THE CONCISE PRIMARY Webster’s dictionary definition of wisdom is “the quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgement.” While accurate, it has a decided lack of depth—it both seems and is in fact sterile in light of the broad realm of experiences we encounter over a lifetime. Jesus’ words, “But wisdom is proved right by all her children,” (Luke 7:35), have an affinity with a secondary Webster’s definition: wisdom is also “the soundness of an action or decision with regard to the application of experience, knowledge, and good judgment.”
When we study Solomon’s reflections on wisdom throughout the book of Ecclesiastes we see a lifetime of evolved careful introspective thought. He poses a rhetorical question we all should consider. “Since no man knows the future, who can tell him what is to come? No man has power over the wind to contain it; so no one has power over the day of his death.” (Ecc. 8:7-8) Solomon’s personal struggles to apply wisdom across life’s span throughout the progression of thought in Ecclesiastes bear witness to the manifold complexities all of us must face in the journey from birth to death.
Perhaps we engage with such thoughts when we are young, but that is not the usual pattern. Then we might appreciate them rationally and intellectually; later in life we recognize ourselves in them, and from the history of our own struggles. Conceivably, somewhere in our journey, we come to a conclusion not evident earlier. The wisdom of old age and experience is something the young can only come to understand by living through enough experiences long enough.
Moses is the towering human figure of the O.T. In his 120 years of life, he went from birth and a basket thrown on the Nile river to the halls of the Pharaoh’s palace in Egypt. He went from power and privilege to the simple life of a shepherd. He went from shepherd to prophet and deliverer of a nation of people to the doorstep of the Promised Land, only to die short of the goal, or perhaps only by his own definition of that, as he gazed from the top of Mt. Nebo into Beulah Land.
This was both destination and destiny: the chosen people entered into the covenant of marriage with God. Moses speaks of the wisdom of the aged, and the wisdom of the ages, much the same way as Solomon will later, in the Psalms. “You sweep men away in the sleep of death; they are like the new grass of the morning—though in the morning it springs up new, by evening it is dry and withered. The length of our days is seventy years—or eighty, if we have the strength; yet their span is but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away. The length of our days is seventy years—or eighty, if we have the strength; yet their span is but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away.” (Psa. 90:5-6, 10, 12)
There is a sense of bleak hopelessness in Moses’ words, until this foreshadowing hint of hope follows: “Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.” (Psa. 90:14) Through our Christian lens we look back upon this as a prophecy of the resurrection to be revealed in the fulness of time and in our own lives in the ascended Jesus.
Solomon expresses very similar thoughts, perhaps inspired by his various readings of Moses, as he ends his reflections on life and wisdom. They are obviously the thoughts of an aged man, and perhaps they are universal to the ruminations of so many as the end of the journey in linear time approaches. “Remember your Creator,” he says, “in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say, ‘I find no pleasure in them.’” He furthers this thought. “Remember him—before the silver cord is severed, or the golden bowl is broken; before the pitcher is shattered at the spring, or the wheel broken at the well, and the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.” (Ecc. 12:1, 6-7)
In our own rumination on the evolution of wisdom, we come to several concluding thoughts. One is this: Wisdom speaks few words, but they are forceful, concise, and perfectly timed. The second is this, again from Solomon. “Here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.” (Ecc.12:13-14)
Yet there is still more to ponder. Ultimately, as human wisdom bows to the will of God, there are the words of Jesus to consider, and in which to find hope, the antidote to all fear, and especially the fear of death. “I have come that you may have life, and have it to the full.” (John 10:10) Paul shares this: “We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us.” (1 Cor. 2:6-12) Here then, is wisdom given birth in the words of Jesus: “Glorify your Son. For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all. Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” (John 17:3)
Q. How will the wisdom of God help me today?
Leave a Reply