All right, I appreciate those joining. I appreciate this. It seems like Stefania probably waited around for me because he was here before I got started. But I'm running late because I'm trying to work on the graphics a little bit for this video. I didn't get some of the stuff done I wanted to because I just couldn't get it to work. I did get one very, very basic thing done, and that is the ability to share with you the chart that I have to illustrate wisdom and the relationships thereof. I have two versions of it. Just for anybody who showed up earlier on time, I'll go ahead and show you part of what I was working on. Again, I hope to have better things for this study as we go forward. But for right now, this is the best I could get to work. So there's this, which involves me having to rotate so as to not be behind the chart itself. And then there's the slightly bigger version when I don't mind being behind the chart like that. So those are two things that I got accomplished which are bare minimum graphics for something like this So I ask everybody to bear with me as this is the first episode and something that first step so first study Sorry, I'm still used to the great Bible challenge I guess by this point But the first study, and what I'm hoping will be a long-form study, taking the place of our normal Tuesday night verse-by-verse study, wherein we're taking a concept in which it runs throughout the Bible, is very specifically focused on in the book of Proverbs, and then I'm gonna take that concept of wisdom and intelligence and knowledge, understanding, you know, these kind of things throughout the Bible, and look at what God says about them. We have a lot of opinions about them. There's a lot that's said throughout society, culture, this kind of stuff. So I really want to help us to get a more biblical view of this, because I think that's one of the greatest things we should strive for as believers in every aspect of our understanding and all the things of this world. We say that the Bible is the final authority for everything. uh... and so because of that uh... we will be you're going through and letting the bible be the final authority on what constitutes wisdom what constitutes knowledge understanding of what is intelligence in the eyes of god uh... and so is that anagram no uh... is that a chart that's made specifically to illustrate wisdom and everything else yes that is the answer to a question in the comments for anybody who has no idea what i'm talking about at this point But anyways, this is hopefully not going to be that long of a study tonight. It's also admittedly probably going to be the most boring of any of the studies that we're going to do in this series, just because it's an introduction. Primarily, my focus is going to be to help try to get you interested a little bit in why this is something worth studying, run over some of the basics of it, illustrate some of those relationships I was talking about and so forth. So with that in mind, we're almost three minutes into the live stream. So I think it's about time we can go ahead and get started. And of course, we'll be primarily in the book of Proverbs. I have one verse to share outside of Proverbs tonight. Everything else is gonna be Proverbs, because this is the subject that's at the heart of the book of Proverbs itself. So saying that, let's then go to actually, we're gonna start in chapter four, because it's in chapter four, that he gives the definitive statement about wisdom in terms of why it's important. There's plenty of other passages that illustrate this, but this is the one where he literally says wisdom is the principal thing to get. But for example, I'll show you in just a moment, chapter one, he's already introduced wisdom. He's already introduced all of these concepts that I'm talking about to some degree. Chapter two really gives some understanding of why we should be searching for it. And then the rest are just some verses to add to that and highlight as well. So before we bring the chart back and discuss some of this stuff, let's set some of it up by looking at what God says. And we'll do that by reading Proverbs chapter four, verse seven and verse eight. Proverbs 4.7 says, wisdom is the principal thing. Therefore get wisdom. And with all thy getting, get understanding. Exalt her and she shall promote thee. She shall bring thee to honor when thou dost embrace her. So here he gives what is the statement, the definitive statement of what Proverbs is trying to give you to do. Now, again, Chapter 1 tells you this. This is not something you wait until Chapter 4 to say. Chapter 1 tells you this. Chapter 2 tells you this. Chapter 3 is about the only one in the first several chapters that doesn't put a major emphasis here. But even Chapter 3 has some degree of emphasis put here. So chapter four of those starts off by telling us without question that if there's anything you're going to get from this, if you're going to sit down and read the book of Proverbs, you're going to try to study it, figure out what it's all about, then make sure you put your focus on getting wisdom. And I think that really does show you the whole point in the book of Proverbs. In fact, you could almost make this what I'm about to say a commentary on Proverbs itself, is that when you look at it as a book, there's so many little wise sayings, because that is what a proverb is. There's so much advice about every little aspect of your life throughout that book. Most anything you need to know about how to live your life and just daily practice and how to deal with certain situations will be found throughout the book of Proverbs if you take the time to get them in your heart and commit them there. and as you go through them you'll find yourself quoting these things or remembering things you read throughout the book as you come to certain decisions and questions throughout life. And that's part of the point of the book. That's why God chose to use Proverbs is because they are something that are memorable. There are things that are easy to get into your heart. It's a form of communication in which you can take a concept that's very, very big and condense it into a sentence that's very small and therefore keep it with you a lot more easily. And so if you're going to go into this book, you're going to try to glean out all the wisdom and advice and everything that's there. then one of the things to understand about it is that the first thing God wants you to focus on is getting the wisdom