Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Speaker A: The following is a legacy recording from the archives of the C.S. lewis Institute. While the audio quality of these recordings may vary, the content remains vital to the mission of the Institute to develop disciples who can articulate, defend, and live faith in Christ through personal and public life.
[00:00:24] Speaker B: It's just great to be back with you again.
Most of your faces are familiar to me, and you've already ministered to me richly.
Have you heard of Pedro Rodriguez?
He was a Mexican that regularly crossed the Rio Grande and robbed the banks in Texas.
And then, of course, he'd flee back south of the Rio Grande and find a sanctuary back in Mexico.
Well, the Texans got fed up with Rodriguez, and so they hired a marshal to go south of the border and track him down and recover their money.
So the marshal went south of the border, and sure enough, he found Rodriguez in the back room of a bar.
He stole up on him, and then he put his pistol to his head and said, rodriguez, tell me where the money is or I'll blow off your head.
And Manuel was sitting over in the corner, slouched over there, watching all this. And he came over. He said, senor, he doesn't speak English.
So the marshal said, all right, translate for me. Tell him what I told you. So he told him what he had said.
Rodriguez became very frightened.
He said, it's out in the courtyard. It's down in the well, fourth row of stones, behind a loose rock, you'll find the $4 million.
The marshal said, what did he say?
Manuel says. He says, I didn't steal the money.
[00:01:59] Speaker C: I don't know where it is.
Blow up my head,
[00:02:05] Speaker B: you got the joke. I know that I'm in the right crowd. It means you're as depraved as Manuel is.
You were filling in all the lines, right? With him, thinking the same thoughts. So I think maybe we do have some need of wisdom here.
[00:02:25] Speaker C: I think when we think about this
[00:02:27] Speaker B: topic of wisdom, we naturally think of Solomon and his wisdom.
And do I finish at 10 o', clock, Art?
Okay, well, you better tell me where it plagged me down, because there's no end to this topic.
But when we think about it, for example, 1 Kings, chapter 4, the famous verse of Solomon's great wisdom.
Just read it. Refresh your memories.
Verse 29, and I am reading from new international version.
God gave Solomon wisdom and very great insight and a breath of understanding as measureless as the sand on the seashore.
Solomon's wisdom was greater than the wisdom of all the men of the east and greater than all the wisdom of Egypt.
He was wiser than any other man, including Ethan the Ezraite, wiser than Heman, Chalkal and Darda, the sons of Mahal. And his fame spread to all the surrounding nations.
He spoke 3,000 proverbs and his songs numbered a thousand and five.
He described plant life from the seat of Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out of the wall. He also taught about animals and birds, reptiles and fish. Men of all nations came to listen to Solomon's wisdom, sent by all the kings of the world who had heard of his wisdom.
And of course, when we think of Solomon and his great wisdom apart from Christ in the new age, the greatest, wisest man that ever lived, we naturally think of his Proverbs.
And we have in the Book of Proverbs Approximately of these, 3,525 of the selected, most select proverbs.
So ours is a very unique opportunity this weekend to be studying and sitting at the feet of a king to whom in the ancient world kings had sent their wisest men to listen.
And that's what we're going to be doing for these four Sundays, four series in the morning here of listening to the wisest wisdom ever spoken.
And I think the best way for me in this hour, the first hour, is to introduce the book.
And I know of no better way of introducing the book than its own introduction.
That's found in Proverbs Chapter one, verses one through seven.
And that will be our text this morning. I want to look at the introduction to the Book of Proverbs to orientate ourselves.
And I'll read it first of all and then we'll look at it more closely. I do encourage you to have a Bible in hand to be looking at the text.
If you don't have one, try to share with someone, because we'll get a lot more out of it if you're actually looking at the text.
The Proverbs of Solomon, son of David, King of Israel, for attaining wisdom and discipline, for understanding words of insight, for acquiring a disciplined and prudent life, for doing what is right and just and fair, for giving prudence to the simple knowledge and discretion to the young.
Just a little retranslation here. The wise will listen and add to their learning. The discerning will get guidance for understanding proverbs and parables, the sayings of the and riddles of the wise. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline.
