“Who is like the wise? Who
knows the explanation of things? A person’s wisdom brightens their face and
changes its hard appearance..” (Ecclesiastes 8:1)
Our age is eager in its pursuit of knowledge. It professes
to be a truth-loving, and a truth-seeking information age. It is quite awake to
science, and thoroughly in love with its marvels and mysteries. It has obtained
a far insight into the dark processes of that which is called "nature."
It has witnessed one substance, and another, yielding up their hidden wonders;
it has seen earth, and sea, and air giving out their treasures; What a insight
of miracle there is contained in every ray of light, every drop of dew, every
pebble of the brook, every fragment of rock, every blade of grass; what an
exemplification of order and law there is revealed in every natural process–
the motion of earth, and sun, and stars, the shock of earthquakes, the flow of
tides, the rush of the breeze, the braiding of the rainbow on the cloud, the
change of seasons, the springing, growth, blossoming, and fruit-bearing of
flower, and shrub, and tree!
These are the works of God, the laws of God, the daily miracles
of God. In all of them wisdom is seen; divine wisdom; wisdom as profound as it
is perfect, as incomprehensible as it is glorious, as magnificent in its
minuteness as in its vastness, in the grain of sand as in the mighty mountain,
in the blush of the unnoticed desert-flower as in the splendor of a new-lighted
star. In all this there is wisdom; wisdom which we do well to study. Yet all
these are but parts– mere fragments; and, even when gathered together, they
still form but the minutest portion of a whole, whose dimensions are vaster
than the created universe– a whole, of which nothing less than the infinity of
Godhead is the measure.
True Knowledge empowers people and it is the true wealth of the
community. No one likes to be called a dummy or considered fool. The fact is
our society places a high value on knowledge in our day and age because
Knowledge is hope for the future and destiny. It fulfills our humanity by
refining our human nature. People spend millions of rupees that they might get
an advanced degree and be highly professional. Yet, we know that no matter how
much book learning one gets or how many degrees a person has, that does not
mean that person has any divine wisdom. Knowledge of God is a vital part of the
process for the individual aspiration for a comprehensive and meaningful- life.
Therefore true knowledge transforms the human heart and the transformed heart
transforms the world. A step beyond book learning and a mere education, we want
wisdom and insight, but wondering where to begin? We do have a choice to make,
because the journey to true enlightenment, true wisdom, begins with the fear of
the LORD.
Bible says “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge,
but fools despise wisdom and discipline.” (Prov. 1:7)
Becoming a follower of God does not give us all the
answers to everything—certainly not in the areas of science, electronics, math,
or any other field of strictly human learning. Many nonbelievers are more
educated, brilliant, talented, and experienced than many believers. If we want
our car fixed we go to the best mechanic we can find, even if he is not a
believer. If we need an operation we go to the best surgeon. If we want to get
an education we try to go the school that has the best faculty in the field in
which we want to study. As long as they are used properly and wisely, medicine
and technology and science and all such fields of human learning and
achievement can be of great value. We should thank God for them.
The fact of the matter is that all
wisdom, whether secular or spiritual, starts and ends with God. The secular
wisdom about how to be successful in this life by acquiring knowledge, virtue,
character, justice, wealth, or even family comes from God. That’s right. The
successes obtained in this life in these mentioned areas also are biblical
wisdom’s major focal points. However, the missing area, especially where
secular wisdom is concerned, is the God kind of faith. The God kind of
faith is the greatest focal point of biblical wisdom’s major focal points,
because it is by acquiring faith in God and in His Son, Christ Jesus, as our
Savior and Lord, that human beings are able to gain a Godly perspective, which
only comes from the spiritual insights about living that He gives.
If you want answers to what life is all about—answers
about where we came from, where we are going, and why we are here, what is our
final destiny? About what is right and what is wrong—then human learning cannot
help us. If we want to know the ultimate meaning and purpose of human life, and
the source of salvation, happiness, joy, fulfillment, and peace, we have to
look beyond what even the best human minds can discover. Human attempts to find
such answers apart from God’s revelation are doomed to fail.
We do not have the resources even to find the answers about
ourselves, much less about God. In regard to the most important truths—those
about human nature, sin, God, morality and ethics, death, the spirit world, the
transformation and future of human life—philosophy is bankrupt. We have become a planet without law
of divine wisdom and order. When I use the word law, I am not referring to the
laws that we have created. Whatever laws we create, we can always change. I am
referring to the laws of God that have been set in motion and in place in His
very own creation. We have to learn these laws and submit to them, study them,
and obey them in order to experience God’s promises and benefits.
Unfortunately, even many individuals who claim to believe in God have no fear
of Him or His laws. God’s desire is that His law is written on the tables of
our hearts. “You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known
and read by everyone. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the
result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living
God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.” (2
Corinthians 3:2-3). We need the law of God back in our hearts so that we can go
into a new day with a strict, clear distinction of right and wrong.
