November 8

Nov 8 – Today from Proverbs 8 we look at verses 30 & 31
"Then I was the craftsman at his side. I was filled with delight day after day, rejoicing always in his presence, rejoicing in his whole world and delighting in mankind."

Verse 1 of this chapter finds the Teacher using the literary technique of personification – giving something inanimate a voice in order to clarify the object lesson. In this case, wisdom is personified in the feminine gender. She reveals that she was brought forth as the first of the Lord’s works, before He began creation (verse 22). In today’s passage, she is at His side, observing His crowning achievement of creation – man! The sequence of this chapter reveals that God did not bring forth a purpose for His creation as He created, and certainly did not make up a purpose for it after He created. Wisdom is essentially understanding life the way God purposed it – and wisdom was the first of His works! Before He spoke anything into existence, He already had the purposes all worked out. In all of His creation, only one creature was made in His own image, and that creature was the ultimate purpose of all of the rest of creation. God created man in His own image in order that God could expand His love to someone who could return it. Thus He created man with a free will and with the capacity to choose to love.
It is certain that if wisdom did have a personality at the time of creation, she indeed would have delighted in this creature God called man. He perfectly glorified (reflected the character of) God. God’s purpose was for man to multiply and to live in a serving community as He abode in their midst. Sin fractured this delightful setting, and man no longer chose to love God and serve his fellow man. Sin had corrupted man’s heart to love and serve himself. The wisdom that ‘served at God’s side’ was traded for a darker wisdom, that which James refers to as ‘the wisdom of this world’ (3:15). A wisdom based on temporal values and man’s own limited understanding.
Wisdom never lost her voice. Even today she calls out to all who will listen. God did not give up on mankind. Instead, He restored man to His original purpose at the cost of His own Son’s life. In the story of creation the Holy Spirit created life out of chaos through God’s spoken word. Today He restores the chaotic heart of man to life through the Living Word, the Lord Jesus Christ. Man can be ‘born-again’ to his original purpose in creation through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. It makes no sense in the wisdom of this world – no more than it makes sense that God spoke life out of chaos in the beginning. But to all who will trust in the Word of their Creator, they can be restored and can once again hear the clear and pure voice of wisdom. She still delights in this marvelous creature whom God called man – and now even more so as God ‘re-created’ him from a dead and chaotic state. "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come." (2 Corinthians 5:17).