that's there. Not so much each of the individual segments and ideas. Of course, it's God's word. He wants you to get all of that. But the first thing to focus on is getting this. I would liken it to if you're on the airplane, you've ever heard them say on the plane, You know, if there's in the event of a plane crash or, you know, that the mask have to deploy, always put the mask on yourself first and then try to help others because you're not going to be good to anybody else. If you don't know how to, you know, if you're, if you're suffocating and you're trying to put a mask on somebody else and you faint in the process, you're not going to be able to help anybody. Whereas if you'll help yourself first in that cause, then you can help others. I would liken the reason why wisdom is so important in this subject to this. that you can memorize every passage of the Book of Proverbs. But if you don't have enough wisdom to know how to apply them to your life, if you don't have that capacity to take what is being said to you and then use it and know what it means, because wisdom is an ability to apply knowledge. So if you don't have that capacity, then you'll waste that knowledge. Knowledge without wisdom is going most often to be wasted. So that's why wisdom is going to wind up being the principal thing here. Now I said that this is introduced from the beginning of the book and that there's a lot of things there for us to pick up. So let's go back to his introduction. Now that we've seen this definitive statement, if you're going to get anything out of the book of Proverbs, get wisdom. which in itself is going to be the theme, I guess, for this study, that I know people love Proverbs and people would love to do a study of Proverbs and so forth, but I'm just gonna be honest with you. If I do a verse-by-verse study of Proverbs, most everybody who says I love Proverbs and I would love to do a study of it are gonna jump off halfway through when they realize that there is so much bouncing back and forth and covering the same subjects over and over again and that kind of stuff that they won't love it as much as they think they do. So if we're gonna be honest with one another, If we're going to get one thing from the book of Proverbs, let's get the one thing that God said to get. Let's put the focus where God told us to put the focus. Let's put the focus where he tells you in the first verses, this is why I wrote you this book. And then once we have that, maybe we'll have the appreciation, the depth of appreciation we need and the capacity of wisdom that we need so that we can actually fully take the book of Proverbs and apply it to our lives and use it in a way that will be helpful to us. So let's go back to Proverbs chapter 1. Proverbs 1 verse 1, the Proverbs of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel. And if this were a Proverbs commentary, I actually have a lot to say about that verse. There's a lot of meaning and purpose in the way he introduces himself. So perhaps when I do start releasing my daily devotional commentary of Proverbs, which I'm working on right now, That'll be something some of you might be interested in because I can go through and explain verse by verse the book of Proverbs to you. Then verse two says to know wisdom and instruction to perceive the words of understanding. So he tells you right from the beginning that the book of Proverbs is written to you so that you may know wisdom and instruction and that you will be able to perceive the words of understanding. Now, let me start by saying, that there are three types of intelligence and this is the point in which we can bring back the uh... the charts let me slide over here to one side of my screen so that I'm not going to block my face while I do what I'm about to do but this is the chart to which Sifani was criticizing a minute ago uh... and if you want to compare it to anything compare it to a star of david because that's six points on a star uh... so anyways With this, this is a chart that I made that on the surface, it may look really crazy to you, but once you've done this study, you'll understand why this is the, as far as I can see, perfect illustration of the concepts of wisdom, understanding, and so forth, and how they relate to one another. So looking at them, you have wisdom, which you'll see at the top of the blue area in the center. And I don't have any kind of way to draw a pointer there to show you it unless I actually do a whole slide show presentation in advance for this kind of stuff. But you'll see that there is wisdom there just above the middle circle where you find the fear of the Lord and unbelief. Now, the truth is, which side you come down on, this is always going to be dramatically affected by whether your heart is touched by the fear of the Lord or by unbelief. Now, there are two directions that you can go once your heart is affected by one of these. Wisdom and understanding, which both proceed forth out of the heart. And these are things that I'll go through the book of Proverbs. I'll show you these things as we go through. Right now, this is just a basic rundown of things. I'll show you where God's quite clear about the fact that they come from the heart and so forth as we get there. But wisdom and understanding both proceed forth out of the heart. The other side of that, someone who has a heart touched by unbelief will always lean towards scornfulness and foolishness, and that may sound strange on the surface, so I'll give a little clarification on that one. The Bible says the fool in his heart has said there is no God. So the fool, his problem is not a head problem, it's a heart problem. His issue begins forth from the heart. Whereas the other side of that is the book of Proverbs does constantly illustrate that a wise man, because of his heart, will do the things that he does. So these are things that come forth from the soul. Now, I don't mean the organ pumping blood, but from the soul they come forth, not from your actual brain and its capacity. Whereas your brain and its capacity are illustrated by the purple and the yellow with knowledge and simplicity. Knowledge being an abundance of information, simplicity being a lack of information. So that was pretty much just a straightforward fixed chart. The more you know, you go into the purple. The less you know, you go into the yellow. The wisdom and understanding and all that's a little more complicated. Same idea, but a little bit more complicated. Now, I brought this up to