The beginning of wisdom is “the most sincere desire for
instruction, and concern for instruction is love of her…” There are two ways to look at that
statement. One would be that the
beginning of wisdom is when you have enough wisdom to seek wisdom, there is
certainly something wise in seeking to be wise.
The second way is to recognize that you lack wisdom and begin to seek
it. The key to the search for wisdom is
in where we seek it. It all goes back
to, you guessed it, Genesis 3. Could Adam and Eve have searched for wisdom
somewhere other than the tree? The answer
is yes, they could, the Lord, at least sometimes, walked in the garden and they
could have asked Him for wisdom but instead sought it apart from Him, in something
created, something Solomon said was “under the sun.” Anything created is necessarily limited isn’t
it? The obvious place to seek wisdom is
from the most wise source you can find and if you have access to something or
someone who is uncreated, who created all things, go to that source rather than
any lower source. There are people who
have been following the Lord longer than you and closer than you, those people
are good sources as well, but ultimately, seek the Lord, the writer says wisdom
delights to be found and make herself known.
The centurion went to the Jews and asked them to approach
Jesus on his behalf. Their entreaty
begins with the words, “He is worthy to have you do this for him…” When Jesus
arrives at the man’s house, the man begins with, “Lord, do not trouble
yourself, for I am not worthy…” He has
faith, he has wisdom, he has sought the healer and believed He was able to do
what was necessary to heal the servant simply because he believed Jesus had
unique authority. Though the man was a
Roman official, he was humble in the face of what he recognized as greater
authority than he possessed. The widow
of Nain asked nothing from Jesus, He acts entirely on His own accord. In the first part of the reading we see a
miracle actuated by the faith of a man and in the second, a miracle no one
dared ask for or expect, no faith required.
The reaction to that miraculous raising from the dead, however, was
entirely appropriate, the glorification of God.
Have you died with Christ to this world? Parts of me, perhaps, are dead and no longer
enthralled with things of earth but there are huge parts of me that are not
dead to the world. I hate to say that
but I have to be honest with Him and myself if I am to make progress in
wisdom. I have to deal with that reality
and ask Him to deal with it by the power of the Holy Spirit so that I might
have the mind of Christ in all things, that I might seek things above, things
eternal. Paul says that the work of
putting to death those things in us that are problematic and sinful is a joint
venture between me and God. His words
are a commandment, in the imperative, “Put to death therefore what is earthly
in you…” Seeking and seeing things above
is part of the work of putting lower desires to death in us.
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