Wednesday, March 11, 2009

A Time for Witty Inventions

I wisdom dwell with prudence and find out knowledge of witty inventions. (Proverbs 8:12)
Prudence is the practical application of wisdom. It leads to “witty inventions.” Young’s Literal Translation renders this as “knowledge of devices.” The English Standard Bible has “discretion.” John Wesley calls it “ingenious contrivances for the glory of God, and for the good of men.” In his Commentary on the Bible, Adam Clarke has this: “The farther wisdom proceeds in man, the more practical knowledge it gains; and finding out the nature and properties of things, and the general course of providence, it can contrive by new combinations to produce new results.” Here is Keil and Delitzsch (Commentary on the Old Testament) on this verse:
It denotes well-considered, carefully thought out designs, plans, conclusions, and da’ath [“knowledge”] is here the knowledge that is so potent. This intellectual power is nothing beyond wisdom, it is in her possession on every occasion; she strives after it not in vain, her knowledge is defined according to her wish.
God wants to give you some witty inventions, clever devices, ingenious contrivances and bright ideas. Surely, that would be very helpful for these challenging times. Crisis is really opportunity in disguise — and what a lot of opportunity has been dumped in our laps!

Witty inventions come from prudence; prudence is the practical application of wisdom; wisdom begins with the fear of the Lord — living in awe and honor of God. When we seek Him, He will give us wisdom for the asking (James 1:5), for His desire is for us to succeed and prosper in all things and every situation (Joshua 1:6-8; Psalm 1:1-3; 3 John 2).

In Genesis, Joseph experienced many adversities, but he looked to the Lord and prevailed over them all. When famine was about to come upon the land, Joseph recognized it by Pharaoh’s dream and the wisdom God gave to interpret. Then he received divine wisdom about what to do about it. As a result, Joseph ended up as vice-regent over all of Egypt, and his “witty invention” blessed all the people in the land and brought in much wealth and prosperity for Egypt.

The prophet Daniel was another man who knew how to face adversity with divine wisdom. As a captive in Babylon, when other young men were being fed rich meats, foods and wines from the king’s table, Daniel developed a very healthy diet for him and his three friends, and then devised a clever test to convince his superior of the benefits of this diet. Not only did these four young men turn out to be the healthiest in the bunch, God also gave them great knowledge and skill in literature and wisdom, and they were ten times better than all the king’s magicians and astrologers (Daniel 2). Like Joseph before Pharaoh, God gave Daniel the interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar’s dreams, which brought glory to God and promotion to Daniel. He ended up as the chief of the wise men, lived in the gate of the king and became governor over Babylon.

This is a time for the practical application of wisdom in crafting solutions, a time for ingenious contrivances, clever devices and bright ideas. This is a time for Josephs and Daniels to arise, a time for witty inventions. Ask God for divine wisdom, then watch for what He will show you. You might very well end up with something that brings great glory to God, great blessing to others and great promotion and prosperity for yourself.

12 comments:

  1. Anonymous4:11 PM

    I opened my bible and the verse caught my eye. Perplexed as to its meaning, I googled it and came upon your site. It truly is an inspirational interpretation of the verse. How strange, that I am involved in some scientific work at the moment that is really challenging me!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous3:32 PM

    Our Bible Study group came accross this verse today and we were puzzled by it. Thank you so much for "bringing it to light." God's Word continues to amaze me...even after 52 years of knowing Jesus Christ as my Saviour. Thank you for your ministry.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous6:46 AM

    I thank you for taking time to allow the Spirit of God to inspire you to explain this verse. I can I assure you that this has provided me clarity in writing the plans of my vision and objectives for life and a boost of faith in acheiving it. I am eternally grateful!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous12:52 PM

    Hello Brothers!

    This is Sir Timothy Thrapp. I am a minister/scientist/engineer involved with World Improvement Through The Spirit (WITTS) Ministries. Also World Improvement Technologies (WITs)

    Thank you so much for your explaining this verse to all!

    I have a interesting, true story concerning this verse, for those who are interested.

    Our ministry is about 200 years old now, and for the first 180 years it was just called "The Ministry"

    2 years after I got involved with it, the brothers all agreed that we needed a more descriptive name. We sought The Lord and these were the names he gave us.

    The amazing part of this true story is that none of us knew that this scripture was even in the Bible! Our body of Elders were all ministers but our various translations did not translate this verse anywhere near correct. (see new KJV)

    It was several years later that someone quoted the Old KJV, and then it all came together!

    GOD TRULY IS THE SAME, YESTERDAY, TODAY, AND FOREVER!

    GLORY!

    PS. If anyone wants to reach the WITTS team, you can email us at wits2014@yahoo.com Or you can watch about 27 of our videos on youtube channel called TheWorldSolutions

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous6:03 AM

    Thank you for this commentary. I have an idea, I woke up with it this morning and looked up this scripture in the concordance and several bibles. Thanks for shedding light on this scripture. Will be prayerful about it.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thank you for shedding light on this verse of scripture. I googled it during my morning prayer and eventually ended up on this page. I am faced with many challenges at the moment but I believe God showed me the scripture and its meaning for a reason.

    God Bless you richly.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I'm glad it was helpful for you, Tayo.

    ReplyDelete
  8. "Witty" is a word that has fallen on hard times in modern English. Nowadays it is limited to the meaning of clever and humorous, but in the early 1600's it had a more serious meaning: wise, sensible, well-thought-out, etc., as we see from the various translations. Thanks for this illuminating study!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Anonymous12:42 AM

    Thank you for bringing light in this. God bless you

    ReplyDelete
  10. Anonymous10:25 PM

    This is so inspiring. Never could I know that this verse had such powerful insights about God and human life. Thank you for this amazing explanations of this verse

    ReplyDelete
  11. Anonymous2:55 PM

    I'm an electronics engineer. On my next run of business cards, I'm going to add this verse. And, I'm going to sincerely, ask God for his wisdom in all that I do.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Anonymous6:18 AM

    Wonderful knowledge

    ReplyDelete