Watch The Throne-The Fount of Wisdom 1 Kings 4:29-32, Proverbs 1:1-7

Transcription

1 Watch The Throne-The Fount of Wisdom 1 Kings 4:29-32, Proverbs 1:1-7 Do me a favor and turn in your bible to the book of 1 Kings 4, we ll be in verses and if your bible has a fancy book mark also drop that in the book of Proverbs, as we ll be in both of these texts this evening. Let me read 1 Kings 4 For us. Last week we began to talk about the issue of wisdom, what it means to truly be wise in the biblical sense, and we talked about Solomon s request for wisdom at the beginning of his kingship. That God would give him the wisdom to discern right and wrong, and to have understanding in the things that are necessary to lead the nation of Israel. -We mentioned that a good understanding of Biblical knowledge is that it s skill in the art of living. It certainly has to do with knowledge of the natural world, it certainly has to do with things like philosophy and art, but it is keenly related to this question, How shall we then live? What does it mean to do the right thing? What does it mean to live a life of truth? The Biblical word that s used for wisdom is most often associated with the work of artists, so the men who ordain the tabernacle in gold, or the goldsmiths in the book of Jeremiah. It s as if wisdom is bound up in living a life that is beautiful and true. If you think about it, this bears itself out in our experience. One of my favorite short stories that I read when I was in high school was the crucible, which was this play that took place during the Salem witch trials. It follows a farmer named John Proctor who s wife is accused of witchcraft and who is himself accused of being a witch. Obviously it s not true, you re dealing with the panic of the Salem witch trials. -Ultimately Proctor himself is accused and in this climactic scene he is offered the chance to lie, admit to a crime he didn t commit, and spare his life, or tell the truth even if it means death. Proctor chooses truth, though it costs him his life. -It ends up being this really beautiful and iconic scene. It s sad, its frustrating, but you are left feeling that John Proctor was a

2 wise man because he did what was right rather than what was easy. Because even when it is sad, and hard, wisdom embodied is beautiful. Biblical wisdom, skill in the art of living, is something that we as people can t help but be drawn towards. Our text for the evening tells us that Solomon possessed the sort of wisdom that was attractive. So attractive was the wisdom of Solomon that people would travel to hear him speak and to learn from him. But his wisdom was also at the same time one which was productive, he wrote Psalms and proverbs, and that s where I would like to spend most of our time this evening, in the book of proverbs. So while you re turning to the book of Proverbs let me give you just a brief bit of background. The book is divided into 7 Parts, the first of them is introduction and the proverbs of Solomon, followed by the sayings of the wise from What s interesting here is that they closely parallel egyptian proverbs recorded in a separate document. Why is that interesting? Because Solomon had an egyptian wife. So it would seem that part of wisdom is being able to recognize when even the people you disagree with on other issues might make a good point. After the sayings of the wise, there are more sayings from Solomon, the sayings of Agur, and the sayings of Lemuel. To understand words of insight: But we re focusing on the beginning here, where Solomon lays out the purpose of the book, and the purpose of wisdom. This is the thesis statement of Proverbs. Part of the purpose of wisdom is to give one understanding and we should sort of mark off the fact that understanding is something more than the simple ability to regurgitate facts. Christian wisdom, true wisdom from God is not simply about knowing a list of theological facts. This is a helpful correction for me, because I love to know things, I always have. But in the biblical understanding of wisdom, it

3 simply will not do to be able to regurgitate the contours of Augustines Trinitarian theology. -If you do not understand who the Triune God is and love him then all of your mastery over facts has been a waste! To receive instruction in wise dealing: The Hebrew word here for instruction is actually better translated as, Discipline or correction. If that s not challenging then I m not sure what is. But here Solomon acknowledges that one of one of the purposes and one of the marks of wisdom is the ability to receive correction or discipline. It s the ability to say, I was wrong, help me understand. More than anything this takes humility. Now to be clear, there is such a thing as standing for truth, there is such a thing as defending gospel issues. There is such a thing as humility perverted that refuses to take a stand on things that matter and allows everything to be up for grabs. -Yet the refusal to ever admit that you might not have quite gotten something right, that you might not have totally acted as you ought, that you have some work to do this is not a sign of confidence, it s not a sign of wisdom, it s a sign of arrogance and foolishness. Ultimately the ability to admit that you are wrong stands at the heart of the gospel. It is why it is so offensive to the world. Because the bad news that the gospel answered is that humanity on an epic scale has gotten it wrong and that s not so hard to admit because we can pass the problems off to North Korea of to oppressive regimes. But the Gospel also requires you to admit that I have been wrong. -We have not loved God with our whole heart. We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We are not as strong or as good or as wise as we think we are. Righteousness, Justice, Equity: According to Solomon, wisdom is not simply a conglomeration of facts or impressive equations. Wisdom has an ethical dimension, wisdom is about knowing what it means to live a righteous life.

