Why must we seek wisdom at every stage of life?
Text: Proverbs 9
Hosts:
Tim DeFor
Vicki Hitzges
Nathan Norman
Narrator: Brian French
The CrossTalk Podcast is a production of CrossTalk Global, equipping biblical communicators, so every culture hears God’s voice. To find out more, or to support the work of this ministry please visit www.crosstalkglobal.org
Produced by Nathan James Norman/Untold Podcast Production
© 2026 CrossTalk Global
Brian: An elderly woman receives a phone call from her grandson. He's been arrested in a far off country and needs money to get out. She doesn't remember hearing that he was traveling and his voice sounds different. But he begs for help. The conditions are terrible. It's almost torture. And all he wants is to come home. All she needs to do is send $3,000 in gift cards and he'll be free. Elder fraud is tragically on the rise. The FBI reports that from 2020 to 2024, elder fraud has skyrocketed from $600 million to $2.4 billion. But it's not just the elderly who are susceptible to fraud. There are vulnerable people in every stage of life. But Solomon is more concerned about something even worse than fraud. What is this terrible trap? And how can we become invulnerable to its call? Stay tuned to find out. Today while Dr. Kent is away teaching with CrossTalk, join Vicki Hitzges, Nathan Norman and guest host Tim DeFore as they discover the two voices calling for our attention in Proverbs chapter 9. Welcome to CrossTalk, a Christian podcast whose goal is for us to encourage each other to not only increase our knowledge of the Bible, but to take the next step beyond information into transformation. Our goal is to bring the Bible to life, into all our lives. I'm Brian French. Today, Vicki Hitzges, Nathan Norman and Tim DeFore continue our journey through Proverbs. If you have a Bible handy, turn to Proverbs chapter 9 as we join their discussion.
Nathan: Welcome to the show. Tim, share a little bit about yourself and how you became involved in CrossTalk Global in the first place.
Tim: Well, thank you, Norman. Well, I like to say I'm a husband of one and I got the better end of the deal. Father of four wonderful adult children and a grandfather of one. Oh, yeah, it's wonderful being a grandfather and a father at this stage. I've been a pastor and a preacher for over 30 years now with a variety of experience. Currently I'm serving with First Christian Church in Norfolk, Nebraska. It's part of northeast Nebraska and I've been there for over 20 years. Crosstalk Global, I got introduced to it by Dr. Kent Edwards. He was my major professor when I was working on an advanced ministry degree at Talbot. At Biola, he introduced big idea preaching and crosstalk Global was in its early stages of development. After a couple of years, Dr. Edwards reached out to me to see if I'd be interested in being a part of crosstalk Internationally. It didn't work out for me to go internationally but when crosstalk was considering a stateside cohort, it was great because it's just in my neighboring state of Kansas, and there's a wonderful gentleman there by the name of Larry Kerr who invited and encouraged me to taste of crosstalk in Salina, Kansas. I was hooked. I've been entering a phase where investing in others is increasingly important to me. And since then, I've been with CrossTalk for four years, first of all, learning for three years, and now partnering along with others as an instructor in Kansas. It's been a huge blessing to my congregation and to me and with confidence in preaching the word of God.
Nathan: Excellent.
Vicki: You work with a pastor named Larry Kerr?
Tim: Well, he's not a. Yeah, Isn't that a great name?
Vicki: Yeah, that's a perfect name for a pastor. Larry Care.
Tim: Well, he's not officially on staff anywhere, but he is one of the most encouraging men. He's from Salina. He's been active at making crosstalk happen. His last name isn't spelled C A R E, but that definitely C A R E reflects his heart. What a wonderful guy.
Nathan: Amen. Amen. Yeah. I love how you said, I am currently serving at this church. Right. And you've been there for what, 20, 20 years?
Tim: You said it'll be 24 years coming up in a couple months.
Nathan: Yeah, yeah. And Kent had reached out to Tim. Tim and I met, I don't know, a number of years ago. And Tim had been reached out to by Kent, and he wanted him to come join our group that was going to Vietnam at the time. And then Kent said, hey, Nathan, I need you to talk to this guy, Tim DeFore, and do whatever you have to do to convince him to come to Viet. I don't care what the cost is. Now, Kent didn't say it that way, but he's Canadian, so it came. You know, it was much more polite, but the impulse was behind that. Right. He says, oh, hey, see if you can convince him to come. So I did a poor job. Tim told me, no.