By the way, if at any point you want to ask a question, I want to encourage you to ask a question. Don't hesitate to ask questions. If something is not clear, it's a unique opportunity. What makes this sort of session different is that you can interact.
So if you have questions or you want to wait till the end, but don't afraid to ask a question as we go along, whether it be a
[00:06:23] Speaker C: dynamic interaction between us.
[00:06:27] Speaker B: The introduction, as you can see, falls into three parts.
We have a title to the book, a narrative prose section, the Proverbs of Solomon, son of David, King of Israel.
I just make comment here, had I the time to show this. There are many, many similarities between the book of Proverbs, especially the first nine chapters, and Egyptian wisdom literature.
The forms are almost exactly the same. In fact, many of the concepts are very, very similar.
You remember back there when we were reading in First Kings, chapter four, it said he was wiser than all the other men of the ancient Near East. And the wise men came to hear him speak. And actually Solomon used the forms of wisdom that were common in his day.
And if you look at the Egyptian wisdom literature, they always begin with a narrative prose section, such as we have here.
But there's a difference between the Egyptian literature and the Bible at this point, Namely, in the Egyptian literature, we're introduced to both the author and the recipient to whom the wisdom is addressed.
Here we have only the authority. The Proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel.
And there's no addressee, there's no recipient that is named.
I suspect the reason for that is that originally this material was designed for viziers, courtiers, administrators, and kings.
If you look at the Proverbs, you discover that it will tell you how to eat with kings, which is not Mr. Everyman.
The virtuous woman at the end of the book has maidservants.
This is really addressed originally to the elite, to the aristocratic, to the leadership of the nation. The book of Proverbs was originally addressed to the budding officials, the legislators, the legislators, those who were in positions of leadership.
And I suspect that the addressee has been dropped off here because now it's in canon of scripture, and it is democratized to the entire community of faith so that it is no one particular individual anymore. It's to all those within the covenant community.
And we are entitled and invited to be the recipients of this letter that is part of canon, that is holy scripture, written for the entire community of faith, and that is unexpressed. I suspect that's the reason for this particular difference. But I think that is in canon, and it has the imprimatur of Christ upon it. It's handed over to his church. We can well fit in here. It's as Paul would put the Ephesians, he would say to the church at Ephesus or Colossae. We know it has been democratized to the entire church. And so this is wisdom for all of us as well.
In verses two through six, we have the purpose of the book, and and then in verse seven we have the key to the book. The fact of the matter is, and I won't have time to get to verse seven this morning, but you can scarcely enter into wisdom unless you've been through the gateway of verse seven.
It is the foundation. Verse seven is the foundation for entering into wisdom as the letters of an Alphabet. Before one can read, one must be able to before one can read, one must know the Alphabet.
Before one can work with mathematics, one must understand numerals.
Before one can play music, one must know notes in the scale.
And before one can really enter into this book, we have to be through verse seven.
And I don't think time will allow it this morning to get through verse seven. And I'll take that up first thing tomorrow morning.
I'd like to spend my time on verses two through six, which is the purpose of the book. It's the motivation for getting into the book.
You'll notice that it's the Proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel. And the truth is we're not going to really meet the Proverbs of Solomon until chapter 10 and verse 1 and the first nine chapters are Heart's preparation in order to prepare yourself spiritually to enter into that rich material that begins with one aphorism after another. With chapter 10, verse 1, where you read the Proverbs of Solomon, and that's where the hardcore stuff begins. And tomorrow morning I'll be looking at some of those proverbs and I'm going to select the material and I want to talk about wise speech tomorrow morning.
I'll say more about what we'll do Sunday morning, which will be chapter two, which is the psychology of how you actually develop the fear of the Lord.
What are the processes by which that spiritual life is developed that is given to us in chapter two, but here we're given the purpose of the book. And you'll notice that in the NIV we have four.
The Hebrew here is the preposition lamed, which means in order to. This is the purpose of the book in order to.
For attaining wisdom and discipline, for understanding words of insight, for acquiring A disciplined and prudent life. Verse 4 for giving prudence to the simple. Then there's a parenthetical statement. The wise will listen and add to their learning.
The discerning will get guidance. And then verse 6 for understanding proverbs and parables.
