Wisdom

 Wisdom

April 1, 2025

Proverbs 1:1-7 (NASB95) 

1 The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel: 2 To know wisdom and instruction, To discern the sayings of understanding, 3 To receive instruction in wise behavior, Righteousness, justice and equity; 4 To give prudence to the naive, To the youth knowledge anddiscretion, 5 A wise man will hear and increase in learning, And a man of understanding will acquire wise counsel, 6 To understand a proverb and a figure, The words of the wise and their riddles. 7 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; Fools despise wisdom and instruction.

April 1 seems like an appropriate day to talk about wisdom. Some say that April Fools Day originated in the 16th CenturyLink when the Julian calendar was replaced by the Gregorian calendar and New Year’s Day was moved from the spring (about March 25) to January 1. Those who still celebrated New Years in the Spring were called April Fools. A Spring new year also is in line with the Hebrew liturgical calendar in which the first month is Nisan, which starts at the first new moon in the Spring. Passover follows on the 15th of Nisan, which would be at the full moon. I’m just speculating here, but there may have also been some antisemitism in the April Fools tradition to make fun of anyone who followed the Jewish calendar. Anyway, April 1 is traditionally called April Fools Day, for better or worse.

Of course, the Bible is against foolishness. Proverbs in particular  dedicates many verses to extolling the virtues of wisdom and admonishing against being foolish. But exactly what is wisdom? It is separate from knowledge. We have many schools and universities dedicated to knowledge, but how many of them teach wisdom? It seems to be less and less, but if you search diligently, you can find a teacher that will teach you wisdom. Learning knowledge does not preclude wisdom, but by itself, knowledge does not impute wisdom. Wisdom is knowing how to apply knowledge.  One popular saying is “Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in your fruit salad!” Solomon tells us that a wise man will increase in learning, so wisdom and knowledge can go together. But he also tells us that wisdom come from the fear of the Lord and accepting discipline. There are many who proclaim themselves the most knowledgeable elite, but they refuse to accept reproof. Indeed, they even refuse to debate the facts of the matter. This is the opposite of wisdom. A wise man is always open to discussing knowledge and is open to the possibility that his understanding of the matter is incorrect. 

That is also the basis for true science where every hypothesis must be tested by experiment, and a hypothesis that fails to be proved by real life experiments must be modified or discarded.  The modern phrase “Trust the science” is the exact opposite of this. True science is always open to challenge and “facts” can change if the reality of experimental science shows that they are not correct.

With God, we don’t rely on experimental facts, but we trust in the revelation of the Holy Spirit and the written word in the Bible. Any idea that doesn’t line up with these guide posts cannot be regarded as fact. Our reality is not everything that we see and hear, but is the eternal truths revealed to us by the One True God, the creator of the Universe. Faith comes from believing the Word of the Lord, and wisdom comes from acting on that Word in spite of what we see. Abram didn’t see any children in his future, but when God called him Abraham, the father of nations, he believed that it was true and acted on that faith. He was a wise man, and in time, Isaac was born and Israel indeed became a great nation. So you should strive to be a wise