Another Step, Anyway

I've been studying Proverbs in an attempt to learn a practical definition for wisdom. What it is, how to obtain it, that sort of thing. A lot of people have vague ideas about wisdom, but seldom any concrete notions. Some have a definition they apply to the word, but it often fails to be useful for day-to-day study and growth.

Proverbs 4:7 (NIV) says that wisdom is supreme; therefor get wisdom. Though it cost you all you have, get understanding.

That's a strongly worded imperative. If it's that important, I figured I'd better learn more about it than what I already knew. I, like many people, had a rather fuzzy definition of what wisdom was. I considered wisdom to be a subset of knowledge, but about important, spiritual things, you know?

The first question that popped into my mind in regard to Proverbs 4:7 was whether or not wisdom was different from understanding or if they were being used synonymously.

I hoped that the original Hebrew would hold a lot of the answers I needed, perhaps Hebrew had some special word for wisdom that held spiritual connotations that helped distinguish it from simple knowledge. After a few hours of flipping threw a concordance, I came to a few conclusions: First, Hebrew does not contain a special word for wisdom that contains hidden insight. Second, the English Bible is a fairly literal translation. When it says someone is wise it means someone who is skilled, a discerning judge or knowledgeable. In short, it means someone who is wise.

While it is reassuring to learn for myself about the precisely translated nature of the Bible, it didn't move me forward at all in my attempts to learn more about the importance of wisdom. If wisdom simply meant someone who was smart or discerning, then how could it be valued so highly? Important, yeah, but more so than everything else?

Given the absolute lack of insight provided by the concordance, it fell to studying wisdom in the context provided by Proverbs. One of the keys that I latched onto was the combination of the fear of the Lord and wisdom. Proverbs 1:7 says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. It echoes the inverse principle in Proverbs 1:29, Since they hated knowledge and did not choose to fear the Lord. The fear of the Lord is mentioned again and again in conjunction with wisdom throughout Proverbs.

One insight my study of the Hebrew did provide was the literal meaning of the word fear. The fear of the Lord simply means to hold God in a state of reverence. I went ahead and looked reverence up in the dictionary, as that still didn't help me understand what it meant to fear the Lord. The dictionary defined reverence as respect mingled with affection.

Respect and affection. While that particular combination may have been entirely coincidental in my dictionary, I really liked that definition for reverence (and thus fear as well). To me, respect implies a knowledge of who God is and affection would come from experiencing His character in your life. Knowledge and experience through relationship. I think that combination begins to reveal the true nature of wisdom and why it is so valued. Both are required and neither can supply wisdom alone.

A man who simply studies the Bible and learns about God's character, but never pursues the relationship with God, will only have a collection of facts no more useful for making decisions than sports statistics. Conversely, a person who has entered into a relationship with God, but hasn't studied and learned, will want to make wise decisions, but will lack a foundational knowledge of God on which to base his actions.

Only when a person studies and learns more about the character of God and experiences that character in their everyday lives will they be able to begin making wise decisions.

So ultimately, the definition I came up with for wisdom was:

Wisdom: The applied knowledge of God's character.

Now, there are two important notes I want to make before I close this post. First, Proverbs says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. I don't think that what I have now is the complete definition of wisdom. Wisdom is listed in conjunction with other attributes, such as discipline and obedience, but the first and possibly most important is the fear of the Lord.

Second, a lot of this research began because I wasn't entirely sure how to apply the definitions of wisdom supplied by others. So how do I gain wisdom, based off the definition I came up with? It's no secret that the entire Bible is the story of God's desire for relationship with man. As such, many passages reflect directly on the character of God. So as I read the Bible, I need to study it with the intent of learning more about God. I should ask myself, "How does this reflect God's character? How does this teach me more about Him?"

While I may not always be able to answer those questions, at least I can be reading with intent and purpose. Over time, this will hopefully lead me to not only learning more about who God is, but what wisdom is and how I can continue to gain more of it in my life.