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Introduction to Wisdom
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Do you want to be wise? It starts with reverence and adoration for God. Today, R.C. Sproul introduces the Wisdom Books of the Old Testament, the holy life they cultivate in us, and their revelation of Christ, wisdom incarnate. Request What Is Biblical...
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You can have knowledge and never have wisdom, but the reverse is not the case. The wisdom literature says get knowledge, but above all, get wisdom. But you can't have wisdom without knowledge.
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What do people aspire to these days? Riches? Fame? Influence? In fact, this century has introduced a new profession, influencer. And many young people aspire to be one. Although not all aspirations are sinful, not even all career aspirations, the scriptures are clear. Get wisdom. I'm Nathan W. Bingham, and I'm glad you're joining us for another week of Renewing youg Mind. Until Friday, you'll be hearing messages from R.C. sproul's series on wisdom after introducing us to the concept of wisdom. And he surveys the wisdom literature of the Old Testament. And we would love for you to have access to this series, so be sure to request a copy along with Dr. Sproul's title, what is Biblical Wisdom? When you make a donation@renewingyourmind.org. so since we're to get wisdom, what is it? Here's Dr. Sproul.
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When we speak of the wisdom literature, we of the Old Testament, we're referring to that group of books in the Old Testament that includes the Book of Proverbs, the Book of Psalms, the Book of Ecclesiastes, the Song of Solomon, and the Book of Job. And this was understood as a special kind of literature, even among the Jewish people in the ancient world. And though there are obvious differences, for example, between the Book of Job, which is a dramatic narrative of epic proportions, and the love song of the Song of Solomon and the prayers that are contained in the Psalter, for example, and the aphorisms that are expressed in the Book of Proverbs. Nevertheless, there is this single motif that carries through all of this body of literature that we call wisdom. I remember when I was a college student, I majored in in the academic discipline of philosophy, and that meant I had to take 30 some credits in that particular field, studying the history of philosophical thought in Western civilization. But what I remember about the very first day, in the very first course that I had in philosophy was this, that the professor wrote this word philosophy on the blackboard, just as I've done here for you who are present. And then he broke it down into its etymological derivation. The word comes from the Greek. And of course, the Greeks are usually seen as the founding fathers of Western philosophy with the pre Socratic philosophers, then with Socrates himself, with Plato and Aristotle and others that you're familiar with. Well, the word philosophy combines two important Greek words. The first one is Used as the prefix philo comes from the Greek philao, which means to love. We're familiar with that, I think, in the English language, because we all know the meaning of the city up in the Northeast called Philadelphia, which is the city of what? The city of brotherly love. Exactly. Phileo Adolphos, the love of one's brother. You've probably heard a jillion sermons in your lifetime on the text where Jesus says to Peter, peter, do you love me? And Peter says, yes, I love you. And Jesus says, feed my sheep. And how the New Testament uses three distinct words, all of which are translated by the English word love. There's eros, which refers to an erotic or sensuous kind of love. There is agape, which is the spiritual love, the zenith of love, the kind of love that God sheds abroad in our hearts through the Holy Spirit. But then there's also phileo, which is used for brotherly love and affection. And it's that word that was joined here to the word philosophy. Now, the second part of the word philosophy, the Sophie of it, comes from another Greek word, Sophie, Sophia. This is the name, first name of a famous Italian actress, Sophia Loren, and the name of an important church in the Orthodox world, Saint Sophia. Sophia is the Greek word for wisdom. And so when you put these two together, the prefix and the root, phileo, Sophia, the simple meaning of the term philosophy means the love of wisdom. Now, I was intrigued by that in that very first day, in my very first course in the study of philosophy, because I naturally assumed, oh, by studying philosophy, I'm going to learn all about wisdom in a practical sense. Well, I soon discovered that Greek philosophy, for example, had its accent on abstract, heavy, weighty questions, for example, of metaphysics or epistemology, metaphysics, meaning the study of ultimate being or of ultimate reality. And epistemology, was a sophisticated study of the whole process by which human beings learn whatever they learn, how the mind is involved in learning, how the five senses are involved in learning, and so on. Now, it's true that in the discipline of philosophy, historically, one of the subdivisions in that science is the subdivision of ethics, particularly the science of normative ethics, studying principles of oughtness, the study of the imperatives of life on how one ought to live. And that was certainly a concern of the ancient Greeks. Socrates, the gadfly of Athens, who was forced to drink the hemlock because he was accused of corrupting the youth of Athens, and so on, that Socrates was convinced that proper conduct or right living is intimately connected with right knowledge. That is, for a person to behave in a courageous fashion. That person first has to understand what courage is and what courage means. And so Socrates was convinced that philosophy was not just an unrelated, impractical, abstract discipline of human speculation, but was very much concerned with concrete daily living. And Socrates was concerned in his day about the decadence of Greek civilization. He saw that the Greek culture was in the process of