“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge;
fools despise wisdom and instruction.”[1]
“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and
the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.”[2]
“The fear of the LORD is
the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding.
His praise endures forever!”[3]
One
way that we see the fulfillment of, “The
fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge,” is that, when people turn
from their self-defending pride, and humble themselves before the LORD in
reverence and awe, their minds are opened, and they suddenly begin to
understand things that never made any sense to them before. They begin to gain
knowledge of things that were hidden to them, things their eyes were blind to
seeing, all because they have come to the place where God’s thoughts matter
more than what anyone else thinks.
As
soon as the human heart surrenders to the Divine Spirit, the mind of man opens
up like a rose blossom to the warm light of the sun. Understanding comes
flooding in, because blindness and death are driven out. The snow-cover that
hid the rose bush in wintery ignorance gives way to life-giving light that
brings it to be what it was created to be.
When
the apostle Paul was explaining why he was preaching in the name of Jesus
Christ, he told people about his life-changing encounter with the Living God.
In a moment he went from pridefully persecuting the church Jesus was building,
to humbly repenting of his sin and receiving this Jesus Christ as his Lord and
Savior.
As
he described his life-mission from that moment on, he explained how God had
told him what his life would be about. He quoted Jesus as saying that his
assignment in the kingdom of heaven would be: “to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and
from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a
place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.”[4]
This
opening of people’s eyes would happen the same way it did to Paul. First pride
would be confronted, and people would face their poverty of spirit that made
them hopelessly bound to judgment and condemnation because of their sin. Then
people would call out, “…what must I do
to be saved?” (Acts 16:30), indicating that they were humbly acknowledging
that salvation was required or they would be under God’s righteous judgment
against their sin forever.
When
people then repented of their sin, and confessed faith in Jesus Christ, their
eyes that had been closed by pride were opened by grace. They turned from
darkness to light; they were delivered from the power of Satan into the care of
God; they experienced the forgiveness of their sins, and they found that God
had reserved a place for them among the people of God who shared the unity of the
Spirit in the bond of peace.[5]
The
famous gospel song, Amazing Grace, contains this beautiful stanza:
‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my
fears relieved.
How precious did that Grace appear, the hour I first
believed.[6]
John
Newton had lived a rough life in the ignorance of sin, but had later come into the
saving gift of the gospel of Jesus Christ. As he wrote about the amazing grace
of God in saving “a wretch like me”, he understood that it was this grace that
first taught him to have the reverent fear that is the beginning of knowledge
and wisdom, and this same grace that relieved all his fears of death, judgment,
and condemnation. The reverent fear of God brought him into the knowledge and
wisdom of the gospel whereby he understood that all other reasons to fear had
been banished by the amazing grace of God through the finished work of the Lord
Jesus Christ.
The
fear of the LORD that begins our journey into knowledge and wisdom is as
available to us today as it was to that sinful slave-trader John Newton more
than a couple of centuries ago. Oh yes, and to that sinful, religious hypocrite
who once persecuted Jesus and his Church, and later came to fear the LORD with
such reverence that his knowledge and wisdom of Christ continues to bless the
world through his share in the sacred Scriptures of the word of God.
From
my heart,
Monte
© 2014 Monte Vigh ~
Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise
noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible,
English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway
Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.)
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