Blessed is the one who finds wisdom, and the one who gets understanding, for the gain from her is better than gain from silver and her profit better than gold. She is more precious than jewels, and nothing you desire can compare with her. Long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honor. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her; those who hold her fast are called blessed.
The LORD by wisdom founded the earth; by understanding he established the heavens; by his knowledge the deeps broke open, and the clouds drop down the dew.
My son, do not lose sight of these—keep sound wisdom and discretion, and they will be life for your soul and adornment for your neck (ESV).
Many people want to know and have wanted to know what comes next in the Christian life. Once you’ve “been saved,” is there anything more you need or need to do in this life? What is this life for? Why does God keep us here?
Some groups of Christians push evangelism as the answer. We don’t need much but we are left with the remaining years of our life on this planet to get other people saved. In some quarters, it seems that learning how to present the Gospel as simply as possible, and doing so as often as possible, is a Christian’s main purpose in life.
Other groups have developed new quests for Christians to pursue. In some traditions, all Christians are supposed to acquire some kind of “complete sanctification” that often must be pursued for a while. Later, we got other groups that made “the baptism of the Holy Spirit” the mission that all Christians are supposed to pursue.
I differ from those traditions, but instead of talking about what might be wrong with them, I want to address what the “Christian quest” is actually supposed to be.
God’s Purpose for Humans
Obviously, evangelism is important, but do we really want to imply that there is only a point to the Christian life because there are non-Christians in the world? If everyone was a Christian, and the Lord hasn’t returned, what would be the point of the Christian life? Would it have no point?
More activist-oriented Christians might argue that the quest of Christians is to build a certain kind of community or even Christian nations. And, like evangelism, I think this has some merit. The Great Commission, in the context of Scripture, seems to encourage us to do that.
But again, does that mean once we were to form an ideal community, whether a church or something else, that there would be no point to the Christians remaining in this earthly life?
What I’m asking is: Is there a purpose for our passage through this life even apart from the issue of sin and salvation?
Starting with Jesus
Luke basically tells us the same thing twice, first after his parents present him in Jerusalem as an infant.
And when they had performed everything according to the Law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. And the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom. And the favor of God was upon him. (Luke 2:39–40)
Then Luke tells us after Jesus was twelve years old and began to make his mark on Jerusalem that he went back home with his parents.
And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man. (Luke 2:52)
So in Luke’s Gospel, we have two witnesses, as it were, that Jesus grew up. We already knew that, but Luke includes a description about growing up that we might not have expected. He says that, as Jesus grew, he also matured—he gained wisdom. The son of God, going through the process of life in common with us as a true human, who was born as an infant and grew up into adulthood, developed greater wisdom and it was pleasing to God.
Now, this is hard to understand because of the incarnation and the fact that God is as wise as it is possible to be.
But it is also puzzling because Jesus had no sinful bent toward foolishness. Jesus was sinless. Apparently, wisdom is something even a sinless creature can increase in. Jesus, as a child had less wisdom than he had later after he was more experienced as an adult.
God wants us to grow wiser. He wants us all to become wiser persons. When we do so we are following Jesus. And we are also becoming more like God.
What Would God Do?
“The LORD by wisdom founded the earth; / By understanding he established the heavens; / by his knowledge the deeps broke open, / and the clouds drop down the dew” (Proverbs 3:19–20).
It is easy to jump to a connection between wisdom and the order of creation, but let’s not miss the obvious: Creation was God’s first activity. He took six days and rested on the seventh, a pattern that he commanded people to follow. So Proverbs is telling us that as we do our work, we should do so with wisdom just as God did in his work. That’s a way we imitate God.
A couple of decades or more ago, some Christian circles popularized the slogan and question, “What would Jesus do?” Critics were skeptical that this question would be that helpful because they were afraid a lot of people would make decisions on the basis of a few Gospel stories rather than knowledge of the whole Bible.
But another problem is that Jesus had a specific mission at a specific point in history in a specific situation. We have to strip all that away to imagine what Jesus would do in our situation. But if we have to go through that, why not skip to the chase and change the question to “What would God do?”
After all, when God “by wisdom founded the earth,” he created humanity to rule and transform the earth. And he created Adam and Eve in his image after his likeness. We represent God. Whenever we act we are inevitably and intrinsically asserting what God would do if he were us. “With my limitations in knowledge and power, this is what God would do.” We might as well ask the question because being God’s representatives means we are always answering the question. The only issue is how accurate is our answer, or if it is an outright lie about God.
The Tree of Life
So God acted in wisdom in creating the universe and he wants us to grow in wisdom and in so doing, be even more like him. If Jesus needed to grow in wisdom, how much more do we need to do so!
By referring to wisdom as a Tree of Life (v. 18), Proverbs invites us to think of the original story of creation. Only three books in the Bible refer by name to the Tree of Life. Genesis, obviously, is the first one. Revelation is another, showing us that Jesus has granted us access to the life humankind had lost. The only other book is Proverbs, where it is mentioned several times.
