Quotes About Wisdom

Our level of insight does not determine our level of trust. In fact, seeking insight rather than trust can get in the way of our walk with God.

Jesus, who is wisdom incarnate, gives us access to the Creator to reveal hidden things and invites us to seek out our sacred responsibility to perceive God's unscripted presence here and now.

I hear Aslan's words to Shasta: "'Child,' said the Lion, 'I am telling you your story. . . . I tell no one any story but his own.

Rather than counting on the acquisition of knowledge to support and defend the faith, a trust-centered faith values and honors the wise—those who through experience and mature spiritual habits have earned the right to lead and are given a central role in nurturing faith in others.

A Bible that does things like this is not a disappointing problem that has to be explained away or made excuses for, but something to be embraced with thanksgiving as a divine gift of love, as we, in return, accept our sacred and biblical responsibility to walk daily the path of wisdom rather than looking to hitch an easy ride.

Wisdom is about the lifelong process of being formed into mature disciples, who wander well along the unscripted pilgrimage of faith, in tune to the all-surrounding thick presence of the Spirit of God in us and in the creation around us.

Transposing the past is an act of wisdom. It is not scripted. It can't be predicted.

Reading the book of Proverbs on child rearing is like paying good money for financial advice and being told after ten sessions, "Here's what I've come up with. Invest your money wisely, and you will be set for retirement." I was hoping for stock tips.

This is the point of the story: the choice put before Adam and Eve is the same choice put before Israel every day: learn to listen to God and follow in his ways and then—only then—you will live. The story of Adam and Eve makes this point in the form of a myth. Proverbs makes it in the form of wisdom literature. Israel's long story in the Old Testament makes it in the form of historical narrative.

Reading the situation—not simply the Bible—is what wisdom is all about.

Another angle, one often taken by Christians in the Eastern Orthodox tradition, is to read the Adam story as being not about a fall down from perfection, but a failure to grow up to godly wisdom and maturity.

Wisdom leads us to dialogues with the past. It doesn't lead us back to the past.

Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Job all agree: the Bible doesn't capture a freeze-frame of God and bind him to it. If we get on board with this idea, some other things the Bible says about God will make more sense.

looking for fights—encouraging and even creating controversy thinking that God wills it—is pathological.

When we seek and follow wisdom in the precious few years given to us, we are truly accepting a sacred responsibility to live intentionally in the Spirit's presence. And what that looks like will be different for each of us and will likely change through the seasons of our lives.

To put it plainly, the life of faith is the pursuit of wisdom.

To live by faith—to live wisely—means living with an ever-increasing awareness of the hidden things, not simply a detached general knowledge that, say, "Money can be harmful," but a deep knowledge of ourselves, a true self-awareness of what money is doing to me . . . right now.

But if the Bible's main purpose is to form us, to grow us to maturity, to teach us the sacred responsibility of communing with the Spirit by walking the path of wisdom, it would leave plenty of room for pondering, debating, thinking, and the freedom to fail. And that is what it does.

The New Testament story is, in other words, one big act of wisdom—a response to God's surprising presence here and now.

And here's another important dimension of this book. When we accept that biblical invitation, we will see not only how the Bible challenges us to work out what it means to live the life of faith here and now. We will also see—if I may stress the point once again—how the biblical writers themselves were already challenged by the need to move past a rulebook mentality and respond to new circumstances with wisdom.

Wisdom, in other words, was not an add-on, but was always central for obeying any law in the Bible. Laws, once we begin thinking about what they mean and how they are to be obeyed, actually push us to seek wisdom, which goes beyond mechanical obedience. It's not surprising, therefore, that ancient Jews came to think of wisdom and Law as inseparable—they need each other to work, like needing a pin number to access your cash.

The point is that Proverbs 26:4–5 doesn't tell me what to do. It wasn't designed to. It models something better: the permission to think it through, figure it out, and learn from experience for next time. In fact, more than just giving us permission, the contradiction sets up our expectation that we will have to think it through.

God to have founded the earth by wisdom is hardly obvious, but we don't need to try to work it all out. It's enough to observe that wisdom and creation are inseparable—without wisdom, there is no creation.

Wisdom is about learning how to work through the unpredictable, uncontrollable messiness of life so you can figure things out on your own in real time.