Episode 1472: Holding onto Wisdom

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining me on episode 1472 of the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

[00:00:07] Darby Vannier: I'm Darby Vannier, and I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence, and impact the world by using your time, your talent, and your treasures to live out your calling. Having the ability to become an indispensable leader is key, and one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this.

[00:00:29] the Inspired Stewardship Podcast with my friend Scott Maderer.

[00:00:43] Scott Maderer: Here wisdom is saying, don't forget, I am a guide. I'm over here giving you directions. I'm over here helping you. I'm even telling you what to do, which way is north, which way is south, and which way you should go. But ultimately, it is still your [00:01:00] choice to follow. or not. Welcome and thank you for joining us on the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

[00:01:08] If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent, and your treasures for your true calling. In the Inspired Stewardship Podcast, you will learn to invest in yourself, invest in others, and develop your influence so that you can impact others.

[00:01:36] In today's Spiritual Foundation episode, I talk about Proverbs 1, verses 20 33. I share how we are all called to follow wisdom's advice, and I also share how the consequences come when we don't, and why wisdom and holy living aren't the same things. Proverbs chapter 1 verses 20 through 33 says, [00:02:00] Wisdom cries out in the street, In the square she raises her voice, At the busiest corner she cries out, At the entrance of the city gate she speaks.

[00:02:09] How long, O simple ones, Will you love being simple? How long will scoffers delight In their scoffing and fools hate knowledge? Give heed to my reproof, I will pour out my thoughts to you, I will make my words known to you, because I have called, and you refused, have stretched out my hand, and no one heeded, and because you have ignored all my counsel, and would have none of my reproof.

[00:02:35] I also will laugh at your calamity. I will mock when panic strikes you. When panic strikes you like a storm, and your calamity comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you, then they will call upon me, but I will not answer. They will seek me diligently, but will not find me, because they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord, would have none of my [00:03:00] counsel, and despised all of my reproof.

[00:03:03] Therefore they shall eat the fruit of their ways, and be sated with their own devices. For waywardness kills the simple, and the complacency of fools destroys them. But those who listen to me will be secure, and will live at ease without dread of disaster. We've been spending a few weeks talking about the wisdom literature, and here in Proverbs, wisdom is personified.

[00:03:28] She's given a place, a person, a self. She cries out in the streets, pleading for us to listen, but we turn away again and again. And here in this passage, doesn't wisdom sound like she's completely over it? And can you blame her? Here, the personification of wisdom is a rich treasure from the Old Testament literature.

[00:03:53] And here in Proverbs, we have wisdom personified. She's both done that in this first [00:04:00] chapter and in chapter 31, the last chapter of Proverbs. Elsewhere in literature that's not included in the modern Bible, we that we're using here, the wisdom of God is given even more direct agency and acts like the creation of the world and acts in other physical events.

[00:04:21] The takeaway here is that wisdom itself, in and of itself, is given an intrinsic value. If you think about it, love back a couple of weeks ago in the first passage that I talked about from the wisdom literature, the Song of Solomon, love was given its own intrinsic value, was stood up as its own thing.

[00:04:46] The, notice here the author of this passage doesn't wait to see if wisdom's advice is good before lifting it up. They don't wait to see who comes out on top, whether that's at work, school, business dealings, whatever. [00:05:00] They don't do any of that. Instead, they just decide from the beginning that wisdom is worth listening to.

[00:05:08] Just like in the Gospels, we decide that love is worth listening to. Wisdom is just good. And in this desperate cry of wisdom from Proverbs chapter one, we find a fascinating exercise of justice. Wisdom gets a little sassy and sarcastic here. especially in verse 25 and 26 where it says, And because you've ignored all my counsel and would have none of my reproof, I also will laugh at your calamity.

[00:05:40] I will mock when panic strikes you. That's pretty blunt. Basically, it's that, I told you not to do it. I told you it was a bad idea. And when you do it and it hurts, I'm going to laugh at you. Wisdom seems to have given up all the second and third and fourth and fifth and seventh chances that she can [00:06:00] stomach, and now we've got to feel the consequences.

[00:06:04] Here it's about more than just understanding that we should follow wisdom because wisdom said so. It's not just about following the rules, so to speak. It's about looking at ourselves. Now think about this for a minute. At first glance, this wisdom literature doesn't sound very Christian. It doesn't sound in that honor of forgive my neighbor seven times, 70 times.

[00:06:35] But those passages are still with us. That wisdom, that commandment, that direction is still with us. But don't confuse the call to wisdom with wisdom. with the call to living a holy life. They are related to each other. They are connected to each other, but they're not the same thing. Think of it like this.

[00:06:59] If you've [00:07:00] had a chance to do things that are less than wise in your life, and quite frankly, if you're over the age of about two, you've probably had that chance. Then when we let our guard down enough to be honest with God and ourselves. we probably see that it is entirely fair for us to eat the consequences.

[00:07:25] We aren't looking at forgiveness and saying God's not going to forgive us for this, others shouldn't forgive us for this. In fact, we're placing even more confidence in those words because we're daring to be honest with God and ourselves and say, you know what, the choices we make, the actions we have, those have consequences.

[00:07:45] And we should suffer those consequences, but at the end of the day, grace is the last word. And by the way, notice this is between us and God. This isn't between other people. This isn't about other people calling it out or telling you what [00:08:00] you're doing is wrong, or beating you up or judging you. This is about us and our relationship with God.

[00:08:07] Wisdom and grace together is what allows us to move forward, to learn lessons, to say, you know what? I can do this better. I can do this wiser. I can be a little better today than I was yesterday. And Wisdom might get frustrated with us, but she's also a faithful, forgiving friend. And starting next week, I'm going to talk some more about how Wisdom has been with us all along, paving the way for our good life.

[00:08:41] These warnings here about against being simple, against hating knowledge, against scoffing. These are important. These are mission critical, but she needs us to understand that for ourselves. This idea that lovers of [00:09:00] wisdoms have always held the belief that doing thoughtful wise good is much better than mindless or reluctant.

[00:09:12] observance of the rules of instruction, and even more, mindless judgment of others when we ourselves are making mistakes as well. That is the turn by turn direction here. That's the idea that wisdom literature is saying, hey, here are some things that we should do. Here, wisdom is saying, don't forget, I am a guide.

[00:09:35] I'm over here giving you directions. I'm over here helping you. I'm even telling you what to do, which way is north, which way is south, and which way you should go. But ultimately, it is still your choice to follow or not. Thanks for listening.

[00:09:59] Thanks so [00:10:00] much for listening to the Inspired Stewardship Podcast. As a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you enjoyed this episode, do me a favor, go over to facebook. com slash inspired stewardship and like our Facebook page and market.

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