Imagine if we gathered a list of all the specific pastoral situations in which men in this room find themselves right now — all our needs for wisdom. I’m confident it would be far too much for any of us to bear. And some of you in this room, I’m sure, feel that right now you have one intractable issue that is too much for you to bear.

Just consider, in general, the various and unending needs for wisdom in shepherding our people. There are some easier ones:

• What to preach on and for how long, and what applications to make or not
• How and when to update bylaws and our statement of faith
• What songs to put on the lips of the church in worship Sunday after Sunday

And there are some harder ones:

• How to handle emerging disunity among the pastors
• How to deal with flagging finances
• Which staff member to let go first
• Which particular men to invest in as future elders
• Whom to bring onto the council and how fiercely to guard the gate when we desperately need more help
• How to help struggling marriages with years of bad patterns and mutual offenses
• How to pursue wandering sheep (It’s hard enough when it’s just one in 99. What do we do when it’s five in 99, or ten in 99?)
• How to handle the spectrum of church discipline cases and substance abuse cases and deep relational conflicts

These are not questions with easy answers. There’s no simple verse to point to and simply obey. We need wisdom.

It’s one thing to know laws and follow commandments. It’s another to so internalize God’s word, and be sensitive to the prompting of his Spirit, that you discern the way to go when specific directions haven’t been given — that you might discern the will of God, “what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:2).

What Is Wisdom?

Part of the nature of wisdom is that it’s not like information. Information is static. Wisdom is dynamic; it changes as life changes. Wisdom involves navigating. It takes wisdom to know when to bear right, when to veer right, when to go left, when to hold steady, when to slow down, when to speed up, when to stop for gas, when to make repairs.

Our twin sons are fifteen and have recently been through driver’s ed and are logging their hours of supervised driving. It takes hours, not just in a classroom (information) but behind the wheel, to get road safe (or almost so). And even then, it takes years to develop and perfect the skill of driving, which is both science and art — like wisdom.

Wisdom is a skill we grow in and mature in for a lifetime. Or it atrophies. Some go backward. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it especially with people who become highly online and get lost in that two-dimensional hall of mirrors. There are so many in our day, not just cultural elites but pastors and scholars, who have access to so much information and seeming intelligence, and who show alarming gaps in their wisdom.

And I address you as a man, as part of a pastoral team, desperately in need of wisdom right now (as always, but especially these last few weeks, and in an ongoing way). The Twin Cities have been in dire straits in the last month. And I take it that every humble pastor in this room joins me in feeling the need for ongoing wisdom — and some in this room feel especially desperate right now.

Wisdom Versus Information (and AI)

Our great need in the information age is not information. We have that — far too much of that. Our great need is wisdom. We have far too little of that.

Access to mere information has never been easier and cheaper and more confusing than it is today. Wisdom is now at a special premium when we’re drowning in information and misinformation.

• Wisdom includes knowing when and how to stop the ceaseless flow of information that undermines wisdom.
• Wisdom includes receiving access to some information, but choosing your sources very carefully.
• Wisdom includes keeping your objective callings in life clear and staying committed to them, when our age endlessly offers us faraway diversions and fresh curiosities that lure us away from our primary objective callings, like husband, father, pastor, flesh-and-blood friend.
• Wisdom includes owning your own biases and tendencies, and not indulging yourself to simply hear what you want to hear.
• Wisdom requires a kind of word-and-Spirit-produced impartiality that many people today struggle to find, and a calmness of soul that is, at present, very countercultural.

And here we are on the cusp of the AI era. To be clear, AI is sophisticated information, perhaps even imitation wisdom, but not true wisdom itself. And if wisdom was already freshly at a premium in the information age, true wisdom will be all the more precious. And if our people can’t find it and see it and sense it from their pastors, where will they get it?

So, in such times, and with your own pastoral challenges in view, and with your elder table in mind, I invite you to open to Proverbs 2:1–8.

Where Wisdom Starts

It’s no accident that in the history of God’s first-covenant people, law comes first; later, proverbs. First, Moses; later, Solomon. The first need is clear revelation and instruction from God. The covenant people need the crystal clarity of the Ten Commandments, and the attendant clarity and God-given application of those commandments in case law (Exodus 21–23). But you can’t treat every scenario in life. The clarity of the commandments is vital, but the instruction from God needs to be internalized, to become part of his people, shape them, form them, condition them so deeply that as they encounter daily scenarios that don’t have clear commandments, they can discern God’s will in that particular moment.

