What Is Wisdom? Col. 1:9-10
What does it mean to be wise? Is it important to be wise or better stated, why do we want to be wise?
It is pretty obvious isn’t it? We want to be wise so we can be successful and live a life with significance and meaning. But how do you define success, significance and meaning? Where do you start? Solomon, described in Scriptures as the wisest man that ever live, declared “Vanity of vanities… all is vanity.” So is there no place to start, to find the answer defining what is wisdom?
Wait, did we leave something out that Solomon taught? Yes, left out is Solomon’s all important conclusion. He adds ‘all is vanity” unless you fear and love God.
In our society today, believing in God is doubted and questioned all the time by the so called brightest and most intelligent. Yet, the answer is there is a Creator who loves us and through Him we know, “What is wisdom.”
Paul, quoting Isaiah, writes to the church in Corinth God’s words, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and discard the intelligence of the intelligent.”( Isaiah 29:14) Then Paul continues with these powerful words, “So where does this leave the philosophers, the scholars, and the world’s brilliant debaters? God has made the wisdom of this world look foolish.” (1 Cor. 1:19-20) Is that correct? How does God make the wisdom of the world look foolish?
Question: Who was Gamaliel, a rabbi spoke about in Acts?
Answer: Gamaliel was a first-century Jewish rabbi and a leader in the Jewish Sanhedrin. Gamaliel is mentioned a couple of times in Scripture as a famous and well-respected teacher. Indirectly, Gamaliel is best known for his most famous pupil—another Pharisee named Saul of Tarsus (Acts 22:3), who later became the apostle Paul. It was under the tutelage of Rabbi Gamaliel that Paul developed an expert knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures. Paul’s educational and professional credentials allowed him to preach in the synagogues wherever he traveled (see Acts 17:2), and his grasp of Old Testament history and law aided his presentation of Jesus Christ as the One who had fulfilled the Law (Matthew 5:17).
