The Principal Thing – Part 4 – Wisdom within Reach

Thus far in this brief series we have seen that, according to Scripture, wisdom is the principal thing, the main and most important possession any man can obtain. And acquiring wisdom involves fearing God and coming under the tutelage and guidance of His Word and Spirit. We saw that Wisdom actually works harder seeking us than we do seeking Him, for Jesus—Who is the Wisdom of God—came to seek and save those who are lost, while we, meanwhile, are not so much inclined to seek Him (Ps. 53.2, 3).

Jesus embodies the wisdom of God; indeed, He is Wisdom itself. And He offers Himself and the fruit that comes from surrendering entirely to Him, that we might have wisdom for all aspects of our lives. That is, that Jesus, the Wisdom of God, might live His life through us in everything we are and do.

This brings us to the practical nature of wisdom, that is, the actual practice of wisdom in our daily lives. How might we explain what this entails? And more important, How do we get to be wise?

Well, as a friend of mine is prone to say, it’s complicated. We know wisdom when we see it because Solomon and all Scripture explain what wisdom looks like. We can discern the fruit of wisdom both from reading God’s Word and from studying His world. Ants and spiders can teach us wisdom as truly as prophets and apostles.

Wisdom is thus well within our reach, even though we can’t define it fully. Dictionaries tend to punt on the effort and end up in a tautology. Here, for example, is the definition of wisdom from the Oxford Dictionary of English: “the quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgement; the quality of being wise.”

Yeah, well, thanks for that.

Let’s try some Scriptural ideas that point in the direction of acquiring wisdom. In the book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon contrasts the life of the wise man with the life of the fool. Most of Ecclesiastes focuses on how fools live, and we are to gather that wisdom is the opposite of folly. We might call this apophatic thinking because it tries to get at the essence of wisdom by exposing and stripping away everything that is not wisdom. Solomon shows us folly, and wherever we find folly in our lives, it’s got to go.

More to the point, Solomon contrasts these two lifestyles—the fool and the wise man—by the use of two images: living “under the sun” or living “under the heavens.” The fool lives “under the sun”. He takes all his cues about life from his senses—what he can see, hear, feel, taste, touch, or smell—and his passions—what he most earnestly desires from among whatever his senses present to him. His imagination, that is, his vision of life, is trapped in mere mundanity. The only good life he can imagine is that which gratifies the desires of his various senses.

The wise person, on the contrary, lives “under the heavens”, that is, with an eye to knowing, loving, and serving God. The wise person observes the fool and eschews his ways. He seeks God in His Word and His creation, that he may come to understand the way the world is supposed to work and what he might contribute to that. And over all and throughout all the wise man follows Solomon’s conclusion to Ecclesiastes, “Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole of a man.”

Thus, to restate what we have seen over and over in this series, the wise man learns wisdom by listening to God, seeking and knowing and delighting in Him and His Word. For such a man, Wisdom grows from within Him as the Spirit of God uses the various means of God’s self-revelation to transform him into the very likeness of Wisdom, of Jesus Christ Himself (2 Cor. 3.12-18). Wisdom does not become a checklist of things to do and not to do. Wisdom is a living Presence within us, at work according to the pleasure of God to incline and empower us to do the Lord’s will, which is to do the principal thing, wisdom, in every situation.

Wisdom is thus doing in every situation whatever issues from, manifests, and leads us to improve in the likeness of Jesus Christ.

If we want to be wise, there’s no course for that. But there is a Source—the Word of God in Scripture, creation, and especially our Lord Jesus Christ. No wonder the apostle Peter urges us to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Pet. 3.18). As we grow in Wisdom, we become wise, and the wisdom which comes forth in our words and deeds will be obvious to all.

But there is more. For the Wisdom of God—our Lord Jesus Christ—has determined to use the fruit of wisdom that issues from us to justify His own claims as the Wisdom of God, the Savior of the world, and to silence all who object to those claims. And we will say more about this in the final installment in this series.

Today, what will you do to see Jesus, to bask in His Presence, wait on His Word, discern His
Wisdom, and live to obey Him in every aspect of your life? That is: What will you do to ensure that this day you live under the heavens with a view to becoming more like the Wisdom of God?