show you that in the Bible, you have three types of intelligence, wisdom, knowledge, and understanding. Wisdom and understanding proceed forth from the heart. Knowledge is a matter of the mind. In the Bible, you have three types of unintelligence. These being people who, because of these things, lack an ability to really take information and process it. And we can maybe understand this a little bit more. Maybe I can be a little more specific in this so that it's not too vague for you tonight. But let me give a basic definition. Knowledge is what you know. My church people know this already. I've given these definitions enough. Knowledge is what you know. Wisdom is the ability to apply what you know. Now, it's a lot deeper, but that's the best basic definition I can give you. It's an ability to take what you know and apply it. Knowledge is what you know. Understanding is the ability to understand. It's the ability that when you receive information, when you see something, just to understand what's going on around you. So wisdom and understanding are quite similar. There are some differences. It's like anytime you have a trinity of some sort of three things being put together, it's always going to be two that are a lot more closely connected than the other two. And what I mean by that, for example, is it's a lot harder for you to define the difference between your soul and your spirit than it is your body. It's a lot harder for you to define the difference between even, let's look at the Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost. It's a lot easier for you to tell me where the distinctions between God the Father and God the Son are, or God the Son and God the Holy Spirit than it is God the Father and God the Spirit. It's a lot harder for you to define some of those differences because there's always going to be two parts of a trinity that are more closely connected. I mean, and we can go through all the stuff we understand and see that's true, some more so than others. I mean, you take the universe around, you consider that that you have The universe being time, space, and matter. Now, this one's going to be a little bit more a thing of your perception. To me, time and space are so closely connected, it's really kind of hard to see them differently, whereas somebody else may look at it and say time and matter. I'm sorry, space and matter are more closely connected times the one that's completely different. Either way, though, you'll see that based on your perception, two of those are going to always look a lot closer than the third one. The third one is going to be easy to define the difference, usually. And if you broke down those parts and so forth, you'll see that's usually the case. And there's always going to be some degree of an exception to that. Anyways, though, looking at these types of intelligence, if you want to understand their opposite, you need those basic forms of definition. So on this chart, the idea is that anytime something is in the opposite side of a circle, that makes it the opposite of what is on the other side of the circle. I mean, I think it's pretty simple. So the opposite of wisdom is foolishness. So When you have wisdom, being the ability to take what you know and then apply that and knowing how to use it, so forth. Foolishness. would be the opposite of that. A fool is somebody who does not. I mean, it doesn't matter how much he knows, he lacks an ability to take that knowledge and apply it. He misuses his knowledge. He abuses his knowledge. And the reason I say that is because most of us have the idea that a fool is always going to be someone who's simple and doesn't know anything. The truth is, there's plenty of fools who are quite knowledgeable. There's a lot of people who've went to college and got an education and are a doctor of something, and as a doctor of whatever they're a doctor of, they still don't know how to actually properly apply that knowledge to their life. They still seem to not really get the point of what that information that they hold is really about. I can even put it like this. You have people in churches who they can quote to you verses. They know what the Bible says. They just don't actually know how to apply it to their life. They don't know what it actually means when it says that. So a fool isn't always someone who lacks information. A fool is someone who doesn't know how to use that information. Then you have the opposite with knowledge and simplicity. It's fine. Just making jokes in the comments. I'm sorry. But then you have Knowledge, the opposite of that being simplicity, and it's really just the idea. This is such a simple scale. It's like most stuff. You understand the opposite of hot as being cold, when in reality, cold is just the absence of heat. You understand the opposite of light as being dark, when in reality, darkness is just the absence of light. Simplicity is the absence of knowledge. It's someone who doesn't have information. Whether it's because they were never taught, never experienced it, or just lack the ability, they just don't have information. A scorner or the one who falls under that degree of scornfulness is going to be the opposite of understanding. This one is a little more complicated. And really what it comes down to is in the case of the scorner, because the problem proceeds forth from the heart, the scorner is someone who has a proud and haughty spirit, or at least that's where it's leading them. The problem of pride is growing in their heart. And eventually it will reach the point of being a proud and haughty spirit. But in the beginning, it usually presents itself as a scorner, as someone who feels like they kind of know everything already. They understand everything already. And because of this clouding of the heart, they lose the ability to ever actually increase in information. They lose the ability to understand things. So a scorner, the actual definition, because I was focusing more on how it connects to understanding, the actual definition of a scorner is someone who thinks they know everything, so they're a cup that's already full, so there's no room to put anything else in them. They're someone who thinks they understand it all, they think they've got it all figured out, and therefore they cannot learn anything new. So when you see it that way, maybe you see a little better why it connects to understanding. So at that point you have the basics, you have the center hexagon there figured out, you