Now and then I want to post ideas and musings from teaching Sunday school, for my sake more than anything, so that I don’t so easily forget what excited me on the day.

The lesson was from the first part of Proverbs 1. A wise man looks for wisdom. I used to think when you’re 30 or 40, you automatically know a lot. But I see that it doesn’t happen by default: that the intentional person is the wise one, not the person who is drifting along on the easiest route.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. But I’ve heard ‘the fear of the Lord’ a million times. What does it mean? Part of what it means is that what God is says is foundational to our decisions and outlook. We trust His word, not our logic and knowledge. The fear of the Lord is acknowledging that He is God and we are not.

I love James’ writing for various reasons but maybe most of all because He was Jesus’ brother. I was wondering how we could find Christ in the Proverbs, but in reading James’ description of wisdom, I could see Christ. I knew that James was describing a Person who was pure, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruit: Christ, the wisdom of God. And so pursuit of wisdom is really the pursuit of a Person who I already love. Becoming wise means growing in that love and wonder. I like that idea a lot.