We Don't Need More Money; We Need Wisdom

Happy are those who find wisdom and those who gain understanding. Her profit is better than silver, and her gain better than gold.

(Proverbs 3:13-14)

Stanley Johnson was a lot like many of us. A character in a classic Lending Tree television commercial, Stanley flashed a self-satisfied smile as he showed us his four-bedroom home in a great neighborhood, his swimming pool, and his new car. He beamed with pride as he told us he was a member of the local golf club.

Turning steaks on the grill, he asked, "How do I do it?" Still smiling, he confided, "I'm in debt up to my eyeballs. I can barely pay my finance charges." Then, looking directly into the camera, he pleaded, "Somebody help me."

We may not be in as much of a financial mess as Stanley was, but most of us some of the time, and some of us most of the time, need help in managing our money. How we earn it, save it, spend it, and give it is a persistent challenge for every follower of Christ.

Stanley Johnson's commercial was for a lending company, but Stanley didn't really need more money. What he needed was wisdom. When it comes to dealing with money, that's what all of us need. The good news is that wisdom can be found in Scripture and in the Wesleyan tradition.

Information about how to manage our money is easy to find. It is readily available from a multitude of sources, some of which are more helpful and trustworthy than others. Advice about everything from taxes to long-term investments can be acquired in online programs and from financial planners. Stockbrokers, mortgage brokers, and investment bankers are eagerly awaiting our calls. Lawyers and estate planners are standing in line to help us write our wills and plan our legacy. The information we gain from them is a necessary tool for living responsibly with our resources.

As a pastor, I've seen ample evidence of the need for information about finances.

• I'm concerned about young adults who become the prisoners of credit card debt. Listening to their stories has convinced me that credit card debt is nothing less than the demonic power of institutionalized greed taking control of their lives.

• I've counseled with couples who bring nearly insurmountable levels of debt into their marriages because they never learned how to design a budget or balance a checkbook.

• I've watched seminary graduates enter the pastorate—not usually considered a high-income career—with educational loans that will be a long-term burden on their ministries and families.

• I'm surprised by the number of colleagues who retire without adequate planning for financial stability.

• I'm curious about faithful church members who have never prepared a will or an estate plan.

All these concerns and others like them challenge us to use the best information we can about the most effective ways to manage our money.

But for followers of Christ, the issue digs deeper and reaches further than simply gathering information. The Bible teaches that how we relate to our money goes to the heart of our relationship with God.

I sometimes wish Jesus hadn't said, "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also" (Matthew 6:21). I'd be more comfortable if he had said, "Where your heart is, there your treasure will be also." But he said what he meant and he meant what he said. Our attitudes toward money and the priority we place on our possessions are matters of the heart; they go to the core of our identity. Because of the soul-level importance of our relationship with money, we need more than information. We need wisdom.

Where Wisdom Is Found

"Where shall wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding?"

(Job 28:12 NRSV)

The search for wisdom draws us with magnetic force to the Old Testament Book of Proverbs. The book opens with this promise:

There's something here also for
seasoned men and women,
still a thing or two for the experienced to learn—
Fresh wisdom to probe and penetrate,
the rhymes and reasons of wise men and women.

(Proverbs 1:5-6 The Message)

The Hebrew word for wisdom appears 318 times in the Old Testament with over half of these in Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes. The sages of ancient Israel knew that wisdom is more than the accumulation of information or knowledge, as important as that knowledge is. They understood wisdom to be a gift of God that enables us to know what to do with the knowledge we gather, so we can live faithfully and well in our relationships with God and each other.

Old Testament scholar Ellen Davis observes that the biblical writers had no interest in "knowledge that is abstracted from goodness." Davis also acknowledges that few of us would include Proverbs on our "shortlist of favorite spiritual books." She says our neglect of the Proverbs is often because they are "so down-to-earth, so ordinary."

I'll confess that across four decades of pastoral ministry, I never invested much homiletical horsepower in preaching on them. If you go to Proverbs looking for soul-stretching theological insights or dramatic narratives about the way God intersects our human existence, you'll be sorely disappointed. That's also the reason this collection of pithy aphorisms, brief teachings, and wise sayings barely made it into the canon of Scripture. Davis calls it "a book for unexceptional people trying to live wisely and faithfully in the generally undramatic circumstances of daily life."

