I just finished reading another excellent post on redemptive historical hermeneutics by my friend Nathan Pitchford. He has written an excellent article dealing with the interpretation of the book of Proverbs for Reformation Theology Blog. In the post, he argues for the personified Wisdom being seen as redemptive Wisdom and pointing to Christ Himself, while the “strange woman” represents the world system opposing Christ later known as the whore and Babylon of Revelation besides merely the actual enticement of any prostitute or adulteress. He also argues against a moralistic view of the Proverbs, rather encoraging us to view all of the proverbs in the light of the gospel of Christ. Let me provide his first paragraph here, and then encourage you all to go read the article, here.
“The two outstanding characteristics of the Proverbs with which I associate my childhood, neither legitimate but both having a pervasive influence in my surrounding circles, are fragmentation and moralism. The former of which gave rise to the latter: as long as the individual proverbs were seen as disconnected and de-contextualized, that is, as long as they were seen as a series of random thoughts, it was easy to make such character qualities as honesty, industry, and diligence the foundation and fountainhead of the Christian life. When will God be pleased with me? When I am honest and industrious. How do I encounter God’s blessings? By being honest and industrious. And so the reasoning ran. The more foundational question, “How can I, a depraved sinner, hope to become honest and industrious?” , if acknowledged at all, was glibly passed off with an exhortation to try harder. I found all of this exceedingly confusing, as it appeared to contradict everything that was said when one was speaking of the gospel — but considering it a necessary and appropriate shift when dealing with a corpus of “practical” material, I managed by compartmentalizing my conception of Christianity to muddle along without serious reservations, albeit equally without any precision of thought concerning justification, sanctification, and the relationship between the two.”[Read the entire article!]