What is wisdom? As a simple man, a scholar by no
means, I have been intrigued with wisdom since my early teen years. It was at
that time, my family was attending a church and I remember this verse in huge
letters on the wall,
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of
wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding”
(Prov. 9:10).
This was penned by King Solomon and most of us know he
has been considered the wisest man that ever lived. How did Solomon gain his
wisdom? I’m glad you asked!
When Solomon assumed his role as king, in place of his
father David, the LORD appeared to him and asked him what he wanted. Solomon
humbled himself and asked for wisdom to rule Israel. He did not ask for wealth,
long life, or anything for his own profit. For this, God said, “behold, I
have done according to your words; see, I have given you a wise and
understanding heart, so that there has not been anyone like you before you, nor
shall any like you arise after you” (1 Kings 3:12, NKJV). Because he had
not asked for anything for himself, God also gave him great wealth, long life,
and more.
Recently, I have wanted to gain an understanding of
the Jewish mindset regarding the Old Testament, or Torah (first five books of
the O.T.). I purchased a book written by Dennis Prager, a man I respect very
much, and a teacher of the Torah. In his commentary, Genesis, God, Creation,
and Destruction, from his, The Rational Bible series, he writes:
Here, too, because it has
so much wisdom, the Torah – and the rest of the Bible – is indispensable.
However, we live in an age that not only has little wisdom, it doesn’t even
have many people who value it. People greatly value knowledge and intelligence,
but not wisdom. And the lack of wisdom – certainly in America and the rest of
the West – is directly related to the decline in biblical literacy. In the
American past, virtually every home, no matter how poor, owned a Bible. It was
the primary vehicle by which parents passed wisdom on to their children. In the
modern period, however, people have increasingly replaced Bible-based homes and
Bible-based schools with godless homes and with schools in which no reference
to the Bible is ever made. (p. xix).
So what is the outcome? He continues, “As a result, we
are less wise and more morally confused. As I showed in Exodus, in my
discussion of secular education as a potential ‘false god,’ the best educated
people in the West have often both lacked wisdom and been among the greatest
supporters of evil ideologies and regimes” (p. xix).
I think he hit the nail on the head. Today, we see
people who have no clue what truth is, or even sex. It’s funny how those who tout,
“follow the science” are ignorant too or reject the truth of science regarding biological
sex. The confusion over truth, “your truth and my truth may be different,” is
astounding to me. Truth, by definition, is true in all times, for all people,
in all places. What these people replace with truth is opinion or feelings.
Wisdom is knowing the difference.
In his argument that the Torah was not created by men,
Prager presents some examples of what the Torah introduced to the world:
·
A
moral God: All gods prior to Torah’s God were capricious, not moral. A just and
moral God meant, among other things, ultimately justice will prevail (if not in
this life, in the next). It also meant human beings, imbued with a sense of
justice, can argue with, and question, this just God (the name “Israel” means “wrestle
– or struggle – with God.”)
·
A God beyond nature: God made nature, and
is therefore not natural. This led to the end of the universal human belief in
nature-gods (such as rain-gods). And sure enough, as belief in the Torah’s God
declines, nature-worship seems to be returning.
·
A God who loves and who wants to be loved:
This was another world-changing concept introduced by the Torah to the world.
·
Universal human worth: Every human being
is “created in God’s image.” Nothing like this had ever been posited prior to
the Torah.
·
Universal human rights: Another
world-altering consequence of universal human worth (p. xxiii).
He makes a profound statement when he writes, “The
Torah is so utterly different – morally, theologically, and in terms of wisdom –
from anything else preceding it and, for that matter, from anything written
since – that a reasonable person would have to conclude either moral supermen
or God was responsible for it” (p. xxii).
I have concluded the same. It is irrational to think
anything else since the Bible has been the most scrutinized book of all time
and has held up to every challenge. While some might argue that it (the Bible) is
absurd, given that it goes beyond the norm into the supernatural, there have
been many beliefs that seemed just as questionable. At one time, people thought
the earth was flat (the Bible got this right, Isaiah 40:22). If you went back
in time and told people one day man would walk on the moon or you would be able
to talk to another person, while seeing them from across the globe, in real
time, from an untethered device, they would have considered this impossible.
While we can’t introduce unbelievers to God in
physical form, we can show undeniable evidence that proves God’s existence.
Even when God came in physical form, in the person of Jesus, people rejected
Him. It’s not a head problem, it’s a heart problem. So how much more-so will
people reject the Bible?
Prager makes an excellent argument for the moral
teachings of Scripture; the data bears witness to this. The further we distance
ourselves from wisdom and the moral teachings of Scripture, the more we regress
back to a chaotic world that worships the creation rather than the Creator
(Romans 1:25).
Prager is not a Christian and I do disagree with some
of his views of Scripture, I will right more on this later, but he is a man of
great knowledge and one can certainly learn a great deal from him. His wisdom
and insights are brilliant.
