Chasing Wisdom by Daniel GrotheSample

Sages are people who have learned how to live. They are composed and have mastered the fundamentals. . . . They have strung together decades of holiness and carry themselves with dignity. They radiate a kind of strength that causes others to rise. They are wholesome, their lives are worth emulating, and when they speak, people listen because they have something to say.

In our information age, we would be wise to remember St. Paul’s words to the Corinthian believers that we will never be short on teachers. He assured the Corinthians that they would have an overabundance of people who want to advise and instruct them (see 1 Cor. 4:15). At the risk of sounding flippant, I’d say Paul didn’t know the half of it. He could never have imagined the content factory our society would become—the podcasts and YouTube channels, the surfeit of blog posts and sixty-second Instagram sermonettes.

But after Paul gave his assurance, he pivoted. He continued that while there may be many instructors, there will be very few who would be able to parent us, to direct us, to embody what a beautiful life of faithfulness looks like. We have a shortage of true spiritual moms out there. We don’t have enough dads to show us the way.

Paul wasn’t saying anything new. . . . In the Old Testament we find five books known as Israel’s wisdom literature: Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, and some of the Psalms. But what exactly are they for? These books were meant to guide us squarely into the possession of wisdom, to surround our lives like scaffolding as God builds in us a life that will never crumble. These wisdom books are sturdy pillars to keep the community of faith from collapsing.