Door knocker on an old Spanish building
From Eden until now, one of life’s great challenges has been to see our need not just for knowledge… but for wisdom.
The difference is just as needed when it comes to our understanding of the Bible—and maybe more so in our information age.
It doesn’t even take a knowledge of the Bible to see that any of the following can be either wise or foolish:
- Courage
- Truth telling
- Faith
- Hope
- Love
- Hate
- Patience
- Kindness
- Not Envying
- Not holding wrong against another
- Boasting
- Gentleness
- Faithfulness
So where does wisdom come from? Education? Experience? IQ?
Some time after Eden, a man named Job raised the question, while having to endure not only a broken heart—but on top of it all—having to listen to his friends trying to defend God— by wrongly accusing him of hiding the sin that would explain his suffering (Job 28:20-28).
As this text shows, Job concludes that wisdom comes from God and that— the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. i.e. For openers, God shows his ways to those who don’t trust their own…
But wouldn’t Job’s friends have quickly claimed to fear the Lord? Wasn’t that what they were trying to get Job to do— as they tried so hard to convince him of deserving his pain (Job 22:4-10)?
Since they are attempting to be wise counselors, with such foolishness, did they really fear God—or did they just think they did? Or don’t we really know?
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