Pride

So if pride is essentially the epitome of foolishness, how and where do we look for wisdom in decision making?

Proverbs 15:31-33; 16:18-20; 30:1-6

Proverbs as a whole, and Proverbs 16 in particular, tells us that wisdom is found in humbly trusting God. After all, he made the world, and he knows how it works. Proverbs encourages us to look to God and his Word for wisdom. If one were to boil down the message of Proverbs, it might look like this: “Trust God, not yourself!” Or “Be humble, not prideful.” This is what Solomon means when he says that the fear of the Lord is the key component to wisdom (1:7; 9:10; etc.). What does that mean? It means that there are two components to gaining wisdom: humbly look away from yourself, and look to God and his Word. The fear of Yahweh is reverent awe and dependence on him—as he has revealed himself in his Word—that leads to obeying him. This is a healthy fear of him who can cast both soul and body into hell (Matt 10:28). True wisdom entails the humility to know that you do not know it all!

So if the boiled-down message of Proverbs is to trust God with all your heart and not lean on your own understanding, then this requires humility, which is almost synonymous in Proverbs with the fear of Yahweh (see 15:31-33). The first step to wisdom is to realize that you are not wise. In order to have knowledge, you must first recognize that you do not know everything and you are not always right. Wisdom is being humble enough to admit that, and then submitting yourself to God and wise counsel. Proverbs 9:8-10 says that when you correct a wise man he will be wiser still. This means that you never arrive at the point where you are so wise that you do not need to humble yourself to correction. On the other hand, pride is the essence of foolishness in many ways. Proverbs 11:2 states, “When arrogance comes, disgrace follows; but with humility comes wisdom,” and Proverbs 16:18-20 explains that “Pride comes before destruction . . . and the one who trusts in the Lord will be happy.”

The fear of Yahweh and the knowledge of God seem to be parallel concepts (2:5). The bottom line is that a personal relationship with God is the key to wisdom. We fear him because he is the one who gives wisdom—it comes from his mouth, which also points us to the Word of God (2:6; cf. 30:5-6). In order to fear God and be wise, we must go to his Word and submit to its authority for our lives.

In Proverbs 30:1-6 Agur acknowledges that he is not wise—since wisdom starts with recognizing your own ignorance—and that wisdom lies in heaven with God. No one has gone up to him to get wisdom. Wisdom belongs to him, and it belongs to his Son (30:4; Jesus!). Not only is wisdom found in the Son, but it is also found in God’s words (30:5-6).^[42] God’s words are sufficient to shape our lives; one does not need to add to them. The problem for our lives is that we often try to add to God’s Word. We think we need something else in addition to Scripture—something more relevant, practical, or helpful. “Proverbs is not sufficient to inform my parenting; I need to grab a book from Books-A-Million to supplement it.” “Proverbs cannot really tell me how to manage my finances, so I need to let Dave Ramsey do that.” I am not saying that you shouldn’t read other resources, but the lack of confidence in the sufficiency of God’s Word among Christians is tragic.

So we need God’s Word to shape our worldview in order to observe the world through that lens. We need to view the world through the lens of the written Word and the living Word—Jesus of Nazareth ( John 1:1-18) (Goldsworthy, Tree of Life, 187). Otherwise, we cannot see how corrupted the world around us is. We hear this throughout Proverbs as it exhorts us to keep the commands, look to the law, and look to the prophets (29:18). Hamilton points out that the words used in this verse connect Proverbs with the rest of the Old Testament (i.e., the Law and the Prophets) since the words used here refer to the law of God and the visions of the prophets (God’s Glory, 272). God must write the Word on our hearts through conversion, but our responsibility is to actively bind the words of this book around our neck, write them on our hearts, and wrap them around our fingers, like Old Testament Israel (3:3; cf. Deut 6). One practical way to do this is to wear something on your wrist like a rubber band with a Bible reference written on it so you can be reminded constantly to meditate on it.

