God made the world through Wisdom (Psalm 104:24). In the New Testament, the biblical doctrine that the world was created through the Wisdom of God is exposited in terms of the mediation of Jesus Christ in the creation of the world. Proverbs 8:15 says that “kings reign” by wisdom. The story of Solomon elucidates the inner nature of wisdom: wisdom is acquired in communion with God, creation, and mankind. The story of Solomon’s acquisition of wisdom begins with a prayer that God will elevate him from his youth so that he might have an “understanding mind to govern your people” (1 Kings 3:9). As the world was made through Wisdom, managing the world appropriately requires communion with that same divine Wisdom. One can only fix a computer when one understands the precise interrelation of the parts to each other and to the whole. Fashioning raw material into an integrated wholeness demands an understanding for what makes the parts “tick.” Likewise, ruling over a kingdom requires a deep understanding of what makes human beings tick. As God created the world through the Word in the beginning, a great deal of the wisdom literature is thus devoted to the pursuit of wise speech. One must understand not only what to say, but how to say it. We see the extension of Solomon’s wisdom to encompass these three spheres of life (God, man, world), in that order, in the narratives which follow 1 Kings 3.
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