Hank Smith: 00:01 Welcome to followHIM, a weekly podcast dedicated to helping individuals and families with their Come Follow Me study. I’m Hank Smith.

John Bytheway: 00:09 I’m John Bytheway. We love to learn. We love to laugh. We want to learn and laugh with you as together, we follow Him.

Hank Smith: 00:20 Hello, my friends. Welcome to another episode of followHIM. My name is 

Hank Smith. I am your host. I am here with my merry-hearted co-host, John Bytheway. John, as I was reading Proverbs preparing for this lesson, I hit Proverbs 15:13, and it said, “A merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance.” And I wrote 

John Bytheway right there. This is a merry-hearted podcast, I think.

John Bytheway: 00:48 Absolutely.

Hank Smith: 00:49 Hey John, we have a Bible expert in the room with us. Tell everybody who’s joining.

John Bytheway: 00:54 So excited to have with us. And as I read the bio, it’s another time, Hank, I’m just going, wow, we’re so blessed to have these people with us.

John Bytheway: 01:06 Lincoln Blumell received a Bachelor’s with Honors in Classical and Early Christian Studies from the University of Calgary and MA from the University of Calgary in Religious Studies and Ancient Christianity, specializing in that. And MST from Oxford Christ Church in Jewish Studies, a PhD from the University of Toronto in Religious Studies, emphasizing early Christianity. And before coming to BYU, he held a visiting assistant professorship in the Department of Classical Studies at Tulane University in New Orleans. His areas of expertise are New Testament, Second Temple Judaism, history of ancient Christianity until the Byzantine period. He was the editor of a book called New Testament History, Culture, and Society, which probably a lot of our guests have written. Right, Hank?

Hank Smith: 01:59 Yeah. Yeah. There’s quite a few of our guests in that book.

John Bytheway: 02:01 Yeah. So we’ll be excited, especially next year, coming up with New Testament for that. New Testament History, Culture, and Study, and his areas of research include early Christianity in Egypt, ancient Christian letters and Greek. So we’re really glad to have you today and so excited to hear how you can help us with the Book of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes today. Welcome.

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 02:24 Thank you so much for that very generous, kind introduction, and great to meet you and be with you both, John and Hank.

Hank Smith: 02:31 Lincoln, you absolutely deserve it. John, Lincoln and I have worked together for 10 years and he was my mentor at BYU. They assigned me a mentor and I think he was like, “Oh, you got to be kidding me.” But you’ve become friends over the years. And I’ll tell you that book, New Testament, History, Culture, and Society. It is a big book and it is worth your time. If you want to know about the New Testament, this will give you…

Hank Smith: 02:57 I’m reading from Amazon. Here’s just a small sampling of the writers. Robert Millet, John Welch, Andrew Skinner, Kent Jackson, Terry Ball, Noel Reynolds, Frank Judd. Just a myriad of other professors in which Lincoln edited these chapters. So, if any of our listeners are interested, look that up, New Testament History, Culture, and Society: A Background to the texts of the New Testament, came out in 2019.

Hank Smith: 03:21 Lincoln, it sounds like from your bio, you’re well-traveled.

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 03:25 Yeah. Well, I try, New Testament period, work a lot on there and kind of been around with schools, kind of the England, and then finally made a great stop here in the greatest state of Utah. Really happy to be here at BYU. It’s been a great 10 years.

Hank Smith: 03:38 All right. Lincoln, how do we want to approach these, what I’ve heard called the wisdom literature? How do you approach Proverbs and Ecclesiastes?

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 03:47 That’s a great question. It’s probably best to give a little of background to this that will help kind of frame what wisdom literature is. And even within the Bible, what wisdom literature is. And so I’ll talk about the ANE or the Ancient Near East. You have this tradition that is millennia old of collections of sayings, Proverbs, which is like a maxim or an aphorism. They’re short, pithy sayings that are communicated. Typically, the standard format it takes, it’s not like the Book of Proverbs, where you have typically somebody addressing a younger individual, like an elder, often a father to a son. And what you have is basically communicating important wisdom and it’s transmitted on. That will then help that individual prosper in their life, have success.

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 04:34 I think of ancient wisdom literature kind of in general, and this is maybe a little bit humorous, but I think the analogy is apropos, kind of like the ancient’s how to win friends and influence people kind of literature that you get. And it’s kind of funny, but it really is in a lot of ways. You have this Egyptian culture, Sumerian cultures, these ancient cultures. Of course, Israelite wisdom literature, and it’s how to be successful. And we’ll talk about Proverbs a little. It’s unique because Israelites will have their own spin on this, which will of course tie in with God. But in a lot of wisdom literature, it’s rather quite mundane, really quite general.

 

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 05:09 There are sayings of course that remain into our time. Pretty basic stuff like, “A bow strung all day will lose its spring.” And so, things like, “Okay, well then I need then unstring my bow when I’m done using it.” And when you look at this wisdom literature and probably the closest parallels you find again, what we’ll see in Proverbs, is coming out of some Egyptian wisdom literature. You have works like the sayings, a man called Ank Shoshenq in Egypt, as well as others who have this, right?

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 05:37 For example, there’s an Egyptian who lives, it’s believed in the Ramesside period, which is 1300 BC to about 1100 BC called Amenemopet, who leaves a text for his son. And there’s some really fascinating parallels we’ll look at beginning in Proverbs 22. And so, it’s just communication that an elder will pass on to a typically younger individual. And so, it’s kind of framed in Proverbs, like a father to a son, to help them succeed in their life and to prosper.

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 06:07 With the Israelite case, of course, it will tie very intimately back to God. And when you think of this wisdom in Proverbs and elsewhere, it might be attributed to God’s but often it seems to be based on observation. Just like based on life, here are wise sayings that you should abide by. And if you follow these, it seems to be there’s a correlation then between the saying and some kind of prosperity or success in life.

