“JUST SAYINGS”

(Proverbs)
This is lesson is part of the “What’s in the Bible?” series, starting with “Memories & Stories” on Genesis

For The Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta

By Sally Ulrey

Theme verse: Proverbs 4:6-7

“Do not forsake wisdom, and she will protect you; love her, and she will watch over you. Wisdom is supreme;
therefore get understanding. Esteem her, and she will exalt you; embrace her, and she will honor you.”

Objective:
 To understand the book of Proverbs as simple observations (just sayings…) about life
that lead to deeper wisdom and understanding
 To learn a little bit about what’s in the book of Proverbs and the structure of Proverbs
 To practice gaining deeper understanding from everyday life situations
The Set up: Minimal
The Plan:
 Hook: Comedic Observations (10-15 mins)
o Optional addition: use AV Equipment with internet access to show a clip (add 5 mins)
o Using quotes from comedians, we’ll compare Proverbs to simple observations about life that
often lead us to a deeper meaning
 Book: Structure of Proverbs (15 mins)
o Learn a bit about how Proverbs are structured and what’s in Proverbs
 Look: Learning from Life (15 mins)
o Practice viewing everyday situations with an eye for gaining wisdom
 Took: Proverbs Project (5-10 mins)
o Practice writing some of our own (comedic?) observations and share
o Keep a log of some of the things that happen this week that you can use to point you to God
The Supplies:
 Copy of lesson
 Print outs of “Learning from Life” Group Scenarios Pages
 Copies of “Proverbs Project” page for each individual
 Optional: AV Equipment with Internet Access (to show Comedian Clip)
 Flip Chart & Marker
 Paper and pens/pencils
The Preparation:
 Print and copy everything
 Optional: Cue up Comedian Clip
 Read the Scripture and get very familiar with the mini-lecture
 Be prepared to share a story of a personal example of an everyday life situation that pointed you to learn
something about God (see example in the “Look” section)

“Just Sayings” (Proverbs)

by Sally Ulrey for the Diocese of Atlanta
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ABOUT THE LESSON: A major point of the books of Proverbs is that through observing life, we can gain
wisdom and deeper understanding, by allowing everyday situations to point us to God. We will start with
comedians, whose simple observations about life are often humorous, and compare that to Proverbs, many of
which are also sometimes funny. Then we’ll learn a little bit about the parallel structure of Proverbs that can
help us understand them better. Finally, we’ll practice finding wisdom through our observations on common
life situations, and practice letting those things point us to God. The bottom line of the book of Proverbs is
that, if we are intentional about looking, wisdom can be found in the everyday situations all around us, and
finding wisdom is something that is worth doing.

Comedic Observations (Hook, 10 mins)

For the opening of the lesson, you’ll have the students listen to some quotes from comedians who are just
making humorous observations about life (because Proverbs is really all about making observations about
life…and sometimes they are humorous).
 Optional Addition Beforehand (add 5 mins): Show a clip of comedian Brian Regan making observations
about life, specifically about eating Pop-Tarts…
Cue this link: https://youtu.be/l8kThoZpF_U?t=9s
 Steven Wright Quotes1—These are awesome because they are so short, just like each Proverb, and it
makes a good transition to the book of Proverbs. Read several of the following:
o All those who believe in psychokinesis raise my hand.
o The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
o I almost had a psychic girlfriend but she left me before we met.
o OK, so what's the speed of dark?
o How do you tell when you're out of invisible ink?
o Support bacteria - they're the only culture some people have.
o When everything is coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.
o Shin: a device for finding furniture in the dark.
o If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?
o Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
o What happens if you get scared half to death twice?
o Why do psychics have to ask you for your name?
o If at first you don't succeed, then skydiving definitely isn't for you.
o A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.
o Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.
o For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism.
o The severity of the itch is proportional to the reach.
o To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research.
o Monday is an awful way to spend 1/7th of your life.
o The sooner you fall behind, the more time you'll have to catch up
o A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.
o Change is inevitable....except from vending machines.
o A fool and his money are soon partying.
o Plan to be spontaneous tomorrow.
o If you think nobody cares about you, try missing a couple of payments.
o Bills travel through the mail at twice the speed of checks.
o Borrow money from pessimists-they don't expect it back.
o 99 percent of lawyers give the rest a bad name.
o 42.7 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot.