disintegration because it had lost its moral foundation. And it's amazing how many parallels there are between the Greece of Socrates day and America of today. So many of the same crises are being visited. But in spite of this concern for ethics that we found in Socrates, in Plato's penetrating research into the idea of the good, and in Aristotle's full volume on the science of ethics, for the most part, when we think of philosophy today, we think of the other accents, the speculative investigation into metaphysics and epistemology. Now, when we get to Old Testament Israel, we see in the wisdom literature of Israel a completely different emphasis and completely different accent on the pursuit of wisdom among the Jews than we find among the Greeks. It's been said of Greek philosophy that the assertion that one God exists sovereign over all of creation was a very late development in the pursuit of philosophy among the ancient Greeks. That in a sense, it was the conclusion of their philosophy rather than something that was manifested early on in their search for truth. Whereas for the Jew with his sacred scriptures, how does the Old Testament start? The very first line of the Old Testament says what? In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. There's no attempt on the first page of Genesis to offer any argument or any reason or any proof for the existence of God. It just starts with that statement of the God who is God over all creation. Monotheism isn't at the end of the trail. It's at the very beginning of the sacred writings of the Jews. Now, that's led some people to assume that therefore Christians ought never to be engaged in an attempt to give a rational defense of the existence of God, or so on. But I'm going to let that question aside for now. You can be sure it's not point in this program. I'll get back to that, but not today. But one of the reasons why the Jews did not feel like they were constrained to give all kinds of speculative arguments for the existence of God is that they were convinced that God had already done the job himself quite ably, that the heavens declared the glory of God, the very firmament testified to his handiwork, and so on. And so the question that the Jew was concerned about is not, is there a God? But who is that God? What is his name? What is he like? What is his nature? What is his character? And the whole of the Old Testament focuses on God's own self disclosure, the unveiling of his character, of his person, of his nature, to his covenant people. Now, that body of literature that we find in the middle there of the Old Testament called the wisdom literature makes the affirmation again and again and again that goes like the fear of the Lord is the beginning of the of wisdom. Now, again, for the Jew, wisdom meant an understanding, practically speaking, of how to live a life that is pleasing to God. It was the pursuit of godliness that was central to the concern of the writers of Hebrew wisdom literature. And so they say at the very beginning that the absolute foundational, necessary condition in order for anyone to have true wisdom is that they must first have and cultivate a fear of the Lord. Now, that fear here is not that terror that a prisoner in a concentration camp experiences every time he hears the footsteps of his torturer coming to get him for another session of torture. But as Luther said, it's a filial fear. It's the fear of a child who is in awe of his father and who doesn't want to do anything that would violate his father and disrupt the loving relationship of the family. In a word, this concept of fear here in the wisdom literature has to do with. With reverence, with awe, with respect. So that when the wisdom writer is saying that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, he is saying that the absolute, essential starting point if you want to acquire actual wisdom is that you need to begin that quest and carry out that quest in a posture of reverence and adoration for God. In contrast, the author of Proverbs, for example, tells us that it is the fool who says, in his heart there is no God. And so wisdom is constantly being contrasted with foolishness. And you need to understand that in the Hebrew literature, the term foolishness or foolish does not describe a person who lacks intelligence. To be foolish to the Jew is not necessarily to be stupid. A person could be erudite, could be extremely learned, and still be called a fool. One of the harshest judgments that you could get from the mouth of Christ would be to be called a fool. Do you remember the parable that he taught on the rich fool who had such great prosperity that he was preoccupied with the quest for riches? And he said, I will tear down my barns and build bigger barns. And Jesus said of that man, thou fool, this night thy soul is required of thee. What I'm getting at is this, that in the Bible to be called a fool is to be deemed irreligious and godless. The fool is the person who has no respect, no reverence for God. And when you don't have any reverence for God, when you don't have any adoration in your heart for him, inevitably your life is going to show it. Now, another thing that we need to see in our introduction to the wisdom literature of the Old Testament is that the wisdom literature makes a clear and sharp distinction between wisdom and knowledge. They are not the same thing. Even the most learned people, the most sophisticated scholars, do foolish things. And so the idea that Aristotle understood and the wisdom literature proclaims to the hills is that a person can have unbounded knowledge and not have wisdom. Sometimes we're educated beyond our intelligence, that we haven't grasped the fruit of concrete living in spite of the knowledge that we've been able to acquire. It's been said by secular commentators on 20th century civilization that the 20th century represents a period of unprecedented explosion of knowledge, and with it an unprecedented period of violence and moral decay. Man has tamed his universe. He can go to the moon, but he can't tame the impulses of his own heart. We have acquired knowledge, but we lack wisdom. Now what the wisdom literature teaches is you can have knowledge and never