Wise Men Still Find Him Series

WISE MEN STILL FIND HIM (1 KINGS 3:3-28)

What do sages and philosophers have to say about wisdom?

Philosopher Cicero: “The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil.”

The philosopher Immanuel Kant distinguishes between science and wisdom, saying: “Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.” Martin Fischer: “Knowledge is a process of piling up facts; wisdom lies in their simplification.”

Socrates: “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.”

Other sayings on wisdom by achievers of all sorts include:

Robert Green Ingersoll: “It is a thousand times better to have common sense without education than to have education without common sense.”

Sam Levenson: “It’s so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and say the opposite.”

Theodore Roosevelt: “Nine-tenths of wisdom consists in being wise in time.”

http://www.wisdomquotes.com/cat_wisdom.html

Anonymous: “Age doesn’t always bring wisdom. Sometimes age comes alone.”

http://home.att.net/~quotations/wisdom.html

Naguib Mahfouz: “You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.”

The new king Solomon took office by stating his devotion to God in the most dramatic fashion. He sacrificed 1,000 burnt offerings (v 4) to express his devotion and thanksgiving to God. The sacrifices were continuous, extraordinary and spectacular. It was close to a three years’ sacrifice for a commoner offering a sacrifice a day. The flames blazed in intensity, the smoke filled the temple and the aroma pleased the Lord. In a night dream God gave Solomon a blank check: “Ask for whatever you want me to give you” (v 5). What would you want if you were given your heart’s desire? Would you want: gold, glory, greatness? Do you desire fame and fortune, power and prosperity or longevity and looks? None of the above for Solomon, who asked for wisdom.

What is wisdom? What makes a person wise beyond his age, background and circumstances? What separates him from others?

Wisdom is Comprehension: Understand Past Conditions

5 At Gibeon the LORD appeared to Solomon during the night in a dream, and God said, “Ask for whatever you want me to give you.”6 Solomon answered, “You have shown great kindness to your servant, my father David, because he was faithful to you and righteous and upright in heart. You have continued this great kindness to him and have given him a son to sit on his throne this very day. 7 “Now, O LORD my God, you have made your servant king in place of my father David. But I am only a little child and do not know how to carry out my duties. 8 Your servant is here among the people you have chosen, a great people, too numerous to count or number. 9 So give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong. For who is able to govern this great people of yours?” (1 Kings 3:5-9)

Gen. Colin Powell had risen to the top in all his professions. He occupied the nation’s highest military position as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and was the US Secretary of State in George W Bush’s administration, but Powell started from the very bottom. He learned a valuable lesson as a young man mopping floors at a local soft-drink bottling plant. His belief was: “No matter what you do, someone is always watching.

Powell recalled his early working experience: “I set out to be the best mop wielder there ever was. One day someone left 50 cases of cola crash to the concrete, and browns sticky foam cascaded across the floor. It was almost more than I could bear. But I kept mopping, right to left, left to right. At summer’s end, the foreman said, “You mop floors pretty good.” The next summer, he had me filling bottles. The third summer, I was deputy foreman. As I have learned, someone is always watching.” (Reader’s Digest 4/93)

Solomon wisely appreciated all that was handed to him. He began by praising God for His faithfulness and remembering His great mercy to David, his father. There are 247 occurrences of the Hebrew word “mercy” or “hesed,” but only four references to His “great mercy”(gadol hesed) are recorded in the Bible - twice in verse 6 of Solomon’s prayer and once in the corresponding 2 Chronicles 1:8 version. The verse 6 phrases “great mercy” and “great kindness” are identical in Hebrew. The only other mention of God’s great mercy outside of Solomon’s prayer is from David’s psalm in 145:8 extolling God’s mercy, paraphrased as “rich in love” by NIV. So, all four Scriptural references to God’s great mercy were related to David’s life and reign. The enthroned king rightly recognized God had shown great mercy only to his father and none other. David, as readers know, at his best was probably deserving of praise, honor and mercy, but not “great mercy.” The great mercy afforded David was not only unprecedented, but also unmerited and unmatched.