When we grow in grace and knowledge of God, we also grow in wisdom. That is because we are growing in righteous. This devotion looks at how wisdom is righteous and how that helps us live our lives.
Nuggets
- We are righteous because we are free from sin by following God’s moral laws.
- Wisdom is to be prized above religion.
- We govern ourselves by thinking through the circumstances and applying our wisdom to act in the way desires.
Oh! Yeah. Parents want to teach their kids how to do things. I’ve mentioned before that my goal has been teaching Adam to cook.
Skills are nice to have, but knowledge is important, too. If Adam doesn’t know 1/3 cup is smaller than ½ cup, he might being throwing some of his creations out.
But what Solomon is going for in Proverbs 8 (well, yes, in all of Proverbs) is wisdom. What is he saying now?
Let's Put It into Context
Wisdom is not only discernment and good sense, but it also leads to goodness and virtue that can be applied to life. Mannyngham defined it as “… the knowledge of things great, admirable, and Divine, whereby the mind is raised and enlarged into delightful contemplations; and prudence is a right practical judgment, or the skill of judging what we are to do, and what not, and of distinguishing between good and evil, and the degrees of each.”
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So far on the subject of wisdom, Solomon has told us
• It isn’t enough to just have the wisdom — head knowledge isn’t enough.
• Our wisdom has to align with God’s if we are going to flourish in the world.
To read a related devotion, click the button below.
Let’s see what we can add to that list.
Righteous Wisdom
“Listen, for I speak of noble things, and what my lips say is right. For my mouth tells the truth, and wickedness is detestable to my lips. All the words from my mouth are righteous; none of them are deceptive or perverse. All of them are clear to the perceptive, and right to those who discover knowledge. Accept my instruction instead of silver, and knowledge rather than pure gold. For wisdom is better than jewels, and nothing desirable can equal it” (Prov. 8: 6-11 CSB)
Solomon tells us that wisdom cries out to us. “Doesn’t wisdom call out? Doesn’t understanding make her voice heard?” (Prov. 8: 1 CSB). Starting in verse 4, we have wisdom talking.
Wisdom said that her words were righteous. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines righteous as being “acting in accord with divine or moral law” and “free from guilt or sin.”
Resource
We are righteous because we are free from sin by following God’s moral laws. That talks about outcome, but it also implies a standard by which we should live.
Glossary
God’s laws and commandments were designed to show us His character. By keeping those laws and commandments, we imitate His character, making us more like Him.
That is the goal — being like God. We will be when we are changed. “Listen, I am telling you a mystery: we will not all fall asleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we will be changed” (I Cor. 15: 51-52 CSB).
We have to make the conscious decision in this life to imitate God. Abernathy wrote, “If you suppose the character of excellent and right to be the result of arbitrary human constitutions, it would never be uniform. But our notions of excellent and right are before the consideration of all laws, appointments, orders, and instructions whatsoever; for we bring all these to the test in our own minds, and try them by a sense which we have prior to any of them.” Wisdom has to be implemented into our lives.
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Glossary
But, you know, it has to go beyond being a conscious decision. It has to become our nature — our character. It has to be so us that we do not think — we just act in character.
There is a bonus when we consider how to follow God’s laws and commandments. The Holy Spirit will show us the rewards of following God’s Will.
God’s rewards for His disciples will be so much more than the world’s rewards. Solomon said it has no equal.
Our sinful nature wants us to question that. We have to remember that not all of our rewards and blessings will be bestowed here on earth. Some we won’t get until we get to Heaven.
Roomies
“I, wisdom, share a home with shrewdness and have knowledge and discretion. To fear the Lord is to hate evil. I hate arrogant pride, evil conduct, and perverse speech. I possess good advice and sound wisdom; I have understanding and strength. It is by me that kings reign and rulers enact just law; by me, princes lead, as do nobles and all righteous judges” (Prov. 8: 12-16 CSB)
Prudence, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, is “the ability to govern and discipline oneself by the use of reason.” We are to use wisdom for governing and disciplining ourselves.
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Mannyngham argued that wisdom was to be prized above religion. He wrote, “According to the general design of these proverbial writings, wisdom stands before religion, and religion is expressed by the fear of God.”
