“Let the wise hear and increase in learning, and the one who understands obtain guidance” (Prov. 1:5).

Keep Leveling Up

Proverbs was written to help inexperienced people learn how to live. Its purpose includes giving “prudence to the simple, knowledge and discretion to the youth” (Prov. 1:4).

But the very next verse expands the audience:

“Let the wise hear and increase in learning” (Prov. 1:5).

Apparently, we never graduate from needing to grow in wisdom. In fact, one mark of a wise person is that they keep getting wiser.

Experience alone doesn’t guarantee wisdom. We can get older while repeating the same mistakes, mishandling relationships, or failing to learn what God is trying to teach us.

Don’t just get older. Get wiser.

Get Wisdom

We spend much of life trying to get somewhere or get something.

Get through school. Get the job. Get married. Get the house. Get comfortable. Get to retirement. And, most importantly, get to heaven.

Proverbs gives us another objective to pursue along the way:

“Get wisdom; get insight; do not forget, and do not turn away from the words of my mouth … The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom” (Prov. 4:5,7).

Make getting better at life one of the things you’re doing with your life.

Because whatever else you get, you’re going to need wisdom to know what to do with it.

A new job brings new decisions. Marriage requires skills we didn’t need before. Parenthood presents situations we’ve never encountered. Every new season of life gives us another opportunity to learn.

Listen When Wisdom Calls

Proverbs pictures Wisdom as a woman calling publicly for people to listen:

“Wisdom cries aloud in the street, in the markets she raises her voice” (Prov. 1:20).

Wisdom isn’t impossible to find. The tragedy is that we can keep walking past it.

Time passes automatically. Wisdom doesn’t.

The “simple” person in Proverbs isn’t necessarily stupid or evil. They are inexperienced and unformed. They haven’t learned yet.

There’s no shame in not knowing what you haven’t learned. The important question is what you do when Wisdom calls.

The wise person says, “Teach me.”

Some lessons can be learned through painful experience. But experience can be an extraordinarily expensive teacher.

Some wisdom in this world has been purchased at a terrible price. God can redeem our mistakes, and even our scars can become wisdom that helps someone else. But you don’t have to have every scar someone else has.

You don’t have to wreck a relationship to discover honesty matters.

You don’t have to become addicted to discover self-control matters.

Listen to Scripture. Listen to wise parents and mature Christians who have learned lessons worth passing along.

Learn the Craft of Being Human

The Hebrew word translated “wisdom,” ḥokmâ, can describe skill. Scripture can use wisdom language for skilled craftsmen who know how to do their work well.

Biblical wisdom is more than knowing facts. It is learning how to do life well.

Proverbs teaches us how to speak, work, handle money, choose friends, control anger, enjoy good things, forgive people, receive correction, and make decisions.

God doesn’t just teach us how to be religious. He teaches us how to be human.

God’s way is the sane way to live in God’s world.

Forgiveness makes more sense than feeding vengeance.

Self-control is saner than slavery to our appetites.

Humility is better than pretending we’re never wrong.

Truth is wiser than constructing a life around lies.

Proverbs doesn’t promise that wise people will never suffer, it teaches us to live aligned with the reality God created.

Practice Wisdom

Near the end of Proverbs 4, wisdom gets lived out and embodied:

Guard your heart.

“Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life” (Prov. 4:23).

Train your speech.

“Put away from you crooked speech, and put devious talk far from you” (Prov. 4:24).

Direct your eyes.

“Let your eyes look directly forward, and your gaze be straight before you” (Prov. 4:25).

Watch your steps.

“Ponder the path of your feet; then all your ways will be sure” (Prov. 4:26).

In Jesus we see what a human life fully aligned with God looks like. A disciple is an apprentice — someone learning from Jesus how to live.

Wherever you are in life, there is more wisdom to receive, more skill to develop, and more of Jesus to learn.

Don’t just get older. Get wiser.