Today’s reading: Job 27-28; 1 Corinthians 5-6
Job 28 is an important and powerful reminder of the reality that despite our ingenuity, creativity, and genius as a species, wisdom can only ever truly be found with the Lord.
I love the imagery Job uses in this chapter to draw out just how capable humanity is. He doesn’t setup a straw-man, making humanity look slow or backwards, or try to claim that humanity’s achievements and understanding have an external root, but gives full credit to humanity for it’s incredible abilities and accomplishments. It’s interesting to me too, in this, that Job does give full credit to humanity for mining and smelting, as many ancient cultures taught that that was knowledge passed down from gods or otherwise imparted by divine beings, but Job considers it the product of human creativity and intelligence.
And yet, despite how capable humanity has proven itself in all that it can and has accomplished, humanity is not able to produce true wisdom.
I feel like this is an even more important truth for us to recognize and acknowledge today than it was for Job and his friends back then. Just think how much farther we’ve come since then and how much more we’ve accomplished than humanity had accomplished in Job’s day. The entire world is interconnected 24/7, we can travel from one side of the globe to the other in a matter of hours, we can communicate across languages and cultures with ease, we’ve cured so many sicknesses and diseases, and so many other things. The more we accomplish and the further we come, the easier it is to start imagining that wisdom lives with us as well.
Even if we wouldn’t say it in that way, we live like it’s true. We let politicians decide what is good and right for children and for families, we let morality be determined by social and political trends, we, like the Corinthians from our reading today, let the courts decide disputes between Christian believers, we let social media tell us what we should strive for and count as success, and on, and on, and on.
But wisdom, the understanding and determination of how life works best, based on how we were designed to live and thrive, does not come from human advancement or progress, but from the Lord. He, as our designer, creator, and sustainer, is uniquely qualified to tell us how life is intended to work.
It is increasingly tempting, the more we progress and achieve as a species, to trust in our own wisdom and understanding, but the Biblical account is clear, that true wisdom can only ever come to us from the Lord, and we will do well to remember that and put our trust where it belongs.
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