Hank Smith: 06:30 Okay. So, this is imparting wisdom, life experience to the younger generation. John, that’s like me and you. You’re the elder and I’m the younger of course and you impart all this wisdom to me. Yes, you impart all this wisdom to me. And I feel like you’re the proverbial, John Bytheway.

John Bytheway: 06:49 Proverbial.

Hank Smith: 06:50 Yeah. Who has all this wisdom.

John Bytheway: 06:53 I was thinking of that. I was an amateur verb, but I’ve gone pro. So, I’m a proverb now. I’ve left the amateur ranks. I was going to ask Lincoln about that because I feel like some of these sound like fatherly wisdom or motherly wisdom. And I thought, I mean, there’s not a thus saith the Lord in these. When we look at these, it sounds more like there’s a family motto that we’ve had passed down or things like that. It’s maybe a dangerous question to ask, do we hold the Book of Proverbs to the same level we might hold the Book of Isaiah.

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 07:26 That’s a great question. It’s in the cannon. And so, we regard it as a standard works, as scripture. When I look at Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, it’s interesting that when you look at these two texts, here’s one way of kind of looking at this question, there’s hardly any JSTs here. There’s none in Ecclesiastes for example, and there’s a handful in Proverbs, and only one that really makes much of a difference to the text, in 18. We’ll talk about probably in the context when we get to Proverbs 31. And so it seems the JST doesn’t spend a whole lot of time focusing on these texts.

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 07:59 As I look at Proverbs, I think a lot of this is about why sayings handed down. It talks about the whys, or we could say sages. Here is what we’ve learned, but there is no thus saith the Lord. And I guess maybe to vindicate some of these sayings, I guess, is some of the authority would be, well, if you do this, then you will see the fruits of then doing this saying or maxim or aphorism. You do have the beginning here, the attribution to Solomon in verse one. Although as you read into the book and you start moving through this, it becomes very clear that what we have here is a composite work.

 

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 08:32 Solomon is not the only author here. You get down into, for example, chapter 22 and it now talks about, well, here are now sayings of the sages or the wise men. And it’s clearly drawing upon some wisdom that has been passed on from Israel. You then have in 25, it talks about, well, you now have in the reign of Hezekiah. So Hezekiah is now some two centuries after Solomon and they’re now compiling this and there’s a redactor who’s working with this. Chapter 30, it talks about a man called Agur. And then in chapter 31, a king called Lemuel. We’ll talk more about Lemuel. And so, it’s kind of collected wisdom. And so, I think some of this wisdom perhaps is probably even there before Solomon, and you have editors who then redact this and bring this into a unit.

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 09:21 It’s not entirely cohesive. It’s often you have these short sayings that doesn’t always clear why you have a grouping or one next to another. At times, there’s a kind a thematic, I’d call a multiverse proverb, but this is related on and it’s kind of wisdom from the ages. And so, I look at this here as more like it’s about probabilities. If you do this, this is probably what’s going to happen to you. And it’s good counsel. If I were writing in the New Testament, I’ll probably do this a lot, where Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, he says, “I’m giving you my opinion. Nevertheless, I’m an apostle.” And so, it doesn’t mean you need to go and disregard that opinion by Paul. But it’s saying, I think he recognized… Paul’s careful there in 1 Corinthians, where he does this, 15 but also especially in 7 where he says, “Okay, the Lord says this.” And he says, “Now, I’m saying this, but remember I’m an apostle.” So, I think that Proverbs, I’d kind of take it in that light.

Hank Smith: 10:12 It’s a valuable opinion.

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 10:14 If you do these things, I think part of the message of Proverbs is, generally good things are going to happen. You’ll have success, win friends, influence people kind of thing, but your life will be more meaningful. You can avoid pitfalls. There’s lots of warning about pitfalls out there. So that’s how I would approach this book and even Ecclesiastes, in this kind of tradition.

John Bytheway: 10:34 Yeah, it sounds like advice about your relationship with God. It’s not necessarily God talking, but they’re talking about how to choose… I mean, I love the ponder the path of thy feet, things like that. And trust in the Lord, which is a youth theme this year. In fact, there’s an interesting statement in the manual if we want to jump into the second book, we’re going to look at. Ecclesiastes. This is from the first page in the Come Follow Me manual. It says, “Proverbs can be seen as a collection of wise sayings from a loving parent whose main message is that blessings of peace and prosperity come to those who seek wisdom, particularly the kind of wisdom God offers.” But Proverbs is followed by the Book of Ecclesiastes, which seems to say, it’s not that simple. “The preacher quoted in Ecclesiastes observed that he gave his heart to no wisdom, but still found vexation of spirit and much grief.” That was, I thought a good way of framing it. There’s some great proverbs. It doesn’t mean life will be easy just because you know these proverbs.

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 11:38 You know, When I think about scripture as we approach it, certainly our ancient scriptures, is sometimes I think it’s useful to think about in this term. There are things that can be more timely than timeless. And I think this could apply to Proverbs. There will be wisdom that they might have that say, this might be a great piece of advice if you are living in the 9th century BC.” It might not work so well in the 21st century. And so, what I might say to those who are reading this text, who is struggling on some things, I’d say, are there principles behind it? Because I think there’s often principles behind it. We can say yes, this principle resonates with us. Even if maybe some of the specific advice might not be as applicable for our day or might do something different is, what are they trying to communicate there? And so, look at the principle behind that and then say, okay, this is how then it might inform practice today and how we’re then going to apply that. And so, I think that’s worth keeping in mind.

John Bytheway: 12:29 I’m writing that down, Lincoln. And some things in scripture are more timely than timeless and that’s part of understanding culture, part of understanding their worldview, their cosmology, then you’re able to extract the timeless. Does that make sense?

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 12:46 Yeah. There are principles there where yeah, we look and say, yes, there’s some timeless principles where practices here may have changed. Really the premise of Proverbs seems to be the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. That’s where it all starts with. How do you then apply this in your daily life?

