Wisdom Calls Aloud: Will the Church Listen?

During the 17th and 18th centuries, Biblical teaching strongly influenced colonial America, particularly New England, where reading instruction was intertwined with Scripture and moral character. By 1801, Founding Father Fisher Ames, who helped shape the First Amendment’s religious liberty language, asked why the Bible should not “regain the place it once held as a school book.”

His concern went to the headwaters of culture—the homes, churches, schools, and institutions that shape what a people believe, what they prize, and how they live. What enters those headwaters eventually flows downstream into public opinion, law, and government. A nation’s character grows out of its people's character.

Next month’s election on Tuesday, November 3rd, will not by itself reverse America’s spiritual drift. Elections have consequences, but recovering our moral foundation requires sustained Biblical instruction and obedience. What we’re doing is spiritual; the by-product is political.

In Proverbs 1, wisdom (Heb. חָכְמָה, ḥokmāh) and knowledge (Heb. דַּעַת, daʿat) cultivate discernment, sound judgment, and the qualities needed to administer justice. Their foundation is submission to God.

Dr. Bruce K. Waltke explains: “What the alphabet is to reading, notes to music, and numerals to mathematics, the Fear of the Lord is to attaining the revealed knowledge of this book.”

Proverbs 1:1–7 — The Beginning of Knowledge

King James Version, with commentary in brackets

1 The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel;

2 To know wisdom and instruction; To perceive the words of understanding;

3 To receive [absorb and take to heart] the instruction of wisdom, Justice, and judgment, and equity;

4 To give subtilty [prudence and shrewdness] to the simple, To the young man knowledge and discretion;

5 A wise man will hear [pay attention], and will increase learning; And a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels:

6 To understand a proverb, and the interpretation; The words of the wise, and their dark sayings [riddles].

7 The fear of the LORD [Yahweh] is the beginning [the foundation] of knowledge: But fools despise wisdom and instruction.

Proverbs 1:8–19 — The Enticement of Sin

8 My son, hear the instruction of thy father, And forsake not the law of thy mother:

9 For they shall be an ornament of grace unto thy head, And chains about thy neck.

10 My son, if sinners entice thee [to disobey God],

Consent thou not. [Charles Bridges writes, “Almost as soon as Satan became an apostate, he became a tempter. And most successfully does he train his servants in this work.”]

11 If they say, Come with us, let us lay wait for blood, Let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause:

12 Let us swallow them up alive as the grave; And whole, as those that go down into the pit:

13 We shall find all precious substance, We shall fill our houses with spoil: [Greed]

[Dr. Waltke writes, “Sinners love wealth and use people; saints love people and use wealth to help others.”]

14 Cast in thy lot among us; Let us all have one purse:

15 My son, walk not thou in the way with them; Refrain thy foot from their path:

16 For their feet run to evil, And make haste to shed blood.

17 Surely in vain the net is spread In the sight of any bird.

18 And they lay wait for their own blood; They lurk privily for their own lives.

19 So are the ways of every one that is greedy of gain; Which taketh away the life of the owners thereof.

Proverbs 1:20–33 — Wisdom Calls Aloud

20 Wisdom crieth without; She uttereth her voice in the streets:

21 She crieth in the chief place of concourse, In the openings of the gates: In the city she uttereth her words, saying,

22 How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? And the scorners delight in their scorning, And fools hate knowledge?

23 Turn you at my reproof: Behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you.

24 Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded;

25 But ye have set at nought all my counsel, And would none of my reproof:

26 I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh;

27 When your fear cometh as desolation, And your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; When distress and anguish cometh upon you.

28 Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; They shall seek me early, but they shall not find me:

29 For that they hated knowledge, And did not choose the fear of the LORD: [Their willful indifference and hostility are directed against Israel’s God—not merely against an impersonal created order or wisdom personified.]

30 They would none of my counsel: They despised all my reproof. [They refused my counsel and treated my correction as worthless.]

31 Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, And be filled with their own devices.

32 For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, And the prosperity of fools shall destroy them.

33 But whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely, And shall be quiet from fear of evil.

The spiritual Calebs and Joshuas of this generation must rise to the task. We cannot keep neglecting the headwaters and expect righteousness downstream. Teach Biblical truth. Confront sin. Cultivate godly character. Prepare our people to carry Biblical wisdom into their homes, vocations, school boards, city councils, and other positions of public responsibility.

Our children and grandchildren will inherit the fruit of what we teach—and what we tolerate. The hard work of spiritual renewal will take years, but it must begin now—with our own obedience.

Will all Gideons or Rahabs please stand?

David Lane American Renewal Project