The book of Proverbs is a particular book among the books of the Bible. It has a particular character; that is, it presents to us the words of wisdom by many ancient wise men, which is unanimously considered good by all the people who read it. But whether it is really good or not depends upon what kind of reader you are.

If you are an ethical person with a strong mind and have a desire to be perfect as a genuine moral person, surely this book would help you to make a success in your pursuit of perfection. But it helps you to cultivate yourself, that is, to cultivate the human "bright virtue" created for man by God according to His attributes, that is, according to what He is. However, it does not help you to be a person who lives in his spirit according to the Spirit of God who dwells in you for the accomplishment of God's eternal economy, that is, to produce and build up the Body of Christ which consummates the New Jerusalem as God's heart's desire and ultimate goal. In the Old Testament Job was exactly such a person. He was satisfied with his integrity, with his pursuit of human perfection. But that was not what God wanted of him; rather it replaced what God wanted of him and then it became an enemy of God frustrating him, a man created by God to fulfill God's purpose. God's purpose in creating man is to have man be filled with Him to be His expression, not an expression of human perfection. So the success of Job in human perfection was torn down by God. In this tearing down by God, God tore down Job also. Job was perplexed, not knowing what to do. Then God came in to reveal Himself to Job, indicating that He Himself is what Job should pursue, gain, and express. Then Job had a big turn from pursuing human perfection to pursue God Himself.

If you are a person who is a law-keeper, surely you will appreciate all the proverbs in this book as words of wise men, thinking that they could help you to be a good or even better law-keeper. If so, you just make all the proverbs many, many laws and fall into the snare of keeping the law as many Jews do, who do not know God's purpose in the dispensation of His law, that is, to expose fallen man's weakness.

If you are a person who loves the Lord and pursues Christ, not self-perfection, and who loves the Lord's word in the entire Bible and reads it with a praying spirit, not for the seeking of the doctrine of letters but for seeking the Spirit and word of life, not to get any help for self-cultivation but for the nourishment of your spirit that you may live a Christian life which is perfect not in human virtues but in the divine virtues which are the expressions of the divine attributes, then this book will render you nuggets and gems to strengthen your life of pursuing Christ for the fulfillment of God's economy in producing and building up the Body of Christ.

Furthermore, God does not want us just to seek the knowledge, doctrine, truth, theology, and so-called revelation in letters. God wants us to seek after Him that we may gain Him and that He may fill us up with Himself for His expression. He is the Spirit and we worship Him and contact Him in our spirit. The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. The word spoken to us by the Lord should become the Spirit and the life to us (John 6:63). If we study the Bib7le by the way of letters, not by the way of the Spirit and of life, we make the Bible, regardless of what part, a book of letters. Most Christians today have made the New Testament of the Spirit and of life the Old Testament of letters. To Paul the apostle even the Old Testament was like the New Testament, of the Spirit and of life. Too many Christians have made the New Testament proverbs, precepts, exhortations, and instructions of letters. By this we have to realize that what the book of Proverbs would be to us depends upon what kind of persons we are and by what way we take it.