The discerning sets his face toward wisdom, but the eyes of a fool are on the ends of the earth.
The saint, we sometimes think, is a man staring off into the distance, divorced in thought from the matters of this earth, immensely impractical, an idealist and a dreamer. Opposite him in our thought stands the man of the world, somebody who gets things done, even if his hands get a little dirty in the process, even if they have to get dirty in the process. It’s a set of images ground into the modern world’s self-conception, and it’s complete bunk. This proverb gives us an insight into why.
According to this proverb, it is the fool who puts his eyes on the ends of the earth. Now, simply to look far off is no vice. Wisdom itself is very far from us, farther than the ends of the earth, and long-term goals are good things, else God would not commend the man who seeks to leave a godly legacy to his children (Prov. 13:22). The problem here is not the distance. The problem is where the fool’s eyes don’t look: himself, his life, and his God. He doesn’t pay attention to what really matters.
For this behavior of the fool is set in contrast to the behavior of the ‘discerning’ man. Discernment, we are told, includes a determined, consistent pursuit of wisdom. The man blessed with this capacity orients himself towards wisdom and keeps to that journey. Of course, man can turn from wisdom ina thousand ways. Wisdom’s search is a pursuit even the greatest man will hold to only imperfectly in this life. Nevertheless, wisdom is the greatest jewel given to man before Christ (Ps. 19:10; Prov. 8) and even a part of Christ’s glory (1 Cor. 2:4). Therefore the search for wisdom should fascinate us.
The first essential component of a search for wisdom is a search for God, for proper relationship with Him. “Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to turn away from evil is understanding,” Job tells us (Job 28:28). God is the foundation and summit of wisdom. To revere Him as we ought, to love Him as we ought, to trust Him as we ought, this is wisdom’s nature. I say ‘nature’ and not ‘advice’ because wisdom is not mere knowledge, not merely a plan for life. Wisdom is an active thing, the essence of a life of righteousness; to be wise is to live wisely. To know all of wisdom without acting on it is to be intensely foolish (Luke 16:19-31).
The second component of wisdom, then, is the understanding which flows from fear of the Lord (Prov. 1:7). To have right relationship with Him requires knowing Him as He reveals Himself, sufficiently in Scripture (2 Tim. 3:16-17) and ever better understood by His grace. Knowing Him, though, we must seek also to know the world He made in light of Him. The house I live in is no independent reality, separate from God; it is a gift of God (Jam. 1:17), preserved by His hand and intended for my good (Rom. 8:28). The food I eat is to be eaten so as to glorify Him, being given to me by Him for my good and His glory (Col. 3:23). The relationships I form with other people are to be shaped according to His command and for the good of Him, of His image- each man, woman, or child I meet (Gen. 1:26; 1 Cor. 15:49). Wisdom requires that I understand this; wisdom requires that I seek understanding of this.
More than mere knowledge, though, we have application in the world, the third component. Here I take that understanding of the ideal and seek to work it out in reality, by His grace and with continual submission to the admonition of His word and of those wiser than myself, for I will often go wrong. Here we see why I so condemned the stereotype of the saint who barely perceives the world around him. In actual fact, the saint who seeks God and seeks to know how the world should be is the man who will the most alter the world in practical, tangible ways. The crusader does not bend the world towards nothing; he has a goal in mind. God’s wisdom does not withdraw from the world. God’s wisdom engages it in pitched battle, seeking to conquer all of creation in history as it has been conquered in fact by His resurrection.
The fool, conversely, pursues his own far-off fancies. He fails often to see the world as it is; he refuses to engage with God’s reality. Instead, he peers off, away from God who presses ever near to him, away from God’s wisdom offered freely, away from the responsibilities which God gives to men. He seeks the far-off distraction instead. Where the Christian, knowing wisdom, pursues it by loving his family and his church and his nation, by being fruitful in his vocations, by remaking the world to His pattern, the fool absconds and does only what pleases him. He is lazy or lascivious, greedy or envious, hateful or proud, generally in combination. Thus where the saint touches the world and moves its mountains (Matt. 17:20), the fool can only leave his mark by neglect and failure, a living declaration of the fate of that which has not God (Prov. 6:12).
God bless.
Sanctuary Functional Medicine, under the direction of Dr Eric Potter, IFMCP MD, provides functional medicine services to Nashville, Middle Tennessee and beyond. We frequently treat patients from Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Ohio, Indiana, and more... offering the hope of healthier more abundant lives to those with chronic illness.