know, knowledge, wisdom, understanding, scornfulness, foolishness, simplicity, the heart, the mind, fear of the Lord, unbelief, and how these things all connect. The outer points of your star of David, I'll call it, the outer points of your star like that, each of those are the extensions of someone who proceeds further into these things. So someone who, let's say, has wisdom and proceeds further in wisdom will reach what is called sound wisdom in the Book of Proverbs. Actually, to be honest with you, James has a term for it I like a little better. James calls it wisdom that's from above. And the reason for that, anybody who knows James will understand, is that you can know how to apply knowledge and still struggle with applying it right because your worldview is broken. Because you're looking at it with a form of wisdom. We're in Let's just say if you're looking at it through glasses your glasses are not clear. You're wearing glasses. You have wisdom, you know, they're there But your glasses are not clear. They're fogged by something. Maybe they're red tinted So yes, you have the ability to see but everything has the wrong tint to it So that there's multiple forms of wisdom in the world multiple worldviews use ways in which you translate knowledge or what you look at it through and use it. And sound wisdom is when we finally get to the point where we're actually looking at wisdom through a perspective of God. And that's why if you ever hear anybody define wisdom as seeing things the way God does, they're as beautiful as it sounds, they're actually incorrect. Wisdom in its basic form is not that. It's when you take wisdom a step further into sound wisdom or wisdom that's from above that it reaches that level. Understanding will produce humility because the more we understand the world around us, the more we see our proper place in it. And that's a simplified answer as to why that's true. We'll study it more as we go through this. Once you combine those things together, then you have prudence in the middle. So if someone's heart goes in the perfect direction, because blue is the perfect direction for your heart on this chart, orange is bad. So if your heart goes in that perfect direction that leads towards righteousness, you'll get to the point where you don't just have an ability to apply knowledge. You'll see knowledge the way God wants you to. You won't just have an ability to understand the world around you, but you'll have that humility of understanding who you are and so forth. And then that leads to prudence, which is an ability to see where your path is going, to see down the road. It's like driving a car and looking down the street as opposed to looking a meter in front of your hood or three feet in front of your hood. It's the ability to actually see the direction you're going and understand the choices you're making and where they're leading you. It's one of my favorite concepts in the book of Proverbs. I'll be really glad when we get to talk about that. Now, what God wants for you is that you would then pair this with those purple spaces. Those purple ones being knowledge, subtlety, and discretion. And you notice, if you look at how those two colors come together, the blue and the purple, that it forms a, when you put all those together, that outer shape is a What would that be? Yeah, make sure I'm right about what I'm telling you. A pentagon at that point. I'm used to pentagons having straight sides for the most part, but it would be a pentagon at that point. And you'll notice any combination you'll make of what I'm trying to illustrate right now where the progression comes out will always form some kind of pentagon. Now, with knowledge, as you grow that, subtlety, I'm giving it maybe a more simplified definition than it deserves, but it's really going to come down to the fact that as we know more, that's reflected in the way we speak and the way we carry ourselves. That's what subtlety really comes down to, you know, knowing how to use your words craftily, knowing how to use them well and with intelligence and so forth. Discretion being then as that bleeds over into wisdom and you start to mingle it with wisdom. It's not just knowing how to use your words well, but knowing when to use your words. It's, you know, knowing how to read a room and see that, you know, maybe now is not the time to crack a joke or, you know, that kind of stuff. Or, you know, knowing that some things, even though you're right about this, maybe just shouldn't be said. And so that pentagon of purple and blue is gonna be the ideal That's what you're shooting for in this life If we're really gonna look for the book of Proverbs and what God wants from us, that's the goal aim for that Now what is possible though, let's say if we go another direction would be for someone whose mind is simple, but their heart is right, then you'd start bleeding over into the yellow and the green, ignoring that bottom yellow triangle of hasty in words. So someone whose mind is simple, but their heart is right, they're going to have some ability to apply what knowledge they have, but because they lack it, they're still going to be brutish. And I choose that word, even though it's not the most common word, because it is a Bible word. The only, I guess probably the only phrase on here that's not pulled straight out the Bible and is exactly the word God would use to describe the subject we're talking about is low self-esteem. And that's just because I have struggled very hard to find exactly what phrase God would use to describe low self-esteem. There is, you know, being abased and so forth. There are good words for it, but I just struggle with one that perfectly captures that because he usually uses words. It can also mean something much more different than that. But anyways, if someone lacks knowledge, they won't, even though they may have wisdom in their heart and they may have some understanding about them, their speech won't necessarily reflect that. The way they carry themselves won't always reflect that. They'll have a very simple act and a brutishness to them. Now, if I can illustrate what that would be like, I have a friend of mine I've talked about before, one of the people who I believe has a huge scree of wisdom and understanding in his heart. But in terms of education, he never, I don't think he ever even finished probably even middle school. You know, he has a very low level of education, but you can take a machine apart, lay all the pieces out and he'll come behind you, put them back