17. Wisdom is the Ultimate Heirloom

Saying Seventeen

Proverbs 23:22-25

Listen to your father who begot you, and do not despise your mother when she is old. Buy the truth, and do not sell it, also wisdom and instruction and understanding. The father of the righteous will greatly rejoice, and he who begets a wise child will delight in him. Let your father and your mother be glad, and let her who bore you rejoice.

Wisdom is the ultimate heirloom.

Within this saying are two seemingly contradictory ideas:

1. That wisdom is a thing we must purchase.

Buy the truth, and do not sell it, also wisdom and instruction and understanding.

2. That wisdom is a thing we freely inherit.

Listen to your father who begot you, and do not despise your mother when she is old.

Which is it? Is wisdom acquired through purchase, or inheritance? Is it free, or does it cost? This is not the first or last occasion in scripture when such an obvious tension is in play. Note this idea in Isaiah 55, for example:

Ho! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat. Yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price… Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good… Incline your ear, and come to Me. Hear, and your soul shall live. (Isaiah 55:1-3)

The text of Isaiah is being deliberately difficult, for the purpose of making sinners with slow minds meditate on what it means. If the product has no price, then in what sense is it being bought?

As you think about this, throw yourself into the shoes of Reilly, the local homeless man. He has nothing. (Not even shoes, come to mention it; so perhaps you could ‘throw yourself into’ his filthy singlet, or his baggy shorts). Limping down the sidewalk towards the bakery, he reaches into his pocket and finds no comforting jingle of coins or rattle of notes. Unless he can manufacture some form of payment for his food, this may be the end of the line.

For the next three hours, therefore, he scavenges around, sourcing all manner of bottle caps, stray bolts and washers, and a small handful of broken glass. With his ‘coins’ at the ready, he approaches Bill, the kindly man behind the bakery counter.

“Reilly! What can I do for you today?”

Reilly stumbles up to the bench, dumps the entirety of his treasures in front of the cashier, and points wearily at the food on display.

“Loaf o’ bread, matey.” he croaks.

Bill looks at his customer’s pile of trinkets, glances with bitten lip at his wizened face, then turns his head to gaze out into the distance. By the time he speaks, Reilly is almost asleep in a nearby chair.

“I can’t give you a loaf of bread for this, Reilly.”

“Wassat, boss?”

“This isn’t real money.”

“Best I ‘an do, mate. All outta cash.”

“Well I’m sorry, but it’s just not good enough. I’m going to need everything you’ve got.”

“Everything? I jus’ said I ain’t got nuthin!”

Bill leans forward, meeting Reilly’s eyes with a gaze that seems to engrave letters on his soul.

“Then give me nothing, Reilly. Do you think I want all of this junk?”

That evening, Reilly tastes his first donut in years. And his tenth.

When a sinner approaches the bakery counter of God’s grace, he is required, like Reilly, to give everything he has to secure a purchase. Our temptation, however, is to try to manufacture handfuls of false coinage that we can dump at the feet of our Maker, in the hope of deceiving Him into thinking we are wealthy. But we aren’t. We have nothing before God. We don’t even have “the fourth part of a kab of dove’s dung” (2 Kgs 6:25) to offer Him.

We must acknowledge our destitution, and arrive before God blatantly empty-handed, trusting in the good works and payment of Christ alone.

It is no contradiction, therefore, for Saying Seventeen to require both the purchasing of wisdom, and the inheriting of it freely (through simply listening to the instruction of parents). Notice that Isaiah 55 equates these two ideas:

You who have no money, come, buy and eat… Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good. (Isaiah 55:1-2)

The act of true listening, by its very nature, is a recognition of a personal destitution. This is because when you listen to another person as they speak, you acknowledge that they may have something to give you that you don’t already possess. To really listen when someone gives you wisdom allows you to freely inherit what would otherwise cost an infinite amount to purchase.

And yet, it is still a “purchase” in the gospel-sense of the word; for rather than not offering anything, you have offered your ‘nothing’. You have given your empty ear to be filled.

The saying makes it clear that “your father and your mother will be glad” to give something so valuable to their child for free. Indeed, can you imagine the joy it gave Bill to watch Reilly shovelling finger buns down his gullet?

Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. (Luke 12:32)

God is not a miser. Our Father in heaven gave us the book of Proverbs because he “greatly rejoices” to see his children freely obtain its wisdom. And he sent his Son as a gift to the world because he absolutely loves giving gifts.

Scriptures for Comparison

Isaiah 55:1-3

Matthew 13:44-46

Revelation 3:17-18

Proverbs 4:7

James 1:5

1 Corinthians 1:30

Psalm 51:16-17

Isaiah 66:2