A Quick Look: Proverbs 1:2-5
Really Read It: Proverbs 1:1-33
Memorize: Proverbs 9:10 "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
James 3:17 “But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.”
Old people are the wise ones and kids are foolish. That’s how it works. When you first got to the earth, you didn’t know how to talk or walk. The biggest challenge of your day was to touch your nose, and you couldn’t do it. But you learned so much so quickly until you got to be the smart and able person that you are today. And if you keep learning, you will be really smart when you are really old. But the truth is there are a lot of foolish grownups and foolish old people. You only get to be a wise old person if you get a little wisdom each day and you keep adding and keep growing in wisdom. So a kid doesn’t have to be foolish. It is foolish to wait until you are old to get wisdom. It wouldn’t work. You have to start getting wisdom now. Keep getting it and keep doing it all of your life.
God is ready to give wisdom. He wants to His people to have it. He wants His children to live by it. God doesn’t waste His wisdom; He only gives it to His people. To get the wisdom of God, a person must first fear God. A child of God will worship and reverence God. If that heart is in you, that God fearing, God reverencing, soft heart then God will begin to give wisdom. But that is a big if. It is everything. The fear of the Lord is life changing, life directing. It’s salvation. It’s being born again. It’s your whole heart. It’s all of Christianity. God will give His wisdom to that person. He wants His children to have it, but He also wants His children to want to. God is looking for people who are seeking His wisdom, living out the wisdom that they know, and working to get more. James wrote that anyone who doesn’t have wisdom should ask for it in James 1:5. The problem with wisdom is that the people who don’t have it, don’t have enough wisdom to know that they need wisdom. An easy solution and the honest solution is that everyone should ask for wisdom. No one is walking the earth today who has enough wisdom. No one has gotten all of the wisdom that God wants to give.
God gives wisdom in two ways. He gives wisdom through His word and He gives wisdom through the Holy Spirit. Moses is a great place to start to see the Word as a source of wisdom. God spoke to Moses so that he could write the first five books of the Bible. Of course, at the time they were written, they were not the first five books of the Bible. Those books made up the whole Bible for the brand new nation of Israel moving into their own land. Moses taught them from the Word of God, and in Deuteronomy 4, he spoke about the importance of the Word. At the beginning of this chapter Moses told them to remember and do the Word, to live as the Word directs, to live by its wisdom. Moses even told them that if they did, other nations would be impressed by their lives. A life of wisdom doing the Word was meant to be a tool to advance the Kingdom of God. When other nations saw that wisdom, they would be jealous to have that wisdom for themselves. If Israel lived it, other nations around them would turn to the God of Israel. Sadly the Bible shows only a few instances when this happened. That is because Israel didn’t do the Word very much. The same is true today. When the people of God seek wisdom from the Word and display it in their lives, people who care nothing for God will notice. Sadly this doesn’t happen much.
A look at Biblical wisdom cannot leave out Solomon. We are almost sure that Solomon studied the Word like Moses said to do. His father David would have made sure that his son read the laws of the Tabernacle and the Ark. It seems that Solomon would have read the words of Samuel and David that told about the great works of God in the years just before he was born. Solomon should have gained wisdom that way, but he got more wisdom than any other person on earth when God gave it to him. Solomon is a great example of getting wisdom through the Word and getting supernatural wisdom through the Holy Spirit. But what did he say about wisdom after he had gotten so much? In Proverbs 1, he wrote that the Proverbs, and I would add all of the Word of God, are for getting wisdom. But as he continued in the first Proverb, he brought in the idea of teachers. Parents are the most important teachers for children, and they must impart Godly wisdom to their children. But gaining wisdom doesn’t end when childhood ends. God gives wisdom through His Word, but for God’s people to get wisdom, good Bible teachers are also needed.
James 3:17 is a great test for true wisdom. “But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.” The test of wisdom is not doing a great thing like creating a huge building or flying to the moon. The test of wisdom is the list from James. Does this big thing give out mercy and good fruit? Are those words peace-loving and considerate?
Test the thing that you think is wisdom with James 3:17.
Good explanation of wisdom and how it doesn't automatically come because of age.
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