Truth and Wisdom

When I began to blog again, I said I would not self-limit the parameters. Thus, a little Bible study today...

Our church is going through a study by Anne Graham Lotz called I Saw the Lord. It's good, pointed, convicting, challenging. In last week's lessons, Psalm 51 was used. I've read Psalm 51 a hundred times, maybe more, but I saw something this time that really opened my eyes.

One of the things I remember learning in seminary was that Hebrew poetry contains many couplets - a compound sentence that expresses the same idea in two ways. E.g., "It's a clear day; the sun is shining." Basically the same thing, expressed in different words. In any case, in Psalm 51.6, David says to God, "Surely you desire truth in the inner parts; you teach me wisdom in the inmost place." (NIV). It's a couplet - the same thought expressed in different words.

So I was struck with the thought (God, I believe) that if this is a couplet, then there is a symbiotic relationship between truth and wisdom. I thought more...

1. If you have truth, you will have wisdom.
2. If you have true wisdom, you know the truth.
3. If you hide the truth (deception), you do not have wisdom and will thus make stupid decisions.

I shared this with my wife. She began to meditate on this and last night told me this: King David hid the truth (the whole Bathsheba thing) until Nathan confronted him. He then confessed, wrote Psalm 51, and spent a season of grieving over sin. The moral of the story: David hid the truth about Bathsheba, and thus made stupid choices about Uriah. But that's not the end of the story.

Bathsheba and David have another child - after David admits the truth. You know him - Solomon. And he's known as the wisest man in history. Coincidence? I think not! There is an unbreakable relationship between truth and wisdom! If we will live in God's truth, we will operate in God's wisdom. If we suppress the truth, stupid decisions are just around the corner.