Before diving into our new sermon series at Covenant on the Book of Proverbs, let us be clear that wisdom is not a walk in the park. Practically speaking, proverbs are meant to be … practical. That is, the Book of Proverbs is God’s gift to help us navigate this Present Age even as we long for the Age to Come at the return of Jesus.
Nevertheless, let us not quickly assume that if we apply the proverb, we will live a life of wisdom. In the hopes of illustrating that wisdom is not the result of mechanistically applying the proverb of your morning devotions, let us look at what Augustin called the “steps of wisdom” in his textbook on teaching Scripture, On Christian Doctrine.
Augustine was 31 when he was converted. Five years later he became ordained as a priest, ministering in the city of Hippo Regius in Roman North Africa (modern Algeria). After another five years, largely owing to his preaching ministry, he became Bishop of Hippo. Augustine died in AD 430, but many of the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformers looked to him as a father of the reformation, finding in his writings clear teaching on the sovereignty of God, infallibility of Holy Scripture, salvation by grace alone, and the substitutionary nature of Christ’s sacrifice.
Published between 397 and 426, On Christian Doctrine is a book designed to help teachers and preachers of Scripture. In Book 2, chapter 7, he describes the following seven steps for, as he says, “the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. From that beginning, then, till we reach wisdom itself, our way is by the steps now described.”
- Fear. We are to seek God’s will with godly fear and reverence. He says, “this fear will of necessity excite in us the thought of our mortality and of the death that is before us and crucify all the motions of pride as if our flesh were nailed to the tree.”
- Piety. Our hearts must be “subdued with piety.” This has to do with our attitude toward Scripture: “we must rather think and believe that whatever is there written, even though it be hidden, is better and truer than anything we could devise by our own wisdom.”
- Knowledge. Only after fear and piety are we ready for knowledge. This knowledge is chiefly a knowledge arising from Scripture that we do not love God as we ought, nor do we love our neighbors as we ought. Rather, “each man should first of all find in the Scriptures that he, through being entangled in the love of this world … has been drawn far away from such a love for God and such a love for his neighbor as Scripture enjoins.”
- Fortitude. Knowledge of our sinfulness before God prepares us to properly hunger and thirst after righteousness. Only in this “frame of mind” will we “extricate [ourselves] from every form of fatal joy in transitory things, and turning away from these, fix [our] affection on things eternal, to wit, the unchangeable Trinity in unity.”
- Compassion. Having “gazed upon [the Triune God] shining from afar,” knowing that our weakness of sight cannot endure that “matchless light,” rather than running to “base desires” we run to our neighbor, we exercise ourselves diligently in love for others.
- Purification. Fortified in our affection for the Triune God, our imperfect love for others should grow into a sincere love even for our enemies. Over time, we “purge the eye of [our] affections,” that is, we more and more “die to this world.” We yearn for and even expect to become “so single and so pure in heart, that [we] will not step aside from the truth, either for the sake of pleasing men or with a view to avoid any of the annoyances which beset this life.”
- Wisdom. Only after these six will a person be wise, for “such a son ascends to wisdom” and in which he “enjoys in peace and tranquility.”