So we have the purpose for the book in verses three through six, with the exception that in verse five we have a parenthetical statement that the wise will naturally be attracted to this book and we'll listen and gather its material.
If you look at this purpose more closely, you'll discover something else. You'll discover that the preposition for or 2 this lamed is repeated twice in verse 2.
You'll see it's in the A verse set for attaining wisdom and discipline.
And then in the B verse set for understanding words of insight.
That's the only verse where the purpose is given twice for attaining wisdom and discipline for understanding words of insight.
If you peruse the text a bit more closely and study it, you'll discover that that be verse set for understanding words of insight is unpacked and added to in verse six that the words of insight are now expressed by. And note the parallelism between 2B and verse 6.
It says in 2B the beaver said for understanding words of insight. Now verse 6 for understanding same vocabulary, proverbs and parables, sayings and riddles of the wise.
Most who have observed this that the verse 6 matches 2B.
I think rightly assume that verses 3 and 4 develop verse A.
And I think we'll see why that is true. In fact, there are verbal links linking for attaining wisdom and discipline. And see how that's hooked up to 3A for acquiring a disciplined and prudent life. And the same word is being translated there. Disciplined, discipline.
And if you look at verses 3 and 4 a bit more closely, you'll see something else as well, that this is developing verse 2A. It first of all in verse 3 looks at it from the student child's viewpoint for acquiring for receiving a disciplined and prudent life. And then it looks at it from the sage parents viewpoint for giving prudence to the simple. And you can see that three and four go together because one is from the student child's viewpoint to receive something. And in verse four it's from the teacher parent viewpoint it's to give something. And I already showed that the discipline is linking up 3A with 2A, so that I have good reason to think that verses 3 and 4 unpack 2A. You have a parenthesis in verse 5 and then verse 6 unpacks 2B.
And that's sort of how this material goes together.
Now let us look then at the major reason. And to divide that up in 2A, in that verse set, it's for attaining moral acumen, and in 2B, it's for attaining mental acumen.
And I'll say more about that.
Let us look then at the summary statement in verse 2A. It's for attaining wisdom and discipline.
Now, at this point, since this is
[00:15:15] Speaker C: a conference on wisdom, at this point,
[00:15:19] Speaker B: what I want to do is to define the word wisdom. What exactly do we mean by. By wisdom? And perhaps here it would be helpful, for whatever it's worth, to get it in the eye gate. I'll write down the Hebrew word that's translated wisdom. It's the Hebrew word Ma.
Is that on there?
Chochma.
There's actually, this is. You don't say here, you say here, but it's.
That's how you say it. It's Chokhmah.
And it is the very important word. You can turn it off. Art.
What exactly is it? What is Chokhmah?
My research has led me to conclude. Yeah, you can turn that off. Oh, everybody didn't copy it. My research has led me to conclude that the word has a dual level of meaning. On one level, it means to have skill, variance. In particular, as I've studied the word, I discovered that there are three kinds of skill that are mentioned with this word.
One kind of skill is a technical skill.
For example, you'll find this in Exodus chapter 28 and verse 3 with the tailors who made Aaron's fine garments.
These were the kind of chaps that can go out into a field of flax, and out of the flax spin linen.
And they can take the linen and put it on the threads on a loom and make the broadcloth.
They can fit it to the body.
They can make dyes of blue and purple and scarlet. They can make embroidered work. They could make that whole lovely garment, the mitre and the so forth.
And they were tailors. And the Bible says they were filled with the spirit of wisdom. We translated the word in NIV skill.
It's used, for example, in Exodus 35 and Exodus 36 of Ahaliab and Bethzaleel.
These were the fellows that built the tabernacle. They can go out into a wood, cut down trees, take off the bark, debark the trees. They can cut it up into planks. They can take the heavenly blueprint. They can fit it all together.
You fellows that built the Chapel like Bezaleel and Ohaliab.
They can take a solid block. They were carpenters. In other words, they were metallurgists. They could take a solid block of gold, and out of that solid block of gold they could construct that lovely fashion, that lovely candelabra with its knops and its lilies. And the Bible says of Ahaliab and Bezaleel and all that work with him, they were filled with the spirit of Chokhmah.