The book of Proverbs does not jump right into the memorable maxims of Solomon and other sages. We don’t get those until chapter 10. First, we find nine chapters of a father’s heart for his son — a theology and framework for how to use these proverbs in chapters 10–31 with wisdom. That’s the challenge with proverbs. It takes wisdom to come to them, and gain from them, that you might grow in wisdom and use them with wisdom.

As we come to Proverbs 2, let’s hear these eight verses as pastors, who desperately need God’s wisdom in our work of shepherding. What’s your most difficult shepherding issue right now? Don’t simply hear this as an individual Christian this afternoon, but together as pastors:

My son, if you receive my words
     and treasure up my commandments with you,
making your ear attentive to wisdom
     and inclining your heart to understanding;
yes, if you call out for insight
     and raise your voice for understanding,
if you seek it like silver
     and search for it as for hidden treasures,
then you will understand the fear of the Lord
     and find the knowledge of God.
For the Lord gives wisdom;
     from his mouth come knowledge and understanding;
he stores up sound wisdom for the upright;
     he is a shield to those who walk in integrity,
guarding the paths of justice
     and watching over the way of his saints.

Let’s start with the bottom line, in verse 6: “The Lord gives wisdom.” Real wisdom is from God, given from above, not mustered up but received — not wrestled first from life experience in the world, but coming from him who is above. “The Lord gives wisdom.” (Which should be a warning for those of us who think of themselves as high EQ.)

But how? That’s our question, in a room full of needy pastors. We need wisdom. God gives wisdom. How do we get it from him? Before leaving Proverbs 2, a few notes:

First, wisdom begins with God speaking, his revelation, verse 1: “Receive my words.” Verse 6: “from his mouth.” God has wisdom; he is Wisdom, and he takes the initiative to speak. He utters words of wisdom. Wisdom comes from him, through his words, to be received. How? “Treasure up my commandments with you” (verse 1). Wisdom from God is not received with indifference or apathy; it is treasured up. So, for us humans, wisdom begins in the ear and the heart: attentive ears and an inclined heart (verse 2). Wisdom comes from God’s mouth (verse 6) to our ears (verse 1).

Now, we have this “if” clause in verses 1–2:

If you receive my words
     and treasure up my commandments with you,
making your ear attentive to wisdom
     and inclining your heart to understanding . . .

We expect verse 3 to begin with then and land the other foot: If, then. But verse 3 doesn’t give us the then. It escalates:

Yes [even more!], if you call out for insight
     and raise your voice for understanding,
if you seek it like silver
     and search for it as for hidden treasures . . .

So, not only is there glad reception and treasuring up of God’s wisdom, but now energetic pursuit: Call out; raise your voice; seek it out; search for it. This is in contrast to Proverbs 1:20–33, where Wisdom calls out, cries aloud, raises her voice. The wise not only hear her voice calling out and listen, but they call out themselves. They seek; they search. They ask. “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously” (James 1:5).

Finally, in Proverbs 2:5, the other foot lands. We get our then, and we see that this wisdom from above is spiritual (not natural):

Then you will understand the fear of the Lord
     and find the knowledge of God.

This “fear of the Lord” refrain, of course, is the motto of Proverbs (appearing more than twenty times in various forms). Fear in Hebrew ranges from awe to terror, depending on the context and the object of fear. When God is the object, this fear is more than just respect; it is worship, the full enthrallment of the soul, a captivating thrill, fearsome wonder, delighted trembling — which is profoundly spiritual. No mere knocking of the knees or bowing of the body, but a captivated soul before God. That’s the beginning of real wisdom, wisdom that is supernatural.

Wisdom starts in right relationship to him. It’s not just spiritual but relational. Verses 7–8:

He stores up sound wisdom for the upright;
     he is a shield to those who walk in integrity,
guarding the paths of justice
     and watching over the way of his saints.

“Saints” are not simply holy ones, but loyal ones. These are covenant partners, covenant beloved, those who are the recipients of Yahweh’s covenant love. And so, “Wisdom and relationship with Yahweh are integrally intertwined” (Tremper Longman III, Proverbs, 120). Biblical wisdom is profoundly relational and God-centered.

