Wise Nurture: The Writings

Reading: Ps 111.

Psalms
The Psalter is Israel's hymnal, training its prayer and worship.

Worship constructs relationships of adoration of the true God, contrasting with the folly of idolatry.
Psalms train worshippers in faith, hope, and love in both good and bad circumstances.

Israel's priests were entrusted with the offices of teaching and worship.

Wisdom Literature
Wisdom literature (Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Wisdom, Sirach, Song of Songs, etc.) is Israel's coach, training its judgment.

Israel's sages embodied and passed along their wisdom.
The collection honors life's structure, intensity, complexity, and unpredictability.
It constructs relationships of sonship (inheritance), contrasting with various forms of folly.

Job radically links worship and wisdom, even under absurd suffering.
Apocalyptic (e.g., Daniel) links idolatry and immorality as primary offenses, intolerable and futile.

Life and Death Consequences
These genres often tend to reduce humanity to two extreme types, but they draw different distinctions:

In the book of ...	Proverbs	Psalms	Ecclesiastes	Job	Daniel	Song of Songs
life's end (telos) is ...	wisdom	worship	vanity*	suffering*	justice	love*
:) the good life consists of ...	righteousness	hope	contentment, respect	faithfulness	perseverance	unity
:/ trial consists of ...	temptation	pressure	observation	affliction	persecution	distance
:( the bad life consists of ...	wickedness	resignation	heedlessness	complacency	idolatry, apostasy	indifference

(*See Peter Kreeft, Three Philosophies of Life.)

Living the good life brings blessing and prosperity on the one type and their families/neighbors/city/nation;

living the bad life brings ruin and death;
life's trials can move people in one direction or the other.
So Israel's future depends on cultivating them in traditions and persons.
Problems: Does anyone measure up? Will all this nurture save Israel, or just a few exemplars?

Unlike the Torah's narrative context in which rules etc. are embedded, here stories are embedded in its deeper schema,

(cf. parables in Jesus' teaching).
Then should biblical theology look beyond a narrative framework to something like principles or eternal truths?

Jesus Christ: The Good Life Personified
In every case, Jesus fulfills the 'moral' and even the shape of the literature.

Jesus takes on the Psalms' priestly and royal relationships as both worshipper and worshipped one of Israel.
Jesus is God's primordial wisdom (Prov 8 in John 1:1-18), contrasting with human 'wisdom' (1 Cor 1:18-31).
Jesus is the only wise heir of all that the Father has (John 16:15).
Jesus is the Son of Man coming to judge (Dan 7:13 in Mark 14:61-62).

So in keeping this literature, Jesus' disciples are trained in christlikeness.