Apostle Paul said "Jews demand
signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ
crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to
Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and
Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.."
1 Corinthians 1:23-24.
By and large People today run after two things:
miraculous signs and knowledge. It was no different in Bible times. The apostle
Paul acknowledged that “Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom”. Many of the Corinthian converts
carried their spirit of philosophical factionalism into the church. Some of
them still held onto beliefs of their former pagan philosophy. They were
divided regarding philosophical viewpoints. They could not get over their love
for human wisdom. Although they had trusted in Christ and recognized their
redemption by grace through the cross, but they wanted to add human wisdom to
what He had done for them.
Without exception, Human knowldge
elevates the self and lowers God. It always, no matter how seemingly sincere
and objective and scholarly, caters to human self–will, pride, fleshly
inclinations, and independence. Those are the basic characteristics of the
unredeemed, and they always direct and determine the unredeemed thinking,
desires, and conclusions. The reason people love complex, elaborate
philosophies and religions is because these appeal to human ego. They offer the
challenge of understanding and doing something complex and difficult. For the
same reason some people scoff at the gospel. It calls on them to do nothing—it
allows them to do nothing—but accept in simple faith what God has done. The
cross crushes human sin and crushes human pride. It also offers deliverance
from sin and deliverance from pride.
The Jews required a
sign, the Greeks seek after wisdom." If you met the Jew who believed not
on Christ in the apostle's day, he said, "I cannot believe, because I want
a sign;" and if you met the Greek, he said, "I cannot believe,
because I want a philosophic system, one that is full of knowldge.
Both these
objections are untenable and unreasonable. If you suppose that the Jew requires
a sign, that sign is given him: Christ is the power of God. The miracles that
Christ wrought upon earth were signs more than sufficiently abundant; and if
the Jewish people had but the will to believe, they would have found abundant
signs and reasons for believing in the personal acts of Christ and his
apostles." And let the Greeks say, "I cannot believe, because I
require wisdom: Paul specify that O Greek, Christ is the wisdom of God. If you
could but investigate the subject, you could find in it profoundness of
wisdom—a depth where the most gigantic intellect might be drowned. It is no
shallow gospel, but a deep, and a great deep too, a deep which passes all
understanding. Your objection is ill-founded; for Christ is the wisdom of God,
and his gospel is the highest of all sciences. If you wish to find wisdom, you must find it in
the word of revelation.
There is some proportion between the fragments of the split
planet, that astronomy has detected in their wanderings, and the planet itself,
of which they are the broken parts; there is some proportion between a drop and
the ocean, between the stream and the fountain, between a beam and the sun,
between a moment and millions of ages; but there is no proportion between the
fragments of wisdom that lie scattered over creation and the great whole, which
can be contained in no treasure-house except that which is infinite and divine.
Hence it is that, while, in all the regions and departments of creation, may be
seen portions of this wisdom, only in the Son of God– in Christ Jesus, the
incarnate Word– is the mighty WHOLE contained. He and he only, is "the
Wisdom of God." By the expression, "the Wisdom of God," thus
applied to Christ, is not merely meant that he is wise, infinitely wise– but
something much more comprehensive.
To say that he is infinitely wise is one thing– but to say that he is the
wisdom of God is another. We say of the Father, he is infinitely wise; but we
cannot say of him, he is the wisdom of God. Of the Son alone, the Christ of
God, can this be said. Both things are true of him. He is infinitely wise, and
he is the wisdom of God. Only of him can we affirm that he has, and he is,
"the wisdom of God."
All that is in God and all that can come forth out of God is contained in him.
He is the full representative of the invisible and incomprehensible Almighty
God. Christ is the brightness of God’s glory, and the express image of his
person. In the works of creation God has displayed fragments or portions of his
wisdom– but in Christ he has summed up and put forth THE WHOLE of it; so that
it can be said of this Christ, he is the wisdom of God. Hence it is that the
knowledge of Christ not only transcends all other knowledge– but includes them
all; the study of this wondrous embodiment of all that is in God is not only
superior to– but actually embraces, all other studies. Here we cannot fathom
this; hereafter we may. Here we cannot see how a discovered Christ should be the
discovery of all other things, all science, all nature, all things in heaven
and earth; hereafter we shall find it so. Wisdom is one of the last things
which we are in the habit of connecting with the name of Christ. We connect
with it salvation, pardon, life, righteousness, love– but not wisdom. Yet it is
wisdom that God so especially associates with Christ. "He, of God, is made
unto us wisdom." "In him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and
knowledge."
