When I took Drivers Ed, the most-feared lesson was parallel parking. Turn signals I could manage. Checking blind spots? No problem. But we all dreaded parallel parking. It actually turned out to be a lot easier than I expected (especially easy if you drive a Jeep), but I never would have guessed that for some people, finding the parked car would be harder than actually parking the car. World Magazine reports this funny story:

“One British man forgot where he parked his car and just recently found it after a seven-month search. Eric King, 57, parked his car on a residential side street in Suffolk in February. When he come back to retrieve his Ford Focus, he couldn’t find it. THe man returned 10 times from his home over 60 miles away to serch for the auto. Eventually residents on the street got suspicious and reported the abandoned car to the authorities, who then alerted King.”

Moral: pay attention to where you park.

Got a funny parking story?

Categories: Drivers Ed, five15 blog
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In the second part of our not-so-big meeting on Saturday night, I gave some advice about how to read Proverbs. Since we’re going to spend the next eight months or so in Drivers Ed series of messages on the book of Proverbs, I thought it might be helpful for us to understand what we’re reading.

First, the all important question when reading Scripture: “what genre is this, anyway?” Genre is simply a category or a classification of something, particularly of music or literature. For instance, the music on your iPod might be divided up into various genre: I listen to classical, jazz, rock, and rap (definitely not country!). The books on your shelf at home can be sorted into genre.

The important thing to remember about literary genre is that you read different genre different ways. In a given day, I might read the sports page, an email from Nicole, the electric bill, a biography of a famous Christian, or an advertisement from a car dealership. Do I read all these genre the same way? Do I come these different genre expecting the same kind of information to be communicated in the same form? Of course not! The same thing is true with the various genre in the Bible, whether it is history, poetry, prophecy, or letter.

The book of Proverbs is a special kind of genre known as wisdom literature. It is instruction and advice about how to live our lives in order to serve the Lord, Yahweh. So when we read Proverbs, we should keep these four points in mind:

1. The Book of Proverbs is part of the Bible. Captain Obvious strikes again. It doesn’t take a Biblical scholar to know this, but it also doesn’t take a Biblical scholar to realize that there is not much of a connection in Proverbs to the wider storyline of the Bible. There’s no reference to the Exodus, the Promised Land, the temple, the kings, etc.

But you can see the connection in Proverbs 1:7 - “the fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge.” When you see LORD in caps like that, it’s referring to the name of the God, Yahweh. So Proverbs contains the nitty-gritty details for how to serve this Yahweh. If you want to know who He is and what He’s doing, you’ll need the rest of your Bible. But here are some instructions for how to serve him in your daily life.

2. The Book of Proverbs is in two sections. Chapters 1-9 contain instruction. It’s a series of lessons from a father to his son. It’s like Solomon took his boy over to the nieghborhood Starbucks every Tuesday night for a couple of weeks, and taught him about life. Somebody wrote it down, and we get chapters 1-9.

Chapters 10-31 contain the sayings, the part of Proverbs that usually comes to mind when we think of this book. These are little nuggets of truth designed to give us advice and observations about life.

3. Individual proverbs are snapshots of life. They are generally true, observable in human experience. Proverbs are truisms, meaning that they tend to be true, but aren’t necessarily true in any and every circumstance. An individual Proverb doesn’t necessarily say everything there is to say about a topic. For instance, compare the observation in 17:8 with the warning in 17:23. Some Proverbs are ultimately true, even if they don’t seem to always be true now (16:18, 28:13). Some Proverbs are absolutely true, no matter what the circumstances (15:3).

4. Individual proverbs use poetic imagery. The colorful imagery is intended to ram home a point. Our job is to figure out how the imagery makes that point. It might be a vivid word-picture (18:6, 11:22), a memorable comparison (17:12, 26:18-19), or parallelism, in which the second line of a Proverb expands upon or illustrates the first line (11:12).
There you have it.

Categories: Drivers Ed, five15 blog
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To all the high school students and their parents, thanks for coming to the not-so-big meeting Saturday night! With Jonathan leading worship, we had a wonderful time of ministry for several teens in response to prophetic words from Molly and Joseph.

