An angel appears at a faculty meeting and tells the dean that in return for his unselfish and exemplary behavior, the Lord will reward him with his choice of infinite wealth, wisdom or beauty. Without hesitating, the dean selects infinite wisdom.
"Done!" says the angel, and disappears in a cloud of smoke and a bolt of lightning. Now, all heads turn toward the dean, who sits surrounded by a faint halo of light. At length, one of his colleagues whispers, "Say something."
The dean looks at them and says, "I should have taken the money."
Knowledge is exploding at such a rate – more than 2000 pages a minute – that even Einstein couldn't keep up. In fact, if you read 24 hourse a day, from age 21 to age 70 and retained all you read, you would be one and a half million years behind when you finished. This could argue is not really knowledge, just information and data. To really know something you need to know how to put it into practice. We don't need more information and data, we need wisdom.
The book of proverbs in the bible is ancient wisdom on how to live, something we very much need today. The opening paragraph of the Book of Proverbs summarizes
the message of the whole book: ‘‘The fear of the LORD is the beginning of
knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction’’ (Proverbs 1:7)
Respect God, treat him as your Lord by following his ways and you are sure to be wise. As part of my my commitment to following this advice I will be reading through the book of proverbs and sharing my thoughts here. Come with me.