Wisdom Is Shouting in the Street

The first chapter of Proverbs ends with a scene that surprises people who expect wisdom to be quiet. Wisdom is personified as a woman, and she is not whispering. She calls aloud in the street, raises her voice in the public squares, cries out at the city gates where business is done and judgments are made. She goes to the busiest places on purpose.

Her complaint is not that people cannot find her. It is that they will not listen. She asks how long the simple will love their simple ways, how long mockers will delight in mockery, how long fools will hate knowledge. The problem in Proverbs is rarely a shortage of information. It is a shortage of willingness.

Then comes a hard passage. Wisdom says that because she called and no one answered, there will come a day when calamity arrives and she will not answer them. This sounds severe until you see what it describes. A person who spends years refusing counsel does not suddenly become teachable when trouble hits. He has trained himself not to hear. The consequence is not so much a punishment added from outside as a harvest of what was planted.

The chapter closes gently, though. Whoever listens to wisdom will live in safety and be at ease, without fear of harm. That is the offer, and it is still open.

What does this mean on a Friday in August? It means wisdom is available today, in ordinary places. It is in the plain counsel of Scripture you have already read. It is in the word of a friend who tells you what you did not want to hear. It is in the small conviction you felt this morning and almost brushed aside. Wisdom is in the street. The question is whether we will stop walking long enough to hear her.