Wisdom and Good Works

So the Old Testament books can feel a bit weird, right? On the one hand you have laws and commands in the Law, and on the other hand you have Proverbs where "wisdom" is described as something like "guidelines and principles", to reduce suffering and to have a "well-ordered" and blessed life. So how do we reconcile this? Does God care about obedience to specific commands, or does he want us to live a wise and well-ordered life? Is it about "doing good", or about "being wise" (or "living well")?

But Jesus took specific pains to break down the common oversimplifications of "doing good" and "being wise". It's not enough to just "not murder", there's a lot more to it, and then also, rich and well-off people have a difficult time "entering the kingdom of heaven". The Sermon on the Mount is probably the most centralized and complete picture of this "deconstruction". As an aside, Ecclesiastes also deconstructs the myth that the outcome of "being wise" means being rich, powerful, smart, or successful.

For the former ("doing good"), the Great Commandments (loving God, loving neighbor) are given as the foundation and basis of the Old Testament Law ("on these two commands hang all the Law and the Prophets"), but of course, they are not as easy to follow. How do I actually "love" someone, or seek another person's good?

And then for the latter ("being wise"), you have the "Kingdom of God", where everything seems backwards. The last are first, those who lose their life gain it, the poor are called "blessed", the wealthy are far from God, and those who know they are very sinful are somehow more righteous than the people outwardly following the Law very well. What kind of "wisdom" is this?

So true wisdom helps us to understand both how to do right and how to live, at the same time, in a practical and day-to-day way. Loving others and living well requires us to know and understand the people around us, and the circumstances we are in together. To make this more concrete, Paul spends a LOT of time establishing that interpersonal conflict is MUCH worse than most people realize. Over and over he tells Christians to "be of one mind", and that kindness, forgiving others, and "bearing one another's burdens" is the hallmark of "love", which "fulfils the law".

The "how" of all this is wisdom (or more specifically "godly" wisdom). Wisdom forces us to consider who a person is, what that person needs, what their circumstances are, and what would encourage or help that person. "What is going on in this person's life? What can I congratulate or comfort them about? Whoops, I lost my temper at this person, how should I apologize? How can I make it right?" These can be hard questions, so we ask God for wisdom in handling these kinds of circumstances. We also receive wisdom from reading and thinking about and understanding the Bible, and many times a specific incident will bring to mind a passage from scripture.

So perhaps one of the most striking revelations in the New Testament, is this extremely clear unity of wisdom and morality, of "doing good" and "doing/living well", to the glory of God.