9) Wisdom as a gift

click the arrow to listen

In the introduction, I made the distinction between wisdom and opinion. We have seen that wisdom can be gained through testing times which mature us through experience. However, this could be called ‘natural’ wisdom; and while it is not to be undervalued, it is not automatically the wisdom which proceeds from God. Opinion meanwhile is acquired either by education or by imbibing the ideas of other people: neither of these two ways guarantees that we are receiving divine wisdom. That which is ‘natural’ is not automatically spiritual.

unique

The bible reveals divine wisdom as a gift from the Divine Godhead. The clearest example of this occurred at the beginning of the reign of King Solomon. He was the promised ‘Son of David’ whose reign would be like no other in Israel’s history. The reason for this was that God gifted him with a most significant gift. Here is the account:

At Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon during the night in a dream, and God said, ‘Ask for whatever you want me to give you.’ Solomon answered, ‘You have shown great kindness to your servant, my father David, because he was faithful to you and righteous and upright in heart. You have continued this great kindness to him and have given him a son to sit on his throne this very day. ‘Now, Lord my God, you have made your servant king in place of my father David. But I am only a little child and do not know how to carry out my duties. Your servant is here among the people you have chosen, a great people, too numerous to count or number. So give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong. For who is able to govern this great people of yours?’

The Lord was pleased that Solomon had asked for this. So God said to him, ‘Since you have asked for this and not for long life or wealth for yourself, nor have asked for the death of your enemies but for discernment in administering justice, I will do what you have asked. I will give you a wise and discerning heart, so that there will never have been anyone like you, nor will there ever be. Moreover, I will give you what you have not asked for – both wealth and honour – so that in your lifetime you will have no equal among kings. And if you walk in obedience to me and keep my decrees and commands as David your father did, I will give you a long life.’

Then Solomon awoke – and he realised it had been a dream. He returned to Jerusalem, stood before the ark of the Lord’s covenant and sacrificed burnt offerings and fellowship offerings. Then he gave a feast for all his court. (1 Kings 3:5-15)

Using this divine gift, Solomon built not only a magnificent kingdom but also the magnificent Temple which was at the time a wonder of the world. He had God’s blessing in every way and his kingdom was marked out by peace. The quality of the gift he received lasted throughout his lifetime even though he was diverted from the Lord’s way towards the end of his life. This happened because he had married many foreign wives against the commands of Moses. His wives changed him in this way:

As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father had been. (1 Kings 11:4)

As a consequence, God removed His blessing and the kingdom became divided in the reign of Solomon’s son.

proverbs

Solomon was also famous for his wisdom and proverbs. The Book of Proverbs is mostly a collection of his sayings. A question we might ask is, “Did Solomon lose the gift of wisdom when his heart was compromised?” Well, in Romans 11 we read this:

for God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable. (Romans 11:29)

There is a lot of very deep meaning in this verse; however, it does teach that God’s gifts remain with us, and we can rely on them at all times. As an example of Solomon’s wisdom, this is one of his proverbs:

Do not speak in the hearing of a fool, for he will despise the wisdom of your words. (Proverbs 23:9)

Wisdom is for the wise and those who are earnestly seeking wisdom. A fool in the bible refers not to someone who is uneducated but someone who rejects God in his or her life. They cannot and will not receive wisdom inspired of God. Jesus also made this very clear when He taught:

“Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces. (Matthew 7:6)

Pearls of wisdom should not be wasted on closed unbelieving minds. If you try to do this, then your wisdom may even be twisted in meaning and used against you. Perhaps this is a good proverb to remember when using social media!

The other thing we learn from Solomon is that gifts are only given to us if we ask for them. Here is James:

If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. (James 1:5)

Wisdom was seen as central to the life of the first church. Even in practical matters such as those involving the sharing of goods with people in need, wisdom was seen as of first importance. Look at the quality of those who were chosen for this task:

Brothers and sisters, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them (Acts 6:3)

These were amazing, powerful, wise Christians. Among them was Stephen who became the first martyr of the church. When wisdom permeates even down to the smallest matters of church life then these can be spiritually energised.

spoken

Paul’s prayer for all the churches which he founded in Europe were always that they would be blessed with wisdom:

I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. (Ephesians 1:17)

This wisdom should be manifested in the quality of leadership. Choosing wise leaders rather than just well-educated, charismatic or powerful personalities is such a vital matter. But as well as leadership, wisdom can be shared through ordinary members of the Body of Christ.

This is found in the spoken gifts with which the church, as the Body of Christ, should be blessed. Here are two of them:

To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:8)

The gifts of wisdom and knowledge mentioned here are not given to everyone. These gifts are divided up according to the will of the Spirit, as the passage tells us:

All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines. (1 Corinthians 12:11)

The question we can ask is, “In what way is the gift of a ‘message of wisdom’ different from the wisdom which God gives generously to all who ask?” It is chiefly that this gift is to be spoken in the hearing of everyone meeting together so that the whole church benefits. The Greek word for ‘message’ is ‘logos’ which is the word used to describe Jesus at the beginning of John’s Gospel – ‘In the beginning was the Word (the Logos)’. We could say that this gift of wisdom is Jesus teaching His church through certain members of His own spiritual Body.

test

It goes without saying that Jesus possessed and used all the spiritual gifts found in this chapter. As an example of the gift of wisdom we could take the parables. These are stories used to communicate the wisdom of the Kingdom to the listeners. We could also look at some of the responses of Jesus to His critics. Some famous wise responses of His are enshrined as sayings in the English language such as:

“Let the one without sin be the first to throw a stone"
“Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God”
“He who lives by the sword will die by the sword”

This gift is not like the wisdom revealed to the heart of the individual to help us make personal decisions, but it is wisdom that must be spoken out to benefit many. A good modern example of the gift of wisdom, I think, would be the poem ‘Footprints’. It describes God’s care for us throughout life in memorable picture form.

There is a risk with spoken gifts that someone could lead others astray by claiming to speak from the Spirit when they are actually speaking from their own minds. This is why we should test everything. But we must do this without being unduly cynical or suspicious and thus risk rejecting the wisdom of spiritual gifts. Paul made the point here when dealing with another of the spoken gifts, prophecy:

Do not quench the Spirit. Do not treat prophecies with contempt but test them all; hold on to what is good, reject every kind of evil. (1 Thessalonians 5:19-22)

The chief way in which we can test gifts is by checking them against the bible’s teachings. Nothing said by way of wisdom will ever directly contradict them. Where there is no exact parallel in the bible against which to check something, then we should rely on the wisdom of mature leaders in the church.

dimensions

To finish, let me quote from the doxology of praise which Paul wrote in Romans when he was contemplating the magnificent wisdom of God:

Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! (Romans 11:33)

We often speak about ‘deep wisdom’ when something which is said reaches into the depths of the heart or human experience. But we cannot easily fit God into convenient human understandings of depth. God is infinite and so is His wisdom. Consequently, we never need be concerned that wisdom will dry up. We should be concerned that we might lose the ability to hear wisdom from God. Or even more concerned if we think we no longer need to hear His wisdom. Or tragically concerned if we become deluded enough to think that we have grown out of the need for God's wisdom. As we shall read in the final episode, wisdom is part of Who God is and will be present throughout eternity. Praise God for His wisdom and praise God for sharing it with us.