The Beginning of Wisdom

The passage from Proverbs 2 which I was studying last week tells me, “If you call out for insight . . . you will understand the fear of the Lord.”  God repeats this fact still more clearly in Proverbs 9:10: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”  According to God, then, I must begin my search for wisdom by learning to fear God.

There are two kinds of fear of God: terror and awe.  Unsaved sinners fear God as a criminal fears the judge and the executioner.  God has promised to “terrify them in his fury” (Psalm 2:5), to visit his wrath upon them and “dash them in pieces” (Psalm 2:9).  They are afraid of God’s anger and his power to destroy them.  God is utterly just and utterly righteous, and he cannot abide sin.  So the foolish and lost people who refuse to obey God are right to feel terror of his inevitable judgement.  But the Psalmist goes on to say that the wise “serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling” (Psalm 2:11).  This type of fear is clearly different than the abject terror of the wicked, for how can one “rejoice” in serving a terrifying and wrathful God?  This combination of rejoicing and trembling is not dread, but awe.

The word “awe” has fallen out of use in modern culture.  The dictionary defines it as “an overwhelming feeling of reverence, admiration, fear, etc., produced by that which is grand, sublime, extremely powerful.”  We can read this definition and think we understand what the word means, but the words in the dictionary can’t really convey the feeling of awe.  And how many people in the modern world have really experienced awe?  Even the concept is beginning to fade out of our culture.  I might feel some measure of awe if I stand at the edge of the Grand Canyon–a combination of admiration for the beauty and fear of the fall–but this sensation is not quite the same as awe directed toward a person.

Historically, people treated kings with awe.  I believe that we’re losing our awe at least partly because we have no kings.  Human kings offered a reflection of God’s nature as King, thus helping us understand how we ought to act toward God.  But in this age of elected officials and the limited power of rulers, we have no human lords to whom to ascribe awe.  How can we grasp what it means to fear the Lord when we don’t even know what it means to have lords?

It seems to me that the proper awe ascribed to kings and gods now survives mainly in literature.  Few of the old books describe awe, because they take it for granted.  But you can see hints of that proper fear, albeit often mixed with dread.  The Greeks feared their gods mainly because they knew the gods were unjust and vindictive; nevertheless, they understood that deep-seated respect and admiration which we have lost.  A scene in the Iliad describes their worship:

“All day long they propitiated the god with singing,
chanting a splendid hymn to Apollo, these young Achaians,
singing to the one who works from afar, who listened in gladness.”

Dante tries to describe the awe toward God in Paradiso: he rises to the very summit of Elysium and finds himself overwhelmed by holy light,

“And through the living radiance there shone
the shining Substance, bright, and to such end
full in my face, my vision was undone.”

Beatrice tells him, “That which now overmasters thee / is might which nothing can evade or fend.”  God’s power and glory are so great that Dante is crushed, undone, and literally blinded by the sight of it.  He spends the rest of the canto singing God’s praises, unable to do anything else.

Tolkien, although nominally a modern writer, understands and describes awe as clearly as the ancients.  When Aragorn comes to take his throne, the people prepare the city for his coming and send out tidings to all parts of Gondor, and “all that could come to the City made haste to come” so that they might honor their king.  All the nobles and captains line the way to escort him to the gate, and “upon either side of the Gate was a great press of fair people, . . . the people of the City and of all parts of the land.”  Everyone is joyful and eager to see the king and to do him reverence.  Quotes pulled from the book cannot present the full image of the dignity and power and glory with which Tolkien imbues the scene.  If you’ve read it, you know what I mean.  By the end of the scene, the reader feels like kneeling before Aragorn along with the people of Gondor, not just because of his magnificent nobility, but also because you know how dangerous and powerful he can be.

This is awe.  When I go before God, my perfectly just and righteous King, I ought to feel this joyful fear, this overwhelming, frightening, and beautiful awareness of who he is and what he has done.  God is not a nice grandfather in the sky who sends people to heaven if they’re good.  God is the Lord, who crushes his enemies and demands reverence from his people.  So of course the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.  How unutterably foolish it would be to go before the God of the universe without fear!

