(This article also includes a podcast discussion. Click the play button below, or subscribe and listen on your Apple or Android podcast app.)
There’s an unfortunate misunderstanding in Christianity, and it oddly enough plagues those with the greatest humility. As a Christian keeps growing in spiritual maturity and desiring to walk in obedience to God’s word, some may feel that they aren’t smart enough to grow in wisdom like those around them. They’ll realize their own limitations in learning things like original languages or memorization and feel that there is a limit to how much they can grow in wisdom.
But there’s good news. Wisdom and intelligence can work together, but they aren’t the same thing. Someone who is highly intelligent can still be a fool, which also means that someone who isn’t brilliant can still be filled with great wisdom.
Intelligence, wisdom, and tomatoes
We can often throw around terms relating to wisdom and intelligence as though they’re basically the same thing. There’s an assumption that the greater your intelligence, the greater your wisdom. Likewise, if you’re very wise it must mean you’re equally intelligent. However, I’d like to share my favorite example that draws a clear line between the two.
An intelligent person knows that a tomato is a fruit.
A wise person doesn’t add tomatoes to fruit salad.
One of those people knows a correct fact. The other understands what to do (or not to do!) with a fact like that.
Simply put, intelligence is about our ability to understand difficult concepts or retain facts. It requires intelligence to perform a complex job like a surgeon, engineer, or mathematician. Intelligence can be grown, but in the end, everyone will have a certain capacity for exercising their intelligence.
Wisdom is different. From a secular perspective, a wise person knows how to apply understanding and life experiences to a given situation. Wisdom is what helps us live in the world, making the best decisions and guiding others in navigating their own lives as well. An old grandmother with a life full of experiences who imparts wisdom to others, despite only having a middle-school education, is a classic picture of why someone doesn’t have to be intelligent to be incredibly wise.
Ultimately, intelligence is no guarantee of wisdom. Consider the healing crystal craze from the 80s. People could cite all sorts of scientific reasoning why crystals contained healing energy, and many people were convinced because it seemed intellectually sound. Yet for all the arguments, science, and experiences that seemed to support healing crystals, it was ultimately a foolish endeavor.
What is biblical wisdom?
Now that we’ve gotten a better picture of what wisdom really is, the most important thing we must do is consider how it impacts followers of Jesus Christ. And for that, we can see what God tells us about wisdom.
Wisdom comes from God
First, we see God discuss wisdom with Solomon:
God answered Solomon, “Because this was in your heart, and you have not asked for possessions, wealth, honor, or the life of those who hate you, and have not even asked for long life, but have asked for wisdom and knowledge for yourself that you may govern my people over whom I have made you king, wisdom and knowledge are granted to you. I will also give you riches, possessions, and honor, such as none of the kings had who were before you, and none after you shall have the like.” (2 Chronicles 1:11-12)
As Solomon was preparing to lead Israel, he realized he couldn’t do it on his own. The decisions necessary were beyond what any man could hope to fully understand. So Solomon, already showing a measure of wisdom in recognizing his weakness, asked God to make him wise enough to lead Israel. God praised this and granted Solomon the wisdom he desired.
The New Testament also shows the source of wisdom:
If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. (James 1:5-6)
Like Solomon, it is a gift from God for us to realize we don’t have the wisdom we need. We can either be content to know we’re fools, or we can rely on the source of wisdom.
Wisdom is a choice
Yet Ecclesiastes shows us that even though Solomon had the capacity for wisdom, much of his life was still spent choosing foolishness. At the end of Ecclesiastes and through the book of Proverbs, Solomon makes the same point over and over:
The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man (Ecclesiastes 12:13)
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight. (Proverbs 9:10)
The source of true wisdom is God. People can be wise by worldly standards, but the core of wisdom is understanding how to live and think correctly. Whether it’s individual decisions or our bigger worldview, only the true source of goodness and righteousness can supply us with the deepest levels of wisdom. Only wisdom rooted in God will allow us to live for Christ, which is our ultimate purpose. It’s not enough to have the capacity for wisdom – that wisdom must be used out of a love for God and a desire to follow Him.
Wisdom and sin are opposites
Wisdom and foolishness are, obviously, opposites. Yet if we take the time to actually read how they’re discussed, wisdom and foolishness aren’t just neutral decisions we make. When we choose wisdom, we live in obedience to God. When we choose foolishness, we live in slavery to sin.
Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. (James 3:13-18)
Here, James shows us the contrast between someone living in wisdom or foolishness. I suppose I could also put up the entire book of Proverbs, because it is loaded with these comparisons.
In the end, there are no neutral decisions in life. However we choose to live, whatever we choose to believe, and where we set our desires ultimately comes down to holiness or sin. Those who seek the will of God will act with wisdom, and those who choose to live according to their sinful desires are fools.
Wisdom comes through experience
Wisdom isn’t just something granted by God waving a magic wand. As I’ve discussed in another article, wisdom is our ability to act based on what we’ve learned. Often, a person who seems wise today has a long history of foolish mistakes that they’ve learned from, yet through the power of God can now think and live in surrender to Christ. It requires us to not just know facts, but interpret the world and our actions through a biblical worldview.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight. (Proverbs 9:10)
Wisdom comes from God. However, it’s something that must be exercised. It’s not like intelligence, where facts are absolute. Either we know a mathematical formula, a bit of scientific information, the rules of grammar… or we don’t.
