A proverb is a truth encapsulated in a succinct way. As such it is portable. You may not readily remember great passages of Scripture, but you can always pack a few proverbs in your emergency kit to be used at a moment’s notice.
Almost all of the proverbs that are quoted in the New Testament are taken from the Septuagint, a few phrases excepted. Let’s have a look at the way these truisms are utilized.
Romans 3:15-17 quotes Proverbs 1:16. Paul calls up a courtroom full of witnesses for the prosecution, most from the Psalms (14:1-3; 53:1-3; 5:9; 140:3; 10:7; and 36:1 in that order). The proverbs quoted in verses 15-17 are also found in slightly different words in Isaiah 59:7-8. We may use these verses with our acquaintances, to remind them of the diagnosis the Scriptures give of the human dilemma. The cross exposes it. History declares it. The conscience convicts of it. And Scripture says it, so all may realize their guilt and flee to Christ (Rom. 3:19-22).
Proverbs 1:16 sounds amazingly like world conditions as portrayed on the evening news. But as Paul applies it in Romans 3, he gives also the reason–“There is no fear of God before their eyes”–and in subsequent verses describes God’s glorious solution through “the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (v. 24).
Paul quotes Proverbs again in Romans 12:20, this time from 25:21-22. By this usage, he reminds us that grace is not only a New Testament idea. The God of the Old Testament revealed Himself as “a gracious God” (Jonah 4:2; see also Joel 2:13). And the proverb quoted, “If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink,” was given practical expression by those who knew this gracious God. Boaz did it with Ruth, a Moabite, whose ancestors had refused bread and water to his forefathers (see Deut. 23:3-4). Elisha did it for the Syrian soldiers who had actually come to kill him (2 Ki. 6:21-22)! David did it with Saul’s household (2 Sam. 9:1-7) for Jonathan’s sake. Of course, God does it every time sinners are saved, providing them with Christ, the Bread of heaven (Jn. 6:32).
Both James (4:6) and Peter (1 Pet. 5:5) find it helpful to remind us of the words of Proverbs 3:34, “Surely He scorneth the scorners: but He giveth grace to the lowly.” The words may have been Solomon’s paraphrase of his father’s words in Psalm 138:6, “Though the Lord be on high, yet He hath respect unto the lowly: but the proud He knoweth afar off.” Both NT quotes are from the Septuagint: “God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble.” Obviously this is a sweeping principle of cosmic proportions. It is seen in its greatest measure in the manifestation of the Christ and of the antichrist. When “God was manifest in flesh” (1 Tim. 3:16), it involved a humbling unparalleled in history (see Phil. 2). But proud man repeatedly vaunts himself throughout time until at last he “opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or worshiped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God” (2 Thess. 2:4). As A. J. Gordon wrote: “The mystery of godliness is God humbling Himself to become man; the mystery of iniquity is man exalting himself to become God.”
Peter quotes the Proverbs more liberally than any other New Testament writer. As well as the citation already mentioned, he quotes Proverbs 10:12 (1 Pet. 4:8), Proverbs 11:31 (1 Pet. 4:18), and Proverbs 26:11 (2 Pet. 2:22). The first speaks of the mantle of love that covers sin, the second alludes to the suffering in life that judges sin in the house of God, and the third describes the evil nature that enslaves to sin, manifesting the unregenerate in their hopeless condition without God.
The last direct quote from Proverbs (3:11-12) is found in Hebrews 12:5-6. One of many “my son” statements from Solomon’s pen, this one alone is selected to be reinforced by repetition (vv. 5-6), explanation (vv. 7-8), and application (vv. 9-13). Its message? There is a direct link between love and chastening, between sonship and suffering. Like may proverbs, it is worth its weight in gold.