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What makes someone wise? A lesson from Solomon
Who is the smartest person you know (or know of)? Did you think of a scientist? Or maybe someone from the past who changed the world? Who is the wisest person you know (or know of)? Is the person you’re thinking of the same as the person in both instances? For me they’re not. I thought of Albert Einstein and Ghandi (I don’t know why those two). This question is relevant to today’s Sunday School lesson.
(this lesson came from What God is Doing* by Anne Marie Gosnell, I LOVE her lessons and she gave me a free copy of her new book and I’ve got affiliate links marked with an * in here).
Can you be wise and not smart?
For whatever reason we associate glasses with being smart. Years of movies and books have taught us that the person wearing glasses is going to be smart.
We see someone in graduation robes and think that person is wise. I mean they’ve spent years studying how to learn and gathering information, what else would we think?
Let’s take this back to Solomon now. Solomon became king because God wanted him as king. There were older and stronger brothers who weren’t chosen (which yet again shows God doesn’t choose the way we do), and God came to Solomon in a dream and said, “What do you want? I’ll give you riches, money, power, what do you want?”
Solomon asked for wisdom. God knew that was the best choice and promised to bless Solomon with riches and power because of his choice, but the gift came with a warning. If Solomon strayed from God, he would lose the blessings.
That is what we see Solomon do. It amazes me because he knew better. This morning my family went to our church building and helped with the dedication, as our part of the dedication we read several chapters of Proverbs. Over and over again I read the warnings Solomon wrote. “Do not stray from God’s word,” “Do not heed the words of a foolish man,” or “The foolishness of listening to mockers.” Solomon wrote all of these words and yet he didn’t follow what he wrote.
Anne Marie’s lesson ends with some great discussion questions, but here’s a few more I thought of:
- What is the difference between believers and Solomon? (we have the Holy Spirit to help us)
- What will you do to stay close to God? (answers are going to vary, but going to church, reading the Bible, all the usual church type answers, try to challenge them to be more specific)
- How can we find God’s wisdom now? ( reading the Bible, praying)
Let’s talk about What God is Doing*
This is Anne Marie’s second book, her first book is Walk This Way* (my review). I like this book better because it fits better with how I think of the Bible. The lessons are in the book chronologically and cover most of the major points.
Each lesson starts with a materials list and gives a short overview of the story as well as some background and the geography where the story happens in (unless the story isn’t clear on the placement).
Then we get how to do the object lesson as well as questions to discuss with your kids (either Sunday School or your kids at home), and a life application, and space for comments (because I can’t be the only person who takes notes on how a lesson went and how I want to change it next time I teach the lesson).
Comments
4 responses to “What makes someone wise? A lesson from Solomon”
I certainly agree that being smart and being wise is not the same. I have to ask A what she thinks about smart and wise.
It’d be interesting to see what her response is.
I think wisdom is much more about mindfulness and seeing the big picture than smartness. Sometimes it’s tempting to pay too close attention to the trees when you’re being book smart, and then you miss the forest…
Hmmmm, interesting take on wisdom. It captures a part of the idea behind it, it feels like there’s still another part, but I’m not quite sure how to quantify that.
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