Tim: Well, I haven't heard that side of the story, but that is definitely encouraging to think that he would have wanted me to be a part of it. So I appreciate that greatly.
Nathan: No, it's great that you've circled back and are getting involved, because I knew in the time that we talked all those years ago that you would have been a wonderful blessing to the organization and to those that you minister to. So.
Tim: Well, thank you.
Nathan: Really encouraged.
Tim: Yeah.
Nathan: And thank you for being here with us.
Tim: Absolutely.
Nathan: All right, so we're jumping into A proverb. We're going to actually look at the entire chapter of a proverb. Proverbs 9. And before we jump into that, though, Vicki and Tim, what are people most vulnerable to be taken advantage of? Well, what, what stage of life?
Vicki: Oh, gosh, there's all kinds of stages in life when people are weak, when they're children.
Nathan: Yeah.
Vicki: They say kids brains aren't fully formed until they're what, 16, something like that.
Tim: AD 25.
Nathan: I think they're saying 25 now. They're trying to. Yeah, they're trying to infantize us forever. Yeah.
Vicki: And. And then, and then senior citizens, the elderly, people with disabilities, I think about people who just don't have any money and how easy it is for others to take advantage of them. I have a friend on Facebook today and he, he wrote and said he didn't sleep last night. He'd done a whole lot of work for somebody. And then that person did not pay him. And he said, I don't know if I'm going to be able to pay my rent this month and I may have to work out. And he said, I'm angry, I'm frustrated and I'm scared.
Nathan: Oh, yeah, yeah. That's hard. Tim, have you ever seen people taken advantage of?
Tim: Oh, yes. Yeah. You know, there are friends that, in quotes, friends who draw close to people and they are constant takers. I think people who are lonely and are looking for a relationship are too eager to look past some of the dangers. You mentioned elderly. Definitely the scams that, that we. There's people in our church who have been advantage of for thousands of dollars. There are people in our community that are transitional and it could be because they are immigrants, because they're escaping something or, or getting close to family.
Vicki: Such a heart for immigrants that are escaping. They're not bad people. They're escaping and then they, they, you know, who knows, I may get shipped back to who knows? Oh, I hurt for them.
Tim: And it's hard for them too, even if they have everything in order and, but if they're looking for a job or a place to rent and they're not good at the language and it might not be somebody is trying to do something bad to them, but it's not easy for them to coordinate and cooperate. And so then they're more vulnerable because they have to take what they can get. I mean, there's so many things, I think of colleges and credit card signups.
Nathan: Oh, yeah, good. Good example. Bad example. Yeah, yeah, bad example.
Tim: There's home buyers. If, if the sell Unscrupulous, they might hide problems until too late. I mean, there's all these different ways that people in major transition stages can be taken advantage of.
Nathan: Yeah, it really does seem like there is a vulnerability we have at almost every stage of life, or at least the possibility of vulnerability. And as we turn to Proverbs 9, Solomon talks about that. So he's already in the book. He's already begged the reader to listen to wisdom and to heed wisdom, to grab onto wisdom and never let go. But in this particular chapter, he directs his instruction to a particular type of person that we might call vulnerable today. Vicki, you want to read verses 1 through 6 of Proverbs 9.
Vicki: Sure. It says, wisdom has built her house. She has hewn her seven pillars. She has slaughtered her beast. She has mixed her wine. She has also set her table. She has sent out her young women to call from the highest places in town. Whoever is simple, let him turn in here to him who lacks sense, she says, come eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. Leave your simple ways and live and walk in the way of insight.
