Theological Bites
The bible is a library of 66 books in eight sections. What sets the Bible apart from other libraries is that all the different books in the different sections are a study about the same subject and that subject is God and his relations to his creation, particularly the human race. Every book we study, therefore, may communicate to us the theology it fronts and demonstrates its contribution to the existing work that other books have put in place already.
Every individual book in this library is telling a related part to what other books told about the big story. This is what theologians call: Metanarrative of Scripture. With different genres of writing—Historical Narrative, Poetry, Wisdom Literature, Law, Prophecy, Biographies, Epistles—all conspiring to expand our understanding of the reign and rule of God in different ways.
The Book of Proverbs is in the section of wisdom writings (Ketuvim) and we must investigate the particular theological contribution that qualifies it as a member of this sacred library known as the Bible.
Theology is about knowing the main story which actually is what the Germans have termed as Heilsgeschichte (Salvation History) and once we investigate how each individual story in every Bible book points and pours into the main story, then revelation has occurred.
The book of Proverbs, therefore, is a book of philosophers (Philos = love; Sophos = Wisdom), and therefore it is one about the theology of wisdom.
The Theology of Wisdom
According to Proverbs 1:1-7, the purpose of the book is to describe what wisdom is and to help those who believe in God become wise. The book emphasizes that “the fear of the Lord is the Beginning of Knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction” (Proverbs 1:7).
A simple exegesis (analysis) of this verse would go like this; the verse is situated in a passage of six verses (minus verse 1). According to this passage, wisdom is described as
- Vs. 2 ‘Understanding’ (Insight);
- Vs. 3 ‘Righteousness’ (Justice/Equity);
- Vs. 4 ‘Discernment’ (Perception);
- Vs. 5 ‘Skill’ (Talent);
- Vs. 6 ‘Intuition’ (Instinctual Abilities);
- Vs. 7 ‘Discipline’ (Chastening, Correction). According to this context, wisdom is six things.
However, wisdom unlike knowledge, intelligence, brilliance, cleverness, craftiness, shrewdness and common-sense, is not something we acquire from any organized institution of training or experiments and neither is it something, according to verse 7, that originates with us but rather its origin is in our ‘fear of the Lord’ (Proverbs 15:33)
The Fear of the Lord
The Hebrew word for ‘fear’ used in verse 7 is ‘Yirah’ and its best translation is ‘terror’. However, its syntactical meaning here would be ‘reverence’ (not terror in this sense) to God. Still, I have to clarify that ‘wisdom’ does not originate in our ‘fear of the Lord’ but rather our fear (read reverence) transfers pre-existing wisdom into us. In other words; wisdom was before us and our reverence to God is the ignition of it in our lives and living. (Proverbs 3:19).
The Hebrew term translated as ‘Beginning’ in Proverbs 1:7; Psalms 111:10 is ‘Re’shiyth’ and it is the same term used in the creation account in Genesis 1:1. Therefore ‘Wisdom’ is original with God and it is by it that God acts both in the creation (Psalms 104:24; Job 28:25-27; Jeremiah 10:12; 51:15; Proverbs 3:19–20) and redemption business.
The theology of wisdom dictates that there is only one true wisdom and that is the one that originates from the fear of the right God, for God is the exclusive source of all true wisdom. Apostle Paul had proverbs in mind when he launched his thesis against the Athenian wisdom in 1corinthians 3:19;
“For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He that taketh the wise in their craftiness” (1Corinthians 3:19 ASV).
In this perspective, the Bible insists that if the wisdom of all Greece philosophers, its propagators had no fear of the Lord and denied him as their creator and saviour, then the following are two realities:
- these were natural utensils of divine wisdom through whom (unlike believers) with no effect divine wisdom was communicated to the world (1Corinthians 2:7) and
- these human beings as men, were not wise but crafty and therefore the imaginary foolishness of God was wiser than the wisest of our planet (1Corinthians 1:25), and unphilosophical believer in God (the beginning of wisdom) was in a bigger picture wiser than the pagan philosopher (1Corinthian 1:27-29) who in various ways exercised human wisdom (1Corinthians 2:1-6)
Hebrew sages and editors of proverbs did not emphasize their God as merely the source of wisdom; say like a machine that produces products that have nothing to do with it. They presented Yahweh (the one true God) as not only the producer of wisdom but majorly as the only wise God (Psalms 147:5; Isaiah 55:9; Job 12:13; Romans 16:27). For that matter, those the Bible considers wise are not conduits of wisdom (Job 39:27-30, Proverbs 30:19; Isaiah 28:23-29; Proverbs 8: 15, 16; Proverbs 30:24-28).