Hank Smith: 13:04 How could you group these three books, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and even Job, as the wisdom literature? I think you have to see them at least somewhat as a unit. Because, Proverbs is going to give you one end of wisdom, Ecclesiastes is going to give you another facet of wisdom, while Job is going to even offer another. If you don’t take them together, you might miss something. You think they’re meant to be read together, these three?

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 13:35 Well, I think we have them as a collection together. Look at Proverbs, if you do these things, it will be well with you.

Hank Smith: 13:41 Yeah.

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 13:42 You’ll be blessed. You’ll even have Beatitudes. What you find, blessed is the person who does this.

Hank Smith: 13:47 Happy are they.

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 13:48 Yeah, in the Sermon on the Mount. So it doesn’t entertain the possibility, if you do this it might not go well. Where job then says, “Okay, you could be doing everything as best you can, in your power, and being a really upright life, and it might all still go to pot.” Then, it will probe that question. For example, right? We call it, about theodicy. Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people? An age-old question.

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 14:12 Proverbs, doesn’t engage with that. Where Job now says, “Okay, what do we do now, when you’re doing things and it doesn’t turn out as planned?” Then there’s that discussion. Of course, you have in Job, there’s a restoration made at the end. It probes another angle. Then Ecclesiastes seems to be more of a thing where, “Okay, you can go and do good things, and yet it can still be all vanity.”

 

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 14:32 We’ll talk about this Hebrew word, hevel, which is like breath, or basically just emptiness. At the end of the day, what you do here, it may not turn out at all how you expected, although it does end with trust in God. It does have that at the end of the text, but recognize there are a lot more complexities in this whole process in life than you think of in Deuteronomy. If you follow me, you do this. Israel, you will be blessed. If you don’t, you’ll be cursed. That works that nicely, but I think we can all think of our own lives or people where you feel like you’re doing some of that stuff and you’re like, “Well, I’m doing all I can, but it doesn’t always work out.”

Hank Smith: 15:07 I’m not seeing the blessings that are promised. Yeah.

John Bytheway: 15:11 Yeah. Hank and I have talked about this before, the doctrine of retribution. It sounds so mathematical, and it works… sometimes.

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 15:21 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 15:22 Abinadi did everything right, and suffered like Job. Isn’t that going to the New Testament, a little bit? The mindset when, who did sin? This man or his parents, that he was born blind.

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 15:33 Yeah, John 9.

John Bytheway: 15:34 It’s got to be a result of sin, or else it wouldn’t have happened. That thinking, that Jesus had to fix with them sometimes. Those people, that the Tower of Siloam fell on them, Jesus seemed to have to say, “Eh, this is great advice, but sometimes things go badly.”

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 15:52 I think that’s where Ecclesiastes come in, it complexifies things. It does say, “Nevertheless, have trust in God.” But one thing Ecclesiastes gets in a little bit, in the later chapters, “You don’t know the mind of God.” It’s almost like inscrutable. Have this trust. Yes, things can work out well, but there are no guarantees. What I would go back to Ecclesiastes, even in Proverbs, “I step back and stay right with my salvation.” Yes, you’ll prosper. I would say this, eternally.

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 16:19 In the big scheme of things, it will work out. In the big, big picture, it’s going to work out. But, it may not work out here in this finite period of mortality, and you might do things right. Again, generally, people will be blessed. But Ecclesiastes is the spectrum, tends to open it up and say, “Okay, some of these things, there’s maybe not quite the correlation that seems to be elsewhere.” That, it can be a bit more complex. So, it opens that possibility up.

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 16:46 Coming back to Hank, we do read these together. The Hebrew canon, Ecclesiastes is actually separated, it comes after Lamentations. You have these three wisdom books. The Israelites, Jews, are still writing more wisdom literature that we have in the Apocrypha- like the Wisdom of Solomon, or Sirach- which is known as Ecclesiasticus, or the Wisdom of Ben Sira, which actually the largest wisdom book we have from the ancient world, probably written around 200 BC, thereabouts, which are still probing these questions.

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 17:13 We’ll, of course, build on this. This really occupies people’s minds. You all want to succeed. You want to be blessed. You want to have a successful life, by young standards of society. So trying to convey some of that, yes, there is a correlation. But with Ecclesiastes, yes, not always the case.

Hank Smith: 17:29 So I’m trying to process this in my mind. Proverbs is, “Good things will happen to good people.” Ecclesiastes and Job explore the question of, “What if that doesn’t happen in your life? What if that’s not the case? What are you going to do?” Life is much more complex than Proverbs seems to say. But at the same time, that doesn’t mean we should throw out Proverbs. The probability is there, like you said, that good things happen to good people. This is fascinating. So we have Proverbs that says, “Life is simple.” Then we have Ecclesiastes and Job that say, “Hold on a second. It’s not as simple as you might think. But yet, trust in God.”

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 18:06 Generally, if you do good, you will prosper. Unlike Job and Ecclesiastes, which entertains the opposite, Proverbs doesn’t really go to the opposite.

John Bytheway: 18:13 I like what you said, it’s like a timing thing. In the long run, the outcomes that you want, the Proverbs are right. Trust in God. Don’t lean to your own understanding. In the long run, there are great outcomes. What you said a second ago, it reminded me, in President Gordon B. Hinckley’s biography that Sheri Dew wrote, “If you’re around him, you will hear him say, ‘Things will work out.'” He said that a lot. But that could be a very long-term view, so that helps me with it.

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 18:47 It makes me think of what Section 122 of Doctrine and Covenants, verses 7 and 8, “If all these things happen, they shall be for your good.”

Hank Smith: 18:55 All these terrible, terrible things. He lists these awful things.

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 18:59 Really hard, terrible things, they’ll be for your good. I can’t help but think the Lord’s thinking, “Well, in the eternal perspective, the perspective that I have, these experiences should be for your good. It’s knowledge.” Again, Proverbs is all about knowledge, wisdom, it’s even used interchangeably, “You will have these things. You will understand.”