Wisdom. I think you can see there that it means skill.
It's used in Psalm 107 of sailors that are caught in a storm.
You almost feel seasick reading that psalm in one of its stanzas. You mount up to the heavens. You sink down into the depths. And these sailors were in a terrible storm. And then we translated Niv. They were at their wits.
They had lost all their skills, failed them these tremendous skill to take a ship from one port and take it across uncharted waters and just following stars and astral bodies and landed safely in another port. The Bible says of these sailors that they too had Chokmah. Well, I think you can see that's enough. There's other cases where it is so used that it speaks of the skill and whatever trade you may have, whatever ability you have, the Bible would speak of that as your wisdom because it's a skill.
The word is used in yet another way that also speaks of skill. It's administrative skill. It's judicial skill.
Legislators have to have this kind of insight into law and also insight into being able to perceive who is telling the truth and who is lying. When you're in a court of law, you find this use In Deuteronomy, chapter 1, verses 15 and following, where Jethro advises Moses to appoint others to help him in administering and adjudicating the people and making judgments of the people. And it says, appoint for yourself. Wise men, respected and wise men. And they had the insight into the human heart to know who's speaking truth and who's not speaking truth.
This is the skill that's used in First Kings, chapter three of Solomon, when he asked for wisdom. He says, I'm only a nuh. I'm only a youth. I have to govern this great people, and I don't know how to govern. I don't have that kind of understanding. I don't have that kind of insight. Give me a heart of wisdom so that I might judge the people fairly. And whereupon, remember you're given the test case of the two prostitutes with the illegitimate child. Each of Them claiming that the dead child belonged to the other and the living child belonged to themselves. And some Solomon had to ferret out who was speaking the truth and who was telling a lie.
And he was able to put the test in such a fashion, knowing human nature. He was able to say who was speaking the truth and who was lying. And his fame was celebrated all over Israel in that test case. But that is administrative judicial skill.
This is the kind of skill that the Messiah has. That beautiful passage that Art read to us last night in Isaiah chapter 5, that this God is going to do away with the whole Davidic dynasty. He's going to go right back to Jesse, to the original, starting right back to the stump. We read in Isaiah chapter 11 and out of his stump will come a new shoot, which is the whole Messianic age, which is the Christ. Because Israel's kings were such a failure. They didn't judge with righteousness, they didn't judge with justice. And so all of that is done aside. The tree is cut down. I'm starting all over again afresh with a fresh plan, with a new Messianic age. And we live in the age of the Christ who pours out his Spirit upon his people so that we can judge fairly and do what's right. And after the Spirit of the Lord comes upon him, notice how it reads there. He will not judge according to the hearing of the ear, nor according to the seeing of the eye, but with
[00:21:36] Speaker C: righteousness and truth he will judge the people.
[00:21:39] Speaker B: He gets beyond the phenomenal. He gets beyond what he hears and he sees. His own life is so pure before God that his ears are so sensitive to truth, that he immediately discerns what is erroneous.
Because he has such a simple purity in his own walk to God. I think it's because we're so that's why I told that story in the beginning. We can all identify with Manuel, and we're all deceptive and deceitful. As he was deceptive and deceitful. We identify with that, that we get faked out by one another.
But he was not faked out. Christ is not faked out. His own purity enables him to discern that the true from the false.
Well, that's the second use of the word skill. I said so far that it can refer to a technical skill, it can refer to judicial administrative skill. And thirdly, it can refer to the skill of living life.
So that as you live life, there's a beauty about it. And when you finish life, you produce something worthwhile. You're Participating in something that is eternal. It's the skill of living. In particular, it's social skill.
It's how to relate to people, how to talk to people. That's what I'm going to take tomorrow morning. How to raise your family, how to relate to your spouses, how to handle your money.
I like the way Derek Kidner put it in his introductory paragraph to the Book of Proverbs. He says the book of Proverbs take up those matters that are too fine to be caught in the mesh of the law, too small to be hit by a broadside of a prophet.
The little small details that make life either successful or unsuccessful. How do you relate to people generally? And the very fine details that are determinative of whether life is happy or unhappy, blessed or not blessed.