1
http://www.azquotes.com/author/15977-Steven_Wright
“Just Sayings” (Proverbs)
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Transition: Comedians often use simple observations about life to relay a deeper (funnier/ironic) meaning.
The book of Proverbs does that as well…it uses short, simple observations about everyday life situations to
delve a little deeper (and sometimes they are also funny), and gain wisdom and understanding. Let’s take a
look.

“Just Sayings” (Proverbs)

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Overview of Proverbs (Book, 10 mins)
In this section, we’ll have the students briefly look over some of Proverbs, and learn a little about the parallel
structure of Proverbs, and how that can help us understand them.

 LEADER TIP: You will want to look over the Scripture, and Mini-Lecture, below in advance to be familiar
with what all is in Proverbs. You will probably want to use the flip-chart to write examples of parallel
structure

Mini-Lecture (5 mins)

Proverbs were Multi-Level Observations about Life

 Level 1: Obvious. Very obvious, true statements about life
 Level 2: Deep. When you apply the truth learned on a deeper level, it could help point you to God, learn
wisdom vs. folly in other situations in life, learn principles for living well or doing the right thing
o Example: A wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands, a foolish ones tears hers down.
 Level 1: Obvious: You are wise if you literally build your house and not tear it down. Duh.
 Level 2: Deeper: What are the ways you might be sabotaging yourself or tearing yourself
down?
Characteristics
 Two-liners: Mostly, each individual Proverb consists of 2 lines
 Parallel Structure (words on top line correspond to words on the bottom line)
o “But” statements (13:12)
 Hope deferred makes the heart sick
BUT A longing fulfilled is a tree of life

o “And” statements (14:13)

 Even in laughter the heart may ache
AND joy may end in grief

o Comparison statements (10:26 & 26:11)

 As vinegar to the teeth and smoke to the eyes,
so is a sluggard to those who send him
 As a dog returns to its vomit,
so a fool repeats his folly
 Parallel structure helps us understand something better because of the words or ideas being
compared. For example, if you didn’t realize “makes the heart sick” refers to depression, then using
the parallel structure, you would see its opposite is “tree of life”. So whatever “makes the heart sick”
means, it’s the opposite of “life-giving”. The parallel structure helps us understand the ideas better,
since we have context to compare it to. Another example, vinegar in your mouth is horrible, and
smoke in your eyes is super annoying…that’s what it’s like when a lazy person is doing something for
you…. It’s just the worst! So learning from that wisdom, understand that when people give you a job,
empathize with how it might feel for them to wait on you, and don’t cause them pain because you
don’t want to do it!

“Just Sayings” (Proverbs)

by Sally Ulrey for the Diocese of Atlanta
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Small Group Work (10 mins)
 Put the students in pairs. Starting at chapter 10, assign a chapter to each pair of students.
 Instruct them to find one “and” statement, one “but” statement, and one comparison statement.
 Instruct them to note any Proverbs that stuck out to them…ones that were interesting, or humorous,
or even ones that might be confusing.
 Give them about 7 mins to work, and then 3 mins to briefly have them report any observations.

Transition:
The Proverbs made observations about everyday life, and looked at them with an eye for going deeper and
finding a deeper meaning in order to gain wisdom. Why is it important to gain wisdom? Proverbs 4:6-7 says

“Do not forsake wisdom, and she will protect you; love her, and she will watch over you. Wisdom is supreme;
therefore get understanding. Esteem her, and she will exalt you; embrace her, and she will honor you.”

Gaining wisdom is extremely valuable for living life well. It’s better (and easier in the long run) with wisdom.
So now, we’re going to practice getting wisdom by looking for wisdom and deeper meaning in the everyday
situations in life, just like the writers of Proverbs did.

