Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies,
Psalms 119:98 (ESV)
for it is ever with me.
There are many people in this world who are smarter than I am. I am amazed at what scientists have been able to discover about our world and what technologists have been able to produce. And I am impressed with those who are able to solve the challenging problems they face.
Wisdom takes many forms. The wisdom to be able to split an atom. The wisdom to settle disputes between people and groups. And the wisdom to grow better crops. But there is one form of wisdom that surpasses them all. And that is the wisdom that comes from God’s word.
As the psalmist says here, God’s commands make us wiser than our enemies. In this passage, our enemies are those who reject God’s purpose in their lives. To them, God’s word has little value, and they have no interest in what it has to tell them.
But God’s word has immense value to those who know God and invest the time in learning what His word has to say to us. God reveals Himself to us through His word. And His word guides us in living a full and meaningful life in relationship with our Lord Jesus—the life we were created for.
The cosmologist who understands the workings of the cosmos but rejects God’s place in it may impress with his worldly wisdom. But he falls short of true wisdom. Likewise, the politician, the computer scientist, or the farmer may possess great wisdom in their field. But apart from God, they have rejected true wisdom.
There is nothing inherently wrong with the wisdom of this world. Growing in it is good and has helped the world in many ways. But apart from the wisdom that God brings to us through His word, human wisdom will always fall short. And it will often lead us astray.
