Most Valuable of All

“For wisdom is better than rubies; and all the things that may be desired are not to be compared to it.” (Pr 8:11 AV)

If we only lived that way.  Wisdom is a rare treasure heaped up by most.  For most of us, desires often get the better of us.  Although Solomon makes the comparison to material things, it is not limited to them.  A career or life’s calling can become more important than wisdom.  Relationships can become more important than wisdom.  Leisure is often a treasure valued higher than wisdom.  Right things, if not valued in moderation, can become more desirable than wisdom.  We could sit and listen to our favorite Christian music but spend little time in bible reading and prayer.  It is a good thing to do, but when done excessively and to the detriment of more spiritually advantageous pursuits, it is unwise.  The point Solomon is trying to make is that wisdom is the most valuable of all desires and to place anything above it is, in itself, unwise.

There is a new commercial out.  It is for a jewelry company that specializes in lab-grown diamonds.  The advertisement makes the point that quality does not need to suffer just because you might choose a lab-grown diamond over a natural one.  This got me curious. I went on their website and began to look at the prices of natural diamonds versus lab-grown diamonds.  There is a significant difference.  Enough of a difference to make lab-grown diamonds a real option.  This began a discussion with my better half.  We talked about the positives and negatives of such a choice.  Then I did a little more research.  Lab-grown diamonds are indistinguishable from natural ones without a special piece of equipment.  Since the manufacturing process mimics the natural one, the most significant difference would be the lab-grown diamonds would be more pure than their natural counterparts.  The lab-grown diamonds begin with pure raw materials whereas the natural gems may have impurities formed into their structures.  In other words, the lab-grown diamond is a better stone with about one-fourth the cost.  The problem with it is the assumption a natural diamond is better.  This is a value judgment.  There is no right or wrong here.  Personally, if I were in the market (which I am not) I would want a ring with four times the size and much purer than its natural counterpart.  Wisdom would say to save yourself 75% while desire would want the natural gem.

Solomon violated his own advice.  If he had only listened to the words he penned.  Being chosen by God to assume the throne in his father’s stead, Solomon could have set in motion what would have been Israel’s greatest kingdom for centuries rather than two generations.  David set the foundation upon which Solomon built.  But he had one weakness.  He loved many wives.  These wives were not faithful and pious Hebrew wives.  Rather, he married pagan wives for political reasons.  He filled his palace with wives and concubines who stole his heart away from the God of Israel to serve other gods.  This opened the door for the rest of Israel to follow suit.  It would be but a few generations later that Israel fell to Assyria and Babylon.  They have never been, and will not be until Jesus comes, to be the kingdom they could have been.  The king’s desire was far more valuable to him than the wisdom of which he was famous.  If the wisest man on earth can become a fool, the same is even true for us.