There is no true wisdom apart from relationship with Wisdom himself. And what kind of relationship? Fundamentally, one of worship. Not a peer relationship, but worshiper and worshiped.

And verse 8 brings us back to our new-covenant calling as pastors to guard and watch over the sheep in our charge. Our God guards the paths of justice and watches over the way of his saints, and he does so in local churches, through pastor-elders — who are not simply channels of his wisdom but men who are themselves wise.

We do have an elder qualification on this.

Sober-Minded

I remember on several occasions sitting at the elder table, brainstorming names for future additions to the council. By God’s grace, voicing some names elicited words of praise. Sometimes there was largely enthusiasm, with some minor misgivings. On occasion, it seemed as if many of us intuited that “something’s not right” or “doesn’t resonate” when thinking of this man as an elder. Over time, I came to learn that often the language we were groping for was right here in the eldership qualifications: sober-minded (1 Timothy 3:2).

Of the fifteen pastor-elder qualifications in 1 Timothy 3, sober-mindedness might be the most underappreciated. Not only is teaching central to the pastors’ work, but also vital is “exercising oversight” (1 Peter 5:2). The pastor-elder “must manage [or govern] his own household well” because, as a team, the elders are charged with caring for God’s household, the church (1 Timothy 3:4–5, 15). The pastor-elders teach and rule (1 Timothy 5:17) — that is, lead or govern. And to do so requires a kind of spiritual acuity the New Testament calls “sober-mindedness.”

Men who are sober-minded are levelheaded and balanced. They are responsive without being reactive. They are not impulsive, not given to extremes, not suckers for speculations and conspiracy theories, and not dragged into silly controversies. They stay grounded in what’s most important and enduring. They avoid diversions at the margins, and give their focus and energy, with joy, to the heart of the faith. They keep the gospel “of first importance” at their center (1 Corinthians 15:3). They are able to “keep [their] head in all situations” (2 Timothy 4:5 NIV), when others are running around with theirs on fire.

And like all the elder qualifications, sober-mindedness doesn’t just fall magically from heaven, but can be taught and conditioned. Christians are not just gifted with sober-mindedness or not; we grow in it. Over and over, Paul prays for maturity and advance in discernment in us, as in Philippians 1:9–10: “It is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent.” (See also Romans 12:2–3.)

So, our question is, “How?” We need wisdom. Our Father gives it. We know we should be sober-minded and have some measure of and capacity for wisdom. Then, how do pastors seek wisdom like silver, and search for it as for hidden treasures?

I love this conference theme of “Word + Spirit.” Before saying more, let me briefly address the word-and-Spirit dynamic in pastoral wisdom.

He Gives Us a Book

First, God gives us a book, for our own souls and wisdom, and for us to “use” — to use his word in a holy way. “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable [useful, beneficial, valuable] for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” in pastoral ministry (2 Timothy 3:16–17). So, have your Bibles ready at the pastors meeting!

“There is no true wisdom apart from relationship with Wisdom himself.”

But, remember, we’re talking wisdom, and so many mind-bending problems in practical church life don’t have specific verses that give clear answers. So, long before the pastors meeting, years before, you’re eating the book every day. God is shaping you, conditioning you daily, for a lifetime, to have the mind and heart he means for you to have, and the wisdom he means for you to have years from now.

Isn’t it good news that sobering our minds is part of the work the Holy Spirit is doing on us? And in particular this is work he does over time, through the word of God, Old Testament and New. However naturally balanced and levelheaded you might be, the word of God is critical in giving us real balance in a destabilizing world and sobering us up to what really matters in God’s economy. Sober-mindedness is the effect of thousands of quiet, early morning miracles over his word day after day, for years.

He Gives Us His Spirit

So, he gives us a book. He also gives us his Spirit.

Brothers in the new covenant, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?” (1 Corinthians 6:19). Or, Romans 8:

You . . . are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you. (Romans 8:9–11)

God gives us his Spirit to dwell in us, and it is his Spirit who gives wisdom, not mere age. This is the word of righteous Elihu to Job:

It is the spirit in man,
     the breath of the Almighty, that makes him understand.
It is not the old who are wise,
     nor the aged who understand what is right. (Job 32:8–9)

Beware of youthful resignation or elderly presumption: “It is not age that brings wisdom but the Spirit of God” (“Let the Young Speak”) — the one whom Ephesians 1:17 calls “the Spirit of wisdom.”

