Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 70:2 (Fall 2008)
Article: BIBLICAL STUDIES Righteousness In Proverbs
Author: Bruce K. Waltke

WTJ 70:2 (Fall 2008) p. 225

BIBLICAL STUDIES
Righteousness In Proverbs

Bruce K. Waltke

Bruce K. Waltke is Professor of Old Testament at Reformed Seminary, Orlando, Fla. This is a revised version of the first annual Richard B. Gaffin Lecture Series on Theology, Culture, and Missions, delivered at Westminster Seminary, March 5, 2008.

Thank you, Dr. Lillback, Dr. Edgar, and members of the Gospel and Culture Project, for inviting me to deliver the inaugural “endowed lecture on Biblical and Systematic Theology and their impact on culture in the global context of Christianity.” This opportunity is a special privilege because the lectureship honors Professor Richard Gaffin. It is proper and good that we honor those whom God has honored.

Since I have written recently a commentary on the book of Proverbs, perhaps I can be most helpful by restricting my topic to the potential impact of Proverbs on culture. The key word in this connection is the book’s term “righteousness.” The title of this lecture is “Righteousness in Proverbs.”

T. S. Eliot asked: “Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?”1 In Eliot’s worldview, wisdom implies an endeavor to inter-relate differing levels of reality. His worldview is counter-cultural, for Western culture is technological—that it is to say, it endeavors by the process of analysis to obtain knowledge and information about the constituent parts of different levels of reality. This process of analyzing, argues Eliot, is destructive to wisdom. In contrast to the process of analysis, he contends that synthesis works in the opposite direction. In contrast to our technological society’s aim to analyze the different levels of reality, wisdom seeks to inter-relate them. Our technological culture hopes by scientific knowledge to control the different levels of reality and so achieve salvation. By contrast, says Eliot, wisdom by the process of synthesis builds up a bigger picture to be admired. The consequences of seeking to control by analysis instead of integrating the levels of reality have been catastrophic, as our environmental crisis demonstrates. Wisdom can be described by the color “green,” as environmentalists use this metaphorical color.

Wisdom in Proverbs and its correlative term “righteousness” is all about being rightly related to God, to other human beings, to all creatures, and to the environment. The wisdom and knowledge that our technological culture has

WTJ 70:2 (Fall 2008) p. 226

lost and that T. S. Eliot was looking for is found in the book of Proverbs. In this lecture I hope to contribute to coloring our culture gr...