Episode 140: Biblical Genres, Part 3: Wisdom Literature

The thing is... life is messy.  Sometimes it fits nicely into predictable patterns, like "Work hard in summer, and you'll have enough to live on come winter," or "Don't get too big for your britches and puffed up with pride, or somewhere along the way it could blow up in your face."  In times like those, we can use the collected conventional wisdom to learn the lessons of those who have gone before us.  The biblical book of Proverbs is great for giving those pithy, memorable generalizations for how life often works.  It's almost like the ancient world's version of Twitter: short, sweet, and able to get one major point across.  But on the other hand, someties life doesn't fit those cookie cutter patterns, and we are left wondering, "What are we supposed to make of this?"  What about when you chase after wealth or success or power or fame or sex or knowledge... and it still turns out that life feels empty?  Or what about when you do everything right and still suffer a terrible loss--where is God then, and how do we keep putting one foot in front of the other each day?  The library of voices we call the Bible also has books that speak to this side of life, too.  We find the more nuanced, complex conversation about life when things don't fit the cookie cutter pattern in books like Ecclesiastes and Job.  And we get a really curious entry in the entirely non-religious and surprisigly intimate romance poetry of the book of Song of Songs.  As pastors Sarah, Erica, and Steve continue looking at different biblical genres, join us for today's conversation about the multiple voices we get of wisdom, and of how to live the "good life" both when things are clear and simple and when they are messy and complicated.