Bible Bites

How To Be Wise

Most people expect to go to church to learn about God and the truth of the Bible.
Most of those people automatically accept that the pastor or preacher believes the Bible literally and completely.

Maybe you’ve always thought of yourself as a simple, everyday person. Not highly educated, not scholarly or intellectual, not someone who uses big words or collects degrees. You’re not trying to be impressive or important.

God does not want us to be proud or think too highly of ourselves. But He does want us to understand His will, as Ephesians 5:17 states,

Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is.

So if life feels confusing — like a puzzle you can’t seem to solve — the question is: how do you get wisdom? How does a person become truly wise?

Step One: Faith

The best place to begin is with Scripture.

Paul says the Scriptures “are able to make you wise unto salvation through faith” (2 Timothy 3:15). Without faith, we cannot receive God’s wisdom, as 1 Corinthians 2:14 says,

But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

Faith grows when we hear the Word of God (Romans 10:17). Reading and hearing the Bible is like putting all the puzzle pieces on the table. Do we believe God can make us wise? Then we must open our Bible and listen to Him.

 

Step Two: Understanding

 

But simply having the puzzle pieces on the table does not mean we understand the picture. Reading the Bible and understanding the Bible are not the same thing.

 

Understanding is when we start connecting the pieces. Each piece must be examined carefully so we know where it fits. We can’t force pieces together that don’t belong. We must keep their original shape, or we’ll have a completely distorted final picture.

 

This is the way we should study the Bible. We look at each passage by its “shape”: which is the context, who is speaking, who is being spoken to, the subject, the timing, and the details. When two pieces fit together, you gain understanding.

 

Real understanding requires dividing the Bible, the Word of truth, correctly.

2 Timothy 2:15 instructs us to do this,

Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

 

If we can connect the pieces correctly, we will grow rapidly in understanding. If we don’t, we may end up “ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth” (2 Timothy 3:7).

 

Step Three: Knowledge

 

If understanding is connecting the pieces, knowledge is when the picture starts to appear. Knowledge is seeing the big picture formed by the pieces we’ve already correctly connected.

 

Knowledge is that moment when we’ve put together all the edge pieces and suddenly realise how big the puzzle is. It always seems smaller than we expected, because what was once blurry and confused becomes clear.

 

When we gain knowledge from the Bible, we have truth. We can now see the picture God intended. We couldn’t see it before because everything was scattered and made little sense, but now we know better.

Approaching the Bible this way shows us God’s will and the truth of how His will is being accomplished, especially today and in the present world we live in.

 

Step Four: Wisdom

 

Once we can see the big picture, we are ready for wisdom.

Wisdom is simply using the right knowledge in the right way and acting on what we know to be true.

 

What is required?

  • Faith is required for wisdom — if we don’t believe what God says, we won’t act on it.
  • Understanding is required for wisdom — if we can’t put together God’s will, we won’t know what it is we are to do (Colossians 1:9).
  • Knowledge is required for wisdom — if you don’t know God’s truth, you can’t use it.

 

But even if we know God’s plan for the ages, we must use the Bible correctly. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2:7,

But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory:

 

This mystery has now been revealed to us.

If we ignore the revelation of the mystery of Christ — God’s will for us today — we may use the Bible wrongly, which is unwise (Ephesians 5:17).

 

Be Wise

 

Colossians 2:2–3 says all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery.

 

We can be wise. It becomes simple when we believe God, see the big picture of His purpose, and live according to what we know of Christ revealed in the mystery. If we do this, we are wise.

 

And if we keep walking daily according to this knowledge, we will also become a faithful, wise man — which is even better.