King Solomon remains a disquieting figure. The man who extended his father David’s kingdom to its maximum extent and enriched it to its maximum glory also built the first great Israelite temple—while also building a sumptuous palace for himself.
The man who asked God above all for the gift of wisdom and gained an international reputation for sagacity became the very picture of the royal fool: multiplying wives and concubines with their accompanying alien entanglements both political and spiritual.
The man who gave us so many of the Biblical Proverbs concludes his Ecclesiastical reflections despairing of all his inquiries into wisdom as he returns to the most elementary principle of his people’s religion:
Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body. Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the duty of all mankind.For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.
This man named for peace (“Solomon” comes from “shalom”) seems to have enjoyed worldly peace in abundance, but testifies yet to an unquiet heart. He knows better—better than anyone else alive. And yet he is still the willing captive of sin, and therefore of foolishness.
Almost three millennia later, the English pastor Thomas Traherne mused upon wisdom and found it where Solomon could not have looked: in the person of Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ is the Wisdom of the Father. . . . We should spend our days in studying Wisdom, that we might be like unto Him: that the treasures of Heaven are the treasures of Wisdom, and that they are hid in Christ.
—A Century of Meditations
Solomon’s exhortations to gain wisdom, in both Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, speak of wisdom as a commodity. To become exceedingly wise is to do what Solomon did: “ponder and search out and set in order many proverbs” (Ecclesiastes 12:9)—that is, to compose and research and edit collections of wise sayings.
To think of wisdom this way would suit Solomon fine. He could acquire wisdom just as he acquired wealth and women. But in the light of the New Testament, we realize that gaining wisdom is not to gain a commodity, as Solomon gained so many commodities.
To acquire wisdom is to become personally and deeply acquainted with Jesus Christ—so conversant with him, in fact, that one becomes very like Christ: a Christian. To study wisdom is to study Christ: not only his words, yes, but all of his life. To become wise is to become able and willing to think like Jesus, feel like Jesus, speak like Jesus, and act like Jesus. The mind of Christ is the mind of Wisdom.
Solomon himself saw Wisdom personified, although as an admirable woman in the Proverbs. We see Wisdom incarnated, as an amazing man in the Gospels.
Identifying Jesus with Wisdom is a crucial conceptual move to make in our spiritual walk. It is an essential advance over the useful, but also dangerous, Old Testament—and, indeed, classical—conception of wisdom as a something one can seek and then get.
It is useful, yes, to think of wisdom as a precious treasure worth sacrifice to obtain. But it is dangerous to think of wisdom as both acquisition and accomplishment. That is the false premise and promise of the Garden serpent: “Do this, and you shall get that—all on your own, regardless of God.”
How splendid, that is, to be wise—and to bask in the knowledge that you are such! This is one of the fatal occupational hazards of all Christian teachers, preachers, and leaders, as it is also for parents.
“I know better” is an interestingly ambivalent little phrase that can prompt one to humble goodness or to arrogant wickedness. The key to its proper deployment is the cultivation of communion with “Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (I Corinthians 1:24). Christ alone, in the Holy Spirit, gives us the power and the wisdom to think, feel, speak, and act better.
King Solomon, the peaceful one, set his kingdom on the path toward violent division and eventual dissolution. Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, set his kingdom on the path toward loving reconciliation and eventual eternity.
Paul knew better: “I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better” (Ephesians 1:17). Paul knew Jesus.
