Where Knowledge Begins
Proverbs opens with a claim about the starting line, and everything after depends on it.
Proverbs 1:7NIV
Proverbs 1:7. The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction. That is the verse the whole book hangs on, and it is placed at the front so that nothing later can be read without it.
Notice the word beginning. Not the summary, not the conclusion, but the first step. Solomon is saying that you cannot get to real knowledge by any other door. You can gather facts without reverence, and people do, but you will not know what the facts are for. Fear here is not dread of a tyrant. It is the settled awareness that God is God, that he sees, that he is good, and that he will not be managed.
Today, before you decide anything, you might ask a simple question: does this choice take God seriously? That question is the beginning of knowledge, and a week in Proverbs will keep returning to it.
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