John Bytheway: 19:18 In those same Liberty Jail sections there is, “Thy suffering and thy afflictions will be but a small moment.” I don’t know, three or four months in Liberty Jail doesn’t feel like a small moment. But, maybe it does in that eternal perspective.

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 19:34 When I think about this, Peter picks up on this in 1 Peter 1:7, where he talks about your faith of trials. Now, the King James will talk about temptations, but it’s clearly trial. They’re saying, “This will be for your good,” or rather, these precious metals, things like that. If you take this bigger perspective, and you look at like Ecclesiastes, life is ephemeral. It’s going to have an end. It’s terminal. It’s transitory. Therefore, what is permanent? These things that come along, “Go forth things for which will be right, eternal.” Wisdom, we can carry knowledge out of this world. I think of D&C. I think it’s 88:6 that talks about this, “Therefore, go after things which will be perpetual.” This is why it then becomes so valuable, as opposed to things that are just fleeting. So, focus on what will actually last.

Hank Smith: 20:25 Life is temporary. Wisdom is eternal. That’s why it’s more valuable than money, because money will end but wisdom does not.

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 20:33 I heard a great quote, “You never see a U-Haul following a hearse, because no one can take anything with them beyond, so that never actually happens.” The author here is saying, “Do those things, which will be of long-lasting value, or eternal value.” I like the Peter, of course, picking up the same imagery on here. “These trials can be for your good, if you endure them well,” which then brings back to 1:22.

Hank Smith: 20:59 I was reading from a Bible scholar, not Latter-day Saint, but a wonderful Bible scholar by the name of Christopher Wright. He wrote, “The most challenging difference between wisdom and the rest of the Old Testament arises when the wisdom authors express doubts about, or questions the validity of some of the mainline affirmations of other parts of the Bible.” Yet, this is precisely the purpose of this material in the canon of scripture.

Hank Smith: 21:21 I like this part, “To compel us toward an honest faith that is willing to acknowledge the presence of doubts we cannot dismiss, and questions we cannot always fully answer given our human limitations.” So, it sounds like we’re going to jump into Proverbs here, and hear the likelihood of doing good, wonderful things are going to happen. The other books are going to question that validity, and it’s important for us to question that. Does that sound right, Lincoln?

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 21:50 Proverbs 26, “If you raise up your child in the Lord, when they’re old, they will not depart from it.” Well, I think a lot of people, I can think of Book of Mormon, would say, “Well, we did that. Didn’t work.”

Hank Smith: 22:01 We did train up the child. Yeah.

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 22:03 I do think there’s a probability, there’s a correlation-clearly, by going and doing that. Again, children can always come back. There’s a correlation there, but there’s no guarantee. That’s what I like, probabilities, but no guarantees.

Hank Smith: 22:13 Yeah. You might almost say here, “The odds of the child being active in the gospel is more likely if you teach them while they’re young, train up a child in the way he should go.” When he is old, he will not depart from it. That’s better than not training up a child, and hoping that they choose the right. So, I can see what you’re saying there, there’s always going to be exceptions.

John Bytheway: 22:34 There’s an allowance for agency, as well. But this is still the right thing to do. I think that’s really helpful, to frame this before we jump in. I’m excited to jump in. I remember a home evening once with my father, where we just sat at the table and read Proverbs, and some of them we laughed, and some of them we nodded, and some of them we marked. What are some of your favorites?

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 22:55 The prologue here, verses 1-6, Solomon talking to a young man training children. I can go back to Nephi and talk about his goodly parents learning in the language of his fathers, having been taught. Verse 7 is really, really key, because this seems to frame the book. It begins the book. Then if you go down to 31:30, the very end, this is then repeated. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.”

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 23:22 Starting off, if you really want to know something, it begins with the fear of the Lord. When I look at fear here, I wouldn’t say we’re terrified of the Lord. But, I might think of something like reverence, acknowledging that there is a source beyond us, for which we can draw on for knowledge and power, and then starting with that.

Hank Smith: 23:42 So we had bookend verses there, Lincoln, with Proverbs 1:7, the Fear of the Lord. You mentioned Proverbs 31:30, “A woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised.” I like that. So here’s our beginning verse and our end verse. Like you said, that’s framing what we’re going to get in the middle. We’re going to get wisdom and knowledge between these two.

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 24:04 Yeah. The acquisition of this. It does make it clear, this does not come easily. These are things that are hard won, by your sweat of your brow, obtaining some of this. But wisdom, instruction, knowledge and wisdom can be interchangeable. But really, the source of it is the Lord. So starting with that premise, and then moving from there seems to be how the book really begins, and focusing on the Lord. Then what you have, as you get into talking about wisdom and its acquisition-in Chapter One here, you get down to something like Verse 19. It starts talking about wisdom being now personified. It’s Lady Wisdom that is being talked about here. It’s in the feminine, Lady Wisdom. Proverbs 8 talks more about that.

Hank Smith: 24:51 My wife might want that name.

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 24:53 In Greek, that’s a nice one. Sophia is wisdom in Greek. What you have just comes from the Lord. It comes out, and this is what you are acquiring, but it’s then personified. Even in the Book of Mormon picks up on this. Mosiah 8:20, Limhi talking to his people. “They don’t seek wisdom, neither do they desire that she should rule over them.” It talks about the blessings when you allow wisdom to take over and govern your life, tends to be that good things can then follow.

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 25:20 This is a good thing, when acquiring wisdom. But if I’m going to give a bit of an interplay here, if you get to 1 Corinthians, Paul warns all about wisdom. Says, “Well, beware of that wisdom.” You’re like, “Well, wait a sec. What’s going on here?” There are different kinds of wisdoms. Paul’s saying, “Well, the wisdom people are seeking is that not of God, but it comes after the world.” Which, at times, the wisdom of the world can be quite different. This is why I think in Proverbs in 1:7 it says, “Well, it starts with the Lord.” You recognize the Lord, and then your wisdom then will proceed from there. That will then dictate, predicate upon, what you value as wisdom. That’s the source of that.

