Wisdom Delights in the World and People
Proverbs 8 is all about Wisdom. As we studied this chapter at church this week, I felt two passages grabbing me and pulling me back to look at them again. That felt appropriate, since in the chapter, Wisdom is calling to us and beseeching us to listen to her and follow her. (Wisdom is personified as a woman in Proverbs.)
The first verse that drew me back is verse 14: “I am both Insight and the Virtue to live it out” (The Message). “I have understanding and power” (NIV). “Insight and strength are mine” (NLT). We might initially think wisdom is simply insight or understanding. But these verses indicate that Wisdom combines insight or understanding with virtue or power. As The Message interprets it, wisdom is one part insight or understanding and one part living it out. This corresponds with the overall Hebraic idea that wisdom is not just knowledge or understanding, but the ability to live the moral life that wisdom requires. So you wouldn’t be considered wise unless you lived it out.
The second passage that drew me back was verses 31-32. I like The Message paraphrase:
Day after day I was there, with my joyful applause
always enjoying His company,
Delighted with the world of things and creatures,
happily celebrating the human family.
Wisdom is not a dry, intellectual process. She sees truth and reality and God, so she is full of joy. Wisdom was established before the creation, so she got to watch it all happen (that’s in v.22-31). She was like an enthusiastic spectator, clapping and excited and thrilled to be in the company of God. She loved all of creation, delighted with all these creatures God was making, and “celebrating the human family.”
From that description, I can see that Wisdom would be someone we would love to be around. She loves to be around us. And the great thing that Proverbs makes clear to us is that Wisdom is ours if we want it. SHE is pursuing US. And God told us in James 1:5 that He would give us wisdom if we ask.
So let’s ask. And let’s pursue. God is where wisdom starts, so start with Him and ask Him.