And so this is a profound thing we're here. And I just congratulate art for picking up something like this. It's so absolutely essential for wise. For successful living. The whole quality of living life wisely, skillfully and pleasing and helpfully.
Well, that's one level of understanding this word. It means skill.
The word has a much more profound meaning. It's a philosophical concept.
Wisdom means to know the created order.
[00:23:59] Speaker C: It really refers to the whole order
[00:24:01] Speaker B: of creation, what really is.
And because you understand the order of creation, therefore you can live skillfully.
Take, for example, we talked about technical skill.
Let me pick up that idea to show how it refers to something far more profound. It refers to the hidden created order that is now going to be exposed to us so that we now see what is.
That's why it talks of it as parables and riddles. It's revelation, but it's also hidden and concealed to us.
And you can see that in all of our scientific activity. Proverbs chapter 25:2, rather, which is really the first of Solomon's sayings. It's the glory of God to conceal a matter. It's the glory of the king to search it out.
And the king and the Sage is more or less a scientist who was searching out the created order. But he's not so much concerned with the material order as he is with the social order of searching it out and finding how it's all put together.
I remember first time I went to Deerfield Village outside of Detroit. How impressed I was with that museum. It's sort of like Williamsburg, which I just saw recently, about a month ago for the first time that Henry Ford has put together a whole city as a museum.
And he had twofold purposes with that particular city. One was he wanted to show the evolution of American architecture. And he has reconstructed there exactly the house the Pilgrims left in Plymouth.
[00:25:39] Speaker C: He put it together stone by stone, transplanted it from England over here to
[00:25:43] Speaker B: the United States, and you could see the houses they left, and then you see the first homes they built in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. And then he traces through American architecture right up to the present.
And in addition to that, he's chosen the homes of inventors, as you might suspect from Ford, including Thomas and Edison's home, for example.
The home that impressed me most was the Wright brothers.
And it wasn't so much the house and the Victorian horsehair sofa that was in the living room, though I was impressed with that.
What I was really impressed with was the bicycle shop.
[00:26:22] Speaker C: And furthermore, what impressed me was that
[00:26:24] Speaker B: they had in that bicycle shop constructed a wind tunnel, and they had scientifically doped out the basic laws of aerodynamics. And there in their bicycle shop, you could see the wind tunnel, you could see the wings, you could see the elevations, you could see the notes. And they had figured out the basic laws of aerodynamics so that when they built that first airplane, they knew by law it ought to fly. I had always thought that when they went down to Kitty Hawk there, it was half luck they put that plane up. But having been there, it wasn't luck at all. They were truly scientific. It was the glory of God to conceal the laws of aerodynamics. It's the glory of the Wright brothers that they searched it out and they
[00:27:07] Speaker C: were able to make a plane fly
[00:27:09] Speaker B: and did what looks miraculous because they had doped out the basic laws that
[00:27:14] Speaker C: were hidden in the order of creation.
[00:27:17] Speaker B: And if you think about it, any skill you have is largely due to the fact that you understand the laws or the properties with which you have to work to use a very homey illustration. When I was still in Vancouver, I might say some of the most blessed days of my life, when I was out there, I was remodeling my house, and I was helping one of my students who was a carpenter, and so he was putting up some paneling for me, and it was large and so forth. So I said I'd help him and hold up the other end. And I decided that I had a hammer and a nail so that while he was tacking it in on his end, I'd tack it in on my end.
And I discovered that when he tacked it in, beautiful.
And I tacked it in every time
[00:28:02] Speaker C: I split the wood. And I became frustrated.
[00:28:05] Speaker B: And finally I said to him, mike, what's going on here? You put your nail in.
[00:28:08] Speaker C: It's perfect.
[00:28:09] Speaker B: I put my nail in and it cracks every time. I wanted to just change ends. He said to me he had an apron on and so forth. He said to me, Dr. Wahlke, I
[00:28:21] Speaker C: have a file in my apron pocket.
[00:28:23] Speaker B: And what I do is with my nails, I file off the edge of
[00:28:26] Speaker C: them and I make them dull.