Trusting God and his Word brings life. Proverbs 28:14 states, “Happy is the one who is always reverent, but one who hardens his heart falls into trouble.” So there is blessing if you fear Yahweh, but if you reject him it will be disastrous. Trusting the Lord prolongs life, whereas folly can ruin your life or lead to a premature death (Fox, Proverbs 1–9, 143). Trusting Yahweh has positive consequences on the family because it gives your children a refuge (14:26). It leads to not having anxiety because you are satisfied in the Lord (19:23). Trusting Yahweh leads to a good reputation, joy in life now, and eternal life in the age to come. So recognize that prideful insistence that you always know what is right is actually wrong, and humbly submit yourself to the Lord!

Proverbs 10:8

Proverbs tells its reader that godly wisdom is often mediated through human agents like parents. But it could also be applied to counselors, authority figures, or pastors. Foolishness means not submitting to these agents because you do not think that you need to, because in your pride you think you are always right. Wisdom means submitting to godly counsel that accords with the Word of God. You humbly submit to it because you know that you need it, need to learn more, and need to learn from your mistakes. Proverbs 10:8 states, “A wise heart accepts commands, but foolish lips will be destroyed.” One must recognize that correction is in your best interest, and that it is not in your self-interest to ignore counsel (though many if not most people act as though it is).

The first place that a person is called to submit humbly is to their parents, as if they are obeying the Lord himself (1:8; 2:1; 3:1; 4:1,10; etc. cf. Eph 6:1-2). Proverbs 13:1 says, “A wise son responds to his father’s discipline, but a mocker doesn’t listen to rebuke.” God has placed this authority in your life for your good. Wise children will recognize that and submit to their parents’ authority, while fools will refuse to listen to their parents. Fools think their parents are unwise and outdated, but you will learn one day just how foolish that is. The following is attributed to Mark Twain, although its provenance is unclear: “When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”

Someone might object, “But I have ungodly parents!” The Bible says we are still supposed to submit to ungodly authority that he has placed in our lives. Paul exhorts the church at Rome to submit to a government run by Nero, who is turning Christians into human candles to light his garden parties (Rom 13). The Bible is clear that unless the ordained authority in your life is forcing you to disobey God, you are to submit to it (Dan 3; 6; Acts 4). So listen to your parents when you are in their home because they have more experience and wisdom than you do. And when you are grown and out of the house, seek their counsel on major decisions.

Outside of parents’ authority over their children, there are people in our lives who are either authority figures or can be counselors, like pastors (Heb 13), bosses, teachers, and peer advisors in our church families. A great gift from God is a godly friend who will tell you what you need to hear, not just what you want to hear. We should all want people in our lives who can correct us because that is for our good. We are designed with a need for community—a church family. Proverbs 15:22 says as much: “Plans fail when there is no counsel, but with many advisers they succeed.” Two heads are better than one; your own opinion on the situation is not sufficient. If you do not recognize this, the consequences will be ruinous. Pridefully refusing to listen to counsel harms you and the people around you. You will go astray, and you just might lead others astray as well by your foolishness (see 10:17).

We are programmed to reject the voice of God and listen to the wrong voice—usually our own! It has been this way since Eden. The voice of the serpent deceived Eve into going after what her own eyes said was right instead of listening to the word of God (Gen 3). That’s foolishness. That is pride! She rejected God’s word, and instead she listened to the serpent’s word and followed what her eyes said was wise. Trusting yourself and listening to Satan go hand-in-hand; after all, pride caused his fall (Ezek 28:17). Eve sought wisdom and knowledge apart from the word of God, and it was destructive because it led to death. She became the arbiter of what was good and evil instead of allowing God’s word to determine those realities, and we’ve been doing it ever since. All of us have chosen to disobey God’s word—we have chosen the wisdom of the world over God’s word.

But there is one man who did not give in to the temptation in the garden. He said in his garden, “Not what I want but what you want,” and he went to the cross. First Corinthians 1 tells us that act was foolishness to the world, but it’s the wisdom and power of God. If we are going to be wise in God’s eyes, that will mean looking strange in the eyes of the world. And if we are going to be wise, that means humble submission to the one who is God’s wisdom and sanctification for us. It will mean having the mind of Jesus, who humbled himself to the point of death—even to death on a cross (Phil 2:5-11). So fear Jesus and humbly walk in wisdom!