There is no wisdom without that posture of the fear of God.

The Hebrew will not acknowledge the brilliance of the secular mind

if that mind is standing in contrarious distinction to the fear of God.

For the Jew, wisdom is sharply differentiated from knowledge.

The distinction is very clear between them.

A man may have knowledge without having wisdom.

Knowledge is a very important ingredient to wisdom, but is never to be confused with it.

Because primarily for the Jew, wisdom involves the proper and right application of knowledge

to daily living. That's why the conclusion of Ecclesiastes is this statement. Let us hear

the conclusion of the whole matter fear God and keep his commandments

that's a summary of Hebrew wisdom that wisdom as it says in the Proverbs what is the

beginning of the wisdom the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

And the fear of the Lord here is that idea of standing in adoration and praise, giving proper exaltation to God.

Now, what the Hebrew is saying is that that's where wisdom begins.

There is no wisdom without that posture of the fear of God.

One can have all the knowledge in the universe.

One can even be convinced of the cogency of some kind of ultimate first cause and come to

conclusion that there is a unifying factor in the universe. But unless he stands in a posture

of adoration towards God, he still hasn't arrived at wisdom. He may have knowledge, but not wisdom.

The Hebrew will not acknowledge the brilliance of the secular mind as wisdom if that mind is standing in contradistinction to the fear of God.

In other words, the fear of God is the necessary ingredient

to make wisdom out of knowledge, all knowledge. A man may be technically skilled in all kinds

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