Wise counselors!
Wisdom comes from God and so we need to be seeking people who have a relationship with God for our counsel.
September 15
The wise men from Zoan are fools, and those from Memphis are deluded. The leaders of Egypt have ruined the land with their foolish counsel.
Isaiah 19:13
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Wise counselors!
Isaiah is prophesying about Egypt. Egypt as a nation had been one of the richest and most powerful nations in the world. Few nations could compare to the things they had accomplished. One of the things that they prided themselves on was their wisdom. They did have a lot to be proud of. Things like the pyramids are still marvels of engineering and construction. But with all their great accomplishments, they confused intelligence for wisdom.
Wisdom is a very precious thing. The Bible teaches us that we should search it out like we would gold or precious stones. Where we go to look will determine how successful we are at finding wisdom. If we go to the wrong source what we may find is knowledge, but knowledge alone is not enough to produce wisdom. In fact, history has proven countless times that knowledge by itself will usually lead to foolish decisions.
There is only one source of wisdom and that is God. He is the source of both wisdom and knowledge. Amazingly we will gladly receive knowledge from Him and then reject wisdom from Him. That is the height of foolishness. It is sad when someone is foolish due to ignorance. But it can be disastrous when someone claiming to be wise makes foolish decisions.
The leaders of Egypt sought wisdom from every source they could find. They relied heavily upon ‘wise’ men to counsel them and to make their decisions. Often these men would be the descendants of men who had proven themselves wise in the past. This became a position of great influence and people desired the position not because they wanted to share the wisdom they had but because they wanted the power that came with the position.
The Bible teaches us to get the counsel of others before we make decisions. As leaders in God’s families, ministries, and churches we must be looking to the right source of that counsel. Wisdom comes from God and so we need to be seeking people who have a relationship with God for our counsel. Seeking counsel from ungodly sources can be disastrous. While the secular world has an incredible wealth of knowledge, we must not let that replace the counsel of God’s word and those of God that have been given the gift of wisdom.
The world seeks counsel from people who they hope are wiser than they are. But no matter how ‘wise’ someone in the world is, they cannot know the mind of God. And without knowing the mind of God, the ‘wisest’ of counselors may lead you to do the opposite of what God would tell you to do, and that would be disastrous. Jesus, teach us to seek You where we can find all wisdom and knowledge.
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