Proverbs 8:6–11
Hear; for I will speak of excellent things; and the opening of my lips shall be right things.
For my mouth shall speak truth; and wickedness is an abomination to my lips.
All the words of my mouth are in righteousness; there is nothing froward or perverse in them.
They are all plain to him that understands, and right to them that find knowledge.
Receive my instruction, and not silver; and knowledge rather than choice gold.
For wisdom is better than rubies; and all the things that may be desired are not to be compared to it.
This is the best effort of the wise man of the Proverbs to define wisdom itself. It must be more than a set of words scrawled on a piece of paper, more than some cold, abstract proposition. Could we say that a computer reciting Proverbs 8:11 is wise? Or is it enough to say that wisdom is knowledge applied in action? If this were true, might we say that dogs exercise wisdom when they pursue birds in the field?
Wisdom is personified here and elsewhere in Scripture, because it is impossible to separate wisdom from a person’s intentions, thoughts, words, and actions. The chicken pecking about in the yard does not embody wisdom. It is the God Who made the chicken to peck in the yard that may be called “Wisdom,” with a capital “W.”
With the thousands of counterfeit perspectives about, how can you know for sure when you are in the presence of Wisdom? Of course, you must have a relationship with Wisdom to know Wisdom. Jesus Christ is referred to as “the Wisdom of God” in 1 Corinthians 1. Suppose that I was told my father had said or done something that was very uncharacteristic of him. Naturally, I would reject it because of what I know about my father. Since Wisdom is a person, you can see how one’s relationship with God is critical for both recognizing the canon of God’s Word, and for understanding what He says in the Scriptures.
With Wisdom, you will find a consistency in her words and her actions. The twisted perversity of the wicked is obvious when they advocate public welfare for orphans through the bureaucratic redistribution of other people’s money, while they kill the orphan in the womb and centralize wealth and power through debauched money supplies.
It was John Maynard Keynes, a great proponent of debauched currencies, who wrote, “There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does so in a manner in which not one man in a million can diagnose.”
Wisdom maintains no such hidden agendas and uses none of these deceitful machinations. When wisdom speaks, deceitful men who have spent a lifetime deceiving themselves and others will have a hard time understanding her. But those of a right heart will instantly understand her words.
One afternoon several years ago, I had just finished changing the oil in my car when somebody handed me a little gift. It was a wonderful new book. But as I began to read the pages, I noticed that dark smudges obscured some of the words, making it hard to understand the message the author was trying to communicate. Naturally, I was quite upset that the book was of such poor quality. . . until I realized that the smudges had come from my hands!
Wisdom communicates clearly to the man of understanding. But if the heart receiving the Word is stained with sin, it will handle the Word impudently and fail to understand its meaning. The problem is not with Wisdom—the problem is with the heart that handles it.
1. How do we handle the Word of God? Do the sins in our lives and the evil intentions in our hearts make it hard to understand the wisdom we get in church on Sunday when we hear God’s Word preached?
2. Have you come to know Wisdom in the person of Christ? Are you a different person today because of Christ? “But of Him are you in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption” (Col. 1:30).