Nathan: Okay, so in Crosstalk Global, we talk about working hard to be simple when we're communicating a big idea. But here in this Hebrew context, that's not what simple means. Simple. In some of your translations, if you're reading this along at home, it's going to translate it foolish. But the main thrust of this word is someone who is naive. And they are simple because in their hearts, they have no direction, right? So they are vulnerable to making bad decision. He's addressing. Solomon is addressing people who are vulnerable to bad choices. And that can be at almost every stage of life to them. Wisdom personified as a lady sends out invitations to her gathering place. And it's a nice gathering place. You know, she's got pillars and they've slaughtered the beasts. So you got fresh meat, you've got wine, that. That's ready to go. And it sounds pretty good. She invites the vulnerable to come to her dinner party. To those who have no direction, to those who could possibly make bad choices, she says, come to my dinner party. She offers those who enter into an ongoing relationship with her insight. We've talked a moment ago about the vulnerable, but let's be more specific. The term simple also carries with it the connotation of a person who is directionless. They have no clear calling or plan for life. So let's back up here a little bit. Vicki and Tim, what kind of people are directionless in the 21st century? So we kind of were a little abstract with vulnerable, but now even more so. What kind of people don't have any direction? They don't know what to go in life and what to do.
Vicki: Oh, golly. Didn't that just describe people in the 21st century? Yeah, I, I think of friends, really bright people, but they weren't raised in a Christian home and they weren't raised around wisdom. And they're quick to anger, they're quick to embrace what I consider bad policies. They don't know how to make good choices because they weren't raised around parents who taught them good values.
Nathan: Wow.
Tim: Wow.
Nathan: And so I'm assuming these friends are contemporary. We're not talking about like teenagers, we're not talking about 20, 30 something year olds. Right. We're talking about people who've lived life for a while.
Tim: Right.
Vicki: In my head, the ones I'm picturing, they're very bright, accomplished people, but they don't make good choices. As my dad would say, they don't make choice choices. And I think it's because they did not have wise parents. They did not have godly parents.
Tim: Okay, well, I like the idea of it being an ongoing relationship, that every stage you've got this, this, this time in your life where you've got to make a decision. And it could be people who have graduated from high school, they've started college, they don't know what degree they're going to get, they're uncertain because they've never been in that situation before. But it can even be somebody who is older. Like I think of my mother even when my dad passed, trying to figure out what do I do at this next stage of my life. She's very intelligent, but she's never had to navigate it alone. So all of a sudden she is naive about how to take the next step. So she's vulnerable because she doesn't know exactly what to do. So it could be young, it could be old. I think of people who have been through divorce, people in recovery from drug and alcohol. They're trying to start their life over. What they've done in the past didn't work, but they don't know what to do next. So every one of these throughout your whole life, you're trying to figure out how do I find direction for the next phase of life?
Nathan: Absolutely. One of our youth leaders is he now works with people who are about to be released from prison and how to make good choices outside. Because oftentimes we just as a society, you know, okay, you're done. Go Out. Okay, well, you've been in prison for 20 years. You don't know where to get a job. You don't know how to get a job. Right. You don't know what life is like out there anymore because you've acclimated to life on the inside. It's incredibly hard and difficult. And you're right. Every single stage, there are times where we can make bad choices. And Tim, you mentioned relationship Lady Wisdom. She is here and she is sending out invitations to have an ongoing relationship with herself to give people direction, to give them insight into their situation in life. But of course, Lady Wisdom, she doesn't say it's always going to be easy. She says it's going to be hard to follow the path of wisdom in every stage of life. Well, why is that? Vicki, you want to read verse seven?
Vicki: Yes. Whoever corrects a scoffer gets himself abuse. And he who reproves a wicked man incurs injury. Do not reprove a scoffer or he will hate you. Reprove a wise man and he will love you. Give instruction to a wise man and he will be wiser still. Teach a righteous man and he will increase in learning.
Nathan: Okay. I mean, there's no surprise here. Unwise people don't like wise people. But people who have accepted Lady Wisdom's friendship recognize each other and want to grow in their insight and goodness. So she's saying, hey, continue this relationship with herself and you will find like minded people. You'll find the scoffers. They want to pull you down. They don't want you to make wise choices because wise choices are often difficult and make them feel bad about themselves. But you will find people of like mind if you continue in this relationship. So then Lady Wisdom repeats what we've often heard as Christians. Verse 10.
Vicki: The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight. For by me your days will be multiplied and years will be added to your life. If you are wise, you are wise for yourself. If you scoff, you are. You alone will bear it.