have wisdom. But the reverse is not the case. We can't turn those around and say, oh, I can have knowledge and not have wisdom, therefore I can have wisdom and not have knowledge. Now the anti intellectual spirit of our times would rejoice in that proposition that I don't need to study, I don't need to learn, I don't need to know theology, I don't need to know the Bible. All I need to do is have a personal relationship with Jesus. That's all the wisdom I need. Oh, God forbid. I mean, that is a collision course with what the wisdom literature teaches. The wisdom literature says get knowledge, but above all get wisdom. And if we look at that closely, we see the relationship that the purpose for learning the things of God is the acquisition of wisdom. But you can't have wisdom without knowledge. Ignorance breeds foolishness. But the knowledge that we are to pursue in order to gain this wisdom that is more precious than rubies and pearls according to the biblical writers, is the knowledge of God. So what I'm saying is this, that the wisdom literature understood this principle. There can be no real human wisdom until we first know the character of God. Because remember, for the Jew, wisdom meant living a life that is pleasing to God. How can you know how to live your life in a way that is pleasing to God if you don't know the God you're trying to please? And so far from repudiating knowledge, the concept of knowledge is placed in its proper perspective in the wisdom literature. And the same kind of thought is found in the New Testament where we read that knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. And that we can have knowledge and become proud and arrogant in our knowledge and not have the love of God that we're supposed to have. But these are not either or we're supposed to have knowledge and wisdom, knowledge and love. Not an ignorant love or an ignorant wisdom. But it's important for us to keep those in order. The last thing I want to say by way of introduction is that in the Book of Proverbs, if you take the time to read the eighth chapter, you will see a magnificent poetic expression of the nature of wisdom, where wisdom itself is personified. The eighth chapter begins like this. Does not wisdom cry out and understanding lift up her voice? And as we go along in verse 22 of chapter 8 of Proverbs, we read these the Lord possessed me at the beginning of his way, and before his works of old, I have been established from everlasting, from the beginning, before there was ever an earth, when there were no depths, I was brought forth. In other words, in the poetic expression here, we're told that before God ever creates the world, he has from all eternity within himself his own personal wisdom. And that the first thing that God expresses, before he even expresses himself in creation, is this eternal divine wisdom that Paul as a Jew in the New Testament links ultimately to what? To Christ, who is called in the Scriptures the wisdom of God. And so if there's a link between the wisdom literature of the Old Testament and the teachings of the New Testament, it is that the wisdom of God leads us and points us to the absolute wisdom of God, wisdom with a capital wish, the very incarnation of wisdom that is found in Christ Himself.
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May we be people who follow Christ, wisdom incarnate, and have knowledge and wisdom, knowledge and love. That was R.C. sproul, the founder of Ligonier Ministries, introducing us to the biblical concept of wisdom. He'll be back in just a moment with a final thought for the day, so don't go anywhere. If you'd like a copy of today's message on Wisdom plus digital access to the entire series request Lifetime Access when you give a donation in support of Renewing youg Mind and the Global Ministry of ligonier@renewingyourmind.org or when you call us at 800-435-4343. In addition to this series being unlocked in the free Ligonier app so you can stream it anytime anywhere, we'll send you a copy of his title what Is Biblical Wisdom? This is a series and book that challenges much of today's thinking and provides insight to help us as Christians better understand and apply the wisdom literature of the Old Testament. Request this Wisdom Bundle today at renewingyourmind.org or by using the link in the podcast Show Notes. There is also a global digital version of today's offer, like always@renewingyourmind.org global for those who live outside of the US and Canada or would prefer digital only access well, here's RC Sproul with a final thought for today.
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I want to ask you if you can remember when you were a child and somebody would come and say to you, what would you like to be when you grow up? Well, how did you answer that question? Did you want to be a fireman? Did you want to be a ballet dancer? Did you want to be a mother or father? What was it that was your driving ambition or your main aspiration? When people ask me that, I said I wanted to play baseball for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Never made it, never fulfilled my dream. I have rarely, if ever met someone who would answer that question by saying, I want to be wise. We want to be rich, we want to be successful, we want to be famous, we want to be comfortable. But we do not live in a time or in an age that puts a high value on wisdom. But in Israel, in that period of time, life was hard and life seemed cruel, and just to make it to survive it required a certain element of wisdom. Solomon, for example, was extolled for his wisdom so that even the Queen of Sheba journeyed just to learn from him. Wisdom. We won't go across the street. We won't read the Scriptures, which is the supreme textbook of all of wisdom, and in that regard we have become fools.
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The Book of Proverbs is well known, but it's not always well understood. If we misapply or misinterpret a proverb, we can easily be led astray. Join us tomorrow as RC Sproul helps us understand the Book of Proverbs and how not to interpret them. That'll be Tuesday here on Renewing youg Mind.
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Sam.