“The Wisdom of God’
Proverbs 8:22-31
I Corinthians 1:23-24: … but we proclaim Christ crucified, a
stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are
called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
Charles T. Fritsch: [Today’s
text from Proverbs] is the highest conception of wisdom found in the canonical
books [of Scripture]. Wisdom therefore
should be obeyed not only because of the advantages she brings, but also
because of her essential nature and the high place she holds in the universe.
[prayer]
Many
of you may recall the movie The Sound of Music. Early in the movie there is a song sung by a
group of nuns about a young novice named Maria who just couldn’t seem to get
the hang of life in the convent. The
title of that song is “What’ll We Do with
a Problem Like Maria?”
I
could easily have titled today’s sermon “What’ll
We Do with a Problem Like Sophia?” Sophia,
of course, being the Greek word for Wisdom.
First of all, this Wisdom is feminine.
Commentators refer to her as Dame Wisdom or Lady Wisdom. According to one interpretation of the text
the Wisdom in today’s text can be considered to be a personification of God. Thus Sophia becomes a name for God. In other words, God can be referred to as a
she as well as a he. That tends to drive
some Christians up the wall. “The next thing you know, they may be thinking,
“somebody’s going to tell us that we must
pray to God the Mother.”
Before
any of you start squirming in your seats or begin questioning the orthodoxy of
your pastor’s theology, let’s back up a little.
In the Revised and New Revised Standard Versions verse 22 of today’s
text is translated, “The Lord created me at
the beginning of his work.” If Wisdom
is a creation of God, then Wisdom cannot be considered a person of God. Wisdom may predate the creation of the
universe, but she is still creature not Creator.
The
King James and Today’s International Versions translate verse 22 more like this;
“The Lord created me as the
beginning of his work.” In other
words, God’s first creation was wisdom. But
that still makes Lady Wisdom creature rather than Creator.
But one
commentator, a Southern Baptist no less, interprets the text as giving Wisdom a
personality. This personified Wisdom,
according to Dr. L. D. Johnson, was present at and an agent of creation. She is a female expression of God’s
self-disclosure. That makes her Creator.
Dr.
Johnson goes on to equate Wisdom with the pre-existent Logos, the pre-existent
Word of God who became flesh and dwelt among us in the person of Jesus Christ. He backs this up this interpretation by
referring to the text from First Corinthians that I read just prior to the
sermon. In that text Jesus Christ is
referred to as the wisdom of God. Jesus
Christ, the living Word of God, became the incarnate expression of God’s
Wisdom. Thus according to Dr. Johnson
and others Wisdom equals Word, incorporating her into the Trinity.
That
may be stretching Dr. Johnson’s interpretation farther than he intended. But he does interpret the Wisdom of today’s
text as a hazy glimpse of what would eventually become the New Testament doctrine
of the pre-existent Christ, a predecessor of both the Logos and Holy Spirit, an
early theological step in the direction of the doctrine of the Trinity.
Most
commentators, however, focus on a more depersonalized Wisdom that is an
attribute, possession, or creation of God – creature not Creator. This in no way, however, makes wisdom
something to be taken lightly. Lady Wisdom,
Miss Sophia if you prefer, was at creation, working alongside God as God put it
all together. Some of the ancient texts
say “little child” rather than “master worker,” thus the emphasis is on Wisdom’s
presence at but not participation in creation.
Needless
to say God’s Wisdom has been around for a long, long time. She may not have been around as long as God,
but she definitely pre-dates the heavens and the earth. She may not be part of the Godhead, a person
of the Trinity, but she’s been hanging around with them since way before we
were created. Verse 30 refers to her as
God’s own delight. As such she is a
force to be reckoned with. Hers is a
voice to be listened to. Hers is guidance
that we ignore at our own peril. To
paraphrase an old television commercial for a certain butter substitute, “It’s not smart to fool with Lady Wisdom.”
Why should we even want to? As
verse 31 puts it Lady Wisdom has been rejoicing in God’s created world from day
one. She is depicted as delighting in
the human race. We are a delight to
her. She derives pleasure from our presence. To her we are extremely pleasing. Wisdom is our friend. She likes, no, she loves, us a lot. Her wish for us is grace and goodness. She wants us to be the whole, healthy persons
that God created us to be. She desires
for us nothing less than God’s shalom – the peace that passes all
understanding.
Not only does Wisdom wish us shalom; she also leads us in the ways of
shalom. Earlier in chapter eight she is
described in terms of justice and righteousness. By way of Wisdom we can live the just and righteous
lives that lead to peace; we can be part of relationships that lead to the health,
wholeness, and goodness that God desires for all of creation. If we listen to this Wisdom of God and follow
her guidance, we will avoid the self-destructive pitfalls that damage our
lives, disrupt the lives of others, and corrupt the goodness of creation.
So it is good to pay attention to Wisdom. By way of her insight kings are enabled to
reign and rulers empowered to rule. The
fruit of Wisdom is more valuable to us than the finest silver and gold, for
silver and gold cannot buy the peace that Wisdom brings. Nor can they in themselves bring about God’s
justice and righteousness in the world.
In other parts of Proverbs and other places in Scripture, some practical
advice concerning Wisdom is laid out for us.
Proverbs is full of Wisdom’s insights into life and living. Proverbs is full of Wisdom’s insights into
staying in right relationships with God and our fellow human beings. That’s why Proverbs is among those books of
the Bible that we call Wisdom Literature.
Biblical scholars and theologians will probably never arrive at a full
agreement on the answer to the question of Wisdom being a person of God or an
attribute of God. There never will be an
answer to the question, “What’ll we do
with a problem like Sophia?” that satisfies everybody. Questions concerning Wisdom’s relationship to
the Godhead will persist until that day when such questions are rendered
irrelevant by the dawning if the realized
The answers to such questions, like those we want to ask the Apostle
Paul about why he wrote what he did about women in First Corinthians, await us
in heaven. But by the time we get there
we really won’t care what those answers are.
Meanwhile, whatever our interpretation, we must take Wisdom
seriously. After all, she’s been around
a whole lot longer than we have, and from the very beginning she has been God’s
daily delight. She rejoices in his
inhabited world. She delights in the human
race. Do we really need to know more
than that? Amen.