Hank Smith: 25:57 Lincoln, when it starts in Verse 7, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge,” My kids are going to hear that and think they’re supposed to be scared of the Lord. What does the word “fear” there mean?

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 26:08 You can use the word fear here, but I think probably something better is reverence, piety. The phrase “fear of the Lord” appears about 14 times in Proverbs. And so I think starting with a reverence for God.

Hank Smith: 26:20 Reverence or humility.

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 26:22 Yeah. This is a big topic in Proverbs, because one of the things you’ll say between the wise person and the fool is the wise person’s humbled enough that they can listen when the Lord or an elder chastises them. The KJV puts give them reproof. This is right through Proverbs. They can be humbled enough they can accept chastisement, and they can then learn and grow from that.

Hank Smith: 26:45 You’re willing to be taught. Can I say it that way in verse seven? If I reverence the Lord, if I fear the Lord, I’m willing to be taught. I’m humble enough to be taught. There’s the beginning. The door is open.

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 26:57 As you recognize there’s a higher source and say, “I will submit and be humbled to that.” And then, if there is somebody speaking to that source, I will then submit and I will listen to their reproof. 

John Bytheway: 27:06 Proverbs 31:30. What it says there is, “But a woman that feareth the Lord,” and the footnote says, “or reveres the Lord.” So, there’s our footnote using the same revere or reverences. We use that phrase a lot, these are God-fearing people. We don’t mean they’re hiding in fear, but they’re…

Hank Smith: 27:26 These are God fearing folks. Where are they?

John Bytheway: 27:30 They’re running away. No, they’re revering. They respect God.

Hank Smith: 27:35 The idea here is the beginning of knowledge is the fact that you realize you don’t have it all.

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 27:39 I kind of like, and you’ll know that passage here, where “to be learned is good if you harken to the counsels of God.” There’s warnings about pride here, where it talks about “pride cometh before the fall” but I think if people were willing to say, “Look, I don’t know it all. I can learn. I can be corrected.” Well, then the wise can then help you. The wise Lord can really help you and you can progress. And one of the things that Proverbs does and just build upon this, is it talks about jumping to 3:12 for a moment. It talks about, “For whom the Lord loveth, he correcteth, even as a father the son in whom he delighteth.” If you love somebody, you really do, you care enough to actually correct them. And if they’re humble enough and they want to attain wisdom, they can receive that.

Hank Smith: 28:23 It sounds like me as a parent. “I’m teaching you this because I love you and I want you to be a successful adult.” I don’t know how many times I’ve said that exact phrase. “I want you to be a successful adult. If I didn’t love you, I would just let you keep going this way.”

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 28:37 That really is. If you don’t love something, then you don’t do anything about it. If you really love something or somebody, you tell them hard things.

Hank Smith: 28:45 Proverbs is a type of scripture that is somewhat easy to read. I remember being in high school and really liking Proverbs. I understood what it was saying. At some point, there’s other books of scripture I would read and go, “I have no idea what they’re talking about.” But this one I could… They were short enough and simple enough for my sophomore mind to grasp, and then I would mark them because I thought that’s… I still remember finding “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine, but a broken spirit dryeth the bones.” I still remember that. I was in high school when I first read that. It’s short enough to memorize and it stuck with me all these years.

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 29:19 You have this title to the book, just to go back to this. The Hebrew word is Mashal. The Greek, and even Latin, you get Proverb. But Greek sometimes as Parables. These things side by side, short pithy sayings like aphorisms. You don’t have to read the entire book of Proverbs to get it. You can go and read a few verses here and there and it might have a distinct unit on something. You’d say, “Oh, okay. I can see how that can help.” So, I think in that regard, as you said there, your hunger, you can take time and just read a few verses and say, “Okay, there’s something for me that I can improve on or that I can take to heart.”

John Bytheway: 29:52 Yeah. They are really bite-size, aren’t they? They’re not long stories. Sometimes there’s three or four verses rehearsing a theme or parallelisms.

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 30:02 Yeah. I think for the most part, they are bite size. Some it’s a single verse. Some you get a multiverse where you might have a theme for three or four verses where the same theme is kept up, but they’re these distinct clusters that are then strung together. I think that’s so helpful because you can remember that. You don’t have to remember verse after verse, you can remember a couple verses.

Hank Smith: 30:22 Okay. Why don’t we walk through this. Just start in Proverbs chapter one, two, three. Let’s just take them in order and highlight the verses that you want to highlight, and there’s no way we could hit it all. Let’s look at the ones that you want to focus on.

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 30:36 Again. I think verse seven is really key. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instructions.” This is really the starting point for acquisition of wisdom and knowledge.

Hank Smith: 30:48 So if you’re a fool, you’ll stop reading now. Right?

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 30:51 Yes. You stop. That’s it. This begins there in seven. You then have, it warns about don’t try to be wise in your own eyes, to rely on the Lord. And it warrants about go try to obtain wisdom and even the simple people. And this is maybe goes back to comment earlier, even in your youth, even simple people can do this. They can obtain shrewdness, sagacity. And I really think, chapter one, if I was going to give a theme there not looking at every single verse is that if you want to obtain wisdom, you’re willing to be corrected. You’re willing to be “chastised.” And so, there’s a kind of discipline that goes with that.

Hank Smith: 31:30 And also they introduce wisdom as a woman, “She uttereth her voice in the street, she crieth in the chief place of the concourse, in the opening of the gates you can find her.” It sounds like you can find her anywhere. “… called and ye refused,” in verse 24. I want to come to you. Wisdom wants to come to you, but you’re refusing her sometimes.