[00:28:27] Speaker B: Because he said, a sharp nail will crack the wood. Well, he understood the property. He understood the nature of the nail. He understood the nature of the wood, and that's why he could do a beautiful piece of work. I didn't understand that at all. He could have made a little proverb at this point.
[00:28:41] Speaker C: A sharp nail cracks the wood. A dull nail keeps it whole.
[00:28:45] Speaker B: And we could have seen all kind
[00:28:47] Speaker C: of profound, mystical, metaphorical insights into that, of course, that a sharp nail cracks the wood. A dull nail keeps it whole. You know, it has all kinds of implications about it. But in any case, you can see the nature of a proverb, that it's an insight only they're not concerned with wood, they're concerned with people.
So it gives you a profound insight
[00:29:07] Speaker B: into the created order. So this is not simply a how to book.
[00:29:13] Speaker C: It's profound theology at its base.
[00:29:16] Speaker B: People misread the book.
[00:29:17] Speaker C: And part of the problem I have is people jump right away into the
[00:29:20] Speaker B: proverbs in chapter 10 and without really
[00:29:22] Speaker C: understanding what's going on. And they're not skillful in using the book, how to go about it.
[00:29:27] Speaker B: And that's why I think it's necessary to have this introductory lecture so that we can use the book skillfully to understand its nature and its properties. So I'm going to take two lectures
[00:29:36] Speaker C: on that and then two lectures on actually applying the material. Well, there you have. As I understand wisdom, therefore it's the skill of living. Because you understand the created order.
[00:29:48] Speaker B: That is skill.
[00:29:49] Speaker C: You understand how God has created it. And I'll say more about discipline.
[00:29:55] Speaker B: It says for attaining wisdom and discipline.
So that's the first word. You can see why I have to
[00:30:01] Speaker C: ask the clock here. I can go word by word.
I'm trying to get into this and it'll take us all day to get through my verses here. But just a word about for. If you're using the King James, I usually say for knowing.
The problem we have here with knowing is that we've been greatly influenced by Aristotle. And knowing all too often is to be a subject versus an object.
Aristotelian thinking. You have an object to be learned out here. There's an object and you're the subject looking at it.
And in Hebrew thinking, there is not that kind of divorce between the object of study and the subject.
That instead of the knowing. And it is that you do study it, but you do have that external. But that is not what the Hebrew means by knowing.
The Hebrew means by knowing the internalizing of that sub object into your very character, into your very person. And that's why if you look at
[00:30:56] Speaker B: the niv, it looks a little bit,
[00:30:58] Speaker C: if you know your Hebrew, it looks a little inaccurate, but it's really, I think, much more accurate. It's for attaining. We didn't know how else to express this because knowing would not communicate well in English. So we translated it for attaining. So that this external order becomes part of your internal order. That this external order becomes part, transforms the chaos of our social life. Because internally we are chaotic, we are dead, we are dark. And it is this light from without that must shine from within and it must become part of our basic character. And on Sunday morning I want to go through the basic psychological processes by which the knowing takes place. How does it really come that this created order becomes part of our internal being so that we really have our characters changed? And we'll say more about that on Sunday morning from chapter two.
So that's how you get to know wisdom. But that's a separate talk all in itself.
I say I'll discuss discipline in just a moment.
Now it says in the B line for understanding words of insight.
[00:32:08] Speaker B: You see what's happened here.
[00:32:09] Speaker C: We've moved from this abstraction wisdom, this whole created order.
But I need expression of that wisdom.
And that's why I now have the objective statement. It's for understanding these words of insight, these words that reveal the created order. So I only know this created order through revelation. I do not know it intuitively. I need to have revelation, I need words, I need verbal expression, I need revelation. And the book is therefore to give expression to that created order. And that's what we're looking at in the proverbs themselves.
By the way, I said I wish I had more time to work with Egyptian. Here I made the point that there are many similarities with Egyptian. And it's interesting that Egyptian has a. They deify everything. And in fact knowledge is ja, and the expression of that knowledge is hu, that in Egyptian you actually have two different gods. One is the abstraction and one is the expression of the abstraction. And so we really need both. Because without revelation, all of this is purely platitudinous. It's just a nice idea, but we would have no way of knowing it without words. Hence it is for understanding words. And that's picked up in the be verse set. It's these meshrim, these parables, sayings and riddles. Because unless you're prepared spiritually, you can't enter into these words. You can't really understand these words.
