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Proverbs 4:7-9

The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom, and whatever you get, get insight. Prize her highly, and she will exalt you: she will honor you if you embrace her. She will place on your head a graceful garland; she will bestow on you a beautiful crown.

The book of Proverbs is a collection of practical advice or counsel to guide your daily conduct, teach you how to make decisions and teach you how to relate to God and others. I was once asked by a young person to define the difference between wisdom and intellect. I pondered for a minute and replied, “well, wisdom can be defined as common sense and intellect can be defined as knowledge”. However I was not satisfied with that answer, so I began to look for another response to this question. We know that intellect is the ability to process information to respond effectively to new situations and wisdom means applying God’s truths to make right decisions. After I did some searching, I found a better response than the one given to that young man: Intellect is the ability to get yourself out of problems, but wisdom is the ability to avoid those problems in the first place.

You see, many of the problems we face in our daily lives is not because we are not smart enough. On the contrary, it is because we are not wise enough to avoid them. The author of Proverbs makes it very clear that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. It is in this book that we find wisdom on how to avoid problems in this world such as money problems, conflict with others, anger, pride, human sexuality, marriage, parenting, and relationships. We are told by the author that wisdom is more precious than silver and gold; if this is the case, why don’t we search for it? It is because we lack wisdom and give more importance to intellect. So if you could avoid a problem altogether, wouldn’t that be wiser? The challenge to us all is to seek God’s wisdom to avoid the headaches, heartaches and all the “aches” of life. The only way to do this is by searching the scriptures for these precious truths but also looking at the life of our Savior. The apostle Paul states, “but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” (1 Corinthians 1:24)