But perhaps the earthy ordinariness of the Proverbs is their greatest gift to us, particularly in dealing with something as down-to-earth as our money. In their simplicity, the Proverbs provide practical wisdom for making our way through the mundane places and ordinary relationships of life. We could call them the inspired version of Poor Richard's Almanack, which along with weather forecasts and household hints included Benjamin Franklin's homey aphorisms and simple proverbs, many of which focused on work, thrift, and frugality.

The Hebrew word mashal literally means "a saying" that is often based on comparison or contrast. Intentionally succinct and designed for oral instruction, the Proverbs are easily memorized and highly transportable. They don't require intensive theological analysis or interpretation. You don't need a preacher or theologian to unpack the historical context or explain what the writers intended. They simply say what they mean and mean what they say. Period. To quote another classic commercial, what you see is what you get.

The Proverbs also have been described as "the encoding of a lived experience." Ellen Davis points out that "it takes a tradition, the accumulated experience and insight of a people, to produce wisdom."

The Hebrew Proverbs wear well because they were formed over generations in the rough and tumble of daily lives. They emerged from, were tested in, and were confirmed by ordinary human experience. Picture the wise old patriarch who has experienced just about everything life could throw at him, sitting beside a campfire or riding a camel through the desert, telling the next generation what he has learned from generations before him. It's wisdom born out of experience.

After being passed on orally for generations, the Proverbs were gathered by Hebrew editors who announced their purpose in the opening verses:

Their purpose is to teach wisdom and discipline,
to help one understand wise sayings.
They provide insightful instruction,
which is righteous, just, and full of integrity.
They make the naive mature,
the young knowledgeable and discreet.

(Proverbs 1:2-4)

Eugene Peterson paraphrased that purpose statement to say that the Proverbs were "written down so we'll know how to live well and right, / to understand what life means and where it's going; .../ To teach the inexperienced the ropes / and give our young people a grasp on reality" (Proverbs 1:2-4, The Message).

As we'll see below, a few key themes unlock the wisdom of Proverbs for us.

Wisdom Begins with God

Wisdom begins with the fear of the Lord,
but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

(Proverbs 1:7)

The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord;
the knowledge of the holy one
is understanding. (9:10)

The Lord gives wisdom;
from his mouth come knowledge
and understanding. (2:6)

With ruthless clarity, the Proverbs undermine one of the most pervasive assumptions of our post-Enlightenment, scientifically minded culture. Our culture has conditioned us to believe that human beings are the source of knowledge and that wisdom comes from the accumulation of information, in much the same way that wealth comes from the accumulation of money and property. As a result, we assume that the more we know, the wiser we are.

But the Hebrew sages believed that wisdom does not begin with us. It doesn't grow out of our human capacity for learning or our ability to gather information. They were convinced that true wisdom is not something we make up on our own; it is a unique gift growing out of our relationship with God.

This is not to suggest that biblical wisdom is contrary to empirical or academic knowledge, or that the Bible contains answers to questions that are better addressed by science. For example, the creation narratives in Genesis were not intended to answer questions about the origin or evolution of the universe, but to celebrate the One who created it and to give us wisdom about how to live together in it. Similarly, the healing stories in the Gospels are not a substitute for medical care. In fact, the Proverbs tend to confirm the practical lessons for living that grow out of experientially proven truth about our world.

The wisdom that guides us into personal and spiritual maturity is not of our own making. It goes beyond the accumulation of knowledge and instead guides us to use that knowledge in ways that are just, good, and in harmony with God's life-giving purpose.

The painful evidence of history is that knowledge without wisdom can as easily be used for destructive ends as for constructive ones. How else can we account for the fact that when Hitler came to power, Germany was one of the most intellectually, scientifically, and theologically advanced nations in the world? It was not a question of intellectual knowledge, but of the ends for which that knowledge would be used. It was not a lack of information, but a lack of spiritual, moral, and ethical wisdom that ultimately led to the horror of Auschwitz.

The Bible makes it clear that the wisdom to use information is not inherent in humans but is directly related to our relationship with God. Jesus pointed his disciples in that direction when he said, "Desire first and foremost God's kingdom and God's righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well" (Matthew 6:33).

