A lot of people think that wisdom is a good idea, but not an essential attribute for proper Christian living. Almost like the idea that LeBron James would benefit from being able to shoot like Stephen Curry, but he doesn't need to do that in order to be great. This couldn't be further from the truth. We are literally commanded to be wise, just like we are commanded to obey and to be honest. This indicates that this is something that is attainable by all Christians, and when we don't attain it, we are disobeying God.
Dr. Sam Horn once said, "The opposite of wisdom is not ignorance. It is wickedness." The fact that this is so striking to us indicates that we have tremendously discounted what wisdom is in our culture. We like to think that wisdom is merely what is gained by living for a long time. While it is undeniable that wisdom ordinarily accompanies old age, that also makes wisdom much like physical deterioration or cancer. This obviously sells it short, but even those who supposedly value wisdom, treat wisdom with much less reverence than does the Bible. As a culture, we have flattened wisdom to knowledge.
What wisdom actually is, on the other hand, is the intersection of knowledge and zeal, turning right understanding into right action. According to Bruce Waltke's interpretation of Proverbs 1 , Wisdom includes knowledge, understanding, subtilty, discretion, learning, and understanding. While I'm tempted to merely regurgitate TS Eliot's Pyramid of Organisational Knowledge, I am persuaded that even it is flawed. Because true wisdom requires not just knowledge (or any of the other virtues in Proverbs 1), but it must also include the acknowledgement from whence it came (Col 2:3). Consider, a person with tremendous worldly "wisdom" who does not accept that true wisdom comes from Christ. I believe I Corinthians 1 gives an answer for this.
It is written: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe."
There is certainly worldly wisdom available to those who are not redeemed, but much like the Heidelberg Catechism definition of good mandates that real good can only be attained by and through a saving faith in Jesus Christ, real wisdom is only available in the same circumstance. The Bible references a wisdom generally meaning "masterful understanding" and "skill." Wisdom is used of technical and artistic skills (Exo 28:3; 31:6), of the arts of magic (Exo 7:11; Isa 3:3), government (Ecc 4:13; Jer. 50:35), diplomacy (1 Kings 5:7) and war (Isa 10:3). One also rules a nation by the ability to judge (1 Kings 3:28; Isa. 11:1-6) and to separate the guilty from the community (Prov. 20:26) and, through cleverness, to master people and situations (2 Sam. 14:2; Job 39:15,17).
While knowledge must be present within wisdom, it is a tremendous disservice to equate it to mere knowledge (incidentally, TS Eliot warns in the same hymn us against flattened knowledge to information, but that is a discussion for a different paper). Fools hate knowledge (Prov 1:22,29), and it is easy to see that life without it is much tougher. Wisdom allows a wide swath of people (of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues) to achieve what the world would say is impossible. Proverbs compares wisdom to an ant (Proverbs 6:6-8). Then, in Proverbs 30, big animals (lion, greyhound, and goat) as well as small animals (conies, locusts, and spiders) are added to the ant as exhibiting wisdom. In short, this book of Proverbs transforms a term that our culture neutralizes, wisdom, into the virtue that is the culmination of all other virtues.
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