together. He takes you, when you give him information, he just gets it immediately. I mean, he is just so what we would call smart, but you listen to him talk and he's saying things like Usans and he's got that real southern accent, even worse than I have ever had. And it's just you wouldn't think this guy is so smart to hear him talk or just even see the way he carries himself. But in his heart, there's a great deal of wisdom there. So that's kind of what that looks like when you go that direction with the mix of the blue and the yellow. And then, of course, you get green, which is the point wherein normally that produces a low self-esteem. Sometimes there's lesser degrees of that. But really what the reason why I say it produces low self-esteem is because when you take genuine humility, wherein you see your place in the universe and understand who you are, but then you mix that with the lack of knowledge, usually it brings you to a place where you don't have a lot of value for yourself, that you don't really esteem yourself as being That's where you start seeing people go into a more negative side of what is associated with humility. Now, keep going around, you find another Pentagon set where you have just orange and yellow. The orange and yellow is like this. Your heart is bad and you lack knowledge. So because you lack knowledge, you also get with that brutishness. Because your heart is bad, the fool proceeds into frowardness, which is where you don't just find yourself lying to yourself and deceiving yourself with information, but then you take that and consider yourself to be an intelligent person and begin to lie to others and deceive others with it is the natural extension of that. The scorn, we've already explained that the natural extension of that is that proud and haughty spirit, you know, to where you don't just have a heart that's proud, but it's reflected through all that you do. And because someone who thinks they know everything doesn't mind lying and deceiving people, begins to go this direction, it's natural that what's that's going to produce is someone who's very quick in what they say and very quick in what they do because the fact that they don't actually care about how it hurts people to do these things, even though God warns against being hasty in speech or actions. What does it say in Proverbs? If you rush into things, you're sinning. Where the abundance of words are, there's sin when it's not. There's no lack of sin when there's a lot of talking. So there's a lot of things the Bible teaches about this idea that we shouldn't be quick to act or quick to speak. We should be slow to speak, quick to hear. And so because of all of that, You see if the heart's right, wrong, and the mind's wrong, then you're going to go in that kind of place where you're seatful with your words, you're quick with your words, and you're quick with your actions, not taking regard of what's going to happen. And you see how that's a perfect counterpoint to discretion and prudence, whereas prudence is carefully measuring the consequences of your actions and discretion being measuring the consequences of your words. So you see there's a perfect counterpoint there to those two. Then your final of the ones, which doesn't take a lot of explanation because we've already defined most everything on the chart at this point, is going to be a combination of orange, purple and red. Now, the orange, purple, red combo like that, what it is about is this. that if the heart is wrong so that you have that foolishness, that forwardness, that hasty inactions, scornfulness, proud and haughty spirit, the mind lacks knowledge so that you have the subtlety, you have the ability to talk like you know what you're talking about and act like you know what you're talking about. But you don't have the discretion to know when and how to do that kind of stuff. Then with that, you eventually go in this place where your knowledge and all this stuff combined to bring you to a place where you're what the Bible calls wise in your own conceit. And that's not just someone who's proud, but it's something very similar to being proud. It would be a lot of ways the opposite of that low self-esteem. It's where you really start to think so much more high of yourself to where, God, really one of the worst insults you can get in the book of Proverbs is to be wise in your own conceit, is to think way too highly of yourself like that. So anyways, with that said, those are the terms. Those are the basic ideas. That's what we're going to be looking through as we go through this study. We'll look to define each of these. We'll talk about relationships between them and so forth. So I went through all of that just to give you a rundown. I wasn't necessarily planning to do it that way, but it just felt natural to go in and explain it to you. So I'm not having to hint about things, but I could just speak straight about things. So with that, I'll take the chart off the screen. and get back to normal there. So going back to our verse we read, because I got very far sidetracked from what I was actually trying to talk about. It says in Proverbs 1-2, to know wisdom and instruction, to perceive the words of understanding. The reason he's wrote this book to you is because you have wisdom and understanding, and I'll go back to perceiving and instruction in just a second. But you have wisdom and understanding presented to you right out the gate that he said, I wrote the book of Proverbs so that each one who reads this their heart can be moved towards wisdom and understanding. So you have those two types of intelligence already presented right in the second verse of the book as the purpose for why proverbs exist. The instruction and the perceiving part are interesting because those are the two ways in which somebody increases in knowledge. Instruction is primarily the one that's going to be mentioned. Most time when he talks about knowledge throughout the book of Proverbs, it's going to be tied to instruction because God's preferred method of increasing in knowledge is instruction. And what I mean by that is I've always said you increase in knowledge, you gain knowledge by one of two means, education or experience. Either you experience something and you see it and you take it in, which is perceiving, or you have the education, which is the instruction. And God's preferred method is education. He prefers that when you hear his word, you take it to heart and you listen to what he's saying. You have