Nathan: Okay. At the end of the day, Lady Wisdom says, whether you are wise or you scoff at God and Wisdom itself, to that point, you're an idiot. Ultimately, it's your choice. If you are wise, that's your choice. If you are an idiot, that's your choice too. If you're directionless, you're making a choice to that. So why must we always seek wisdom? Is it so we can always have direction? Well, no. According to Solomon, there's another woman out there. And unlike Lady Wisdom, she is not subtle. Right? Because look at Lady Wisdom. She sends her women out. She sends young women out to go give invitations to people around town. Hey, would you like to come and be wise? Would you like to come to the dinner party? Would you like to do this right? They're having a personal interaction. But this other woman, she's not subtle. Verse 13. We hear about the woman folly and. Tim, would you like. Tim, would you like to be the voice of the woman folly?
Tim: Sure, sure, I'll be. Foolish woman. The woman folly is loud. She is seductive and knows nothing. She sits at the door of her house. She takes a seat at the highest places of the town, calling to those who pass by who are going to stray on their way. Whoever is simple, let him turn in here.
Nathan: Okay, so the woman folly is loud. She doesn't send out invitations. She yells it from the rooftop. She doesn't invite people into a relationship. She seduces people without direction into her go nowhere way of life. This is not about a relationship. This is about a seduction. This is not about giving people direction. It is about keeping people directionless and gaining attention for herself. Where do we see this today? Where do we see people screaming for attention but offering nothing of substance in return?
Vicki: Well, this may be an exaggeration, but I think of Facebook.
Tim: Yeah. Social media for sure.
Vicki: It a lot on Facebook.
Nathan: Yeah, absolutely.
Tim: Live your best life. They're demonstrating all of the potential blessings, not communicating any of the downside. Saying there's a shortcut to everything. Yeah. And they're in your face.
Nathan: Yeah.
Vicki: And when I think of women screaming, I think of the TV show the View. Sure.
Nathan: For the record, Vicki said that. And neither Tim nor I
Vicki: don't blame you.
Nathan: Angry letters to Vicki.
Vicki: Yeah.
Tim: I think the loudness and the folly of. I'll say political voices, and I don't mean any one particular party, but the us versus them. The promises that if you listen to us, we will make everything good and perfect. And the other people are all enemies and they're terrible. I think news sources along with that, trying to drive fear and even encouraging that us versus them. And I heard over and over there's this. This overwhelm that comes from hearing all of it that people say, I don't even know who to listen to anymore. So it emphasizes that. Who do I trust? Who can I listen to? I don't know which way to go. The directionlessness of the loudness.
Nathan: I'll tell you, when I was in seminary, I had a long drive and so I Would listen to talk radio, political talk radio, and I try to listen to multiple sides. And at the end of it all, I realized I was like, so what? What can I do in response to this? And I would check my own spirit, and I would say, I am nervous, anxious, and angry, and there's absolutely nothing I could do about any of this. Right. And so I had to repent of that and turn a lot of it off because it was that loud voice saying, hey, listen to me. Oh, you got to listen. You got to listen. Oh, yeah. And I felt that, oh, yeah, I got to listen. Oh, I got this class. But, man, let me wait in the car a couple more minutes to get to this point. And it led to absolutely nowhere other than fear and anxiety.
Tim: Well, and that leans into even what was said about it's your own choices. And I feel like a lot of the voices are saying, who can I blame? Lame? And they're looking external and saying, it's kind of like you said. It stirs up this fear and anxiety and anger, and it's directed outward instead of stopping and saying, okay, what can I really do about it for myself? And so that's the folly side. Yeah.
Nathan: It's not enough that the woman folly turns people into couch potatoes. She gives them bad ideas, too. Tim, go ahead and read verse 17.
Tim: Stolen water is sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.
Nathan: Right. So she's not only saying, hey, be a couch potato and do nothing and have no direction in your life. She's like, hey, and don't work for the things that you have. In an ancient near east context, Go steal from the well that's not yours, or try and take over that well. Go and steal the bread that you didn't have access to. Go ahead, you know, steal it from your neighbor. Steal it from that stall. It'll taste better. You didn't have to make it. You didn't have to labor for it. Back it up here a little bit. Why would people choose the woman folly over lady wisdom?
