Finding The Wisdom We Need
A Meditation on 1 Kings 3:5-12
HOW WISDOM IS WOUNDED
One particular Sunday morning, after preaching a sermon that had felt like it connected with people, one elderly woman came up to speak to me. She shared the customary comments of thanks for the service, and then leant in as if to tell me a secret.
“You shouldn’t say from the pulpit that you have studied at a university,” she said. “It makes people feel inadequate.”
In my shock and surprise, I could only get a few mumbled words out before she headed off to get a cup of tea. But I found myself wondering why a passing comment about my personal story would be so offensive to someone that it would overshadow everything else I said in my message. While I cannot pretend to know her motives, I couldn’t help but question whether her feelings echoed a sentiment I had encountered before: that ‘book learning’ isn’t necessary or appropriate for followers of Jesus, because we are not to “lean on our own understanding” but simply to “trust in the Lord with all our hearts” (Prov. 3:5).
Heather Cox Richardson does an excellent job of tracing the rise of anti-intellectualism in the United States. Reflecting on Donald Trump’s attacks on and attempts to control some of the Ivy League universities in 2025, she notes that “the anti-intellectual impulse behind Trump’s attacks on higher education has a long history in the United States”. She then goes on to trace how universities and their alumni came to be seen as an elite minority that sought to control society and shape it according to their liberal values and ideas. Over time, this anti-intellectualism managed to intertwine itself with evangelical Christian faith and was actively promoted as a force to protect society from the dangers of higher learning.1
But it is not only in the USA that anti-intellectualism has taken root. Even just a quick look at social media reveals how aggressively critical thinking, openness to questions, and appeals to verified scientific studies and findings can be attacked. Personal opinions are easily elevated to the same status as well-researched reports from experts in their fields, and wisdom is easily redefined to include whatever is popular, persuasive, or profitable.
Knowledge and wisdom are two very different things, but both are needed to navigate the world’s complexities. And while it may seem that the primary victim of anti-intellectualism is the quest for knowledge, the far greater loss in an anti-intellectual world is the loss of the kind of deep wisdom that can ground us, guard us, and guide us in the chaos of these times.
In choosing 1 Kings 3:5–12 as the reading from the Hebrew Scriptures for Proper 12A, the Lectionary invites us to meditate on the beginning of Solomon’s rather complicated relationship with wisdom and to compare it with the wisdom of Jesus’ parables in Matthew 13. It’s an invitation that holds great promise for all true wisdom-seekers.
WISDOM AS A JOURNEY OF DISCOVERY
Solomon has a reputation for being wise, much like Thomas has a reputation for being a doubter. Both reputations are undeserved. Thomas was brave and loyal, but he earned his derogatory label for no reason other than his determination to have a faith that was his own, not a hand-me-down from the other disciples. In contrast, Solomon has been praised for being wise based on one prayer followed by an impressive ruling in a dispute between two mothers claiming the same living baby as their own. But when we explore the rest of his reign, wisdom is often distressingly absent.2
When his father, David, died, Solomon was young and overwhelmed by the task he had inherited. Yet he was not the one who initiated his wisdom-seeking interaction with God. Rather, God interrupted him with a dream while he was offering sacrifices in Gibeon, a place in which such sacrifices were prohibited.
In response to God’s question, “What shall I give you?” Solomon asked for wisdom—literally a “listening heart”3—to rule his people well. God agreed and also promised to give him the wealth and long life which he could have, but did not, ask for. Then, to prove that Solomon really had become wise overnight, the narrative describes Solomon’s simple solution to the seemingly complex dilemma of two women both claiming a living baby as their own.
For many readers, that’s all it takes to establish Solomon as the epitome of divine wisdom. Distressingly, however, when we continue to follow Solomon’s story, this wisdom is often conspicuous by its absence. The sheer number of women he married or kept as concubines shows that he clearly had appetites that his God-given wisdom couldn’t control (1 Kings 11:1–8). And while the narrative seems to blame these women for leading him away from the worship of Yahweh, the responsibility was all his. In addition, to support his building projects—which included the temple and his own, much larger, palace—and his extravagant lifestyle, Solomon taxed his people heavily and conscripted forced labourers to do the work (4:7–23, 5:13–14).
Solomon’s story reveals that wisdom is not just an instant divine gift which is received once and is ever-present and applicable to all things. Rather, it is limited and fragile. We cannot assume that our wisdom in one situation or area of expertise will guarantee that we will be wise in all other scenarios. And we cannot claim that because we have been wise once, we will always be so. Wisdom is not an object that we acquire so much as a lifelong journey of discovery in which we never stop seeking, discovering, and learning from new experiences, people, and information.
In Jesus’ teaching, God’s reign can be viewed as a way of being that is guided by divine wisdom. In the Parables Discourse of Matthew 13, Jesus describes God’s way of wisdom as a tiny bit of yeast that is worked through a whole batch of dough to ensure that the bread is well leavened. He goes on to describe God’s reign as a tiny mustard seed that expands its roots into the soil and stretches its branches up to the sky until it has grown big enough to be a home for birds, insects, and other creatures.
True wisdom is not a single destination on some kind of psychological or spiritual map. It is not a gift that drops from heaven fully formed. And it is not stagnant, formulaic, or one-size-fits-all. Rather, the parabolic wisdom that Jesus taught is a lifelong journey of discovery that is dynamic, open, and responsive to the world around it.
