Wisdom, Knowledge, and Understanding
The LORD by wisdom founded the earth; by understanding He established the heavens; By His knowledge the depths were broken up, and clouds drop down the dew (Proverbs 3:19, 20).
Since the Lord utilized wisdom, understanding, and knowledge to create the heavens and earth, we always thought these virtues would be essential to raise godly children in a godless age. Thankfully, the Lord in His great benevolence also made these godly attributes available to his fallen creatures. They are essential for great works of art, craftsmanship, and statesmanship.
When Moses was tapped to build the tabernacle of the Lord, he had to make sure he crafted it down to the finest detail. This was no small task. Thankfully, God raised up a paraclete to come along side of Moses to make sure the job was completed according to God’s specific designs. The man’s name was Bezalel the son of Uri, the son of Hur, from the tribe of Judah.
Notice how the Lord equipped this man for this sacred task, “And I have filled him with the Spirit of God, in wisdom, in understanding, in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship, to design artistic works, to work in gold, in silver, in bronze, in cutting jewels for setting, in carving wood, and to work in all manner of workmanship” (Exodus 31:3-5).
The same attributes God used to create the heavens and earth are the same qualities exercised by Bezalel to build the tabernacle. It is no small task to instill these godly characteristics in the life of our children. To do so properly, definition of terms is required.
Some say knowledge is power. There are those, however, who according to the Scripture gain incredible knowledge but become educated fools in the process. When God calls people fools, He is not critiquing their level of intellect. He is judging their presuppositions that lead to a lapse of moral character (Psalms 14:1). 2 Timothy 3:7 teaches that humans can be very studious and end up, “always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.”
Our colleges are filled, both professors and students, with this betrayal against sound learning. Knowledge that does not lead to truth, critical thinking, and godly character misses the mark. Think twice before considering sending your children to college. Typically, that is where and when the enemy of our souls swoops down and captures our arrows. Instead of our children being shot from the bow of family and church to take Satan out, he captures them to take our families out. Avoid this intellectual and spiritual treachery at all costs.
Knowledge is the gaining of data, statistics, and information. The capacity of the brain to absorb knowledge is phenomenal, especially, in the modern era. We have an overload of knowledge flooding our brains at a rapid pace. According to Jeff Shultz from Big Data Zone:
If we do some quick calculations, we can see the amount of data created on the internet each day. There are 1,440 minutes per day... so that means that there are approximately:
• 1,209,600 new data-producing social media users each day.
• 656 million tweets per day!
• More than four million hours of content uploaded to YouTube every day, with users watching 5.97 billion hours of YouTube videos each day.
• 67,305,600 Instagram posts uploaded each day,
• There are over two billion monthly active Facebook users, compared to 1.44 billion at the start of 2015 and 1.65 at the start of 2016.
• Facebook has 1.32 billion daily active users on average as of June 2017.
• 4.3 billion Facebook messages posted daily!
• 5.75 billion Facebook likes every day.
• 22 billion texts sent every day.
• 5.2 billion daily Google Searches in 2017.
That is a lot of knowledgeable information available to discern and absorb. The problem with gaining knowledge on a massive scale is ignorance of the moral component. Not all knowledge is good. In fact, some knowledge like the tree of the knowledge of good and evil can prove fatal (Genesis 2:17). Since the Fall, man has had unlawful desires to know the future, manipulate outcomes, and determine results. False prophets seduce people with “hidden knowledge” to reinforce the bondage of the Fall, which is to be a law and god unto ourselves.
The early church had great battles against the Gnostics to protect God’s people from their heretical pursuit of “hidden knowledge.” Gnostics claimed “to know” higher truths that were only available to the intellectual elite. This knowledge came not from the Bible but from a higher mystical plane of consciousness. Couple that with the gnostic assertion that matter is inherently evil and spirit is good and you have a recipe for theological and doctrinal disasters. As a result of these presuppositions, Gnostics believe anything done in the body, even what God considers abominations, has no real meaning. According to Gnostics, real life exists in the spirit realm only.
