The start of summer often feels like a new beginning. In the university town where I live, commencement speakers have commissioned their graduates to take their first steps across the stage, grab their diploma, and blaze their own trail through life.

The invitation to chart your own path, however, can be as terrifying as it is exhilarating. With so many options presented to us, each with risks and rewards, how are we to know which way is best? Is there a path that will lead us to where we want to go?

In Walking the Way of the Wise: A Biblical Theology of Wisdom, Mitchell Chase, associate professor of biblical studies at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, argues such a path exists. Moreover, we find it not by asking the question “What do you want to be when you grow up?” but rather “What kind of person do you want to be when you grow up?” (1).

Chase traces the theme of wisdom across the whole canon and demonstrates how the myriad paths we can tread really boil down to two options: the way of folly that leads to death and the way of wisdom that leads to life. Those who are wise understand two key truths that make all the difference.

Revealed Wisdom

The starting point for becoming wise is recognizing that wisdom exists outside of us. We can only become wise because God has revealed himself to us so we may be like him. A recurring refrain within the Bible’s wisdom literature is that “the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom” (e.g., Job 28:28; Ps. 111:10; Prov. 1:7). We’re wise in this life to the degree that we accept the external nature of and submit to God’s revelation about himself and his world.

Walking the Way of the Wise triumphantly demonstrates how fearing the Lord, which Chase defines as “living out a love for God in all of life,” is found in all the Scriptures (46). It’s not the exclusive province of the six books typically associated with wisdom literature. Many characters throughout the biblical storyline, like Adam, Job, Joseph, David, Solomon, and others, display wisdom (and folly) through their regard for God and his Word.

Chase’s approach is important in an age where Stoic influences argue for wisdom divorced from Scripture. We can learn much from creation, but without divine revelation we’re lost. While acknowledging the usefulness of general revelation, Chase observes, “A person who can discern truth in creation is limited when that person rejects the Creator” (79).

Relational Wisdom

As God’s image-bearers, we weren’t made to just know facts about the cosmos; we were made to be in relationship with God and his people. Wisdom is inescapably relational. We’re designed to be dependent on God for everything we need. The Bible warns that when we pursue autonomy from God, we choose death.

We can learn much from creation, but without divine revelation we’re lost.

The way Scripture communicates wisdom accentuates its relational nature. For example, Proverbs was written as a training manual from a father to a son to woo his child toward the path of wisdom. Yet there’s more than one father-son relationship in play.

In Exodus 4:22, God refers to Israel as his firstborn son. The Israelites’ recurring problem is that they won’t heed their father’s instruction. Instead, they do what’s right in their own eyes (Judg. 21:25). Chase writes, “We would be hard-pressed to find a better definition in the Bible for folly” (55). Thus, we see the way of folly is most clearly depicted in the corporate life of God’s people who are, as a group, his son.

And this is a key to understanding our redemption too. If the world was broken because of a rebellious, foolish son, it can be redeemed through a faithful, wise Son. That’s what the life and ministry of Jesus is all about.

As a rabbi, Jesus taught with wisdom, but he wasn’t just a teacher. He came to be what God’s people had ultimately failed to be: the obedient Son who, filled with the Holy Spirit, lived in perfect dependence on his Father’s Word. In doing so, he obtains blessing, peace, riches, and eternal life––the true reward of wise living (Prov. 3:13–18). Being our great older brother, he passes those things on to us so we can live wisely in these evil days (Eph. 5:15–16).

Embodied Wisdom

A biblical theology of wisdom reminds us that the pursuit of wisdom is the pursuit of Christ. The two are inextricably linked. Yet wisdom wasn’t meant just to be grasped; it was meant to be embodied.

Chase reminds us, “In a fallen world, a life of wisdom is countercultural” (142). We experience constant pressure from cultural narratives that we’re often unable to detect apart from constant exposure to God’s Word. And, just as significantly, we’re continually pressured to leave the wisdom we acquire in the realm of ideas rather than apply it to the concrete reality of this world.

If the world was broken because of a rebellious, foolish son, it can be redeemed through a faithful, wise Son.

Though the pursuit of wisdom may seem to some like a works-based approach to religion, it’s clear that without grace we’d have no hope of wisdom at all. “We can seek wisdom,” Chase argues, “because Wisdom sought us first. We can cry out for wisdom, because Wisdom summoned us first” (150). Wisdom embodied seeks us out to help us embody wisdom. That’s a beautiful truth.

The tapestry of biblical theology has many different threads. In this contribution to the Essential Studies in Biblical Theology series, Chase shows how the thread of wisdom is woven through all of Scripture. He teaches us how to find that wisdom and apply it to all of life. Walking the Way of the Wise is an accessible resource for pastors or church members as they seek to understand Scripture better.