Who is wise? He will realize these things.
Who is discerning? He will understand them.
The ways of the Lord are right; the righteous
walk in them,
but the rebellious stumble in
them.
Hosea 14:9
The Beginning of Wisdom
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom;
all who follow his precepts have good understanding.
To him belongs eternal praise.
Psalm 111:10
Can it then be said that the non-religious world is without wisdom?
Has it no Aristotle, no Socrates, no Tacitus, no Goethe, No Gibbon?
Let us understand what wisdom is. It is not any mere amount of knowledge
that constitutes wisdom. Appropriate knowledge is essential to wisdom.
A man who has not the knowledge appropriate to his position, who does
not know himself in his relation to God and to his fellow-men, who is
misinformed as to his duties, his dangers, his necessities, though he
may have written innumerable works of a most exalted character, yet is
he to be set down as a man without wisdom.
If you have learned to estimate things in some measure as God estimates
them, to desire what he offers, to relinquish what he forbids, and to
recognize the duties that he has appointed you, you are in the path of
wisdom, and the great men we have been speaking about are far behind you-
far from the narrow gate which you have entered. He only is wise, who can
call Christ the wisdom of God.
George Bowen (1816-1888)
From The Treasury of David by Charles H. Spurgeon P.12 of Classic Reflections
on the Wisdom of the Psalms
Delight In Your Law
Their hearts are callous and unfeeling, but I delight in your law.
It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees.
The law from your mouth is more precious to me than thousands of pieces
of silver and gold.
Your hands made me and formed me; give me understanding
to learn your commands.
Psalm 119:70-73
“To be glad instruments of God’s love in this imperfect world is the service
Paths to the Spirits of the Dead
Wisdom will save you from the ways of wicked men, from men whose words are perverse, who leave the straight paths to walk in dark ways,
who delight in doing wrong and rejoice in the perverseness of evil, whose paths are crooked and who are devious in their ways.
It will save you also from the adulteress, from the wayward wife with her seductive words, who has left the partner of her youth and ignored the covenant she made before God.
For her house leads down to death and her paths to the spirits of the dead. None who go to her return or attain the paths of life.
Proverbs 2:12-19
True Wisdom and Knowledge
The sum of all true wisdom and knowledge may be reduced to these three heads:
(1) The knowledge of God, his nature and his properties.
(2) The knowledge of ourselves in reference to the will of God concerning us.
(3) Skill to walk in communion with God:
John Owen (1616-1683)
Communion with the Triune God
p.184. edited by Kelly M. Kapic and Justin Taylor