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 31:52 I guess it’s humility that you mentioned before. Do we have this? Are we self-reflective? Do we listen to wise people of our day? I think apostles and prophets, the wisdom they impart from life experience.

Hank Smith: 32:04 It’s not like it’s hard to find, especially these days. It’s readily available to us, but we turn from it. “I have stretched out my hand and no man regarded.” An apostle is speaking and you’re not listening. Is that same, does it continue into chapter two?

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 32:18 As you get into two, it’s kind of here again with wisdom, what is this path to wisdom like? And again, it requires work. Well, verse four, “If thou seekest her as silver and search for her as for hid treasure,” then verse five, “thou shall understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.” So it requires work.

Hank Smith: 32:36 So you’ve got to seek after wisdom as much as you seek after money.

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 32:40 Yeah. I think people can relate to going and doing this. I like here the parable of the Pearl of Great Price in Matthew 13, was it 45 and 46? Where the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant man seeking goodly pearls, and he sold all he had when he found it to purchase that pearl. And so to go and to seek, it takes work. Again, he takes work. I think six is really key, “For the Lord giveth wisdom. Out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding.” To pick up the Lord is the one giving wisdom, James, 1:5. If you lack wisdom, what do you do? Go to God, give unto all people, don’t upgrade. I think we’re seeing this picked up. Proverb says, yes, you can do this, but it’s a path you’ve really got to search.

Hank Smith: 33:20 “He layeth up sound wisdom for the righteous.” So, it’s there for the taking. Is that what I’m supposed to hear there?

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 33:26 If you will just listen and seek. Even today, so many distractions. Are we willing to put things down, quiet down, and really listen and seek and ask the source of all wisdom.

Hank Smith: 33:37 This is one of those that families can sit down together and read and even children can understand quite a bit of this.

John Bytheway: 33:43 In verse four, Hank, you mentioned that, “… and searches for her as for hid treasures.” I mean, imagine the tenacity and the focus if you think you’ve got a hidden treasure. We could have that same kind of tenacity and focus to seek for wisdom. I like that comparison that you made.

Hank Smith: 34:02 It reminds me when Jesus says, “Blessed are they who hunger and thirst…” And you’re thinking, “That’s me.” And he says, “… after righteousness.” You’re like, “Oh, there’s not very many vending machines, dispensing righteousness.” As naturally as I seek after cash, I’m supposed to take that same longing for it and go after wisdom.

John Bytheway: 34:20 Look at wisdom as a treasure.

Hank Smith: 34:22 Fill your bank account with wisdom instead of silver.

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 34:25 One of the things we’ll see later in the chapter says this very thing. Actually, it’ll say, “Better to have a little and yet have wisdom or peace than to have a lot and not have that.” This is something that in the big scheme of things is of far more value. And I think then if we can maybe step back and try to take an eternal perspective. Yes, we have to have the cares of the world and go through a routine and do what we need to do, provide for ourselves, our families, all those things, but are we doing eternally what’s of most importance? And here it’s saying, “Make sure you’re seeking after this because this is so important at the end of the day, to go and acquire this and progress.”

Hank Smith: 34:59 Lincoln, as we’re going through these first two, three chapters here, I’m sensing that Proverbs, in order to read it correctly, you have to do a lot of self-reflection. Kind of like Alma five. Are you thinking through this? Because he says in chapter three, “Let not mercy and truth forsake thee; bind them around thy neck, write them upon the table of thine heart.” That takes a lot of reflection. Are mercy and truth written on my heart?

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 35:25 It is something definitely that you can go through and really assess. I kind of like this because there’s a lot of interesting referencing to James in the New Testament. It’s really like that, that James he’s often saying, “Am I doing this?” So it’s a great text to go and self-assess how you are doing. Say, “Yes, I’m doing this.” Or, “I can improve.”

Hank Smith: 35:43 It’s a lifetime of self-reflection right there. Do I have mercy and truth written on my heart?

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 35:48 Yeah. This table or tablet of your heart. This phrase, of course, appears elsewhere. In Jeremiah, Paul picks up on this in Second Corinthians. That if it’s there, then it’s really a part of you. It’s your most inward core. So you’ve really taken it on.

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 36:00 And then of course you’re just going down just two verses from that. Some of my favorite verses in all of Proverbs is there in five and six and three. “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart.” So it’s come in there, have this. “Lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways, acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths.” This is the youth theme this year. Really trust in the Lord. You fear while you trust in God.

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 36:25 Just a tweak there on verse six, because you could even translate as this, looking at the Hebrew, ” In all thy ways…” I would say it’s, “… acknowledge him or know him.” So in everything you do, know him and he shall direct thy paths. Or you could even say, “And he shall,” basically, “make your path straight.”

Hank Smith: 36:42 That’s excellent. In all thy ways, know him. Or maybe involve him. In all thy ways, involve him and he shall direct thy paths.

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 36:51 Making it straight with help. And I think that’s, in a sense, a blessing in trying to say, “Here’s a good thing. If you do this, your path will be straight.” Because it talks about the way of the wicked is crooked. They’re all over, but you can move forward.

Hank Smith: 37:02 I think in verse five where the writer says, “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, lean not unto thine understanding,” he might be saying implicit in that statement, might be you’re not going to understand. You’re going to try. You’re not going to be able to see what the Lord is able to see. So maybe the writer of Proverbs here is saying, “Yeah, something might happen where you don’t understand, but still trust the Lord when that happens.”

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 37:28 I think Abraham, “Really? You want me to go and take Isaac?”Genesis 22. What are you doing here? Doesn’t make sense until after the fact.

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 37:35 I like the point you brought up, Hank, that sometimes things will not make sense, but you’ve got to adhere to that trust. Maybe it’s only after the fact we’ll see, “Okay, this trust has really born out because I did that.” It might not be a short time, it might be actually quite a long time before you actually see that.

