Thank-you to Mark Eckel for sharing insights with Emerging Scholars as they seek to engage the new year and their particular context with wisdom. Note: Earlier posts in the Scholar’s Compass Learning to Live Together series: Approach, Disagreement. For Mark’s previous work for the blog click here. To God be the glory! ~ Tom Grosh IV, Assoc. Dir., ESN
Proverbs
Wisdom: Cosmic, Practical and Playful (Scholar’s Compass)
[W]hen he assigned to the sea its limit,
so that the waters might not transgress his command,
when he marked out the foundations of the earth,
then I was beside him, like a master workman,
and I was daily his delight,
rejoicing before him always,
rejoicing in his inhabited world
and delighting in the children of man.
[Read more…] about Wisdom: Cosmic, Practical and Playful (Scholar’s Compass)
Dining with Lady Wisdom (Scholar’s Compass)
I want to find where the maid in the street
Is pouring her wine.
I heard she takes you in and gives you the words
You need said.
If you’ll be her brother,
She’ll kiss you like a sister.
She’ll even be your mother for now.
(“Sister, Mother†– from the album Sixpence None the Richer; lyrics by Matt Slocum)
[Read more…] about Dining with Lady Wisdom (Scholar’s Compass)
Navigating Wisdom: How Wisdom Calls Out in the Streets
Wisdom cries aloud in the street,
    in the markets she raises her voice;
at the head of the noisy streets she cries out;
    at the entrance of the city gates she speaks:
“How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple?
How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing
    and fools hate knowledge?
If you turn at my reproof,
behold, I will pour out my spirit to you;
    I will make my words known to you. — Proverbs 1:20-23 (ESV)
Reflection
Holy Hubert used to visit my campus, the University of Washington. His gravelly but booming voice could be heard at a great distance. He delighted to call college students sinners and to warn them of the dangers of hell fire.
It was preaching as street theater, as he was most “effective†when he provoked an argument. To this day I recall Hubert going nose to nose with a young socialist student, with blue cap and red star to match the color of the student’s angered countenance.
Wisdom cries aloud in a different way. I don’t think we are speaking here of street evangelists like Holy Hubert. We are speaking of Wisdom personified. She appears often in Proverbs 1-9. Her discourse can be confrontational, as in the above passage, or more gentle as in Proverbs 8. [Read more…] about Navigating Wisdom: How Wisdom Calls Out in the Streets
Scholar’s Compass Navigating Wisdom: How I Fell in Love with the Library
To know wisdom and instruction,
to understand words of insight,
to receive instruction in wise dealing,
in righteousness, justice, and equity;
 to give prudence to the simple,
knowledge and discretion to the youth—
 Let the wise hear and increase in learning,
and the one who understands obtain guidance,
to understand a proverb and a saying,
the words of the wise and their riddles. Proverbs 1:2-6 ESV
Reflection
The book of Proverbs begins with the statement of purpose above. One of the purposes of Proverbs is to learn how to read “the words of the wise and their riddles†(v. 6). While we can see a book like Proverbs as a rather simplistic set of morals and aphorisms, it is more complex than that. It shares literary forms with several cultures of the Ancient Near East. It is one part of Biblical Wisdom Literature. And here it comes with a warning and an invitation. [Read more…] about Scholar’s Compass Navigating Wisdom: How I Fell in Love with the Library