Biblical wisdom, therefore, is not approved intellectually or conceptually like an abstract ideology but instead, its authentication and validity is in the reality and being of the deity known as Yahweh. Men can only qualify to be wise (philosophers) on condition that they worship (fear) this one true God of wisdom, short to that, is what the book of Proverbs addresses as folly (Proverbs 14:1,18; 15:21).
Divine Wisdom Contrasting Eastern and Western Wisdom
In the church at Corinth, people were following the wisdom of the world at the expense of divine wisdom:
“Do not deceive yourselves. If any of you think you are wise by the standards of this age, you should become “fools” so that you may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight. As it is written: “He catches the wise in their craftiness”; and again, “The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile” (1Corinthian 3:18-20).
The Corinthians who followed these philosophers proved to be the most struggling church of all the churches that Apostle Paul founded. This struggle was not restricted to the church but it was a reflection of the reality in the whole region. The region was filled with philosophies just about anything like our generation is.
However, these philosophies proved not to solve the fundamental problems of their world just as our philosophies have proved inefficient. Philosophy, (read wisdom) is a critical rational thought about our thinking on the five universally accepted operational domains which are:
- Sociology
- Science
- Politics
- Mathematics
- Literature
The wisdom that the book of Proverbs talks about is one that ought to operate in those five domains but in the context of ‘the fear of the Lord’ (Proverbs 1:7). Today, wisdom is divided into what we know as Western Philosophy and Eastern Philosophy. The Western Philosophy pioneered by Greek Philosophers has its home in Europe and modern America. The Eastern Philosophy pioneered by Mesopotamia ‘religious’ civilization has its home in Asia (the Middle East included) and Africa.
The western philosophy is fundamentally intellectualism (abstract Scholarship), its religion is Atheism, and their origin is evolution. Eastern philosophy (Wisdom) on the other hand is founded in mysticism and emotionalism and its religion is Theistic Evolution.
According to Bratcher,
“Wisdom is really an approach to life, a way of looking at the world and, for Israelites, a way of living out in very deliberate, rational ways their commitment to God.” (W. P. Brown, Character in Crisis: A Fresh Approach to the Wisdom Literature of the Old Testament (Eerdmans Publishing 1996).
Western philosophy has no place for a monotheistic (one) absolute God right from its fathers like Socrates, Plato, etc to to-date and so their wisdom about life is one in which divinity is irrational and relative. On the other hand, while Eastern Philosophy (wisdom) is theistic, and a portion of it (like Judaism and Islam) is monotheistic, God is misconceived. The eastern worldview is constituted of Israel-Judaism, Middle East-Islam, India-Hinduism, China-Buddhism and Africa-African Traditional Religions (ATR).
In the business of ‘The Fear of the Lord’ which is the centre of wisdom, the western wisdom has dismissed the existence of God altogether and the Eastern Wisdom has embraced the ‘fear’ of a wrong ‘Lord’.
The wisdom that the book of Proverbs advocates for is one which comes from the fear of the Lord and not just any Lord but the one true God. The Jews embraced Yahweh as the wisdom and rejected him when this wisdom got incarnate (1Corinthians 1:24; 2:7; Colossians 2:3).
The fear of the one true Lord who is the creator and redeemer of the universe is the anchor of true wisdom; the rest is art and craft.
Will continue with this
God bless you I invoke TRUTH, REASON and FAITH (2Tim 2:7)
Pr. I. T M WHITE
The Gospel Hawker
iTiS Well of Worship Fellowship (John 4:24)
iTiS Well of Worship Fellowship (John 4:24) 