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It makes sense. Jesus wasn’t about religion. If He would have been, He would have gotten along better with the Pharisees.
Glossary
Jesus was about a relationship with God. That means we have to have the character of God. To do that, we have to follow God’s laws and commandments.
I know. Back to that.
We govern ourselves by thinking through the circumstances and applying our wisdom to act in the way desires. We can only do that when our relationships are right with God.
Oh, yes. Satan is going to do everything in his power to stop that contemplation. How many times do we have to make split second decisions? How many times are there people and things to distract us from making that decision?
We also have to be careful because the ability to govern ourselves is not always based on wisdom. We have to make sure that we govern ourselves through God-given abilities, not through the worldview. That is one reason why worldview people think they don’t need God.
We’ve talked about fear of the Lord before. The fear of the Lord means reverence and love, not terror. Godliness, equated with the Old Testament term fear of the Lord, is an attitude of reverence that is promoted by walking in His Spirit.
Some may think that it means dreading the punishment of sin. But God does a 180 degrees with it — as He does with most things. He wants the love instead of the terror.
The problem with that is we many not hate the evil behind the sin. We just hate getting caught and punished.
We have to treat sin the same way that God does. We have to abhor it — even if it is our pet sin.
Ooo, baby. That is difficult, isn’t it? We love our pet sin. We can’t understand what God sees wrong with it.
We have to see things God’s way. This means getting obedience down to the heart level — making it our character.
Glossary
Arnot made a wonderful observation. He wrote, “It is when sin is forgiven that a sinner can hate it. Instead of hating God for His holiness, the forgiven man instinctively loathes the evil of his own heart, and looks with longing for the day when all things in it shall be made new.”
So, fear of the Lord can’t be just a mind thing. It has to be an action thing because it is a character thing.
We have to be so like God that we wonder who is doing the talking — God or us. We have to be the character of God. We can’t be play acting like we are. He has to totally change us to His character.
That way we can say, “… I hate arrogant pride, evil conduct, and perverse speech. I possess good advice and sound wisdom; I have understanding and strength” (Prov. 8: 13-14 CSB).
Making the Connections
Having the character of God can be difficult because of our sinful physical nature. Cornwall wrote, “The duties which seem to bear hardest upon human nature are repentance, mortification, contempt of this world, loving our enemies, suffering persecution for righteousness’ sake, and the like; which do all recommend themselves to our minds by their reasonableness.”
Repentance is expressing sorrow for breaking God’s laws and commandments by making the commitment to changing ourselves through obedience so that we no longer do the wrong things. We don’t like admitting we were wrong.
Mortify means to place a death penalty on our sins. Killing some is okay, but we want to keep our pet sin.
It is really hard to have contempt of this world. It is all we know, and we do have to live here.
We think it takes a special person to love our enemies. It is hard for us to put aside the hurt and anger sometimes.
Suffering persecution definitely is not our cup of tea. We want nice smooth sailing.
But God is calling us to do all of that. We can only do it through learning His wisdom.
How Do We Apply This?
We’ve said that faith is believing without full understanding. Cornwall wrote, “Faith is no hasty and blind credulity, but a sober and rational assent of mind, built upon sure and solid principles. Sober is a character trait distinguished by self-control, genuineness, and sound moral judgment.
If it is rational, that means it is well thought out and considered. It is a conscious decision based in sound moral judgment.
How do we gain sound moral judgment? We gain knowledge and wisdom.
How do we gain that? We seek God.
First off, we seek God to gain the knowledge of Him. As we acquire that knowledge and get to know Him, He reveals Himself to us, and we gain wisdom about Him.
We only gain that wisdom as He reveals things to us that aren’t in His Word. But we have to put in the time to get that.
Then we have to live it in whatever way God calls us to live. But we have to stay on our pay grade. Mannyngham wrote, “The first rule for the more prudent conduct of a religious life is, not to engage in things which are above our sphere.”
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To show we love God, we have to exhibit His character. Following His laws and commandments show we fear the Lord. As we grow in His love, we gain His wisdom.
Father God. We look to You for wisdom. We look to You for guidance. We want to imitate Your character. Help us to become more like You so that we can prepare for our home in Heaven. Amen.
What do you think?
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