The Wisdom of Wisdom Part III

Choosing What Is Better

One of the most surprising words in the Book of Proverbs is a very small one: Better

Again and again Solomon compares two ways of living.

“Better is a little with righteousness than great wealth with injustice.”

“Better a meal of vegetables where there is love than a feast where there is hatred.”

“Better a patient person than a warrior.”

“Better the poor whose walk is blameless than the rich whose ways are crooked.”

These sayings are not commandments. They are invitations to think. That may be one of the greatest gifts Proverbs gives us.

The Law tells us what we must not do. 

Wisdom teaches us how to choose between good things and better things.

Most of life’s important decisions are not choices between obvious right and obvious wrong. They are decisions between competing values.

Should I pursue wealth or contentment?

Success or integrity?

Recognition or humility?

Power or self-control?

Proverbs refuses to measure life by the standards our culture so often celebrates. It quietly asks a different question.

What kind of person are you becoming?

That is the difference between knowledge and wisdom.

Knowledge accumulates information. Wisdom evaluates it. Knowledge answers questions. Wisdom asks whether we are asking the right questions in the first place.

Several centuries after Solomon, the English philosopher John Locke observed that prudence is among life’s greatest virtues. He argued that people cannot live happily without living wisely, justly, and virtuously. Reading those words, I could not help thinking that Solomon had already reached the same conclusion nearly three thousand years earlier.

True wisdom always leads toward better choices. The Greeks had an interesting word for wisdom.  The translators of the ancient Greek version of the Old Testament used the word sophia to translate the Hebrew chokmah.

From sophia comes our English word philosophy—literally, “the love of wisdom.” That definition has always appealed to me.

A philosopher, at least in the best sense of the word, is not someone who simply collects ideas. He is someone who loves wisdom enough to pursue it. Christians should be philosophers in that sense.

Not because we delight in abstract arguments, but because we desire to understand God’s world truthfully and live faithfully within it.  The pursuit of wisdom requires thought. It requires curiosity. It requires humility.

It even requires the willingness to change our minds when evidence or Scripture shows us that we have been mistaken.

That is becoming increasingly difficult in our culture. We often confuse certainty with wisdom. They are not the same thing.

Wise people continue learning. 

The Book of Proverbs repeatedly urges its readers to listen, to observe, and to grow. It assumes that becoming wise is a lifelong journey. One of the recurring themes in Proverbs concerns wealth. Again and again Solomon reminds us that riches are unreliable measures of success.

That observation continues to be confirmed in surprising ways. Several years ago, researchers supported by the Sloan Foundation followed more than a thousand American teenagers, asking them repeatedly about their happiness. One of their unexpected findings was that adolescents from affluent communities often reported lower levels of happiness than those from more modest circumstances.

Money certainly solves some problems. It does not necessarily create joy. Solomon would not have been surprised.

“Better is a little with righteousness,” he wrote, “than great revenues without justice.” Proverbs also has much to say about the poor. When we hear that word, we usually think only of money. The Bible often means something broader.

The poor are those who lack power. They are the vulnerable. The widow. The orphan. The stranger. The refugee. Those whose voices are easily ignored. While studying the Psalms, Old Testament scholar Michael Rhodes made an observation that I found both fascinating and unsettling. 

Comparing the themes of the Psalms with many of today’s most popular worship songs, he noted how frequently the Psalms speak about justice, oppression, and the cries of the poor.

The contrast is striking.

The Psalms repeatedly teach God’s people to mourn with the oppressed, to seek justice, and to bring the suffering of the powerless before the Lord. Much contemporary worship, by comparison, tends to focus almost exclusively on our own personal spiritual experience. That observation made me stop and think.

Have we become so preoccupied with what God is doing for us that we have forgotten what God cares about? Wisdom refuses to allow that. It constantly turns our attention outward. Toward our neighbors. Toward justice. Toward truth. Toward the common good.

That is one reason I enjoy studying history. We sometimes forget how recently much of the world lived under kings, emperors, and dictators who controlled nearly every aspect of human life. Freedom, justice, and human dignity are far more fragile than we often imagine. Many of the values we cherish today did not arise by accident. They grew out of centuries of moral reflection rooted, in no small measure, in the Scriptures. Ideas shape civilizations. Wisdom shapes ideas.

That is why Proverbs remains remarkably relevant. It reminds us that the best life is not always the richest. The strongest person is not always the wisest. The loudest voice is not always the truest.

The greatest victories are often won quietly—in the daily decisions to choose integrity over compromise, humility over pride, generosity over greed, and truth over convenience.

That is wisdom. And according to Solomon, it is worth more than silver, gold, or precious jewels.