In Bible the book of Job, the Psalms,
and the Proverbs are in the part of the Old Testament known as Wisdom
Literature. This is because these books of the Bible purport to set forth
practical knowledge and understanding regarding day-to-day living. The first
principle of wisdom literature is this: “The fear of the Lord is the
beginning of wisdom” (Job 28:28; Psa. 111:10; Prov. 9:10). The reason you
find this principle in all three of these books is simple. All wisdom begins
with God as He is the source, par excellence, of how the creation works.
After all, He is its creator, and no one knows better how something operates
than the one who made it.
The English word wisdom is
derived from an old Anglo-Saxon word meaning to see (hence also the
origin of the term "I see" when one understands something).True wisdom
is a moral quality, not necessarily a measure of intelligence i.e. there are
some very intelligent people in the world who do some very unwise things, while
conversely there are some people of lesser intellectual ability who have wisdom
that is superior to people with supposedly greater intelligence (intelligence
itself is manifested in two sometimes-conflicting forms, greater thinking power
on one hand, and acquired knowledge on the other - activities that do not mean
the same thing e.g. some worldly information-gathering management
"intelligence" services have been known to do some
very unintelligent things).
In the Holy Bible, "wisdom"
is used to translate the Hebrew word of the Old Testament
kok-maw meaning to be wise in thought and deed, and the Greek word
of the New Testament (pronounced) sof-ee-ah meaning clear,
or wise. The Scriptures make plain that wisdom that is based upon the Word
of God is the only true wisdom, while carnal "worldly" wisdom
is nothing more than dead-end self-righteous vanity i.e. "There is a way
that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death."
(Proverbs 14:12) and "For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in
God’s sight. As it is written: “He catches the wise in their craftiness” and
again, “The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile.”.(1
Corinthians 3:19-20)
What does it mean to fear the Lord?
The rabbis taught that the fear of God can mean two things—reverential fear and
fear of retribution. Reverence means an eagerness to listen to God, a readiness
to obey God, and willingness to live for God. The emphasis of the fear of the
Lord in Proverbs is reverential awe towards God. But the fear of the Lord is
also the fear of God as righteous judge. It is the fear of offending God who
will judge us someday. Jesus said, “Do not fear those who kill the body . . .
But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has
authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him” (Lk. 12:4-5)! Heb.
10:31 says, “‘The Lord will judge his people.’ It is a fearful thing to fall
into the hands of the living God” ( Rev. 14:7). The two are intertwined. When
you fear God as judge, you will revere Him. When God is the object of fear out
of fear of offense, divine retribution, or divine presence, there is reverence.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning
of wisdom because when we fear God, we are going to have respect for His word.
The Bible is the word of God, and it contains more than just facts. It is a
history of God’s people as they interact with the world and with one another.
While this history unfolds, those who read the Bible are taught how best to
live so as to maximize good relationships with one’s fellow and with one’s God.
God is always the priority in these relationships because He has the keys to
knowing what will best suit each person’s effort to build these relationships.
God stands as the source for all good relationships because He is the ultimate
source of goodness, and He is the ultimate source for understanding what best
perpetuates relationships. God’s word is key to fearing God, and fearing God is
the key to having true wisdom.
Wisdom, however, may be appreciated not only from the standpoint
of its utility in providing for good relationships, but for the beauty of what
it reveals in and of itself. Wisdom as a virtue (and God is the source of all
that is wholly virtuous) may be sought as a good in and of itself. One receives
blessing simply by studying the wisdom literature, and simply by imbibing at
God’s fount of knowledge and goodness, whether one seeks to apply what one has
learned or not. This is because God is ultimately beautiful and may be
appreciated in and of Himself for Who He ultimately is.
Wisdom, as an aspect of
God’s character/nature, may also be so appreciated. This is partially why
Proverbs 19:8 says,” The one who gets wisdom loves life; the one who
cherishes understanding will soon prosper..” If the fear of the Lord is
the beginning of wisdom, perhaps the love of the Lord is the end of wisdom, for
when this world ends, and all we have left after this life is our eternal
relationships with one another and God, loving that which is truly beautiful in
and of itself will prove to be an intrinsic good. The practical ends of wisdom
for this world may come to an end, but the eternal aspects of and for an
appreciation of wisdom will endure in heaven as we know God’s true beauty.
The bottom line is that our Godly
perspective is “the fear of the Lord,” which simply put means living our entire
lives in love, worship, submission, and obedience to God’s Perfect Will.
Therefore, if we have faith in God, our corresponding action must be “the fear
of the Lord,” because both wisdom and knowledge begin and end with “the fear of
the Lord.” Moreover, it is our faith in God that keeps us believing that
He constantly watches over the wisdom He gives us, as well as watches over
EVERYTHING that happens in this life (Romans 8:28).