Some announcements:

• Harvest Carnival Sign-Ups. This is a Halloween-alternative party that we put on for all the kiddos in the church and in the neighborhood. five15’s contribution is to provide the manpower. That’s where we come in. We’re going to be making this party happen. If you missed the signup, look for it on Sunday morning or at the 10/7 BIG MEETING.
• Wheeled Sports Meeting. Like to ride? Skateboard? Longboard? Scooter? Bike? We’re going to be holding a meeting at the after the 10/7 BIG MEETING for all those who are interested to learn more about when and where riding of any kind will be allow on the property.

We spent the first part of our meeting Saturday night talking about the five15 Challenge. I’m hammering this nail because we tend to forget. All of us drift from serving others to serving ourselves. We need to be reminded that Jesus Christ “died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him…” and one of the many ways we do that is by reaching out to others. That’s what the five15 Challenge is all about.

I recently asked Colin to lead a greeting team, so I interviewed him. He told us about how he wants to put together a team of people whose job will be to welcome others and get to know them, reaching out to them, and introducing them to others.

Want to get involved? Talk to me or Colin!

More to come…

Categories: Drivers Ed, five15 blog
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Reading and understanding Proverbs can be difficult. Any given Proverb is simple enough, but when you step back, how does Proverbs really fit into the wider storyline of the Bible? Are there any principles we should keep in mind whie reading Proverbs?

Mark Dever has a great answer. In The Message of The Old Testament, he provides seven simple clues to “help you get ahold of the wonderful wisdom this book has for you.” Here they are:

1. Common sense is required… The mere fact that you are opening the Bible does not mean that you have to throw common sense out the window. You can look at 16:3, 5, 18, 20, and 22 for proverbs that common sense tell us are generally true.
2. Individual proverbs are always ultimately true… We must realize that individual proverbs will not always appear to be immediately true, but they will always be ultimately true.
3. Individual proverbs are normally true now… The purpose of a proverb is not to exhaust a topic but to teach a lesson in a way that is memorable.
4. Individual proverbs employ poetic imagery.
5. Individual proverbs are partial in themselves… Too often, people imagine they can clip individual proverbs out like spiritual coupons to apply however they please. Having read one, they don’t read the others. Yet proverbs alone are typically partial. Each one typically attempts to capture one basic idea.
6. Individual proverbs are sometimes obscure… Some proverbs will seem obscure because you do not have the cultural background to understand everything that was written three thousand years ago.
7. As a whole, the proverbs are religious… Indeed, it tells us that the good life can be found only in wisdom about God and about ourselves.

Do you have a proverb that you’ve always thought was hard to understand? A favorite proverb?

Categories: Drivers Ed, five15 blog
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Now you’ve heard all about it. “Drivers Ed: Lessons For The Road Of Life” is a series of messages we are beginning in the book of Proverbs.

Why the book of Proverbs? Glad you asked! Simple: Proverbs is particularly useful for young people. Remember the verses we looked at Saturday night? Proverbs are intended “to give prudence to the simple, knowledge and discretion to the youth.” It’s for parents, too: “Let the wise hear and increase in learning, and the one who understands obtain guidance…”

Here’s the wonderful truth we’re going to discover together: if we are willing to listen to Proverbs, we will find that the book provides street signs for the road of life - signs that direct us and protect us from the many hazards out there. Here’s what’s in store:

1. On Ramp: Proverbs on The Fear of the Lord
2. One Way: Proverbs on Wisdom & Folly
3. HOV: Proverbs on Family
4. Yield: Proverbs on Friendship
5. Speed Limit: Proverbs on Money
6. Road Work Ahead: Proverbs on Diligence
7. No U-Turn: Proverbs on Words
8. Steep Grade: Proverbs on Sex
9. This Lane Ends: Proverbs on Life and Death

Want to learn more? Our next installment of Drivers Ed will be at the October 7 BIG MEETING.

Drive on.

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For those of you who like to read the Bible verses that are preached on before you get to the meeting, we’re going to begin a series tomorrow night entitled “Drivers Ed: Lessons For The Road Of Life” from the book of Proverbs.

Tomorrow night: ON RAMP: Proverbs on the Fear of the Lord.

Proverbs 1:1-7

Categories: Drivers Ed, five15 blog
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