“Just Sayings” (Proverbs)

by Sally Ulrey for the Diocese of Atlanta
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Learning from Life (Look, 10-15 mins)
In this part, students will practice looking for a deeper meaning or understanding when looking at situations
from everyday life. They’ll be given scenarios, and they’ll be asked to show how that scenario teaches
something deeper or points to a principle about God.

 Put them in groups of 3-4 (you can do this by adding two pairs together from earlier)
 Explain that we can use everyday situations to help us understanding deeper meaning and point us to
God. We are going to practice looking for deeper wisdom in everyday places.
 Give 2 examples of what they’re about to do (5 mins)
Example 1: Give a personal example of a real life situation that struck you as an analogy or illustration
for a spiritual principle, or something that relates to God
(OR you can use this story, which actually happens to me all the time….)
o (Level 1: observation about life…an everyday situation)
Ever forget what you’re doing? You walk into a room, and you KNOW you were going there
for a reason, but you can’t remember what it was? Or worse yet, if you are drivers, do you
ever forget where you’re driving? My car automatically goes to Walmart. Like, if I’m not super
intentional to tell myself to turn the other way out of my neighborhood, my car will go to
Walmart. I’m safe; I’m obeying all the traffic laws, but I’m just going through the motions,
and on my current path, I will not get to where I’m going.
o (Level 2: deeper meaning that points us to something true about God)
And I realized we can do that in our faith, too. We can just go through the motions and forget
what we’re actually doing them for. And if we forget, we won’t get to where we’re going. We
can go to church and sit there and sing some songs, but if we’re not intentional about our
destination—getting closer to God—then we’ll forget what we’re doing and where we’re
going and we’ll end up at “Walmart”—the same place we ALWAYS go—and if we continue on
that path, we won’t get to go somewhere deeper or new in our faith. Just like anything,
getting where you want to go takes focus and intention. The same is true with our faith.
Example 2: Circle back to Brian Regan’s observations about Pop-Tarts
o (Level 1: Observation…summary of his ideas): if you keep the goal in mind of eating the pop-
tart, the steps of what to do seem obvious; also if you don’t have enough time to toast your
pop-tart, you might need to slow down…
o (Level 2: Dig Deeper…apply the principles learned to life/faith/God): When there are times
when we aren’t sure of the next step to take in life, remembering the goal may help give us
some ideas for what to do next; also, we may need gauges for when we are too busy in life and
need to slow down and enjoy life!

 Pass out the “Learning from Life” Group Scenario sheets.

 Instruct them to look at each everyday scenario with an eye for gaining deeper wisdom about God. Use
the scenario as an analogy to illustrate a spiritual principle about faith and God.
 Give them about 7 mins to work
 Have them share their stories and what they could learn from them with the group (3 mins)

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Note to Leaders on Small Group Work
o They are asked: How can this scenario illustrate a spiritual principle about God or faith?
o There are LOTS of ways they could use these stories to illustrate a principle about God/faith, but here are
some ideas in case everyone gets stuck. And leaders, you may come up with better ones!

Scenario 1: When you are running out of toothpaste, and there’s barely any left in the tube, but it feels like it
will take too much time and energy to find the new tube and get it out, so you spend 5 mins wrestling with the
tube to get every last molecule of toothpaste out….
 Responses might include a lesson about prioritizing and using energy well…it actually takes less energy
to just get a new tube than it does to fight the old one. Sometimes we do that with God…we get
distracted by the urgent task at hand (school, a test, etc) and forget the most important task
(relationship with God). There are lots of ways they could use this scenario!

Scenario #2: When you walk into a room you think you are supposed to be in (whether for class or an extra-
curricular activity, etc.), but it is clearly the wrong one, and you have an intense feeling of not knowing what is
going on.
 Responses might include a lesson about being prepared (“in season and out of season, so the Scripture
says), or something about realizing God knows stuff and trusting God even when we don’t know what
is going on, or something about having compassion for those who feel that way, because we’ve all felt
that way. Lots of possibilities.

