Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Reading for today: Proverbs 1-3

A couple of days ago I posted about the “wisdom of Solomon” and today we get a picture of what that wisdom was all about and how it should be applied in our daily living. If you remember God gave Solomon the opportunity to ask him for anything, and Solomon asked for wisdom, which he was given. 1 Kings 4:29-30 says this about Solomon’s wisdom, ^“God gave Solomon wisdom and very great insight, and a breadth of understanding as measureless as the sand on the seashore. Solomon’s wisdom was greater than the wisdom of all the people of the East, and greater than all the wisdom of Egypt.” It also goes on to say how much wiser he was than a bunch of (apparently) smart guys of the day. Kind of like someone saying “he was smarter than Einstein”. (But remember being smart and being wise aren’t necessarily the same thing.)

After all this talk about wisdom, I thought I should ask myself just what I think wisdom is. So I said “Self, what do you think about wisdom?”  I think wisdom is knowing the difference between right and wrong and then choosing what is right. You can know what is right or wrong but if you fail to choose right, well, not so wise, but if you choose the right path or the right behavior, then you are….wise. Make sense? Being smart (intelligent) on the other hand is being able to acquire information and process it. Actually there’s a Proverb that speaks to it. (wouldn’t you know it) Proverbs 9:10 says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.”   I’ve heard it summed up this way: knowledge is what you know; intelligence is how you acquire it, and wisdom is how you use it.  

So, with that in mind it was fun to start reading about some of the “wisdom” Solomon has to share with us and let’s face it, it all makes pretty good sense, if only we would use it.

Hey, just on a side note: isn’t interesting that “wisdom” is given the feminine pronoun. Hmmm.