City Gate

Proverbs 1:11-16,20-22 – If they say, “Come along with us; let’s lie in wait for innocent blood, let’s ambush some harmless soul; let’s swallow them alive, like the grave, and whole, like those who go down to the pit; we will get all sorts of valuable things and fill our houses with plunder; cast lots with us; we will all share the loot”—my son, do not go along with them, do not set foot on their paths; for their feet rush into evil, they are swift to shed blood…Out in the open wisdom calls aloud, she raises her voice in the public square; on top of the wall she cries out, at the city gate she makes her speech: “How long will you who are simple love your simple ways? How long will mockers delight in mockery and fools hate knowledge?

Proverbs 8:23,30-31 – I was formed long ages ago, at the very beginning, when the world came to be…Then I was constantly at his side. I was filled with delight day after day, rejoicing always in his presence, rejoicing in his whole world and delighting in mankind.

Application:

• ·         “City gate” was where the leaders of the city met to hold court and where the marketplace was located.
• ·         As a young man confronts life in its social context, two voices lure him, appeal for his allegiance and seek to shape his life: (1) the voice of wisdom and (2) the voice of folly.
• ·         The book of Proverbs teaches that wisdom brings the greatest riches people could ever gain.
• ·         Wisdom speaks neither out of heaven nor out of the earth, but out of the center the life of the city, where communal experience of the creation order is concentrated.
• ·         Wisdom was already there when God began to create the world.

All Scripture verses taken from NIV