ. This would have been the Bible. He knew. In other words, the Old Testament reread would have been the Bible, Jesus knew, in large measure. Okay, now back to the Life Issue Small Group project. We're just going to take about 20 minutes. You'll actually have the opportunity to get out maybe five minutes early tonight as my free gift to you. I will start up and take it later if I need it, but what I want you to do tonight again is to divide up in groups and I'm going to help you do this maybe in just a minute but not while she's taping. So let me give the instructions first and then what we'll probably do is just say this road turned around and joined that road and vice and so forth. I'm not going to say as my brother once was told by an etiquette, etiquette instructor, you know, mismanners came to his law firm and was giving instructions so they know how to eat in public and she said now if the hostess turns and speaks to the person on her left, then everyone else should turn to the person on their left and speak to that person. And my brother, you know, said, well, wouldn't that mean that everyone would be talking into the back of someone else's head? Slow learner. You know, don't eat with Bill as the key to that. Anyway, so not every road, every other road will turn around and join the one behind in just a minute and on the sides we'll have to do it a little more differently. So the idea is, first of all, to make this list, brainstorm, what are life issues? What are not, you know, it's not necessarily a pouring out of your soul saying these are all the things I'm struggling with, but what is the world struggling with? Okay, that kind of time we don't have, you know, but what is the world struggling with? What are, what are life issues that people would love to have some wisdom on? Now, you know, if it's cyberspace, you're not going to find that keyword. I don't care how good your, your, your Bible search engine is. You're not going to find cyberspace in the Bible per se, but I once preached a sermon on cyberspace and my base text was from the book of Proverbs. I won't tell you whether people thought I was doing a little isegesis instead of exegesis there, but the Bible does teach us sometimes indirectly, even about such matters as that. So be as wide-ranging as you can as you want to in terms of the things the world is struggling with. Then before, I'll give you a signal. I'll say, you know, when you've got five minutes left, I'm going to say, all right, now you've got to choose one of those. You've got to choose one that their group can agree to, and that will be all you'll need to do this week. Now, by the way, on my outline, and this will be amended before anyone in the video world here sees it, but I did a global, I did a global exchange of session to week, mainly for the headings, and so there's a few times where it says, at the next class week, well, if session works better, substitute session, okay, undo my global exchange, I won't take time to show you exactly where those are. Now, to do next, this is important, as your group concludes, and as we call a halt to it, oh no, wait a minute, hang on, yeah, no, not to do next, select, before you quit tonight, select one member of the group to type up your list, okay, because I want to see it. Type up your list and highlight your choice. You can type up the list and say, this was our choice at the bottom, put the names of all the people in the group on it. So, you know, one of you in the group will need to volunteer. Someone has a typewriter, a computer, something, and can do it, and is a quick typeer, and doesn't mind doing it, and has a servant's heart, okay, and as time goes on, I may say, now pick someone else to serve, this time, we need to develop servant's hearts. Then, until week nine, you know, once we get launched on life issue, and by the way, don't choose wealth, okay, because I have a little sample thing in the next page, don't choose wealth, that might prejudice you. Then, as you read, until the ninth week, I want you to be reading this biblical material with your group's life issue in mind, and collecting verses relating to that. Just keep a running list of verses that relate to it. You'll find a lot of things probably on a lot of issues in the book of Proverbs, but you'll find things also in the Psalms, and if you're dealing, for instance, with depression, let's say, you're going to find a lot in the Psalms, I would imagine, okay, so let's do this. Those are the instructions, question back here first. Yeah, if you want to do wealth and poverty, you can choose wealth and poverty, okay, but because what I've done really here from the book of Proverbs, and this is more limited than what I'm asking you to do, I did this for a Sunday school class, a different purpose, is really talking about wealth, and it might be a good idea for you to look at that page later, you can look at it now, but later to see how I kind of systematized it, you know, having collected verses, then I thought, okay, how could I topically systematize this? What are the main teachings and what are the sub-points? Okay, so what we want to do now is you can stop taping about now, and we'll break up into groups, you in video land, if you haven't stopped, you probably have stopped, you in video, I don't know, you in video land, if you haven't, need to do the same thing.