the understanding, the wisdom that then apply it. So his preferred method of increasing someone in knowledge is through instruction. His preferred method of, his backup method, I guess, I'm sorry, should be to perceive it, which is to experience, to take it in and be watching what's going on and learning from that. Kind of like when he talks about that a, I believe he says that when the scorner takes a beating, the simple will learn from it, or the fool takes a beating, the simple will learn from it. Or he talks about that a wise man will see someone be smitten and they'll learn from it. And just the idea that's going on in those verses is that someone who has that capacity to watch what's going on around them, to watch what others are going through and learn from that, will still increase in knowledge, even if it's not the primary preferred method. That being that, you know, once somebody teaches it to you, you get it. And we're all different. Some people are better learners when it comes to sitting in a classroom. Some people are better learners in the hard knocks of life, you know, in the classroom of life. But at the end of the day, God's preferred method is that you would read his Bible and you'd get it just by reading, just by taking in the information that's being presented to you through the education, as opposed to have to learn it the hard way, because perceiving is through the hard way. So the point of that is wisdom, knowledge, and understanding are all right there in the second verse. If there's still any question, you'll see that he has a whole verse dedicated to knowledge in just a minute. In verse three, he says to receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, judgment, and equity. Now we'll talk a whole lot more about this verse as time goes on, because I really do believe that this is God's definition. Justice, judgment, and equity is God's definition to what wisdom is, because wisdom is much more complicated than just applying knowledge. It is a very big and deep concept. So as I've said before, we'll probably spend at least two weeks just talking about wisdom. Maybe I can get it all in one night by taking some of the other concepts attached to it and tying them into other lessons. We'll have to see how that goes as we go through this. But I do believe that when he says to receive the instruction of wisdom so that we can know what wisdom is, that justice, judgment and equity are going to be the three parts that make up wisdom that we'll learn. You'll even see that in chapter two that he brings them back up again. The only difference there is he switches out the word justice with the word righteousness and just and righteous. almost synonymous. There's slight connotations of difference between the two. Verse 4, to give subtlety to the simple. So you see two of those other words that are on the chart there popping up already. To the young man, knowledge and discretion. Two more of those words popping up there already. So he's saying that one of the reasons he's teaching this is so that someone who's simple, someone who lacks knowledge, will then be able to increase in knowledge enough to become subtle, to know how to use that knowledge. To the young man, which is one other way, I'll admit this. So simple is not the only word God uses to describe someone who lacks knowledge. The young man is also another way he describes it, and I'll explain what the difference is in a second. But to also give to that young man knowledge and discretion, which again, we say discretion is that when you couple that knowledge with wisdom and get the ability to know how to win and how to use things more properly. The difference between someone who's simple and the young man is the young man is unexperienced. The simple is uneducated. The simple is someone who just hasn't been given information and therefore lacks it. The young man is someone who hasn't received information through experience. He hasn't been out there. He hasn't done anything. He doesn't know what's going on. So that's the difference between the two words, but they mean the same thing. He means someone who lacks knowledge, and even both of them can be applied one way or the other. You can use the simple to talk about the inexperienced. You can use the young man to talk about the uneducated. That's just the primary idea, kind of the poetic difference between the two. when he uses those terms. That's why I just settled for simple because simple is the more straightforward of the two terms and it's one that's used quite often throughout the book as well. And then verse five, a wise man will hear and increase in learning and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels. Now, This is not supposed to be a Proverbs commentary, but since we're here, let's just say this, that this point is saying that someone who has wisdom in their heart will listen. Someone who has understanding will try to take it and break down what's being said to them so that we can take the knowledge that's being given to us and listen to it to get what it's saying and understand it by breaking it down and dissecting the parts to find out what it means. So he's saying that if we get those two things in our heart, wisdom and understanding, and we know that knowledge is easy to him that understands according to the Bible, we will increase in our information. We will be able to take this in and understand it. And he even says very specifically that the point of it is so that you can understand the book of Proverbs in verse six, to understand the proverb and the interpretation, the words of the wise and their dark sayings. That's the way he's defining a proverb. Uh, it's something I won't get into because we know what a proverb is. It's just a way to take a bunch of information, condense it down into a simple and very memorable sentence so that you can carry it with you further. So he's going to, he's saying, I'm, if you will follow this study and you'll get the wisdom and the understanding in your heart so that you listen to and try to understand information being given to you, you'll be able to understand the book of Proverbs. That's why what I'm doing right now is so important. That's why wisdom is the principle thing. It may not feel like this is a big deal. It may feel like you're skirting around some of the things you would like to know about Proverbs because I just want to do a study of Proverbs. But in reality, the reason I've chosen to do it this way and the reason why I'm starting