4 Karl Barth was a Swiss theologian following world war 2. He s considered by most to be the single most important theologian in the 20th century. While I have a good bit of disagreement with him, I recognize that he s brilliant and that he really did produce some helpful work. But recently some letters surfaced where he was writing to his wife explaining that he had fallen in love with another woman. Not only had he fallen in love with her, but he thought it was God s will for he and his wife to stay married, and for this other woman to move in to their home and live with Barth as his assistant. -You may not have seen it if you don t follow theologians. But this was a bombshell, a lot of people are really dissapointed. What can we say about this? Barth is academically brilliant. Steeped in scripture.philosophically rigorous. And biblically he is an absolute fool. Wisdom is not simply knowing what is true, and good and just. It is doing what is true, and good and just. This is why Christ is not simply wise, but he is wisdom incarnate. He not only knows the truth, but he is the only one who has ever fully lived in righteousness, in justice, and in goodness. Fear The Lord: You may have heard the phrase, I think therefore I am. But most people don't quite know where it came from. The phrase has its origin in the philosopher Renee Decarte. Descarte wanted to be certain, he wanted to know what sort of a foundation he could build knowledge on, so he whittled away everything until finally all that was left was himself, I m here, I m thinking, I know at least that I m real. But according to Solomon, wisdom doesn't pass from people up to God, but it passes from God down to people. It s not that the fear of the Lord is the end goal of wisdom, but rather you have not even begun to understand until you have come to fear God. What does he mean by fear? This phrase is one that people tend to struggle with, what good is a God of whom I am afraid? Why serve a God who terrifies us? How much better would it be if the love of God was the beginning of wisdom?

5 Yet, I think we do ourselves a disservice by seeing fear and love as being unrelated. After all, last week we were told that Solomon loved the Lord, and yet Solomon tells us to fear the Lord. -Somehow fear and love are not opposed, not two things to be separated but separate sides of the same coin. One of me and my brothers favorite books when we were younger was called, The Wind in The Willows. If you haven't read it, you should, it s fantastic. It follows these animals on their adventures, and in one of the instances two of the characters stumble upon the God of their world named Pan -As they approach this sense of awe falls on them, there s a silence that sets in. Finally one character has the courage to speak Are you afraid? One character says to another? Afraid? He murmured, his eyes shining with unutterable love Afraid of him? Oh never, yet I am afraid. CS Lewis understood the fear of God when he wrote Aslan as a Lion. Of course when we think of people who fear the Lord, sometimes our minds rush to monks, or fundamentalists, or people who have segmented themselves off from society and the wider world. But this is not what happens to Solomon when he fears the Lord. 1 Kings tells us that his fear of the Lord causes him to write and to think about creation. The birds, the trees, the ferns. Rather than diminishing his love of creation he begins to love and delight in it more One of the great saints in the Christian church, augustine, understood this well. He spent the whole of his life trying to find fulfillment in created things. As a philosopher, as a heavy drinker, as a man who pursued sex recklessly he thought that creation could satisfy him. It couldn t. For all of his knowledge he was a fool. But when he bent the knee to Christ, when he began to fear the Lord something changed, it was not that he rejected the created world, but that he saw it with fresh eyes. -He saw that he expected too much of it. He wanted creation to give him what it was never capable of producing.

6 To fear and love God is not to lose the world, but to finally see creation for what it is. A gift that is not meant to terminate on itself but to draw us up towards a giver. A grace that does not stand alone but points us towards the true fountain of grace. A broken and fragile thing marred by sin, which will one day in Christ be renewed and restored. Oh that we would be a people who fear the Lord and walk in the path of wisdom