Godly wisdom is beautiful

The Proverbs have been coming alive to me in a fresh way over the last week. One of the themes I hadn’t seen before, but am very much appreciating this time through, is the beauty of wisdom. I had seen already that wisdom is valuable – more valuable than material wealth (Proverbs 3.13-15; 8.10-11). But this insight is new for me: wisdom is beautiful.

Proverbs 1.8-9: ‘Hear, my son, your father’s instruction, and forsake not your mother’s teaching, for they are a graceful garland for your head and pendants for your neck.’

Proverbs 4.8-9: ‘Prize [wisdom] highly, and she will exalt you; she will honor you if you embrace her. She will place on your head a graceful garland; she will bestow on you a beautiful crown.’

Wisdom is beautiful. It is a ‘graceful garland,’ and ‘pendants for your neck,’ and ‘a beautiful crown.’ The beauty of wisdom is not immediately obvious in the same way as a beautiful face. But it doesn’t take long to perceive the beauty of wisdom when you’re around someone who is wearing the graceful garland of wisdom.

In his work A Dissertation Concerning the Nature of True Virtue, Jonathan Edwards begins by defining virtue as beauty: ‘virtue is the beauty of the qualities and exercises of the heart, or those actions which proceed from them.’ Virtue is beautiful because it comes from God’s wisdom, which is beautiful.

Let’s become truly beautiful people by turning from our own wisdom and looking to biblical instruction. Having the humility to learn from God’s wisdom is the path to joy and to deep, lasting beauty.

Posted by Stephen Witmer on Jun 8, 09:17 AM