Scenario #3: When you’re shopping in a store, and a child is fussing, not because he needs anything, but
because he wants something he’s not supposed to have, and his mom is ignoring him, so as not to reward that
behavior or add fuel to the fire, and you make the mistake of looking over and YOU MAKE EYE CONTACT with
him, and his crying levels up to a whole new range
 Responses might include how sometimes when you get involved in something that’s not your issue,
you can make it worse, and sometimes we need to stay in our lane, or about how sometimes we are
like the kid, and the mom is like God, and we feel ignored, but there’s the possibility it’s so we’ll learn
something, and instead of continuing to sit with God and work it out, we turn to others (and maybe
can be a tad dramatic about it, too).

Scenario #4: When you are running out of gas, but you’re in a hurry, trying really hard to be on time, and your
gas light comes on, but you will be LATE to something IMPORTANT if you stop to get gas….
 Responses might include something about being prepared is more work earlier on, but less stress later.
Or maybe there’s an analogy about God being like gas, and if we fail to spend time with God, we run
out when we need some fuel the most for something important.

Transitional Statement
The writers of the Proverbs did what we just did…they observed life, and they learned principles from it. They
applied those principles to help them get closer to God and live well. Now it’s your turn to practice that in
YOUR everyday life situations…and to look for God’s wisdom as you go through your life!

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Proverbs Project (Took, 5 mins)
For the take-home challenge, we’ll invite the students to write their own “Proverbs”…to make observations
about life, and record how those situations pointed them to God. It doesn’t have to be in the 2 line parallel
structure, but it could be. Give them a few minutes to write some of their own and share, and then send them
home with the sheet to do more observations!

 Pass out the “Proverbs Project” sheet.

 Give them 2 mins to practice writing a couple funny proverbs of their own
If they need examples to get them started, here are some from my group (which are literally true, but
also could have a deeper meaning)

o “He who farts in pew, sits alone” (…not being mindful of those around you has consequences…)
o “Don’t eat the yellow snow” (…being curious about the world and how it got that way can save
you some problems…)
o “An empty glass has more room to hold things than a full glass” (…changing your perspective to
anticipation for what’s to come can be helpful…)

 Give them 2 mins to share any they came up with

 Explain that this week, they’ll be making observations about real life situations, and thinking about
how those things can point them to God.
 Remind them that this kind of regular reflection and looking deeper will help us gain wisdom which is
super valuable!
 Clarify that they don’t actually have to put these into 2-line parallel structure “Proverbs” format (but
they can)…the main point is just to practice looking deeper for wisdom and allowing everyday
situations to point them to God.

Close in prayer, asking God to help show us wisdom in our everyday lives and to give us the perspective to
look deeper, and thanking God for the wisdom God has revealed to us in the Proverbs.

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Learning From Life Group 1
INSTRUCTIONS.
 We can use everyday situations to help us understanding deeper meaning and point us to God. We are
going to practice looking for deeper wisdom in everyday places.
 Look at the following everyday scenario with an eye for gaining deeper wisdom about God.
 Use the scenario as an analogy to illustrate a spiritual principle about faith and God.

Scenario #1
When you are running out of toothpaste, and there’s barely any left in the tube, but it feels
like it will take too much time and energy to find the new tube and get it out, so you spend 5
mins wrestling with the tube to get every last molecule of toothpaste out….

How can this scenario illustrate a spiritual truth or principle about God or faith?

“Just Sayings” (Proverbs)

by Sally Ulrey for the Diocese of Atlanta
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Learning From Life Group 2
INSTRUCTIONS.
 We can use everyday situations to help us understanding deeper meaning and point us to God. We are
going to practice looking for deeper wisdom in everyday places.
 Look at the following everyday scenario with an eye for gaining deeper wisdom about God.
 Use the scenario as an analogy to illustrate a spiritual principle about faith and God.

