Scripture Daily

Context No. 1910 of 4322 · Proverbs

Context · Reflection

Proverbs 4:1-16: in context

1Listen, sons, to a father’s instruction. Pay attention and know understanding; 2for I give you sound learning. Don’t forsake my law. 3For I was a son to my father, tender and an only child in the sight of my mother. 4He taught me, and said to me: “Let your heart retain my words. Keep my commandments, and live. 5Get wisdom. Get understanding. Don’t forget, and don’t deviate from the words of my mouth. 6Don’t forsake her, and she will preserve you. Love her, and she will keep you. 7Wisdom is supreme. Get wisdom. Yes, though it costs all your possessions, get understanding. 8Esteem her, and she will exalt you. She will bring you to honor when you embrace her. 9She will give to your head a garland of grace. She will deliver a crown of splendor to you.” 10Listen, my son, and receive my sayings. The years of your life will be many. 11I have taught you in the way of wisdom. I have led you in straight paths. 12When you go, your steps will not be hampered. When you run, you will not stumble. 13Take firm hold of instruction. Don’t let her go. Keep her, for she is your life. 14Don’t enter into the path of the wicked. Don’t walk in the way of evil men. 15Avoid it, and don’t pass by it. Turn from it, and pass on. 16For they don’t sleep unless they do evil. Their sleep is taken away, unless they make someone fall.

A father instructs his sons, passing on the wisdom his own father taught him. Get wisdom, he urges; get understanding; do not forsake it, and it will preserve you. And he presses its worth: wisdom is the principal thing; get wisdom, and though it cost all you have, get understanding. Take firm hold of instruction; do not let her go; keep her, for she is your life. And he warns them away from the path of the wicked: avoid it, do not travel on it, turn from it and pass on.

The heart of the father's counsel is the surpassing worth of wisdom: get wisdom, and though it cost all you have, get understanding. He ranks wisdom above everything else worth acquiring, and tells his son to pursue it even at the cost of all his possessions. Wisdom, understanding, the knowledge of how to live rightly and well before God, is worth more than wealth, more than the things we more readily chase, worth acquiring at any price. This is a striking valuation, and one that runs against our instincts. We readily spend ourselves, our time, our energy, our money, in pursuit of wealth, success, pleasure, security; and wisdom, the understanding of how to live well, we often treat as an afterthought, something to pick up incidentally if at all. The father reverses this: wisdom first, wisdom above all, wisdom worth the cost of everything else. For wisdom, rightly understood, is worth more than the things we chase, because it is the knowledge of how to live rightly, which shapes the whole of life; without it, our other acquisitions come to nothing, and with it, we have what orders everything else well. Jesus told of a merchant who, finding one pearl of great value, sold all he had to buy it; and true wisdom, which finally is the knowledge of God and of how to live before him, is a pearl worth that. This reorders our pursuits. Are we spending ourselves chiefly on the acquiring of wealth and the things of this life, treating wisdom as incidental; or do we pursue wisdom, the understanding of how to live rightly before God, as the principal thing, worth more than our possessions? Get wisdom, the father says; though it cost all you have, get understanding. And the God who gives wisdom to those who ask stands ready to give it; if any of us lacks wisdom, we may ask of God, who gives generously. The first thing to seek, above all our other pursuits, is the wisdom that is worth more than all we have.

Do I spend myself chiefly on acquiring wealth and the things of this life, treating wisdom as an afterthought, or can I heed the father's counsel to make the pursuit of wisdom, the understanding of how to live rightly before God, the principal thing, worth more than my possessions and worth seeking at any cost?

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