Proverbs (NIV Application Commentary)

What is wisdom? Does occupying the top of life’s heap mean you have it? Does being near the bottom mean you don’t? Wisdom can certainly help you acquire wealth, influence people, or succeed at your career, yet it involves more than knowledge alone. It’s also a matter of understanding God’s perspectives in applying what you know and having the character to act accordingly. That is why true wisdom—the kind that begins with fear of the Lord—frequently runs counter to what our culture values and applauds. This is the wisdom the book of Proverbs teaches.

Proverbs deals with the relationship between heaven and earth on a practical level that covers the broad swath of human activity. We could all use more wisdom in our lives; the book of Proverbs was designed to guide us into it. Proverbs is far from monolithic. It has multiple authors and employs diverse styles. But its goal remains simple: to equip us for living in a way that succeeds first and foremost in God’s eyes.

Exploring the links between the Bible and our own times, Paul Koptak shares perspectives on Proverbs that reveal ageless truths for our twenty-first-century lives.

About the NIVAC Series

The NIV Application Commentary Series is unique. Most Bible commentaries help us make the journey from our world back to the world of the Bible. They enable us to cross the barriers of time, language, and geography that separate us from the biblical world. Yet they only offer a one–way ticket to the past and assume that we can somehow make the return journey on our own. Once they have explained the original menaing of a book or passage, these commentaries give us little or no help in exploring its contemporary significance.

Recently, a few commentaries have included some contemporary application as one of their goals. Yet that application is often sketchy or moralistic, and some volumes sound more like printed sermons than commentaries.

The primary goal of the NIV Application Commentary Series is to help you with the difficult but vital task of bringing an ancient message into a modern context. The series not only focuses on application as a finished product but also helps you think through the process of moving from the original meaning of a passage to its contemporary significance. These are commentaries, not popular expositions. They are works of reference, not devotional literature.

The format of the series is designed to achieve the goals of the series. Each passage is treated in three sections: Original Meaning, Bridging Contexts, and Contemporary Significance.