Scenario #2
When you walk into a room you think you are supposed to be in (whether for class or an extra-
curricular activity, etc.), but it is clearly the wrong one, and you have an intense feeling of not
knowing what is going on.

How can this scenario illustrate a spiritual truth or principle about God or faith?

“Just Sayings” (Proverbs)

by Sally Ulrey for the Diocese of Atlanta
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Learning From Life Group 3
INSTRUCTIONS.
 We can use everyday situations to help us understanding deeper meaning and point us to God. We are
going to practice looking for deeper wisdom in everyday places.
 Look at the following everyday scenario with an eye for gaining deeper wisdom about God.
 Use the scenario as an analogy to illustrate a spiritual principle about faith and God.

Scenario #3
When you’re shopping in a store, and a child is fussing, not because he needs anything, but
because he wants something he’s not supposed to have, and his mom is ignoring him, so as
not to reward that behavior or add fuel to the fire, and you make the mistake of looking over
and YOU MAKE EYE CONTACT with him, and his crying levels up to a whole new range

How can this scenario illustrate a spiritual truth or principle about God or faith?

“Just Sayings” (Proverbs)

by Sally Ulrey for the Diocese of Atlanta
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Learning From Life Group 4
INSTRUCTIONS.
 We can use everyday situations to help us understanding deeper meaning and point us to God. We are
going to practice looking for deeper wisdom in everyday places.
 Look at the following everyday scenario with an eye for gaining deeper wisdom about God.
 Use the scenario as an analogy to illustrate a spiritual principle about faith and God.

Scenario #4
When you are running out of gas, but you’re in a hurry, trying really hard to be on time, and
your gas light comes on, but you will be LATE to something IMPORTANT if you stop to get
gas….

How can this scenario illustrate a spiritual truth or principle about God or faith?

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Proverbs Project STUDENT HANDOUT pg 1
PART 1—Practice Proverbs:

Write some of your own Proverbs using observations about life, but that also have a deeper meaning. Share
some with the group.

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Proverbs Project STUDENT HANDOUT pg 2
PART 2—This Week’s Proverbs:

INSTRUCTIONS:
 This week, you’ll be making observations about real life situations, and thinking about how those
things can point you to God.
 You don’t actually have to put these into 2-line parallel structure “Proverbs” format (but you can)…the
main point is just to practice looking deeper for wisdom and allowing everyday situations to point you
to God.
 Use the “Level 1”/ “Level 2” format to think about it, if it helps you…

MONDAY
Level 1: Obvious Observation…what happened?

Level 2: Dig Deeper…what did you learn, how can this relate to God?

TUESDAY
Level 1: Obvious Observation…what happened?

Level 2: Dig Deeper…what did you learn, how can this relate to God?

WEDNESDAY
Level 1: Obvious Observation…what happened?

Level 2: Dig Deeper…what did you learn, how can this relate to God?

THURSDAY
Level 1: Obvious Observation…what happened?

Level 2: Dig Deeper…what did you learn, how can this relate to God?

FRIDAY
Level 1: Obvious Observation…what happened?

Level 2: Dig Deeper…what did you learn, how can this relate to God?

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 The “What’s in the Bible?” Series

Genesis “Memories and Stories” Nov 2017

Exodus “Near” Nov 2017
Leviticus “You Want me to do What Now?” & “Fellowship” May 2017
Numbers “Unfinished” Nov 2017
Deuteronomy “SuperHero Wanted” Nov 2017
Joshua “Never Give Up” Sep 2016
Judges “No Rules” Dec 2017
Ruth “Loyalty” Feb 2017
1&2 Samuel “Who’s on the Throne?” Dec 2017
1&2 Kings “Lights in the Darkness” Dec 2017
Ezra “Read the Book!” Jan 2018
Nehemiah “Build the Wall” Jan 2018
Esther “Courage” Apr 2017
Job “Bad Theology” Feb 2018
Psalms “On the Couch” Feb 2018
Proverbs “Just Sayings” Feb 2018

“Just Sayings” (Proverbs)

by Sally Ulrey for the Diocese of Atlanta
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