TODAY IN THE WORD
Imagine finding a beautiful, gold-embossed envelope in your mail. Upon opening it, you learn that you’ve been invited to a prestigious dinner at the White House along with leaders from around the world. You begin to imagine the beautifully set tables with fine linen and fresh flowers and wonder what culinary specialties you’ll be enjoying. It’s an honor of a lifetime!

Proverbs 9 concludes the introduction to the book of Proverbs. We see again the emphasis that wisdom leads to life and foolishness leads to death. This chapter urges a decision–it presents two banquet invitations and asks us to consider which one we’ll accept.

We begin with something like an invitation to the Ritz (vv. 1-6). Not surprisingly, the gracious hostess is Wisdom, who has built a house for this banquet. Nothing is overlooked, from expensive meat to carefully prepared wine. She sends her own servants personally to deliver her invitations. Her honored guests are those who lack judgment, the very ones who need wisdom. The only condition for accepting this invitation is to leave foolish ways behind.

Next we receive an invitation for dinner at the equivalent of a garbage dump (vv. 13-18). Our deceptive hostess has a loud mouth and knows no shame. Nothing is said about Folly building her house. Folly hangs out in her doorway, calling out. This reminds us of a prostitute who seeks to lure passersby from the straight path. In verse 16 she utters the exact same invitation as Wisdom in verse 4. This cautions us that lies can initially sound like the truth. Notice also that Folly has even stolen the meal that she offers! Wisdom works hard to prepare for her guests, but Folly is lazy. What’s worse, Folly’s place isn’t really a house–it’s a morgue. Her guests end up dead.

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TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Today’s passage shows us that both wisdom and foolishness call out to us. As we compare what each offers, we might wonder who would ever reject wisdom’s invitation.

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