The world’s economy used to be based on agriculture. During the industrial revolution the economy shifted to an economy of production. The age of the machine took over as the basis of the economy. Now we’re in what is called the “information age.” Since the advent of the computer knowledge has increased exponentially and there is now at your fingertips more information about absolutely everything in the world than has ever been available before. Although there is more information and more knowledge available at any time in history there seems to be an increasing lack of wisdom. “Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?” asked the late British poet, T.S. Eliot.
No time in the history of man is the need for wisdom more acute than it is today. Warren Wiersbe said it well, “What’s needed today is wisdom. The Book of Proverbs is about godly wisdom, how to get it and how to use it. It’s about priorities and principles, not get-rich-quick schemes or success formulas. It tells you, not how to make a living, but how to be skillful in the lost art of making a life.”
For the next several weeks, I’ll be studying the book of Proverbs. So far, I’ve noticed one important feature of the book. It makes me think about how I live. I think it was Socrates who’s famous for saying “The unexamined life isn’t worth living.” If so, then he wrote that about 500 BC at the earliest. Solomon wrote the book of Proverbs 500 years before that. He said, “Listen, my son, be wise and give serious thought to the way you live.” Again he said, “People are wise and understanding when they think about the way they live.”
In Matthew, the book we’ve just finished studying, we are exhorted to “…love the Lord your God with… all your mind.” Studying Proverbs will help us do that.
Chuck
“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.” Proverbs 1:7