Vicki: No, we all do sometimes. Folly. Folly is seductive. We. We want to be selfish. We want to do things our own way. We want to do the easy thing. Folly is seductive.
Tim: I think it's the. The shortcut, the easy path, the I don't want to work for it, the excuses that I deserve it, and if somebody else has it, then they've gotten it. Ill gotten leave. So I'm not really hurting. They're hurting somebody else in the thrill of getting away with something or sticking it to the man or whatever. I Think there's always these different. Absolutely. Rationalizations.
Nathan: Absolutely.
Brian: Yeah.
Vicki: If you saw two signs, the easy way, the hard way, you gotta look at the easy way.
Nathan: Doing the right thing is rarely the easy thing.
Tim: Right. Yeah.
Nathan: One of my favorite comedians, his name is Kevin Murphy, he wrote a book years ago where he would watch a movie in a different theater every day for a year. So he saw a new movie every day for a year and he wrote about his whole experience. And in one chapter he talks about smuggling food into the theater. And he kept getting more and more until at one point he actually smuggled an entire Thanksgiving meal into the theater and started feeding the patrons. But he has this quote which always stuck with me. I mean, this book is like, I don't know, 25, 30 years old, but it's always stuck with me. He says movie theaters purposely post several signs forbidding outside food. But your own smuggled food is always better hand picked and enhanced by the flavor of defiance.
Vicki: The flavor of defiance.
Nathan: Flavor of defiance. And I think about that when go to the movie theater. Right? But that's, that's what the woman Folly is offering to people and why they listen. But in the end, the one who listens to folly over Wisdom is in trouble. Why? Verse 18, Tim finishes out here, but
Tim: he does not know that the dead are there, that her guests are in the depths of Sheol.
Nathan: Right. So Solomon here, he's not saying you're going to die immediately if you are directionless and you choose foolish things. But what he is saying is that those foolish choices are going to be surrounded by the things of Sheol. It's kind of in New Testament understanding we are saying that is an expression of hell. We'll sometimes say hell on earth. And yes, Satan does make his presence aware on the earth through various horrible things. And a lot of us have gone through things where you could say, yeah, that is a manifestation of hell on earth. This is an image of what hell is because I'm suffering so bad. And Solomon is saying if you listen to foolishness over wisdom, you will experience death while you're still alive. So his point is we must always seek wisdom so we aren't ruined by foolish decisions. We are vulnerable at every stage of life to make bad choices. The woman Folly screams for our attention at every stage of life. And Solomon says the only way to ignore her is to enter into an ongoing relationship with Lady Wisdom. This isn't a fling, which is what Folly wants us to have. This isn't a one time date that you go out to. You didn't show up to the dinner party once and get a degree and you say, now I'm wise. This is an ongoing relationship. You show up every Tuesday for a meal and you have conversation and there's other people around you that you can bounce ideas off of. Solomon says you need to have a life long practice of building a relationship with wisdom, otherwise you're going to fall for folly and be surrounded by death. So Vicki and Tim, I know this goes beyond the scope of the text today, but you know, you're both seasoned Christians, you're both mature believers. How can we be people who regularly seek wisdom? What are strategies you'd suggest for people who want to grow in wisdom on a regular basis in every stage of life?
