Three years ago today, I proposed to Tiffany, my wife. When she said yes, I gave her a diamond ring as a symbol of our engagement. I had spent quite a bit of time to find that ring and then quite a bit of money to buy it. But how much I spent didn’t matter to me, for she was worth incomparably more than the ring.
In Proverbs 3:13-18, a father tells his son about a woman who is incomparably more valuable than silver, gold, and rubies. That woman is Wisdom personified. Finding her is a source of great happiness (just as marrying Tiffany has been a source of great happiness to me).
Blessed is the man who finds wisdom,
the man who gains understanding…
Finding and gaining are active verbs. They signify that a person must pursue wisdom, just as I pursued Tiffany during our courtship. You cannot marry Wisdom if you never ask her out for a date!
Dates are expensive. Fresh cut flowers, a romantic dinner, and tickets to the theater are not cheap. But what is money when you’re in love? And what is wealth when compared to wisdom?
…she is more profitable than silver
and yields better returns than gold.
She is more precious than rubies;
nothing you desire can compare with her.
That last phrase is important, so read it aloud: Nothing you desire can compare with wisdom. Not fortune, family, and fame. Not power, position, and privilege. Many activities can be measured on the scale of economics, where you hope that the benefits always outweigh the costs. But no scale is big enough to measure the benefits of wisdom.
Long life is in her right hand;
in her left hand are riches and honor.
Her ways are pleasant ways,
and all her paths are peace.
She is a tree of life to those who embrace her;
those who lay hold of her will be blessed.
Life, riches, honor, pleasure, and peace come from embracing and laying hold of wisdom.
All too often, we impose an either/or framework on biblical teaching. We read it to say that one must choose either wisdom or wellbeing. But Proverbs is a both/and document. Wisdom is always more important than wellbeing, so it should be pursued. But the reward for pursuing wisdom is always wellbeing.
In the biblical narrative, the ultimate form of wellbeing is access to the Tree of Life. This tree sat at the center of the Garden of Eden (Gen. 2:9), and will sit in the center of the Heavenly City (Rev. 22:2). We were expelled from the one, are invited to the other, and the only gate is wisdom, of which “fear of the Lord” is the beginning (Prov. 1:7).
Find and gain wisdom, and you find and gain God, with whom nothing you desire can be compared.
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