An unregenerate heart reads the Bible and doesn't understand it, doesn't get into it. The Bible doesn't mean anything. It's a riddle, it's a parable. And that's why verse seven is the key, that you must have this fear of the Lord's spirit in order that you can get beyond the parabolic riddle stage of this enigmatic material. You must have the right heart to get into the book. Hence verse seven naturally follows upon verse six.
Now I want to move to verse three.
That is, let me develop this idea of moral acumen, of how you get into this true wisdom. And then he says it's for acquiring,
[00:34:15] Speaker B: as he looks at it from a
[00:34:16] Speaker C: student's viewpoint and the child's viewpoint, it's for acquiring a disciplined and prudent life.
Now, the word disciplined assumes something. The word disciplined means that this wisdom is contrary to our human nature.
It's a discipline. I like the way the Methodists express their faith. They express their disciplines of their church. And we are naturally rebellious. We are naturally wayward, apart from the sovereign grace of God. We do not want this wisdom. We may admire it, but we don't want to come under it. We want to be free. We want to be independent. We want to be liberated and be self fulfilled and self autonomous that we need this revelation. And it's only the grace of God that will touch our hearts, to be submissive to it. But it's clear in Scripture that we are depraved. You can see that tomorrow we'll talk about speech. For example, it says In Proverbs, chapter 10, I think about verse 19, where words are many, sin is not absent.
That is, no one can talk for any extended period without sinning.
I mean, I've been talking a lot, so I'm a terrible sinner. Already this morning.
I've talked more than anybody else so far, I suspect. So I've sinned more than anybody else. But the point is you can never speak. It's in part because of our depravity. We can never speak utter truth, utterly truthful, and always with grace, never with putting another person down to speak truth, with grace, as Jesus spoke truth and always with grace is the supernatural quality of life.
It's a discipline to us, and we don't have it naturally.
One of my favorite passages is Job, chapter 28.
And in Job, chapter 28, Job celebrates man's technical skill. That man can do the technical skill. We're brilliant.
You don't need Christ for that.
He celebrates how, in his age, evidently, the great accomplishment was mining. And he talks about digging the shafts and lowering men down in buckets, bringing lanterns down after himself into the very bowels of the earth. And he can dam up the underground streams in order to get gold and silver, because that's what man really values. And he'll use all his technical engineering to get that gold and his silver.
But then he turns around and he says, and I've memorized this because I like it so much. But where can wisdom be found?
That is this whole skill of living, of knowing how to relate to God, how to relate to man, how to relate to creation, the very thing that we're yearning for. But where can wisdom be found?
Where is the place of understanding?
Man knoweth not its price,
[00:37:08] Speaker B: neither can
[00:37:09] Speaker C: it be found in the land of the living.
The depth saith, it is not in me.
And the sea saith, it is not with me.
It cannot be gotten for gold, Neither shall silver be weighed as the price thereof.
It cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir, with the precious onyx or the sapphire.
The gold and the crystal cannot equal it. And the exchange thereof shall not be for jewels of fine gold.
No mention is made of coral or purple pearls.
For the price of wisdom is above rubies.
The topaz of Ethiopia cannot equal it, and it cannot be valued with fine gold.
Whence then cometh wisdom?
Where is the place of understanding?
Seeing? It is hidden from the eyes of all men and kept close from the fowl of the air.
Death and destruction say we have heard the fame thereof with our ear.
God understands the way to it.
He knows the place thereof.
For he looks unto the ends of the earth.
He. He seeth unto the whole heavens to make a weight for the wind.
And he weighs the waters by measure.
[00:38:53] Speaker A: The proceeding was a presentation of the C.S. lewis Institute. In the legacy of C.S. lewis, the institute endeavors to develop disciples who can articulate, defend and live faith in Christ through personal and public life. For more information, please visit our website at www.cslewisinstitute.org.
[00:39:12] Speaker C: thank.
[00:39:21] Speaker B: You.
