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Thoughts of a saint and slave
by Sam Isaacson
'Wisdom cries aloud in the street, in the markets she raises her voice; at the head of the noisy streets she cries out; at the entrance of the city gates she speaks: “How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple? How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge? If you turn at my reproof, behold, I will pour out my spirit to you; I will make my words known to you."' (Proverbs 1:20-23)
Wisdom is a person
Solomon continues his introduction to Proverbs by introducing a personification of wisdom. In his mind, Wisdom is a person crying out to us to listen. This fits perfectly with what we have seen in the last few weeks; fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom. Solomon has one target: obedience to God, but it is as if he is attacking this target from every conceivable angle. He's simply underlining here that becoming wise is not simply a case of learning, or memorising - it's a case of getting to know a person: God.
Wisdom's call
Looking at the words spoken by Wisdom here it seems quite patronising: 'how long do you want to be stupid for?' Sometimes we need to ask ourselves these almost ridiculous questions to highlight that we are foolish, in desperate need of God.
Have you ever tried convincing yourself not to sin using logic? It doesn’t really work a lot of the time. Sexual sin’s the worst, and that’s the image Solomon likes to use here; someone addicted to pornography can be logically convinced that his addiction has negative effects on his relationships with women and his health, yet that won’t help him kick the habit. An adulterous wife knows logically that it is putting her marriage and children at risk, yet that doesn’t help. Every so often we need to do what Solomon does here, and ask ourselves: ‘why are you being so stupid?’
Wisdom’s promise
It’s almost too good to be true. Turn to wisdom and she says that she’ll give us her spirit and her words. She will literally pour a spirit of wisdom into us, if only we’ll look to her! I find it genuinely surprising that people claim that the Old Testament shows a religion of works and the New Testament shows us grace, there’s nothing whatsoever here about working for this wisdom, the Bible is all of grace!
The simple message Solomon is teaching us here has not changed. If we submit to God and His wisdom, we will become wise ourselves. This truth is mind-changing; regardless of whether you think of yourself as clever, bright, smart, wise, or whatever word you’d like to use; regardless of whether anyone else thinks you’re wise, God promises that we will become wise if we simply follow Him. Who would have thought that wisdom would be so simple?
More next week.
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