“Above all and before all, do this: Get Wisdom! Write
this at the top of your list: Get Understanding! Throw your arms around
her—believe me you won’t regret it; never let her go—she’ll make your life
glorious. She’ll garland your life with grace, she’ll festoon your days with
beauty.”
Proverb
4:7-9 (The Message)
What
is your passion? What do you wholeheartedly throw
your arms around? Do you desire wisdom and understanding above all and before all, like King
Solomon? Certainly, at one time in his life, wisdom was at the top of Solomon’s
list. Why, God even promised him there would be none as wise as he (1 Kings
3:12).
“But
who am I?” you say. To begin with, you have something Solomon did not have; you
have Jesus. In fact, I have the mind of
Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16), if I would but embrace it. I have access to
the full gamut of wisdom and understanding, with Jesus in me and the Holy
Spirit to interpret truth for me.
And
that’s not all. As we girls set out to own God’s word, we discovered the many
references out there to fill in the gaps of things we did not have at our
fingertips. After all, the stories in the Bible were first of all relevant to
the people to whom they were written. Life was much different then. You have to
transport yourself back into history to catch the nuances of culture and
context in God’s original meaning.
So
we reached for the notes in our study bibles, a dictionary, a thesaurus, and
other translations. We boned up on our Greek and Hebrew. Okay, so I am messing
with you on the Greek and Hebrew; there’s a handy-dandy lexicon that does that
for you. Plus, there are commentaries, concordances and cultural histories.
Fortunately, nowadays all those resources are in one spot on trusted websites like
biblegateway.com.
Once
you have caught the “plain” truth, then and only then can you make personal
application—what does it mean for me? Yes, God spoke in history. Yes, He speaks
to us today. And yes, we explored those precious personal truths with God in
our journals.
O God, help me embrace
understanding, throw my arms around wisdom, gather in her glory and grace. Festoon
me in the beauty of your Word.
Nancy P
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