John Bytheway: 37:49 Yeah. Your own understanding was, “Well, I think I know how to solve this.” Or, “I think I know how to do this or negotiate this.” But trust God, he’s got a better way. Like I said, “Make his path straight,” because that’s like a John the Baptist phrase.

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 38:03 From Isaiah 40. It’s actually very similar to that, yes. And so, can I make them straight?

Hank Smith: 38:08 Proverbs 3:5-6 is one of those that I think Elder Scott would say you memorize and it becomes a friend to you because you need a friend in those difficult times where you feel like things went wrong. You need a friend there to say, “Keep trusting in the Lord. He can see things you don’t see.” What was it last year, John? You cannot behold with your natural eyes for the present time the design of your God.

John Bytheway: 38:35 “Concerning the things which will come hereafter.” There’s that long-term thing again. And I think another thing, Hank, that many of our young adult listeners, “My mission call said I was going here, but then I went here, and then COVID hit, and I came home, and then I got reassigned here.”

Hank Smith: 38:52 Was that from the Lord?

John Bytheway: 38:54 We had a kid in our ward who was called to South Africa, and then was called home, and then went to Farmington, New Mexico or something,

John Bytheway: 39:00 and then got called home again. And then it was so great. Because his last line in his homecoming talk was, “My mission did not unfold the way I expected, but it turned out to me more beautiful than I had planned.” And he kind of personified that for me. Yeah, it was out there and I was over here and over there, but it turned out more beautiful than I planned. And it’s because he had that trust.

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 39:32 Kind of piggyback on that story, Paul has a plan that he outlines in Romans writing on his mission court and saying “Look, I’m going to go back to Jerusalem, drop off these goods, and I’m going to come and preach the gospel in Rome. That’s my plan.” By the way, it’s a good thing, right? You want to go preach the gospel there, but he gets back to Jerusalem, he gets arrested, he’s put in jail for two years, but you get to Acts 26, 27, he eventually makes it to Rome under a different set of circumstances.

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 39:58 And the Lord says, “Okay, you’re going to go there,” and then get to Philippians, which is a prison epistle. He says, “You know what? Me being in chains has really served to further the gospel. Those in the Praetorian are hearing all about the gospel.” And so, I said there “John, well, no, it’s got to be this way.” You hear Paul think “Okay, I got to go Rome.” So even a righteous desire, but Lord says “No, there’s going to be another way. And in fact, it’ll even be better if you can do it this way, but it’s going to require some hardship and some real trust.” You really got to trust.

John Bytheway: 40:24 So many stories. So many testimony meetings are full of stories where “Wait, why did this happen?” And then “Oh, okay.” Testimonies are born every Sunday about that sort of thing where I thought it was this and Hank, you and I have talked on previous podcasts about Jesus on the road that you may ask, well, we had thought he was the one that was going to redeem Israel. See it wasn’t what they expected, or Zion’s camp, well I thought we were going to do this and Zion’s camp turned out to be this, but God was doing something else. And you just have to trust Him.

Hank Smith: 40:54 John, these verses here remind me of your book, When it Doesn’t Make Sense. Is that kind of why you wrote it? This idea of trust the Lord when it doesn’t make sense?

John Bytheway: 41:07 In fact, the story I just mentioned about my young friend Cole, I put that in a chapter about modified missions why I was called here. And I went here and writing about these young people that had discover that trusting in the Lord was exactly what they had to do. I had one missionary who I quoted in there who said “My mission president helped me so much to know that the success of a mission was not going exactly where my mission call said. The success of a mission was how I connected to the Savior during that time and how I strengthened my relationship with Christ during that time, that was a better measure of success than whether everything unfolded the way I thought. And that means you can go anywhere. The success was, have you had a connection to the Savior? Has your conversion deepened because you served?” And I thought it was such a great comment this young man made, he’s actually my nephew, that started out in Panama and then ended up in Southern California and had such a wonderful epiphany about, my mission is to be fully converted to Christ.

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 42:12 Well, just one other thing I would add here on this, some really great discussion, is when I think of kind of, maybe is it acknowledgement or know Him? I kind of think of covenants here. And the reason why I pick this up is if you go back to this verse one, it says “My son, forget not my law.” And law here in Hebrew is Torah.

Hank Smith: 42:28 What verse was that? That’s…

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 42:30 That’s three one. So just a few verses before, right? Forget not my law, and the law here is Torah.

Hank Smith: 42:35 Which is scripture.

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 42:37 Yeah. So, it’s a scripture, I think of kind of a covenant language here. And again, going back to 22, keeping in mind, chapter divisions are totally artificial. These are all added later on after this is written. And 22, “The wicked will be cut off.” Well that’s covenant language. That’s 2:22 and you go right into “Don’t be cut off. Remember my law. Know me.” And it seems that we know it through covenants. You obtain knowledge was through keeping covenants. I think we kind of expand this.

Hank Smith: 43:03 And you trust in your covenants. When you come down to verse five, you trust in your covenants.

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 43:08 You trust in it. And so you have that in one and then in 2:22.

Hank Smith: 43:12 And it says in verse eight, “It shall be health to thy navel and marrow to thy bones.”

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 43:18 And then in two even, “You’ll have length of days and a long life, you find this already in the law. These are things you will get by keeping these covenants.” And so, I think you do this covenant language right embedded in this section.

Hank Smith: 43:32 We could spend the rest of our time on chapter three, five, and six, because so many people go through things that they did not see coming. How many of our listeners are going “Yeah, I did not see that coming. I didn’t see a divorce coming. I didn’t see a mental illness coming. I didn’t see a death in the family coming. I did not see this coming and now I’m in it. What do I do?” Trust. Trust the Lord, that He knows you, that He knows what’s happening, and that He is directing your path, even though you can’t see it now,

John Bytheway: 44:09 Because so many things do make sense in the gospel, we want everything to make sense. And I just think we’ll go to our death with unanswered questions, all of us will. But as we’ve talked about, you trust in the Lord and lean not to your own understanding. That is the best path for maximum joy and happiness, even though there will be setbacks.