Vicki: Well, I can think of two practical things. My, I call him my uncle Bruce. Bruce Walke, brilliant theologian. When he was a young man he, he loved to study the Psalms and the proverbs. And there's one, I think it's Psalms 90, teaches to number our days. And he literally numbered his days. I think it was Moses that said, we, I'm going to butcher this, but we're going to live three score years and 10 if we have the strength. So he figured he's going to live to be, say 80 years old. And he literally numbered how many days he had left. I'm not a mathematician, I'm making up a number. Let's say it was 65,000 days. I'm totally making up that number. So, so he, he put on his calendar, he had a big desk calendar. He figured he had 65,000 days and then 59, 599, 598, 597 every day. He knew how many days he had left so that he would be aware that his time was running out. And it made him live with purpose. My aunt Elaine, his wife, thought that was just creepy. She wanted nothing to do with it. But, but it made him live in light of the fact that he was running out of time. And I can tell you now that I'm an adult and I'm getting close to running out of time. Boy, I think about that. I witness to people often now because I realize that little ditty, only one life will soon be passed. Only what's done for Christ will last. Only what's done for Christ will last. Anyway, I know in my head my days are running out. I see that little hourglass and I'm down to the little right at the end. And I think, Vicki, if you, I mean I, I look at my parents Haddon Robinson, Bonnie Robinson. I mean, I think I'm going to be in the alley and the doghouse. I don't want to be there. I want to, I want a mansion, and I want my days to count. So it makes me want to get out and witness, and it makes me want to know what to say. So I, I reached, I want to get, I want to, I want to witness to people. I want my faith to matter. And so when I walk, instead of listening to comedians, which is what I want to listen to, I listen to theologians and I, I, I listen to things that matter. You know, I think that's a good thing to do. Listen, listen to pastors, listen to theologians, listen to sermons that are going to build into your life. Those are, those are my two things.
Tim: That's great.
Vicki: Realize your days are going to run out and then make, make what goes into your mind something that will fertilize your mind so that you can help others in the days that you have left.
Tim: Sure, yeah. As people of the Word, I think you know that the answer is almost always consistent, repeated exposure to Scripture. And I've heard people who read a proverb a day and they just repeat it over every month. And, you know, that's one way. But even looking at the, the psalm itself or the proverb itself, talking about be humble enough to take correction, recognize when you are being resistant to correction and saying, is this foolish of me? What can I glean from what is what I'm being told? I love the relationship that I have more and more with elders, people older than me who have walked the path, both because they know where the destructive path goes and they know where the blessing, the path of blessing and wisdom leads. So listening to their stories, watching their lives, building that ongoing relationship with those who are wise is another way to expose us. I think those are practical ways to build into your life, deepen your relationship with those who are wise, and allow them to speak into your life.
Nathan: Yeah, we need to seek wisdom so we aren't ruined by foolish decisions. Solomon says there's two women looking for us. The woman Folly wants our attention, but Lady Wisdom wants a lifelong relationship. It's important to listen to women, but make sure it's the right one.
Brian: It's good to seek wisdom so we aren't ruined by foolish decisions. As we heard today. Listen to women, and as Nathan put it, just be sure you listen to the right one. I trust that today's discussion of God's Word has been helpful and served as an encouragement to not just be hearers of the word, but doers together, let's bring God's word to life, to our lives. This week, the crosstalk podcast is a production of crosstalk Global, equipping biblical communicators so every culture hears God's voice. To find out more about this educational nonprofit organization, please visit www.crosstalkglobal.org. crosstalk is training leaders in Bucharest, Moldova, Southern California, Kenya and Kansas over the next few weeks help us train the next generation of biblical communicators. All you have to do is click donate in the show notes and make a donation of any size. You can also also support this show by rating it on Apple Podcasts or wherever you find it. Be sure to listen next Friday as we continue to learn from God's wisdom in the book of Proverbs. You won't want to miss it,
Nathan: But make sure it's the right one. And in this case, it's Vicki, not Tim.
Vicki: There you go.
Nathan: Sorry.
Tim: Well, Nathan, it's great to see you again. And Vicki, what a joy to meet you. I've thank.
Vicki: Thank you.
Tim: Heard your voice, heard much about you as probably you hear often. Greatly respect and it was shaped by many of the ideas and thoughts that your. Your father passed down. And I feel like I am a grandchild preacher of his because of his influence on Kent and then Kent's on me. So I appreciate that even though I never got the chance to meet him, I feel like I know him to a certain extent.
Vicki: Oh, Tim, I wish you had. What a fine man. Yeah, that's great. Well, I hope you follow his method. That's good.
Tim: I'm working on it. Good for sure.
Vicki: Nice to meet you.
Nathan: Born again believers will say there are no grandchildren in the kingdom of God. Right. Because you have to make your own personal decision. There are no grandchildren of the Kingdom of God. But Haddon Robinson has a lot of grandchildren.
Tim: Yes, he does. Internationally.
Nathan: Amen.