Thus, the core of growing in wisdom is actually knowing God personally, not just factually. The more we walk with our God, the more we’ll know His will. The more we accurately look at our temptations, the more we’ll see the foolishness of the world in our natural desires and the need for God’s wisdom. Prayer, Bible reading, and even discipleship with a mature believer are all things that will draw us closer to God, and as a result, we’ll grow deeper in wisdom.
Wisdom, in the end, isn’t just knowing facts about the right thing. It’s acting based on what we know is good and right. Either we make choices that honor God, or we make choices that please ourselves. One is wise, the other is foolish.
But if we have any hope of knowing the difference between the two, we must first desire to know and love God. Closeness to Christ is our end goal, and wisdom is a natural result of that
A link between intelligence and wisdom
Areas of our culture are surprisingly anti-intellectual. Especially within Christianity, there’s a suspicion of people who study to understand things like original languages, other cultures within the Biblical narrative, and even those who use logic and reasoning as part of their biblical worldview. People are hesitant to pursue anything intellectual regarding the Bible and Christianity, often fearing that doing so puts God in a box.
However, I’d like to break up this conversation by discussing why intelligence is useful in our walk with God.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight. (Proverbs 9:10)
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? (Jeremiah 17:9)
Wisdom isn’t created by a magic wand, but neither is it understood through emotional feelings or gut instincts. Our culture is filled with people who are convinced they’re living in God’s will because they feel it in their heart, yet have no idea that they are completely contradictory to what God has revealed in His word. God doesn’t call us to live by our emotional hearts, but instead to set out to know and worship Him with our minds.
We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, (2 Corinthians 10:5)
and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also. (2 Timothy 2:2)
Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. (2 Timoty 2:15)
And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. (Matthew 22:37-38)
For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. (Hebrew 5:12-14)
God frequently calls us to think, know, and discern. Those who choose to live in ignorance of God’s will are setting themselves up for deception. Whether it’s making foolish choices by following their sinful hearts or being completely drawn in by a false teacher, God calls for us to love Christ with our minds so that we can actually live in wisdom.
So in that way, Christians ought to pursue God with their intellect. By being in His word, and especially by struggling through difficult aspects of God, we can better know who He is. By knowing more about who He is based on what He’s revealed, we can better know if what we’re doing is truly wise (because it lines up with God), or if it simply appears wise but is actually rooted in sinful foolishness.
Not everyone will have the intellectual capacity to understand original languages, but anyone capable of reading this article has any excuse for not seeking to know more about God by knowing how to read and understand their Bible. Wisdom comes from familiarity with who God is, and if we don’t know Him with our minds, we have little hope of serving Him with our lives.
Using wisdom in the world
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:2)
The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ. (1 Corinthians 2:14-16)
Using wisdom is essentially saying “What is God’s will in this situation? How does He view this?” Wisdom allows us to go beyond our emotions, religious traditions, and even our culture. It’s how we see things the way God does, not like the world.
You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. (James 4:4)
Our lives are filled with opportunities to put on the mind of Christ, viewing the world biblically instead of being compromised by the world. This will often set us at odds with the world, and perhaps even Christians we know, because thinking like God will often mean thinking like an enemy to the world.
For examples of what this looks like, I’d encourage you to visit my topics page and browse “Christian Living & Spiritual Maturity” and “Christian Thinking & Worldview.” The goal of Onward in the Faith is to help Christians grow in spiritual maturity, which also means growing in wisdom. By God’s goodness, I hope the wisdom God has given me can serve you even further!
Conclusion: Pursue wisdom, not intelligence
Science claims that we aren’t responsible for our actions because we’re victims of biology. It says gender and sexuality are subjective. According to countless books, all evidence points to God not existing.
People also use science to argue that the Earth is flat, aliens built the pyramids, and our thoughts create waves that affect our reality. The best thinkers also once argued that leeches and other forms of bloodletting cured disease by removing “humors,” drilling a hole in the skull would cure mental illness (called “trephination”), or that the Aztec gods needed to be nourished by human sacrifice so that the sun wouldn’t go out.
Today, people can make biblical arguments for the Prosperity Gospel, Christian Nationalism, universalism, and anything taught by the New Apostolic Reformation. History is likewise filled with plenty of writings and debates over biblical beliefs and interpretations we’d find strange. Even most cults will support their wild claims by going to the Bible.
The point is that just because something seems smart or well-informed, or because it seems to have an abundance of evidence, doesn’t make it true. Intelligence can make things sound plausible, but it takes wisdom to know what is true. We often hope that truth will agree with what others believe, but history shows us that the world is willing to believe anything if it means they don’t have to submit to God’s truth.
Knowing facts and being able to argue for truth is valuable. Using logic and trying to think well is necessary. Growing the mind absolutely has a place in the life of a Christian.
However, we must never confuse intelligence and wisdom. We all have limits on where our intellect can take us because it depends on an organ that can only do so much. Messing up facts can be embarrassing, but it’s also natural.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. (Proverbs 3:5-6)
Wisdom, on the other hand, is from a limitless God. We are all capable of living in wisdom because wise living comes from Him. Unlike intelligence, failing to use wisdom is an intentional choice to reject God and trust our own thinking. Intelligence can help us better understand the will of God, but it’s only the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives that allows us to reject the sinful pull of our hearts and instead walk in full surrender to Jesus Christ.
God doesn’t call for us to be intelligent. He does, however, call for us to walk in wisdom.