with this lesson is so that you can understand. God himself tells you. then if you're going to read Proverbs and get anything, get wisdom first. Focus on that. Focus on what it says about wisdom. Focus what it says about understanding. Get those two things. Knowledge will naturally come with that because once you have wisdom and understanding, you can retain knowledge much more easily. Knowledge will go into your mind and you'll keep it because you have those other two in your heart. It's a natural and organic relationship. Part of how God's designed you to function as a human being. And so God's saying, if you want to understand the rest of Proverbs, you want to be able to understand anything. You want to be able to take in information more easily, get wisdom, get understanding. That's why we're taking the time to do this study. It may not be the most interesting thing in the world to you. You may not be super excited about it yet, but there's a reason why we've chosen to do this. There's a reason why I'm very passionate about this subject. And it's because God himself tells us this is something you need to put your focus into. I understand as Christians, there's a lot of things we can focus on. We can do studies about the lost and about soul winning. We can do studies about very important doctrines and key doctrines. We can talk about all these kinds of things, and we do. But there's also a time and place where we need to sometimes talk about wisdom in all of this, even if it's not something that you right now feel like is that big of a deal. because God himself said it is and says you need to put some focus into it. He literally wrote one whole book of the Bible just to get you excited about it and get you to try to understand it. So that's why I want to do the study. I want to take that mission that God's given us. It's something that I feel quite interested in, something I feel like I'm somebody who can speak to this subject a little better than the average preacher, as it's something I've really passionately studied for the vast majority of my Christian life. I have so many notes and things on this. It's something that, to be honest, I didn't have to make a single note tonight. I can just talk to you entirely off the top of my head, without any preparation at all, because it's very passionate for me. Now, of course, I did some, but most of this information is things I just naturally have in my heart already, because I care so much about this. So then I just want to read to you chapter two. We'll go through these verses because I'm reading long passages, but we'll go through these verses at a later time and really put some focus into them because they deserve that. But I just want to read you chapter two, verse one through nine. It says, my son, if thou will receive my words and hide my commandments with thee, so that thou incline thine ear unto wisdom and apply thine heart to understanding. Yea, if thou cryest after knowledge and liftest up thy voice for understanding, if thou seek her as silver and search for her as for hid treasures, then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. For the Lord giveth wisdom out of his mouth, cometh knowledge and understanding. He layeth up sound wisdom for the righteous. He is a buckler to them that walk uprightly. He keepeth the paths of judgment and preserve the way of his saints. Thou shalt understand righteousness, judgment, and equity. That's where he lists them again, but he swaps out righteousness for justice. Yea, every good path. When wisdom enters into thine heart and knowledge is pleasant to thy soul, Discretion shall preserve, the understanding shall keep. Now, I'll stop there because you could just keep reading. This is actually really one of the most interesting chapters to me in Proverbs. That's not really fair because every chapter to me is incredible. But this is a very interesting chapter of Proverbs. But what he's starting off with is just to give you another outline, another lesson of why you should get invested in a study like this. And he tells you it's because if you will treat wisdom as being precious, if in your heart you regard this as being something worth investing my time in. and knowledge and understanding as being worth investing my time in, and I should seek these out and study them. He compares it to someone who's searching out a treasure, like you've seen the people with the maps that have all these hidden clues on them. You know, you've seen it in cartoons, movies, whatever. He says, if you'll search it like they're searching for their treasures, you will find it. And then when you find it, it will preserve you. It will help you to increase in other aspects of your life, and it will protect you and keep you from a lot of the harm and troubles that come in this life. That's why wisdom should be important to you. That's why we should seek it out and put some heart and time into studying it. It's not just the principle thing. It's a necessary component to your life if you want to have a better life as a believer. And that's why you'll find that actually, if you go back and start paying attention, a lot of your favorite passages of the Bible probably are telling you to get wisdom. Wisdom is there connected in some way because of the fact that wisdom is detrimental. It's very, I mean, it's of the utmost importance. It's necessary to live a proper spiritually healthy life. You know, you'll always struggle as long as you struggle in this area of wisdom. Obviously, there's other things that are important too. Faith is on the same level and so forth. In fact, faith would be more important, but That's not the point. The point is, this is something you need and God's telling you, search it out like a treasure and you'll get it. In fact, James says it very simple in James 1 5 when he tells us, if any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God who give it liberally and upbraideth not. If you struggle with this, you feel like you struggle with wisdom, then ask God and he'll help you. He'll help you to take this book and to study. He'll help you to get it. He'll help you to grow that in your heart. Because out of the mouth of the Lord comes wisdom. Out of God's mouth comes wisdom. He gives knowledge and understanding. So He can grow this in your heart where nothing else could do it. and I really like another one I'll throw out there at you that's Proverbs 23 23 and I'll go ahead and say after this I'm gonna close so if you got a question go ahead