A Search for Hidden Treasures

“My son, if you receive my words
and treasure up my commandments with you,
making your ear attentive to wisdom
and inclining your heart to understanding;
yes, if you call out for insight
and raise your voice for understanding,
if you seek it like silver
and search for it as for hidden treasures,
then you will understand the fear of the Lord
and find the knowledge of God.
For the Lord gives wisdom;
from his mouth come knowledge and understanding;
he stores up sound wisdom for the upright;
he is a shield to those who walk in integrity,
guarding the paths of justice
and watching over the way of his saints.
Then you will understand righteousness and justice
and equity, every good path;
for wisdom will come into your heart,
and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul;
discretion will watch over you,
understanding will guard you,
delivering you from the way of evil…”

Proverbs 2:1-12

I have always had a passion for learning.  I love to read, to study, to memorize, to examine the world around me.  But the quest for pure knowledge is never good enough.  I might memorize a thousand facts and repeat them back without ever understanding what they mean or why they matter.  I feel a thirst for more than simple knowledge: I want understanding as well.  I want to analyze what I see, explain what I know, learn the purpose of what I study, and above all, I want to put to use the things I learn.  In short, I long for wisdom.

Left to my own devices, I can of course gain some measure of understanding, but never true wisdom as the Bible defines it.  Under my own power, I might turn myself into a version of Bunyan’s Worldly-Wiseman, an arrogant man who seeks only “ways of obtaining what [I] desire without the dangers.”  But Proverbs 2 sets forth a different type of wisdom, an understanding based entirely on God.  I cannot gain wisdom on my own; it is a gift of God.  And as with so many of the blessings of God, the gift of wisdom is conditional.  If I receive his words and treasure up his commandments, then I will find wisdom.

These words clearly show that wisdom consists of far more than simple knowledge.  I have to go beyond facts and actively seek something deeper.  Receiving what someone says consists of more than simply hearing; the word implies some level of acceptance or affirmation of, and perhaps even faith in, what I hear.  Likewise, the idea of God’s commands as treasure brings to mind images of cherishing, admiring, examining, and appraising.  I am to keep his commandments with me, hold them close to me, treat them as precious.  As I see in verse 2, I must bend not only my mind but also my heart, my emotional strength, my whole effort, into the pursuit of understanding.

In verse 5 the writer of Proverbs finally comes to the second half of the conditional statement, but does not end it as expected.  He does not say that if I seek wisdom I will find wisdom.  Rather, if I seek wisdom I will “understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.”  But this is how the statement ought to end.  The writer does not give the impression that I am seeking wisdom and finding something else instead.  So real wisdom consists of understanding the fear of the Lord and finding knowledge of him.  Only once I know God can I understand his creation.

The Random House Dictionary defines wisdom as “knowledge of what is true or right coupled with just judgment as to action.”  But how can I know what is true or right, and how can I judge my actions justly, unless by comparing my actions to a higher standard?  And there is no higher standard than God, who displays and defines perfect righteousness and justice.  So if I first seek the knowledge of God, wisdom will follow naturally from my relationship with him, because he is the wisest and he has promised to teach me.  But if I seek worldly wisdom on its own, apart from God, I will find neither true wisdom nor the blessings of my Lord.

It’s also important to realize that wisdom is not an achievement in which to boast, but rather a shield to hold before me.  ”Discretion will watch over you, understanding will guard you.”  Foolishness and worldly temptations assail me constantly, and I need wisdom to fight against them.  God’s people are to be “wise as serpents and innocent as doves” (Matthew 10:16).  Innocence does not mean ignorance, a life of hiding my head in the sand.  On the contrary, I need to know my enemies; I need the wisdom to understand the people and the sins of the world, discern the traps they set for me, and outwit them on their own territory.

Therefore I will set out on a search for hidden treasures.  I will call out for insight and raise my voice for understanding.  I will look for the knowledge of God, and from his mouth, from the scriptures, he will give me knowledge and understanding.  He will teach me to understand righteousness and justice and equity and every good path.  He will guard me and deliver me from the way of evil.  He will make me wise.