He Gives Us Prayer

So, our God gives us the book, and the Spirit, and then from them both (word and Spirit), he gives us prayer. Prayer is our response to God’s word, empowered by God’s Spirit.

God is God. He speaks first; he takes the initiative. Then we pray in response to his word. And we pray in the power and prompting of his Spirit. Both Paul and Jude mention praying in the Spirit.

• Ephesians 6:18: “praying at all times in the Spirit”
• Jude 20: “praying in the Holy Spirit”
• Romans 8:26–27: “The Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us [in our] groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”

God dispenses his wisdom in such a way as to keep us ever dependent. We don’t just need wisdom once or in a big moment. We need ongoing, day by day, step by step, year by year gifts of wisdom for a lifetime. A fundamental aspect of wisdom is the repeated asking — prayer.

He Gives Us Wisdom

So, God gives us the book and the Spirit and prayer. And I want to finish with some further practical details on how God gives wisdom to pastors, through word and Spirit and prayer, in pastoral ministry. I have three. (This is not exhaustive.)

1. He gives us a team.

How precious is the plurality of elders in the pursuit of pastoral wisdom.

It is a remarkable turn of events that Jesus appoints a team to lead his local churches. Jesus is the lone Head and Savior and Groom of his church. He gets the singular glory of being the lone, singular leader and Chief Shepherd. Under him, even the apostles are plural. And every instance we have in the New Testament of local church leadership testifies to plural local leadership: a team of pastor-elders.

In the last two weeks, I’ve had brothers text to check in on me and ask how we’re doing in a specially challenging crisis in our church, and frequently I responded with, “He gave us the Book, the Spirit, and a team.” Jesus is the one person who must work alone at the most important moment; the rest of us need a team at the most important times.

We are wiser together. Proverbs 15:22: “Without counsel plans fail, but with many advisers they succeed.” Proverbs 24:6: “By wise guidance you can wage your war, and in abundance of counselors there is victory.”

The vast majority of decisions we face in pastoral ministry are not clearly laid out in biblical dos and don’ts. What we desperately need is to exercise a collective wisdom stemming from God’s remaking of us, not just individually but together. We need to supplement each other’s judgment, and seek to discern together God’s path for the shared task at hand, as sober-minded men who love Jesus and love the specific flock he’s entrusted to us.

So, he gives us a team.

2. He gives us time.

This is so important in our “age of accelerations.” We are constantly pressured to hurry, to be more efficient. We’re bombarded by so many inputs and requests. Without some countercultural moxie, and willingness to leave things undone, we’ll be hurried.

Now, there are some hurry-demanding crises, like trips to the emergency room — but we do well to be aware that much in modern life creates an artificial sense of hurry. Satan would love for the tenor of your ministry to be hurried and frenzied when there’s no real need to hurry. It’s mostly a modern mirage.

For pastor-elders, time is our friend, not enemy. If we’re on God’s side, time is on our side.

Especially for pastors, patience is a virtue — the fruit of the Spirit! Dan Miller has called patience “the pastors’ superpower.” As a group, the pastor-elders should be some of the most, if not the most, patient men in the church. Like a patient father with his children, pastors who are patient play the long game.

Part of the patient use of time is doing the extra work and putting in the extra time to persuade our people, not presume on them. Seek to win them to new directions in the life of the church. Inform and reason before asking for votes. Have enough patience to spread the word and persuade in low-pressure situations. In patience, we persuade, reason, use our words, and don’t presume on our people’s submission.

Which leads to another aspect of time and patience being on our side in pastoral ministry: having a sense of sequence.

Able oversight (“[ruling] well,” see 1 Timothy 5:17) often requires more than a single moment, meeting, action, or conversation, but requires humble and evolving multiple-step processes of pastoral attention.

Imagine a complex, challenging pastoral issue as a knotted-up rope.

Some pastoral issues require only one step. But many need sequences. And when we come across these complicated knotty ones, we do well to identify one clear, worthwhile next step, even as we begin to envision some kind of sequence of actions toward resolution (whether it would take weeks or months or longer). (Two dangers here: impatience on the one hand, and neglect on the other.)

The need of the hour is to decide what step to take next, then gauge responses, gather further intel, and then identify the following step. All the while, the team keeps moving the issue forward, however deliberate the pace, and doesn’t let it stall out and go underground.

