People are constantly seeking life hacks and advice, turning to everything from newspaper columns and books to YouTube videos and TikTok accounts. What they really yearn for is wisdom.

Theologian James Crenshaw described the quest for wisdom as “the reasoned search for specific ways to ensure personal well-being in everyday life, to make sense of extreme adversity and vexing anomalies, and to transmit this hard-earned knowledge so that successive generations will embody it.”

In short, we all just want to live well.

The Bible’s wisdom books — Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs — often crop up in personal devotions or small-group settings. Yet they are less likely than their narrative, epistle, and prophetic counterparts to be the features of sermon series.

The Book of Proverbs in particular offers practical and accessible wisdom the world needs. We should be preaching it from our pulpits, but how can we do this well?

Good preaching begins with being a reverent and responsible reader. Proper hermeneutics is the foundation of faithful proclamation.

Context — in a historical-cultural and literary sense — is the most significant factor for reading any biblical passage well. So, the first step in preparing to preach from the Book of Proverbs is reading it in light of its context.

Following are some contextually appropriate ways to preach Proverbs.

Life Advice

Think about the original audience. Old Testament scholar John Walton often says, “The Bible isn’t to you, but it’s for you.”

In ancient Israel, scribal schools, homes, and royal courts were all settings for transmitting wisdom. The setting for most of Proverbs is the king’s household and administration. The Book of Proverbs contains life advice from a parent to child or monarch to heir.

So, preach Proverbs as wise counsel or reminders of what godly parents should have taught us.

Teachable Moments

Only Proverbs 10–29 are made up of proverbs. The rest of the book is discourse — instructions from father to son (Chapters 1–7), speeches from Woman Wisdom (Chapters 8–9), sayings of Agur (Chapter 30), sayings of King Lemuel (31:1–9), and the epilogue (31:10–31).

As these speeches demonstrate, ancient Israelites believed individuals can acquire and transmit wisdom through teaching. Experience is an effective teacher, but there is something better than learning from your mistakes: learning from others’ mistakes and experiences.

The Hebrew word for “wisdom” (hokmah) can refer to artistry and craftsmanship (Exodus 31:2–5). Its adjectival form sometimes describes those with certain skill sets, such as the ability to grieve well (Jeremiah 9:17–18) or pilot a ship (Ezekiel 27:8).

Wisdom is not just knowing what to do or say. It is also knowing when and how to do or say it. Preach the discourses of Proverbs like a parent’s teachable moments, exhorting your church to pick up the skills of living well.

General Principles

Proverbs are pithy sayings that communicate basic truths or practical wisdom for life. In Preaching with Variety, Jeffrey Arthurs calls them “short sentences long remembered.” These maxims are not promises or guarantees. They are simply general principles.

Every culture has proverbs. Consider this Welsh proverb: “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.”

Wisdom is not just knowing what to do or say. It is also knowing when and how to do
or say it.

The principle is good nutrition contributes to better health. Hearing this as a proverb, people don’t assume eating apples eliminates the need for medical care. That would ignore the genre of proverbs and misapply it.

Consuming fresh produce is generally a healthy habit. This is not a wellness guarantee but a guiding principle.

The same idea applies to biblical proverbs. They are part of the inspired Word of God, and God chose to communicate through these writings. At the same time, sound hermeneutics takes into account the genre.

For example, Proverbs 22:6 says, “Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it.” It would be inappropriate to preach this proverb as a guarantee that no child receiving good discipleship will ever stray from God. (If that were the case, the people of Israel would not have gone into exile. Every individual in each generation has free will.)

Instead, preach this text as an exhortation to the Church to invest in younger generations. It is more likely children will remain faithful to God as adults if they receive the right training.

Proverbs are intended to provide guidance and instill good values. People can make all the right choices in life and still experience bad things, such as an illness or loss.

The Book of Proverbs teaches that when it is up to you, do the right thing: work hard, engage in good business practices, choose a life partner who makes you a better person, and invest in your children. There are many things in life we don’t understand and can’t control, but we can still make wise choices.

As Don Cox, an Assemblies of God minister in the Potomac Ministry Network, says, “You can’t let the things you don’t understand keep you from doing the things you do understand.”

Universal Truths

Preaching Proverbs should not be an occasion for making sexist or stereotyped jokes.

The Book of Proverbs exhorts everyone to neither be foolish and wicked nor partner with those who are.

Proverbs does not diminish women, and neither should we. Translate the gendered language of Proverbs to apply to everyone in the congregation.

My mother was teaching a Girls Ministries lesson about the Ten Commandments to a group of first- and second-graders when one of the girls asked about the meaning of the word “adultery.”

Mom responded, “Not committing adultery means you can’t have a husband and a boyfriend.”

All the girls seemed satisfied with that answer. Of course, the prohibition against adultery also applies to men. But knowing her audience was a group of young girls, my mother used gendered language.

In the same way, the Book of Proverbs uses gendered language because the original audience was predominately male. It was not written to us, but it is for us — men and women alike.

When preaching from Proverbs, remember God calls all people to wisdom. The advice to a son is useful for daughters as well. A critical husband is just as problematic as a quarrelsome wife (Proverbs 21:9). And why not preach Proverbs 31 sometime other than Mother’s Day, making it applicable to everyone?

Spiritual Guidance

Arthurs says, “Proverbs are not prescriptions for the American dream. They are prescriptions for how to live skillfully in a world created by the sovereign, generous, and fearsome Master.”

While the Book of Proverbs offers instruction on how to live life well, its goal is not winning at life — at least not by worldly standards.

The instruction of Proverbs is an exhortation to live well in light of the knowledge of and in relationship with the Lord. It is about spiritual formation that impacts even the menial parts of daily living.

The Book of Proverbs is all about living in the presence of God. And that’s a great starting point for any sermon.

This article appears in the Summer 2023 issue of Influence magazine.