The first mention in Proverbs of the Tree of Life is used to introduce the role of wisdom in creation. “She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her; / those who hold her fast are called blessed. / The LORD by wisdom founded the earth…“
Now, in a way, this is puzzling because the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil could arguably be called the Tree of Wisdom. Adam and Eve knew right from wrong in a moral sense. They each had a conscience. But a judge who can examine complicated cases is said to have the knowledge of good and evil. For example, when a woman asked David to pass judgment, she said, “And your servant thought, ‘The word of my lord the king will set me at rest,’ for my lord the king is like the angel of God to discern good and evil” (2 Samuel 14:17).
Hebrews 5 makes it clear that knowing good and evil in that sense requires growth and maturity:
For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil (Hebrews 5:12–14).
When we read the story of Adam and Eve eating from the forbidden Tree we find that it seems to “work,” though not in the way they wanted. Satan promised that their eyes would be opened if the ate the forbidden fruit. When they ate, the text of Genesis 3 states that their eyes were opened and they realized they were naked. And later the text records God agreeing they now possessed knowledge:
Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken (Genesis 3:22–23).
That explains Solomon’s choice to compare wisdom to the Tree of Life. Wisdom does involve maturation and experience, but it also means holding on to what is true, even if you were taught it as a child. Adam and Eve pursued a kind of wisdom by disobedience and unbelief. That is emphasized in the story by its revelation that they hadn’t bothered to eat from the Tree of Life. All the evidence suggests that the prohibition on the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was temporary. Remember what the first couple heard about the trees:
And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food.”
As far as we know, Eve only learned about the prohibition on one tree because Adam told her what God said to him before God made her. But, whatever happened, it seems that Genesis 1:29 indicates that the prohibition was temporary. Adam was impatient. He refused to cling to what God had given him in order to gain wisdom without it.
God wanted them to gain wisdom. He wanted wise men and women because he finds them glorious. Thus, Genesis is largely about humanity gaining real wisdom. Adam and Eve realize they are naked and end up with dishonorable clothing. In the final story of Genesis, the story of Joseph, Joseph is clothed with honor by his father but has it ripped away from him. Then he rises as the chief of Potiphar’s household because he is recognized as a good manager, only to have his garment ripped from him again by Potiphar’s wife. But, continuing in faithfulness, Pharoah eventually recognizes Joseph’s wisdom and clothes him in honor and authority. The Genesis story arc points to what Jesus wants for all of us and what our lives are for.
The Way of Wisdom
So what Solomon exhorts his “son” to do is cling to what he has heard and then go on to gain wisdom as an adult. Proverbs 3:13–22 make it clear that wisdom is something to be searched for and found: “Blessed is the one who finds wisdom, and the one who gets understanding.”
Solomon has already spelled this out in greater detail. Proverbs 2:1ff:
My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, / making your ear attentive to wisdom / and inclining your heart to understanding; / yes, if you call out for insight / and raise your voice for understanding, / if you seek it like silver / and search for it as for hidden treasures, / then you will understand the fear of the LORD / and find the knowledge of God. / For the LORD gives wisdom; / from his mouth come knowledge and understanding;
So the child is supposed to treasure what he has been taught, gain experience, and find wisdom from the Lord in that process, by earnestly seeking it and praying for it–“call out for insight.”
Notice how James uses the same pattern:
Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him (James 2:1-5).
Wisdom involves virtue, skill at living, and the ability to make discerning judgments. It comes from fidelity to God’s word, through life experience, and through prayer for the help of God’s Spirit. And God delights in us becoming wise. While we pray for wisdom to deal with situations, God may give us situations so we can learn wisdom. That transformation is an end in itself for God.
Genesis shows the first two human beings created as adults. When they had their first child they witnessed a new kind of human being that they had never seen before. A baby and a toddler and then an older child can be taught to love and obey God, but in a real sense, they still won’t be wise. So Proverbs, written to young men who have grown new strength and are vulnerable to sexual temptations, is talking to people who are at the beginning of taking on responsibilities. They need wisdom.
God Loves to See the Simple become Wise
We should consider the praise heaped on wisdom to be a measure of how God himself values it:
Blessed is the one who finds wisdom, and the one who gets understanding, for the gain from her is better than gain from silver and her profit better than gold. She is more precious than jewels, and nothing you desire can compare with her.
Compare this to Proverbs 23:15–16 and hear it not as an earthly father to his son but as God talking to YOU: “My son, if your heart is wise, my heart too will be glad. My inmost being will exult when your lips speak what is right.” Or Proverbs 27:11- “Be wise, my son, and make my heart glad, that I may answer him who reproaches me.“
God said that his people are his special treasure—in the words of Exodus 19:5, “my treasured possession among all peoples.” God has loved us from the start but he also wants to see us grow more like him, not only in freedom from sin but in all aspects of wisdom.
That means we need to understand the promises accurately. When Jesus’ disciples ask what they would gain for following him, he answered: “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life” (Mark 10:29-30).
We know that Jesus wasn’t promising every faithful Christian would acquire great wealth in the conventional sense. And neither is Solomon. That’s not the way he wants us to understand the Proverbs of Solomon.
And many don’t see their wisdom acknowledged the way Joseph’s was finally acknowledged. Nevertheless, God will acknowledge and value how we grow into wise adults. Christians are in this life to grow in wisdom. The process isn’t automatic. You have to persevere and you need to pray for it.
But that’s a major reason you’re still here. Whatever else God wants for you, or wants you to do, he wants you to grow in wisdom.