Complex knots can’t be expedited. We must untangle a thread at a time. The knots are so layered that we cannot see all its sections at the outset. We need to first untangle a strand or two, or a few, to then get a line of sight deeper into the nub and discern what steps will follow.

Again, note God’s ongoing distribution, and our ongoing need, for wisdom — wisdom that he does not give all at once but drips into our lives in ongoing relationship with him.

So, he gives us a team. He gives us time, with the virtue of patience and sense of sequence.

3. He gives us ears.

We’ve already seen the ear as a vital organ in wisdom. Proverbs 2:2: “[Make] your ear attentive to wisdom.” Next time you read through Proverbs, observe how often you find the ear and hearing and listening and attention. (My count is 45.) Proverbs 1:5: “Let the wise hear and increase in [wisdom]!”

Brothers, on this point, it’s important to own our natural and learned proclivities as pastors. We pastors, as a group, are talkers. I know we have some exceptions among us. But most of us are talkers or have become talkers, or at least have a lot we want to say, because pastors are teachers. That’s a good thing. We don’t want silent pastors (God forbid!).

But for many of us, words come far too easy and quickly; hearing comes far too slowly. “Let every person [pastors included] be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger” (James 1:19). So, whom do we hear as pastor-elders in pursuit of wisdom?

We hear God in his word and want to be sensitive to the prompting of his indwelling Spirit. That’s word and Spirit.

We hear each other as fellow elders. Until we have overwhelming evidence to the contrary, we should consider that our brother elder in good standing has something worth saying when he speaks. This is especially important for pastors, cutting both ways. For some who are talkers: Do you ever have any moments, especially in pastors meetings, when you have something to say, but enjoy not saying it because other guys are saying it? For others: You need to be more willing to speak up and contribute. Our pastor-elder tables should be safe places for fumbling to articulate emerging intuitions.

But for many of us, brother talkers, words come way too easy. We became preachers because we liked to talk; many of us need to hear far better, and learn to enjoy the grace of someone else speaking. God gives speaking graces and hearing graces in the Christian life, and many of us pastors could stand to better explore the hearing graces.

We hear our people. Be approachable by listening well — not stubborn, not dismissive of the concerns of members in good standing. Good shepherds do not plug their ears to the sounds of their own sheep, and especially if they have a largely regenerate flock of credible professions of faith! (Now, listening does not mean doing it; you can genuinely listen to someone and decide not to do what they’re lobbying for — a vital lesson for pastors today.)

And there is a place to hear counsel outside our situation, from a wise, godly brother who doesn’t just defend you, and doesn’t just oppose you, but speaks with wisdom words of both encouragement and reorientation.

Ask Good Questions

Related to listening well is asking good questions. Just last week, I was freshly amazed at the first thing Jesus says to Paul on the Damascus Road. If ever there was a time for leading with an assertion, for an in-your-face declaration, this was it. And what does Jesus do? He asks a question. A loaded question, for sure. He’s not seeking new information. But it’s a brilliant, penetrating question:

Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? (Acts 9:4)

This is divine-identity Christology. Because who is the quintessential question-asker in the Bible?

• There’s a voice to Adam in Genesis 3: “Where are you?” (verse 9). “Who told you that you were naked?” (verse 11). “Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” (verse 11). “What is this that you have done?” (verse 13).
• And to Cain: “Where is Abel your brother?” (Genesis 4:9).
• To Jacob, “What is your name?” (Genesis 32:27).
• To Moses, “What is that in your hand?” (Exodus 4:2).
• To a hiding prophet, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” (1 Kings 19:9, 13).
• To Job, out of the whirlwind, “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?” (Job 38:4).
• To Isaiah, “Whom shall I send?” (Isaiah 6:8).
• To Jonah, “Do you do well to be angry?” (Jonah 4:4).
• To Ezekiel, “Son of man, can these bones live?” (Ezekiel 37:3).

Then there’s Jesus — Wisdom himself, on the shores of Galilee and streets of Jerusalem:

• “Which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?” (Matthew 6:27).
• “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” (Mark 8:36).
• “What do you want me to do for you?” (Matthew 20:32).
• “Who do you say that I am?” (Matthew 16:15).
• “Why are you troubled?” (Luke 24:38).
• “Would you betray the Son of Man with a kiss?” (Luke 22:48).

