Sermon for September 3rd, 2017

Proverbs 1:20-33

20 Wisdom cries out in the street;
    in the squares she raises her voice.
21 At the busiest corner she cries out;
    at the entrance of the city gates she speaks:
22 “How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple?
How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing
    and fools hate knowledge?
23 Give heed to my reproof;
I will pour out my thoughts to you;
    I will make my words known to you.
24 Because I have called and you refused,
    have stretched out my hand and no one heeded,
25 and because you have ignored all my counsel
    and would have none of my reproof,
26 I also will laugh at your calamity;
    I will mock when panic strikes you,
27 when panic strikes you like a storm,
    and your calamity comes like a whirlwind,
    when distress and anguish come upon you.
28 Then they will call upon me, but I will not answer;
    they will seek me diligently, but will not find me.
29 Because they hated knowledge
    and did not choose the fear of the Lord,
30 would have none of my counsel,
    and despised all my reproof,
31 therefore they shall eat the fruit of their way
    and be sated with their own devices.
32 For waywardness kills the simple,
    and the complacency of fools destroys them;
33 but those who listen to me will be secure
    and will live at ease, without dread of disaster.”

Walk This Way: Wisdom in Proverbs II

This is a picture of my son, Grady, when he was seven years old, in Princeton New Jersey, with his first "real Bible" -- an old King James Version that had been given to me when I was a boy. I gave it to him because he was outgrowing all the kids Bibles and picture Bibles we had given him before that. Most of them were abridged versions which left out a lot of parts, and he always had a million questions (still does!) that I was getting tired of answering.

So I gave him his first full-length, complete unabridged Bible. As an English major, I figured the older, poetic language of the King James Version would slow him down some and help him build up his vocabulary. And it did. It couldn't have been more than five minutes after I gave him that Bible that he came back out of his room, Bible in hand, and looked up into my eyes with all the curiosity that a seven-year-old kid can muster, and said to me, "Dad...what's a Harlot?"

What's a harlot.