and be typing but Proverbs 23 23 says buy the truth and sell it not also wisdom knowledge and understanding We all know how important the truth is. We know that's one of the most important things. I mean, we should be valiant and be willing to fight for the truth. And we know that verse. Many of us know that verse quite well. Buy the truth and sell it not. We know it should be something so precious to us that we will pay whatever cost to get the truth, but we will not let it go. We will not let the truth be taken from us. What we forget is that's also including with that, he says, wisdom, knowledge, and understanding. So it's not just that he wants you to have the truth, but he wants you to know what that truth is, you know, to keep it in your heart and know that this is true. He wants you to have the wisdom to know how to use that truth, you know, what to do with it, with your life, and then have the understanding, you know, to break it down and dissect the parts of it and really figure out what it's all about. That's what he's wanting you to do in this life. So, if there's any questions, I'll go ahead and take those. This is a continuation of the Tuesday night Bible study, so I can take questions. That's normally what we would do with that. I'll try not to go much longer, so if there's not a lot of questions, we'll go ahead and shut down pretty quick. But I do ask if there's any questions, people will go ahead and submit those. And just for the sake of it, I'll go ahead and throw up the Wisdom chart while I'm waiting on those that way anybody who just happens to see this, you know playing in their live stream Thanks for a bunch of crazy people when they see this and don't have any context for what it is But this is the chart of biblical wisdom. In fact, I'll even throw up the bigger version, which is going to block out my face for a minute. But you have the large, not much larger version of it, but you have one with a little more explanation concerning this chart of biblical intelligence. And you see some of what I was talking about with the illustration of how they connect to one another, that you have the blue parts when your heart goes in that direction, leads towards righteous behavior slash thinking. The orange leads towards sinful behavior slash thinking. The purple is God's desired path for your mind. The yellow is the natural path your mind takes. Green is what happens when you mix the simplicity and the wisdom and understanding and all of that. When you take the heart that's going the right way, but a mind is still just not without knowledge. Then the red is what you get when you have a heart that's going the wrong way, but it does have knowledge equipped with it. So there's just a little bit of more information, not much more, but just a little bit more information for this chart. I can also put that out there and make it available for anybody who wants it. That's not a problem either. Okay, so I see comment come in. Let's see if I have any questions. No questions for now. And so, It's the right attitude. He's expecting further explanation as we go on and looking forward to getting more lessons. In truth, with a study like this, it's probably the right attitude to have. If there was an immediate question, I'd be glad to hear it. But in truth, anything right now, especially this lesson is just an introduction. Any questions you have right now, I'm sure, I hope to, it's my intention that I would answer those as time goes on. All right, seems like nobody has any questions. They're all on the same page that you're willing to wait and see where it goes from here. So I'll go and say if you enjoyed the lesson, the message, give us an amen in the comments. Let us know you stuck around. We're part of it. Even if you come back later after the video has been done, it's not live anymore. I still appreciate those amens because it's nice to know people are watching them and following up with them afterwards. But anyways, I do appreciate everyone who joined. I went a little bit longer than I was expecting and I made it a little more complicated than what I was expecting because I primarily wanted this just to be the stuff I was talking about with the verses there concerning the fact that this is something that God himself tells you you should care about, you should be focused on, you should be giving some time to learn this. Because I know far too many people who whenever I start talking about this in church services, their eyes just gloss over and it's like they just, You know when you're talking to somebody and you've lost them I know way too many people who look at me that way whenever I start talking about this stuff in a church So I'm happy to have an outlet here where I can share it with people that if you're watching is because you want it But I still wanted to put something out there just to try to maybe convict some people who still feel like it's not that big of a deal That it doesn't matter but it's like any of those times God gives you a list of something You should take the time to try to figure out what those words are and what are the differences between them? And why does God list them together like that? So anyways, I appreciate you being part of this study. Thank you so much for your time. Hope it's been a help to you. I hope it's something to whet your appetite, so to speak, to get you started on the journey to know more about God's word and especially the concept of intelligence in the Bible. I don't know how long this series will last. Obviously, it'll last for each triangle you got on this chart, at least, and then for a little more than that. So we've got some a little while we're going to be involved in this. But I do appreciate you being here with us for this one, and I hope it's been a help to you to get you started on this path. I'll go ahead and close out the live stream. I do want to put one note out there. I should have probably started with this, and that is I want to give a note of praise to God because of the fact that Yael did go have her test today. And so she had her test last week, but she got the results back from her test today from her cancer screening, and she is cancer-free still. So let's praise the Lord for that, that she went back for that checkup. She gets every six months. And so there was a little bit of concern this time, but she's doing very well. So praise the Lord for that. But anyways, thank you again for being part of this study with us, and I hope it's been a help and a blessing.