If you’re a father, you know how it goes with 2-year-old kids and barbecues. When you’re grilling, you have to remind them not to touch the barbecue, or else they’ll get burned. But every 2-year-old kid feels the need to touch the barbecue. At least once. So when your back is turned he stretches out his finger, touches the barbecue, and ends up a sobbing mess on the ground, nursing a big red blister. Your next words are the same as every father in the world has said for thousands of years. “I told you not to touch the barbecue!”
That’s the book of Proverbs. It offers practical wisdom, won over the course of many years, that will save us much pain and heartache — if only we’ll listen. This Sunday, we’re starting a 12-week series on the book of Proverbs. Here’s a preview of the kind of world-wise warnings we’ll receive. Invite a friend to join us.
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- Proverbs 1:10 – If sinners entice you, don’t consent.
- Proverbs 1:15 – Don’t walk in the way with them; hold back your foot from their paths.
- Proverbs 3:5 – Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and don’t lean on your own understanding.
- Proverbs 3:11 – Don’t despise the Lord’s discipline or be weary of his reproof.
- Proverbs 3:21 – Don’t lose sight of these—keep sound wisdom and discretion.
- Proverbs 3:25 – Don’t be afraid of sudden terror or of the ruin of the wicked, when it comes.
- Proverbs 3:27 – Don’t withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to do it.
- Proverbs 3:28 – Don’t say to your neighbor, “Go, and come again, tomorrow I will give it”—when you have it with you.
- Proverbs 3:29 – Don’t plan evil against your neighbor, who dwells trustingly beside you.
- Proverbs 3:30 – Don’t contend with a man for no reason, when he has done you no harm.
- Proverbs 3:31 – Don’t envy a man of violence and don’t choose any of his ways.
- Proverbs 4:5 – Get wisdom; get insight; Don’t forget, and don’t turn away from the words of my mouth.
- Proverbs 4:6 – Don’t forsake wisdom, and she will keep you; love her, and she will guard you.
- Proverbs 4:13 – Keep hold of instruction; don’t let go; guard her, for she is your life.
- Proverbs 4:14 – Don’t enter the path of the wicked, and don’t walk in the way of the evil.
- Proverbs 4:15 – Avoid the path of the wicked; don’t go on it; turn away from it and pass on.
- Proverbs 4:27 – Don’t swerve to the right or to the left; turn your foot away from evil.
- Proverbs 5:7 – Listen to me, and don’t depart from the words of my mouth.
- Proverbs 5:8 – Keep your way far from the forbidden woman, and don’t go near the door of her house.
- Proverbs 6:25 – Don’t desire her beauty in your heart, and don’t let her capture you with her eyelashes.
- Proverbs 7:25 – Let not your heart turn aside to her ways; don’t stray into her paths,
- Proverbs 8:33 – Hear instruction and be wise, and don’t neglect it.
- Proverbs 9:8 – Don’t reprove a scoffer, or he will hate you; reprove a wise man, and he will love you.
- Proverbs 19:18 – Discipline your son, for there is hope; don’t set your heart on putting him to death.
- Proverbs 20:19 – Don’t associate with a simple babbler.
- Proverbs 20:22 – Don’t say, “I will repay evil”; wait for the Lord, and he will deliver you.
- Proverbs 22:22 – Don’t rob the poor, because he is poor, or crush the afflicted at the gate.
- Proverbs 22:28 – Don’t move the ancient landmark that your fathers have set.
- Proverbs 23:3 – Don’t desire a ruler’s delicacies, for they are deceptive food.
- Proverbs 23:4 – Don’t toil to acquire wealth; be discerning enough to desist.
- Proverbs 23:6 – Don’t eat the bread of a man who is stingy; don’t desire his delicacies.
- Proverbs 23:9 – Don’t speak in the hearing of a fool, for he will despise the good sense of your words.
- Proverbs 23:10 – Don’t move an ancient landmark, or enter the fields of the fatherless.
- Proverbs 23:13 – Don’t withhold discipline from a child; if you strike him with a rod, he will not die.
- Proverbs 23:22 – Listen to your father who gave you life, and don’t despise your mother when she is old.
- Proverbs 23:23 – Buy truth, and don’t sell it; buy wisdom, instruction, and understanding.
- Proverbs 23:31 – Don’t look at wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup and goes down smoothly.
- Proverbs 24:17 – Don’t rejoice when your enemy falls, and let not your heart be glad when he stumbles.
- Proverbs 24:21 – Fear the Lord and the king, and don’t join with those who do otherwise.
- Proverbs 24:28 – Be not a witness against your neighbor without cause, and don’t deceive with your lips.
- Proverbs 24:29 – Don’t say, “I will do to him as he has done to me; I will pay the man back for what he has done.”
- Proverbs 25:6 – Don’t put yourself forward in the king’s presence or stand in the place of the great.
- Proverbs 25:8 – Don’t hastily bring into court, for what will you do in the end, when your neighbor puts you to shame?
- Proverbs 25:9 – Argue your case with your neighbor himself, and don’t reveal another’s secret.
- Proverbs 25:27 – Don’t eat much honey, nor seek one’s own glory.
- Proverbs 27:1 – Don’t boast about tomorrow, for you don’t know what a day may bring.
- Proverbs 27:10 – Don’t forsake your friend and your father’s friend, and don’t go to your brother’s house in the day of your calamity.
- Proverbs 30:6 – Don’t add to God’s words, lest he rebuke you and you be found a liar.
- Proverbs 30:10 – Don’t slander a servant to his master, lest he curse you, and you be held guilty.
- Proverbs 31:3 – Don’t give your strength to women, your ways to those who destroy kings.