Hank Smith: 44:31 Lincoln, what do you want to do next? We’ve just started three.

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 44:34 And seven, “Don’t be wise in your own eyes.” Probably the 11 and 12, which you touched on a bit, is just taking chastisement. Again, you’ll see this throughout, receiving that from the Lord, from the Wises again, when you’re chastised by the Lord, it’s not a sign that He doesn’t love you as in verse 12, it’s the very opposite. Again, I would say to your kids, it’s when you’re chastised by a parent, it’s not because they don’t love you, it’s the very opposite. It’s because they love you dearly, and they want the best for you. You do this even as a father does this to his son, and Hebrews kind of picks up on that. “If God does this, then you really are a child.” Once you do this, you get on this path of wisdom, 13, “Happy is the man.” It’s a Beatitude. So you get on this and you’re blessed it when you find it. Then you get understanding.

Hank Smith: 45:26 And as he says, “Be not weary of His correction.” John you’ve talked to me about an airplane being constantly corrected. And that’s how it reaches its destination.

John Bytheway: 45:38 Yeah. Elder Uchtdorf who pointed it out. They’ll put this huge jet right on the numbers on the runway that crossed an ocean and was off course most of the time. But it just keeps correcting, makes these tiny corrections, and it lands exactly when and where it’s supposed to because it’s corrected. And you know what else I thought of was, we’ve had Brother S. Michael Wilcox on here. And I remember him saying once that Peter was constantly getting corrected in the New Testament.

Hank Smith: 46:06 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 46:06 Because the Lord loved him and knew he was going to take over and he was constantly getting corrected. And then as you think about it, that wasn’t a sign of that He didn’t love him. That wasa sign that He loved him so much, He was willing to correct him. A helpful way to look at it.

Hank Smith: 46:21 Yeah, I think that’s really helpful. And Lincoln, what you said is that when you feel the spirit giving you that divine discontent, it’s not out of hatred. It’s not out of even disgust or, it’s out of love. You’re better than this. I might be watching Netflix and the show comes on and I keep watching it. And the spirits says “This isn’t for you.” I shouldn’t take that as a sign of, I’m evil, I’m bad, and God is good, and He hates me. It should be, whom the Lord loveth, he correcteth. You guys are like “What are you watching on Netflix Hank?”

John Bytheway: 46:57 Well, and I’m just thinking and what a blessing that you have a divine discontent, what a blessing that there is something that is trying to turn you. I mean, what if that were gone? I mean, we’re so grateful that there is something that’s saying “You shouldn’t be here.”

Hank Smith: 47:11 Right! It reminds me of one of my students once, we were having a conversation and I said “Doesn’t that music that you listen to, it sounds kind of dark.” And she said “Yeah, I felt really bad when I first listened to it, but I just kept listening. And eventually that feeling went away.” I went “I don’t think that’s a good thing.” Right?

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 47:33 I just think how important wisdom is, this treasure. So 14-15 and you seek it. “More precious than rubies.” And this is interesting that in proverb something’s really precious, it’s more precious than rubies. And so it’ll actually get to a woman, right? The very end again, has wisdom is more precious than rubies. Kind of the ideal companion, we’ll get to that in 31, but try emphasizes the importance of the acquisition of this and even say “Look, the Lord used wisdom to create the earth,” 19. And so what you’re getting here is wisdom, these great things. And what is it? I think 18 will be interesting. It’s a tree of life. You come there and you get this tree of life, which is repeated about four other times, to go there and to partake of that. You lay hold on her and you’re happy and blessed.

Hank Smith: 48:18 She is a tree of life to them to lay hold upon her.

John Bytheway: 48:22 Yeah, that’s pretty cool.

Hank Smith: 48:24 That’s definite book of Mormon language, lay hold upon the iron rod, right? They’ll take you to the tree.

Dr. Lincoln Blumell: 48:31 And it’s funny because you do this and how do you lay hold upon it? Well, you keep on the straight paths. I think you kind of interplay between this and what you have in first Nephi. You stay on that, you press forward, and you don’t let go. Even when it talks about those who work, they have crooked path, they’re perverting the course, no, you stay on the straight path. Lord directs in a straight path, and you get to that tree.

John Bytheway: 48:50 President Nelson gave us that advice recently. One of his five points I think, was get on the covenant path and stay there. Do you remember that?

Hank Smith: 49:00 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 49:00 That sounds the same thing. The covenant path is the iron rod, is the way to the tree of life.

Hank Smith: 49:05 This is really helpful.

John Bytheway: 49:07 So here is Alma coming out of Ammonihah, wading through tribulation, anguish of soul because of the wickedness of the people in the city of Ammonihah. While Alma was thus weighed down with sorrow, an angel of the Lord, appeared unto him saying “Blessed art thou Alma, therefore lift up thy head and rejoice for thou hast great cause to rejoice.” And I kind of think right there, he could have said “Why?”

Hank Smith: 49:29 Yeah.

 

John Bytheway: 49:29 You know? ” They didn’t even like me.” “For thou hast been faithful in keeping the commandments of God from the time which thou receivest thy first message from Him.” And then a whole nother topic, how cool is this? The angel says “Behold, I am He that delivered it unto you.” Remember back in Mosiah 27 when I knocked you over? That was me, right? The angel saying you are doing so well, lift up your head and rejoice. He’s not talking about the action of the people. He’s saying you did what you were asked. And those missionaries that had their mission cut shorter for whatever, you have great cause to rejoice because you did what you were asked. And that is not from me, that’s from an angel talking to Alma whose mission in Ammonihah at least, was not what he expected. So I love that little story right there.

Hank Smith: 50:15 I would add John, that we could do modified marriages as well, that sometimes by no fault of your own, your marriage ends and you did what you were asked. And we could say that about many areas of life, that things change.

John Bytheway: 50:30 Please join us for part two of this podcast.