"OT Tweets" Proverbs 1: 1-7; 31: 1-7

In the last 20 years, I am not sure I ever preached on Proverbs, except for using portions of Proverbs 31 at a funeral for a mother/wife.  When I was trying to reflect on how to characterize Proverbs in our present context, it struck me that they are something like tweets that go out from people.  Most of the Proverbs are stand alone comments on a variety of issues.

Some things to think about when reading Proverbs:

1.  The theology of Proverbs is grounded in creation (see Proverbs 8: 22-31).  To figure out the right way to live our lvies as part of the created order is to have wisdom and to be righteous (see opening notes to Proverbs from The New Interpreter's Study Bible to get good background material on Proverbs), all of which begins with a "fear of the Lord."

2.  "Fear" is not used in the sense of "scared," but in the sense of recognizing the awesome nature of God and being overwhelmed by it.

3. proverbs joins with Ecclesiastes and Job as Wisdom literature in the Bible.

4.  Proverbs tackle the following topics:  family, relationships; nature; agriculuter; social relationships; and work relationships.

5. There are some extended sections wehre the verses tie together (Proverbs 31), but much of Proverbs is two-line wise sayings (Proverbs 10 would be a good example).

6. Wisdom is seen not just as the "key to ethical behavior (Proverbs 4: 10-19); it seeks to grasp the secret of the divine plan behind the whole creation" (Understanding the Old Testament, Bernhard Anderson, 4th edition, 579). Of course, this suggests that if we had enough wisdom, we could know God's plan.  I'm not sure I want to go there.

7.  Proverbs also has the running image of Wisdom personified as a woman.  Given the importance of women, it is interesting that in a patriarchal world wisdom would be female.

8.  King Solomon was considered the "fountainhead of all wisdom" (Anderson, 573).    Many of the Proverbs are attributed to Solomon.

I am not sure how to take this information about Proverbs and turn them into a sermon.  Where is the gospel, that is good news, in these proverbs?