Proverbs 19:20 Listen to advice and accept instruction, that you may gain wisdom in the future.

Who is teaching and what is being taught is at the core of wisdom.

Let me rephrase this proverb in other terms.

Ecclesiastes 2:21 because sometimes a person who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave everything to be enjoyed by someone who did not toil for it. This also is vanity and a great evil.

There seems to be a negative image of education which seems to be born of laziness and the desire for instant gratification.

Advice and instruction without patience will not arrive at wisdom in the future. How did I come to this conclusion?

Proverbs 19:21 Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.

Plans without an eternal purpose are folly.

Proverbs 15:21 Folly is a joy to him who lacks sense, but a man of understanding walks straight ahead.

Those who have discovered their purpose know the way of wisdom.

Jeremiah 6:16 Thus says the Lord: “Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls. But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’

Those who have gone before us know the Way because the path they walk is well trodden. The impatient make their own way, to their own demise. 

John 14:6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

If you do not believe that Jesus is the Son, then you are chasing after a different father that is not Father God.

John 8:44 You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

Yesterday I implied that Joel 3:23 and the gathering of 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 are not one common event.

Also included in that post was an excerpt from a parable. When Jesus Christ tells us “the Kingdom of heaven is like” it is a truth within a relatable story.

What is the difference between a parable and a prophecy?

A parable is a tale we can relate to in terms of human experience.

Prophecies relate to future events we expect or that have already happened in a past we were not present to experience.

The difference is experience.

Deuteronomy 1:13 Choose for your tribes wise, understanding, and experienced men, and I will appoint them as your heads. (a parable)

Judges 3:1 Now these are the nations that the Lord left, to test Israel by them, that is, all in Israel who had not experienced all the wars in Canaan. (a prophecy)

We read the Word that is full of experiences we have had and experiences we will have and yet we often do not “see” them as one or the other.

We can learn from the mistakes of others which is a parable or we can ignore the warnings and experience them for ourselves and render them as prophecies. It is the same Word, one experienced and one that has not happened yet.

If we take care to learn the meaning of the scriptures in terms of experience, perhaps we can avoid the terrible mistakes that others have made and avoid the consequences.

This is why teaching our children well is so important. They were all innocent until they ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and found themselves naked and afraid.

Saying don’t without explaining why should be avoided.

God told Adam that in the day he ate of that tree he would die without explaining what death meant.

Hence the first example of a Father saying “You are dead to me.” Ouch?