The Beginning of Wisdom

When I was fifteen years old, I decided to read the Bible on a more regular basis. From the beginning, I didn´t follow a plan for my reading, but just read something here, something there. One day I read Psalm 111, and my attention was drawn to verse 10: ‘The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom.’

To a teenager, it sounded strange, as I had always been thinking that education was the way to become wise. But somehow, I understood that the verse highlighted a profound truth. And little by little the Lord revealed to me the difference between knowledge and wisdom. A person can have more knowledge than most people, but that doesn´t make them a wise person. A person can have less knowledge than most people, but still be wiser than them.

The prerequisite for becoming a genuinely wise person, is to fear the Lord. But, as a teenager I had learnt to love the Lord, and here I was told to fear him. To me it sounded strange to fear someone you loved.

There is a very interesting verse in Exodus indicating that there are two very different kinds of fear: ‘Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid. God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning”’ (Exodus 20:20). 

In one sentence, they were told both to not be afraid of God, and to fear God. Obviously, there is a difference between being afraid of God and fearing God. A believer has no reason to be afraid of God, but is urged to grow in the fear of the Lord.

Biblical fear of the Lord means being aware of God’s holiness and power, and of own sinfulness and weakness. But I don’t need to be afraid of the holiness of God if I let the blood of Jesus cover my sin. I don’t need to be afraid of Him because of my past sins. They are covered in Jesus. But having a rightful fear of the Lord’s holiness does create within me a deep desire not to continue in my sinful ways, but to grow in holiness.