What Is Biblical Wisdom? (Crucial Questions)

by R.C. Sproul

The word philosophy combines two important Greek words: the first part of the word comes from the Greek phileō, which means “to love.” We are familiar with this word in the English language because we all know the meaning of the city of Philadelphia—the city of brotherly love.

When you combine these words, philia and sophia, the simple meaning of the term philosophy is “the love of wisdom.”

If we want to acquire actual wisdom, the absolute, essential starting point at which we begin and continue that quest is in a posture of reverence and adoration for God.

According to the Bible, to be called a fool is to be deemed irreligious and godless. The fool is the person who has no respect or reverence for God, and when someone does not have any reverence for God or adoration in his heart toward Him, his life will inevitably show it.

The Wisdom Literature says: Get knowledge, but above all, get wisdom. The purpose for learning the things of God is the acquisition of wisdom—we can’t have wisdom without knowledge.

There are various aspects to prayer, including thanks-giving, confession, supplication, and adoration. The place where our vocabulary fails us the most is in the area of adoration.

The book of Psalms gives us undiluted worship—worship that we know is pleasing to God because it comes to us from His wisdom and from His own inspiration.

We find not only psalms of adoration but also psalms that express the broken heart of the sinner who comes in profound contrition before God.

While the prayers in the book of Psalms celebrate many great things about God, they are not sermons about God. Rather, they are communications to God.

In that sense, when the fool makes a foolish premise and gives a foolish argument, it can be very effective to answer the fool according to his folly by stepping onto his grounds and saying, “OK, I’ll take your position for the sake of argument, and I’m going to take it to its logical conclusion and show you the foolishness of it.”

The book of Proverbs is a treasure trove of wisdom and insight for guiding our lives.

If we are really thinking in biblical categories, we will find ourselves out of step with most of the world. We need to listen to the wisdom of God so that we can cut through the cacophony of noise that would lead us into all kinds of confusion about life.