Oh, how often Jesus asks piercing questions! In the Gospels, Jesus is asked some 180 questions. But Jesus is the great questioner-asker, asking more than 300 questions. Not sloppy questions, or easy yes-no questions. They are wise, perceptive, informed, heart-exposing questions. (Now, I know that the perfect Son and omniscient God typically ask questions differently than desperate pastors who need more information to be able to make wise decisions, but the point is that God himself has shown us the art and sanctity of good questions.)

Brothers, let’s be more like Jesus in giving energy to formulate good questions, and then listen well, and in so doing, gain priceless context for exercising wisdom in the pastoral challenges at hand. Often we find ourselves stuck because we don’t yet have enough relevant information, because we haven’t asked good questions.

So, our God gives wisdom. He gives us the book, and the Spirit, and prayer. And as pastors he gives us a team and time and ears. And here is one last gift, which has been implicit but now should be explicit: God gives us communion with Wisdom himself. That is, he gives us his Son.

He Gives Us His Son

Wisdom is personified in Proverbs 8 (as a literary device); but Wisdom is incarnate in Jesus, fully God and fully man, in one spectacular person, in order that, by his Spirit and through his word, we might know and enjoy and commune with him.

The great commentary on Proverbs 2 is Colossians 2:3: “In [Christ] are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” What does that mean?

Here, hidden doesn’t mean “once hidden, now revealed,” as it does in Colossians 1:26. This hidden in 2:3 means stored up or deposited, gathered and kept safe, as in Proverbs 2. Jesus is the Bank of Wisdom. Jesus is Wisdom embodied, Wisdom incarnate. He is for us “the ultimate storehouse” of wisdom, because he is Wisdom (Clinton E. Arnold, ESV Study Bible note on Colossians 2:3).

The simplest, even most earthly foolish person who has Jesus has, in God’s eyes, a wisdom (the Wisdom) that no intellectually or emotionally savvy unbeliever has. The most important single kernel of wisdom in the world is Jesus. And more than that — Paul says all the treasures of wisdom are in him, not just a kernel.

If you seek true wisdom, there is nothing you can seek or search out or do that will help you become more truly wise than knowing and enjoying Jesus. And all seeming wisdom apart from him will be shown, in the end, to be folly.

Never has the world witnessed a human mind more sober, thought more lucid, assessments more balanced, questions more penetrating, and a head more level than that of Jesus. Solomon was known far and wide for his wisdom, but once Jesus is on the scene, “something greater than Solomon is here” (Matthew 12:42).

Brothers, we aren’t that. But don’t you want to be more like that? Take heart: “We all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18). So again, wisdom is relational.

• Like the daily flow of life from a vine to its branches.
• Like the worshiper whose heart soars with fearsome delight before his Lord.

Do you know the fear of the Lord Jesus in daily communion with him? Do you fear Jesus with fearsome wonder and delightful fear? That fear of Jesus, the fear that is worship, the fear of awesome wonder, the fear of trembling delight, brothers, is the very heart and start of wisdom from which flow God’s ongoing gifts of guidance in pastoral ministry.

We said earlier that wisdom in Proverbs is profoundly relational and God-centered. Now we say, wisdom for the Christian is profoundly relational and Christ-centered.

You Have What You Need

We need wisdom for the impossible challenges of pastoral ministry. But, brothers, you don’t need another book. God has spoken and given us his library of 66 books. Know it. Enjoy it. Meditate on it. Steep in it daily. Internalize it. Be shaped by it.

You don’t need another helper. You have the Holy Spirit of God. You have in you, dwelling in you, the very Spirit of Jesus, God himself, prompting you, empowering every step of faith.

You don’t need another posture than prayer and its ongoing dependence. And you don’t need to do this on your own; he gives us brothers. He gives us a team with which to seek wisdom, step by step. You don’t need to do all the talking. You don’t need to have all the answers. Oh, the wisdom of asking questions, like Jesus. And you don’t need another storehouse, another treasure.

Brothers, yes, the pursuit of wisdom — Christian wisdom, divine wisdom — to shepherd our people, in an age of information inundation and artificial intelligence and seemingly intractable real-life issues, is daunting.

But, brothers, we have the book, and the Spirit, and prayer; and the risen Christ gives us a team, and time, and ears; and best of all, he gives us himself.