Wisdom is about a right understanding
and a right application of the way things really are. The fundamental fact about
the way things really are is that God exists and is engaged with the
creation. Mark Roth says it this way: The fear of the Lord is to be
God-conscious. To understand who God is, and who we are, is to understand that
we are fundamentally flawed and broken; without this understanding, we will
remain forever foolish. “The greatest ascetics, those who mortified themselves
and who for a period of forty or fifty years daily and nightly lived a life of
mortification until death, were filled with the fear of God and these, the most
sinless among mortals, cried out in their hour of death: ‘O God, have mercy on
me a sinner! So Living in the shadow of the Almighty–understanding what
pleases, and what displeases, God–is clearly the most important thing to be
wise about. God is eternal, and God’s praise “endures forever.” It is only the
beginning of wisdom to fear God–we have all eternity to deepen and ripen our
wisdom.
This world is a battleground between
wisdom (wise living) and folly (foolish living), as well as a combat zone
between righteousness and wickedness, good and evil, or right and wrong. But,
God has placed in His creation a wise order, which speaks to mankind about
God’s Wisdom—speaks about the Creator and every revelation He gives about His
creation. God reveals knowledge and wisdom to us, not only through the voice of
reason, but also He speaks to us through His entire creation. Those of us who
fear God know that His creation speaks to us and lets us know that EVERY bit of
ALL life has been created by God and belongs to God.
Moreover, we know that His
authoritative Word (the Bible) also speaks to us about what is good and evil,
urging us to choose to do “good” and to choose to avoid doing evil. The Word of
God is the reason why our “fear of the Lord” initiates our faith in God, which
in turn sets us on a journey toward obtaining heavenly insights by way of
observation and instruction. However, the people who refuse God’s heavenly
insights (refuse to hear His creation when it speaks, and refuse to be instructed
by Him) will not operate in the kind of faith that will have the appropriate
corresponding action. As a consequence, the foolish men and women, those who
refuse to observe the voice of God’s creation and who refuse to follow God’s
written instructions, will become people who are not loving, worshipping,
submitting, nor obeying the God of creation.
Who is like the wise man? Who knows the explanation of things?
Wisdom brightens a man's face and changes its hard appearance (Ecclesiastes
8:1).There is a marvelous, fourfold description of what happens to one who
discovers the true wisdom of righteousness as a gift from God, one who walks
with God in the fear of God.
First, it will make that person a unique human being. Who is like the wise man? One of the follies
of life is to try to imitate somebody else. The media constantly bombards us
with subtle invitations to look like, dress, or talks like some popular Idol.
If you succeed in that, of course, you will be nothing but a cheap imitation of
another person. The glory of the good news is that when you become a new
creature in Jesus Christ, you will be unique. You will become more and more
like Christ, but unlike everyone else in personality. You will not be a copy, a
cheap imitation, but an original from the Spirit of God.
Secondly, the Searcher says, godly wisdom will give you a secret
knowledge: Who knows the explanation of things?
The implication of that question is that the wise person knows. This is what
Paul declares in 1 Corinthians 2: The spiritual man
makes judgments about all things (1 Corinthians
2:15a). Spiritual people are in a position to pass moral judgment on the value
of everything, not because they are so smart, but because the God who teaches
them is wise.
Thirdly, such a person will experience a visible joy: Wisdom brightens a man's face. Grace—not grease—is what makes
the face shine. Manufacturers put grease in cosmetics to make the face shine
artificially, but it is grace that does it from within. Grace and the joy that
results from it visibly expressed make a face shine.
Finally, it changes the inner disposition of a person: [Wisdom] changes its hard appearance. Have you ever watched somebody whose life was under the impact
of the Spirit of God soften, mellow, and grow easier to live with? That is the
work of the Spirit of God.
Christ is the wisdom of God; and in the knowledge of this Christ
there is wisdom for you; nor wisdom only– but life, forgiveness, peace, glory,
and an endless kingdom! Study him! Acquaint yourself with him! Whatever you are
ignorant of, be not ignorant of him– whatever you overlook, overlook not him–
whatever you lose, lose not him. To gain him is to gain eternal life, to gain a
kingdom, to gain everlasting blessedness. To lose him is to lose your soul, to
lose God, to lose God's favor, to lose God's heaven, to lose the eternal crown!
Jesus Christ is worth more than any treasure this world offers. Loving Him and
understanding what He’s done for you should be all the motivation you need to
praise Him with your life. Don’t just acknowledge but admire Him; serve His
kingdom and share the gospel. Help to make God’s throne room ring with worship.
The wisest man of the Bible, King Solomon, wrote that the beginning of wisdom
was to acquire it (Prov. 4:7). Determine in your heart to pursue this great
treasure. As you study the Word, seek the Lord’s will, and observe His
principles in action, God will pour wisdom into your mind and spirit.
Bible says “Those who are wise will shine like the
brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars
forever and ever.” (Daniel 12:3)
God Bless you
