There are a number of characters in Proverbs. The righteous are those who actively seek out wisdom. They are humble. Further, they seek God’s wisdom, not their own. The wicked are those who actively seek out folly. They are proud. They are full of selfish ambition However there is a rather interesting 3rd character. He is also seeking folly, but he is not actively seeking folly. In a sense he finds folly, because he has never sought wisdom. He is the sluggard. Wisdom, in Proverbs is the ability to discern between two choices. Both the wicked and the righteous go out and make those choices. They choose between wisdom and folly. The sluggard chooses to stay home.
We find the sluggard in Proverbs 6: “Go to the ant, you sluggard! Observe her ways and become wise.” The ant doesn’t have somebody telling her what to do. She acts on her own intiative. She goes out and finds a job, so that she may learn her trade. The sluggard needs to get up out of his bed and learn from the ant. The author of the proverbs wants to encourage his readers in godly ambition.
Another example comes from Proverbs 26 starting at verse 13. The sluggard cries out, “There is a lion in the streets.” The sluggard makes excuses for himself. He can’t risk anything. Again, we need godly ambition. We can’t be afraid of risks when we go out into the world. We have to be wise and prudent in our actions, but if we live in fear of what might happen, we will never find the prize. The reward will be gone.
Christians then have no excuse for sitting around and waiting. There is no excuse for endless leisure time. We’re called to go out and find wisdom. If we do not, we will lose wisdom. We become the fool, fearing imaginary lions. Ultimately, we lose the Wisdom of God; Jesus Christ. We are all called to that search for wisdom in so far as God has given us the ability to do so.
Wisdom, in our passages, is the practical ability to build, to make business choices, to choose a marriage partner; ultimately anything that involves human action. But within Proverbs all wisdom ultimately points to the Wisdom of God, the Wisdom that God reveals in Jesus Christ and the Wisdom by which God made the world. As we said in an earlier post, he is the one who holds the universe together. We can distinguish between practical wisdom and the Wisdom of God in Proverbs, but they cannot truly be seperated. If we do not seek wisdom, we ultimately lose the Wisdom of God; Jesus Christ. We are all called to that search for wisdom in so far as God has given us the ability to do so.
So one of the messages of proverbs is, “get up, get out and find wisdom.” Search then. Seek out the wisdom of the universe. Learn how to fix a car. Learn how to make a chair. Ultimately, search for the Wisdom; Christ. That is a life-long search a life-long longing for those who have found him.