Suppose there was someone who you knew was the wisest man on earth. And, he’d put his life-wisdom into a paperback. Wouldn’t you go looking for it?
Suppose, indeed, that somehow you knew there had never been anyone wiser. Suppose somehow God Himself says He’s given this man wisdom such that there’s never been anyone like him… with `a breadth of understanding as measureless as the sand on the seashore… wiser than any other man`… Don’t you wish he’d been videod? So we could sit and absorb it on Youtube? If only I had access …
Well – we can! God says that as a direct gift from Him, Solomon came to have a wisdom that was supernatural and 150% unique (1 Kings 3:12). More wisdom than any other man; and we’ve got that wisdom preserved to bless us in Proverbs! So: If we want life to work, this book is worth our time!
Proverbs is full of shrewd, practical wisdom; it’s even been commended as a management textbook. It doesn’t take us to the spiritual heights like, say, Ephesians. Yet read slowly (ten verses a day from ch10 onwards?), it becomes strangely refreshing, challenging us daily about simple, positive but vital adjustments to how we live. Billy Graham read a chapter every day. Do we want access to supernatural wisdom? It really is within our reach!
So how do we start to absorb this joyful wisdom? One answer: make up your mind to get it no matter what! (`The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom. Though it cost all you have` (4:7).) But looking at the book’s opening, there’s one verse (1:7) that’s a clear headline, answering that question in particular: `The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge/wisdom’ (see also 9:10).
God’s saying, here is where everyday wisdom starts: with a right attitude, a `fear’, towards God. Not `terror`: that’s not at all what our loving Father wants. This is about a wise awe at God; an awe that in daily life takes Him really seriously; puts Him seriously first; a passionate desire for His will, for holiness, for His glory; a passionate longing to live by His desires and instructions, and to shun like crazy everything He condemns. God is a God of colossal love and grace, but grace doesn’t mean (as folk sometimes imply) that holiness doesn’t matter; if we’ve grasped that grace aright (see 1 Peter 5:12) we’ve realised that it’s inseparable from God’s majesty and holiness. Indeed God chose to reveal that truly awesome side of His nature first, in the old testament, because awe at God is truly the foundation of all understanding. So you want wisdom, says Solomon? Well, learn the fear and majesty of the Lord… Feed on passages like Isaiah 40, Amos 4:13 and 5:8, Psalm 104, Habakkuk 3…
What God shows us throughout Proverbs is there are two possible ways of living: wisdom and its opposite, folly. The difference, actually, is faith: `Trust in the Lord with all your heart’, says 3:5, `and lean not on your own understanding… and He will make your paths straight… Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and shun evil’. So, here are two possible attitudes: one where I’m conceited about the understanding I think I’ve acquired – but the trouble is I’m too limited, too biased, for that to work in all the situations I’ll encounter. Or, `fear the Lord and shun evil`: wisdom grounded in the trustful fear of the Lord as its foundation; trusting God who sees the whole picture, to help us see things as they really are. The fear of the Lord – this faith-based awe of God that means we desperately and passionately want to live His way – this, and this alone, on God’s authority, is the beginning of wisdom. And today He’s offering it to us; to us personally!
`And now… what does the LORD your God ask of you but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in obedience to Him, to love Him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul?’ (Deut 10:12). `From everlasting to everlasting the LORD’s love is with those who fear Him, and His righteousness with their children’s children’ (Psa 103:17)…
(PS Speaking of which, look what Proverbs 1 goes straight on to emphasise: wisdom-instruction in the family context. And is there anything more foundational in godly parenting than just this, an atmosphere that takes God really seriously, an atmosphere of the `fear of the Lord`? More about that in our posts on the opening chapters of 1 Samuel…)
