In the book of Proverbs, there is a common contrast that is done between wisdom and folly. Wisdom, spelled with capital W is God and we are to seek such wisdom. Wisdom gives us life, it gives us riches, it gives us joy (Proverbs 3:14-24, 8:18-19). Moreover, Wisdom gives us understanding and discernment which are crucial in our day to day lives. With Wisdom, we are sure to avoid every trap of the enemy. With Wisdom, we cannot fail. With Wisdom, we obtain experience, we become learned people, you could even say, with Wisdom, we go from one degree of glory to the other. Folly on the other hand is everything we should be running away from. It leads to death and only speaks foolish talk (Proverbs 9:13-18). Folly encourages us to sin to our own detriment. We ought to flee from it with all our strength. The real question then becomes, how do you seek Wisdom and how do you flee Folly? Or better, if Wisdom is the key to a good life, if it truly provides what the book of Proverbs claims it brings, why don’t we pursue it as vehemently as we pursue worldly passions? Why don’t we pursue it above our careers, ministry, etc.?
The first proverb is this “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline” (Proverbs 1:7). In everything that we do, God must be at the beginning and He must be at the end. The emphasis in the book of Proverbs is to seek wisdom more than gold or more than silver. This same active pursuit is what we are required to do when Jesus tells us to “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness…” (Matthew 6:33). Our pursuit of Wisdom should be similar to our pursuit of the kingdom of God. We must invest in that pursuit, we must be committed to that pursuit, we must be willing to give all that we have in that pursuit. We should value Wisdom more than we value anything else. The bible knows we have a hard time visualizing and understanding what it means to fear the Lord so it tells us that we should seek wisdom and knowledge more than gold. Gold in this case represents riches, money, wealth, possessions. As a matter of fact, you can replace gold with whatever you are most passionate about so it can be sport, career, music, etc. the list can go on but you get the point. What would it look like for you and I to seek Wisdom above ourselves? To make it a priority in our life? Christ is our example in this matter. Solomon told us the way but Christ showed us what that really looked like. I will look at two examples in the life of Christ of what it means to seek Wisdom.
The first example of what it means to seek Wisdom is to be obedient to Wisdom. In the New Testament we often hear Jesus speaking in a way that indicates he was not on earth to do his own will. In the garden of Gethsemane agonizing his upcoming death, he says “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done” (Luke22:42), or again when asked to eat by his disciples he answered “my food is to do the will of my father”(John 4:34), or take this other statement “ I did not speak of my own accord, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it” (John 12:49) and finally, “the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does” (John 5:19). From these statements, it is evident that Jesus was obedient to his Father. His Father’s business was literally all that Jesus was about. No wonder the Father made a declaration about him when he was baptised in the Jordan River saying, “this is my Son whom I love; with him I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17). Indeed, Jesus came to fulfill the law not to abolish the law. He came to show us what real obedience looked like. He came to show us what a living sacrifice was because his entire life was a life of sacrifice. To live a life of obedience, one must fear the Lord and learn about the ways of the Lord. To live a life of obedience means there is no excuse for not knowing what the Lord says. It is the responsibility of the one obeying to learn the Law of the Father just as Jesus did. As a matter of fact, the gospel of Luke recalls an instance where at the age of twelve, Jesus was already going to the temple to discuss about God. He was not just curious to know about God’s law but he wanted to understand it as well. Obeying his Father was not a mechanical exercise or one that was done without understanding as a robot might do, no, Jesus’ obedience was fully understood, fully participated and with pleasure. In the same manner, we too must learn about God’s ways not simply so that our obedience could be checked but so that our obedience might be complete and conducted in a manner pleasing to the Lord for He requires our all.
The second example from the life of Jesus that teaches us what seeking wisdom is is his humility. Because Jesus was so adamant about doing his Father’s will, he was willing to undergo anything for the sake of his Father. The book of Philippians tells us that Christ, although being God in nature did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant in order to die on the cross (Philippians 2:6-8). Jesus accepted an assignment that many of us could not do even for ourselves. He came to this world to serve and not to be served and to give his life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:45). His service gave us the privilege we have today to be reconciled with a Holy God and to become part of His family. You may wonder what obedience and humility have to do with gaining wisdom but as we have already established, wisdom comes from God, and He is the one that gives us wisdom for He is Wisdom. We are called to seek His wisdom rather than the wisdom of this world, but how can we seek it if we do not submit ourselves to Wisdom himself? How can we think we will receive something as powerful as Wisdom simply by thinking we can get it ourselves? Such thinking is foolishness and acting in such a manner means we are despising God Himself. May the Lord who is rich in mercy fill us with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding (Colossians 1:9). Amen!
A Word Aptly Spoken 