WISDOM - A DELIGHT OR A CURSE
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Wisdom is a wonderful gift from God. However, King Solomon experienced his quest for wisdom as a curse:
• And I applied my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a striving after wind. For in much wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow. (Ecclesiastes 1:17-18 ESV)
Why would wisdom increase sorrow? Solomon had been granted a great gift of wisdom. Dignitaries came to hear his wisdom from all over the world. However, when God grants wisdom, He doesn’t just pop ideas into our heads. Without the right mental preparation, such ideas would appear foolish and even unusable. It would be like trying to build a roof before the foundation and the supporting walls. As the roof requires the supportive structures, so too does wisdom require a foundation of knowledge to recognize and to use wisdom wisely.
Even more fundamentally, wisdom first requires a hunger for knowledge and wisdom. Wisdom is a house that has to be built slowly and in stages, and only an overriding desire for wisdom can properly guide this process. This is why the Proverbs counsel us to seek wisdom before all else:
• “yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.” (Proverbs 2:3-5 ESV)
Solomon had prayed to God for wisdom so that he would be able to lead God’s people. He was pleased with Solomon’s prayer and granted his request. Why then was Solomon disappointed with what he had received?
The fruit of wisdom is the satisfaction of completing a 1000 piece puzzle, but what happens when we cannot complete the puzzle because a piece or two are missing? Dissatisfaction! This had been Solomon’s problem with his quest to complete his grand puzzle to understand the meaning of life. From the perspective of his wisdom quest, he was missing the necessary piece of the puzzle. It was the piece that wisdom alone could not provide. Therefore, he because frustrated and angry:
• For of the wise as of the fool there is no enduring remembrance, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten. How the wise dies just like the fool! So I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me, for all is vanity ["incomprehensible"] and a striving after wind. (Ecclesiastes 2:16-17)
Without the knowledge of the afterlife, the meaning of this life remains incomprehensible and painful to the mind. Therefore, from Solomon's limited range-of-vision, life lacked meaning:
• For what happens to the children of man and what happens to the beasts is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beasts, for all is vanity...Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down into the earth? (Ecclesiastes 3:19, 21)
Solomon’s writing displays the fruit of wisdom. However, his wisdom comes to an abrupt end, a bolted door, without the missing and necessary piece of the puzzle - the knowledge of the afterlife. This can only come through further divine revelation, about which Moses had been mysteriously cryptic.
Consequently, when we reject God, we also reject the answers to this essential question. It becomes so frustrating that many not only give up seeking but also become annoyed at anyone who brings up the question of life’s meaning. It is like buttoning a shirt by starting with the wrong button. Every subsequent button will be misplaced. The only way to straighten up the situation is to start again with the first button, but that button is God, and few are willing to go there.
I thank God that He has led me to re-button my shirt. My puzzle may not be complete, but I have all its defining contours in place and have found this to be very satisfying. I know where I am going and I know that I will be welcomed into eternity by the One who loves me so much that He died for me, even when I hated Him (Romans 5:8-10).
ARE THE LAWS OF MOSES BARBARIC OR BRILLIANT?
You’ll never tire of learning how to defend the faith. Apologetics is even broader than our universe, incorporating every field of inquiry. Many of the challenges to the Christian faith attack the Bible, claiming that it is just as barbaric as sharia law, requiring the death of adulterers, homosexuals, and many other law-breakers. How are we to defend against such a charge?
For one thing, the Mosaic Law has been fulfilled (Hebrews 8:13). While it remains the Words of God and, consequently, is still instructive (Ephesians 3:5), we now understand it spiritually, through the lens of the NT. Besides, even though the Mosaic Law was strict, it was also humane and compassionate. For example, let’s take the much denigrated passage requiring an “eye for an eye.” It was never intended to literally require an eye:
∑ “But if there is harm, then you shall pay life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe. When a man strikes the eye of his slave, male or female, and destroys it, he shall let the slave go free because of his eye. If he knocks out the tooth of his slave, male or female, he shall let the slave go free because of his tooth.” (Exodus 21:23-27 ESV)
“Eye for an eye” was not to be applied literally. If the master destroyed the eye or tooth of his slave, he was required to let the slave go free – a much better outcome for the slave than for the master to lose his eye or tooth. In any event, it seems that an “eye for an eye” required that the punishment be in line with the crime.
Instead of a “life for a life,” payment could usually be accepted in place of the death of the offender:
∑ “When an ox gores a man or a woman to death, the ox shall be stoned, and its flesh shall not be eaten, but the owner of the ox shall not be liable. But if the ox has been accustomed to gore in the past, and its owner has been warned but has not kept it in, and it kills a man or a woman, the ox shall be stoned, and its owner also shall be put to death. If a ransom is imposed on him, then he shall give for the redemption of his life whatever is imposed on him.” (Exodus 21:28-30)
The aggrieved party was free to accept payment for the life. It is assumed that this would usually be the outcome in order to preserve the peace of the community. It seems that in all the cases that called for capital punishment in payment could be substituted, with the exception of premeditated murder:
∑ “Moreover, you shall accept no ransom for the life of a murderer, who is guilty of death, but he shall be put to death.” (Numbers 35:31)
From this verse, we can assume that a payment could be made for other crimes requiring the death penalty.
This principle would also pertain to adultery, which was also punishable by death. This helps us to understand Joseph’s intention to quietly break off his engagement from Mary once he had found that she was pregnant:
∑ Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. (Matthew 1:18-19)
This account reveals that the offended party wasn’t even required by the law to press charges. Instead, this account mentions that Joseph was a “just man,” who had been permitted by the law to do the compassionate thing. However, the strict law was available to settle an offense in the strict sense, if this was what the aggrieved party required for peace to prevail.
In light of this, it is easier for us to understand how the Mosaic Law had represented the wisdom of God:
∑ So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. (Romans 7:12)
Clearly, this had also been the understanding of Moses and the Israelites – that the wisdom of their Law would serve to draw others to their God:
∑ “See, I have taught you statutes and rules, as the LORD my God commanded me, that you should do them in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. Keep them and do them, for that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’ For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as the LORD our God is to us, whenever we call upon him? And what great nation is there, that has statutes and rules so righteous as all this law that I set before you today?” (Deuteronomy 4:5-8)
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