In the midst of these and other seductive deceptions, the prophet Isaiah declared:
And when they say to you, “Seek those who are mediums and wizards, who whisper and mutter,” should not a people seek their God? Should they seek the dead on behalf of the living? To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because there is no light in them (Isaiah 8:19, 20).
Knowledge is foundational to growth, development, and maturity. By itself, it lacks the temperance to guard the mind from error, deception, and faulty logic. The Apostle Paul warned, “Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ” (Colossians 2:8).
The love for wisdom, the pursuit of the study of the nature of knowledge, and the quest to gain the meaning of life is what drives the philosophical impulse in man. If this pursuit is not rooted and grounded in Christ, it will betray us from ever obtaining these noble aspirations. It is in Christ alone where we can safely discover “all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3).
There is something else required to temper the pursuit of knowledge that is essential to promote soundness of mind within our children (2 Timothy 1:7). It is called understanding. Proverbs teaches, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding” (Proverbs 9:10). Knowing the Holy One and what He considers holy is the basis for proper understanding.
Understanding is God’s umpire to judge knowledge. Just like a baseball umpire determines balls or strikes, understanding determines the difference between lawful knowledge that is good to keep and evil knowledge that is to be rejected. God wants us wise to what is good and simple when it comes to evil (Romans 16:19).
In one of our Lord’s parables concerning the Kingdom, we discern the purpose for understanding. Matthew 13:47, 48 teaches, “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet that was cast into the sea and gathered some of every kind which, when it was full, they drew to shore; and they sat down and gathered the good into vessels, but threw the bad away.” This parable not only reveals truths concerning God’s Kingdom, but also discloses the function of understanding. Understanding is the key to discern the true nature of knowledge.
This leads to the critical importance of wisdom. Wisdom is the proper application of knowledge and understanding. This is key. One can obtain sound knowledge and proper understanding, but without applying it, what good are these other godly attributes? It is like “faith without works is dead” syndrome (James 2:26).
Wisdom takes knowledge and understanding to guide our decision-making capabilities. It serves in many ways to make the complex simple. Through the fog of moral dilemmas, pressurized situations, and stressful circumstances, wisdom stands ready to lead and guide.
Whereas the New Testament promotes love as the highest virtue to obtain, the Old Testament prizes wisdom (1 Corinthians 13:13; Proverbs 4:7). Proverbs teaches that wisdom is the principle thing. It is important for us and our children to not only obtain wisdom; we must also ensure we retain it.
Solomon, the author of Proverbs, was blessed with a divine encounter with God to obtain wisdom (1 Kings 3:4-14). His wisdom was world renowned. He astonished Israel and was the envy of heads of state (1 Kings 3:16-28; 1 Kings 4:30, 34). In his life, he tallied about 3000 wise maxims (1 Kings 4:32). Tragically, he also married many foreign women. He continually violated God’s standards for kings. He plunged Israel into idolatry, which betrayed God’s wisdom in his life (1 Kings 11:1-4; Deuteronomy 17:14-20; 1 Kings 4:26). As much as lies within you, make sure this does not befall you or your children.
A good way to ensure your children keep the wisdom they obtain is by looking to the book of James. Clearly, the Apostle James drew heavily from the book of Proverbs in penning his epistle. His language, precepts, and directives matched it greatly. His additional contribution distinguishes between the wisdom of the world and the wisdom that comes from God. He describes the wisdom of the world as “earthly, sensual, demonic” (James 3:15b). The fruits of this kind of wisdom produce envy, self-seeking, confusion and every evil thing (James 3:16).
In contrast, is the wisdom that comes from God that He will grant with the asking (James 1:5). James describes heavenly wisdom in these terms, “But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace” (James 3:17, 18). To ensure peace in your home, training your children to exercise godly wisdom is paramount.
