Looking for Wisdom #2
Submitted by plauer on Mon, 03/01/2010 - 11:26
The Churchman tells us "The beginning of Wisdom is the fear of the Lord"
Now, I've got to puase and deliver my standard speech about that word "fear" before we go any further. If we misunderstand that word, we'll never understand this verse. But if we can properly understand this 'fear', then the verse will open the door to all kinds of Wisdom as it should.
To 'fear' or 'be afraid' in this Biblical sense is not to 'fear' or 'be afraid' as we usually think about those things in modern English usage. A child is "afraid" of a bully because He holds over us the threat of pain and humiliation. We should not feal that the Lord is a bully. We are not being told here to remember that the Lord can cause us great pain and humiliation. He is not going to track us down and beat us up. We are not being encouraged to run away from Him or avoid Him - definitely not! Instead, the Holy Spirit is reminding us of the "holy awe" that we should have in the presence of God. We should realize that the Lord is so infinitely bigger and smarter than us that if we were to go against Him we would most certainliy lose. He is not the aggressor. But if we try to 'take him on' we cannot succeed.
A proper image of this is to consider a freight train. Most of us do not fear that a freight train will come smashing through our bedrooms at night and cause us great pain and death. However, most of us do realize that if we were to challenge a locomotive to a test of strength and power, the locomotive would win. Or consider a child's awe when meeting a professional football player in person - an offensive lineman, no less. The child is perhaps 4 feet tall and weighs less than 100 pounds. The lineman, however, is six-foot-eight and 270 pounds of solid muscle. The child does not 'fear for his life' in the presence of the lineman, but he is no doubt in awe of the man's size and strength.
So it should be for us in the presence of God. It is foolish to think that the creature could wrestle with the Creator and win. It is foolish to think that you can challenge God and survive. You need not 'fear' Him in the sense that He intends to cause you great pain and suffering and humiliation, but it is good and right to be in awe of Him; to be in awe which is proportional (if indeed it could be measured) to the whole of the Universe over which He reigns.
Or let me put it another way: if it comes between you and God, who will win? Every resource you have available He Himself has given you. Your intellect - the firing of electrons in your teenie brain - cannot be measured to the intellect of the one who gave you that brain - who designed the very processes by which you think. Your strength - the resolve and determination and the ability to accomplish what you intend - are incomparable to the ability of the one who created our entire existence with nothing more than a word. Will you take on the one who created the forces of the universe - the gravity which holds planets in place and causes galaxies to spin; the force by which stars burn and time passes? No. You cannot measure yourself against Him because He is without measure - we have nothing with which to measure Him.
So the first wise thought is the realization that we cannot think or do anything which the Lord did not first give us the ability to think or do. In other words, we have nothing to contribute to the understanding of anything which God Himself has not already contributed. It ought to leave us speechless and motionless in the presence of God. We are nothing more than He Himself has created us to be. That is our 'starting position' in the discussion of Wisdom.
Now, I've got to puase and deliver my standard speech about that word "fear" before we go any further. If we misunderstand that word, we'll never understand this verse. But if we can properly understand this 'fear', then the verse will open the door to all kinds of Wisdom as it should.
To 'fear' or 'be afraid' in this Biblical sense is not to 'fear' or 'be afraid' as we usually think about those things in modern English usage. A child is "afraid" of a bully because He holds over us the threat of pain and humiliation. We should not feal that the Lord is a bully. We are not being told here to remember that the Lord can cause us great pain and humiliation. He is not going to track us down and beat us up. We are not being encouraged to run away from Him or avoid Him - definitely not! Instead, the Holy Spirit is reminding us of the "holy awe" that we should have in the presence of God. We should realize that the Lord is so infinitely bigger and smarter than us that if we were to go against Him we would most certainliy lose. He is not the aggressor. But if we try to 'take him on' we cannot succeed.
A proper image of this is to consider a freight train. Most of us do not fear that a freight train will come smashing through our bedrooms at night and cause us great pain and death. However, most of us do realize that if we were to challenge a locomotive to a test of strength and power, the locomotive would win. Or consider a child's awe when meeting a professional football player in person - an offensive lineman, no less. The child is perhaps 4 feet tall and weighs less than 100 pounds. The lineman, however, is six-foot-eight and 270 pounds of solid muscle. The child does not 'fear for his life' in the presence of the lineman, but he is no doubt in awe of the man's size and strength.
So it should be for us in the presence of God. It is foolish to think that the creature could wrestle with the Creator and win. It is foolish to think that you can challenge God and survive. You need not 'fear' Him in the sense that He intends to cause you great pain and suffering and humiliation, but it is good and right to be in awe of Him; to be in awe which is proportional (if indeed it could be measured) to the whole of the Universe over which He reigns.
Or let me put it another way: if it comes between you and God, who will win? Every resource you have available He Himself has given you. Your intellect - the firing of electrons in your teenie brain - cannot be measured to the intellect of the one who gave you that brain - who designed the very processes by which you think. Your strength - the resolve and determination and the ability to accomplish what you intend - are incomparable to the ability of the one who created our entire existence with nothing more than a word. Will you take on the one who created the forces of the universe - the gravity which holds planets in place and causes galaxies to spin; the force by which stars burn and time passes? No. You cannot measure yourself against Him because He is without measure - we have nothing with which to measure Him.
So the first wise thought is the realization that we cannot think or do anything which the Lord did not first give us the ability to think or do. In other words, we have nothing to contribute to the understanding of anything which God Himself has not already contributed. It ought to leave us speechless and motionless in the presence of God. We are nothing more than He Himself has created us to be. That is our 'starting position' in the discussion of Wisdom.