Perhaps the most disturbing word in Proverbs is fear. We are told, "The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord" (9:10). I'd be happier if the proverb said that the beginning of wisdom is the love of the Lord, but the word is fear.

The Hebrew word yare, or fear, appears 370 times in the Old Testament (New American Standard Bible). Some of the newer translations try to soften the language by using the word reverence, and that's a very good word. In fact, the meaning of yare includes the sense of awe, wonder, and amazement conveyed by reverence. We could use more reverence in a time when some forms of Christian worship have become as casual as a coffee shop and our talk about God has become downright chummy, as if God were the friendly neighbor next door who is always ready to help us out when we get in trouble. A strong dose of reverence could cure some of the shallow spirituality that bubbles up around us like sparking water.

But reverence doesn't carry the gut-level jolt of fear, or the further meanings of terror or dread that the Hebrew word also conveys. Healthy, appropriate fear wakes us up. It surprises us. It opens our eyes. It sends adrenaline surging through our body and makes our heart pump faster. It shakes us out of our comfortable complacency. It calls for a response. Fear makes things happen.

Throughout Scripture, when imperfect, finite human beings encounter the perfect, infinite presence of God, their most appropriate response is fear. It is no small thing that when angels show up in Scripture, their first words are almost always "Do not be afraid."

There is wisdom that is only gained through an experience of fear; not neurotic, self-absorbed, irrational fear, but fear that acknowledges the magnitude of the issues we face. It's fear that stands in awestricken amazement before that which is beyond our power to manage, explain, or control. It's the kind of fear that leads us to humility. Ellen Davis describes it as "the deeply sane recognition that we are not God."

All of which is to say that we find wisdom through humility. Humility undermines our self-assured arrogance and pride. It challenges the assumption that the answers to all our questions are within ourselves. It requires an openness to discover something we would not otherwise comprehend.

Fear of the Lord is the starting point, because it calls for humble trust in the God who is the source of wisdom and the giver of every good gift (Proverbs 2:6; James 1:17). It challenges us to

Trust in the Lord with all your heart;
don't rely on your own intelligence.
Know him in all your paths,
and he will keep your ways straight.

(Proverbs 3:5-6)

Wisdom is Passed on to the Next Generation

Uncle Frank was the wise sage in our extended family. Everyone who knew him recognized a genuine goodness in the way he lived his life. He taught American history in a small, country high school for nearly five decades. Although he never became financially wealthy, his life was filled with the wealth of wisdom that grows out of a life lived with clear priorities on the things that matter most. The multiple generations of students who were in his classes not only gathered knowledge; they found wisdom. He gave the same gift to his children and grandchildren and to a wide circle of cousins and their children. These family members looked forward to sitting on the back porch and experiencing the strength of his laughter and the wisdom born out of his long, faithful, and sometimes difficult life.

I hear Uncle Frank's voice in the persistent repetition of phrases such as these in Proverbs:

Listen, my son, to your father's instruction; don't neglect your mother's teaching. (1:8)

Now children, listen to me, and don't deviate from the words of my mouth. (5:7)

Now children, listen to me: Happy are those who keep to my ways! (8:32)

If, my child, you stop listening to discipline, you will wander away from words of knowledge. (19:27)

Listen, my child, and be wise! (23:19)

There is a relational quality to wisdom that is deeper than knowledge and reaches beyond the accumulation of information. Even as wisdom grows out of our relationship with God, it is passed on through our relationships with others.

The writer of Psalm 78 also affirmed the way wisdom is passed on through the generations:

Listen, my people, to my teaching; tilt your ears toward the words of my mouth.

I will open my mouth with a proverb. I'll declare riddles from days long gone— ones that we've heard and learned about, ones that our ancestors told us.

We won't hide them from their descendants; we'll tell the next generation all about the praise due the Lord and his strength— the wondrous works God has done.

He established a law for Jacob and set up Instruction for Israel, ordering our ancestors to teach them to their children.

This is so that the next generation and children not yet born will know these things, and so they can rise up and tell their children to put their hope in God ... (Psalm 78:1-7)

Ideally this kind of life wisdom is passed on through the family the way Timothy received the gift of faith from his mother and grandmother (2 Timothy 1:5). I'm one of those fortunate people whose basic wisdom about life was nurtured in a family that formed its values around a central commitment to Christ.