Proverbs 15:12 ESV
A scoffer does not like to be reproved; he will not go to the wise.
[https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=proverbs+15%3A12&version=ESV]
Who are the wise among us? It’s not an easy question. Rich people, maybe? But let’s be honest, rich people can be remarkably stupid. Worse, a lot of them are downright evil. What about poor people? That’s a slightly Communist doctrine, and it’s just as wrong as the first. So economic status probably isn’t the way to go. We could look at age, and here we have a better correlation. Old people have a higher rate of wisdom than young people, no doubt about it. Experience helps; to quote an old poem, the elderly have “weathered their share of winters in this world.” Old people can also be stunningly foolish, though. There’s no fool like an old fool, the saying runs, and we can all think of a few candidates for the title ‘old fool’, in public life and out of it.
Who is the wise man?
History offers a lot of answers. One contemplation of the subject can be found in the Anglo-Saxon poem, “The Wanderer”, quoted above. In that poem, the titular wanderer enumerates several traits of wise men: age, patience, humility, and foresight, to summarize the most prominent. He advises too that wisdom lies in relying not upon earthly things, friends and wealth and one’s ‘lord of men’, things which fate (wyrd) takes away in the end, but upon the ‘Maker’ and ‘mercy, the Maker’s mildness’. This definition isn’t comprehensive, but neither is it false. Yet it’s not complete. Wisdom has more to its than this for the Christian.
Thankfully for us, the Bible is incredibly far from silent on this topic. What is the root of wisdom? It is “the fear of the Lord” (Ps. 11:10; Prov. 9:10). To long for and seek wisdom is its beginning (Pr. 4:7), and because “the Lord gives wisdom”, to seek wisdom from Him is the only good course. Wisdom at its heart, then, is to follow in the path God commands in relationship with Him. Wisdom, therefore, encompasses the moral law, but it extends beyond the bare-bones of definite rights and definite wrongs. It extends to tricky application, to questions of practicality, to self-control in difficult circumstances. Indeed, wisdom is a summation of the fruits of the Spirit, the practical results of His indwelling, of being His tabernacle (1 Cor. 6:19-20). Wisdom therefore contains “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, [and] self-control” (Gal. 5:22-23).
Thus, wisdom is a gift of God for His people. Wisdom can be imitated by the unregenerate, but because they do not have His spirit (Deut. 34:9), they cannot have true wisdom. The world’s wisdom, therefore, is not true wisdom but merely the imitation of it which is allowed to the fractured image of God in mankind, an imitation which can often bring success for a time or on this earth (pagan proverbs often have much practical truth in them), an imitation which is helpless against eternity because it hates the God who made eternity. True wisdom, meanwhile, lasts to eternity because it is the gift of God, because rather than warring with He who alone is self-infinite, it follows His commands and gives glory to His name.
Now, this proverb didn’t really focus on the wise man, but I changed the focus for a reason. We already know the evil of being a scoffer, one who disregards instruction and guidance, who either refuses to consider or outright embraces his sin. It’s not good, practically or morally. What we need, then, is a guide to turn away from that evil. This proverb gives us an important part of the path: wise counsel and reproof. We must take care that we listen when the wise instruct us, even if their instruction is not to our liking. What’s more, we must actively seek out that counsel, not wait for it to come to us as a sluggard might wait.
Wisdom has a final component to its nature that should drive this point home. Wisdom is not just a peripheral part of His relationship with us. No, He names Himself Wisdom in Proverbs 8, saying, “The Lord possessed Me at the beginning of His work, the first of His acts of old,” a statement which, in light of John 1:1-14, can hardly be interpreted as else but a declaration of deity, perhaps even of Christ as Wisdom (8:23-24). Wisdom is an inherent part of God, a part He would have us reflect as His image, and the counselor we must seek is not merely a man. He is a man, but He is God in the flesh, Isaiah’s, “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (9:6). In the increase of His government, which shall, Isaiah proclaims, have no end, in that increase we may find perfect and everlasting peace, the purpose of wisdom, the perfection of God’s creation and of His glory (Is. 9:7).
God bless.
Written by Colson Potter
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.
