MAIN HOMILETICS OF Proverbs 14:6
SEEKING, BUT NOT FINDING
I. A contradictory character—a scorner in quest of wisdom. It would be strange to hear a man ask advice of a physician whose opinion he held in contempt, or to ask guidance of a traveller whose judgment and ability he despised. It would be obvious that the advice given or the rules laid down would not be followed. So a scorner, while he seeks wisdom, scorns the only method of becoming wise, He asks advice of those whom he despises, he inquires the way to wisdom, while he holds the road to it in utter contempt. The antithesis of the verse implies that he does not find wisdom because he lacks understanding—because he finds it above his comprehension. Two children may be equally ignorant of knowledge, but if one has the desire and the will to acquire it, and the other has not, what was hard to both at first will only continue hard to him who despises knowledge. So the scorner fails to find wisdom because he does not value it enough to make an effort to acquire it. The spirit in which he seeks is an effectual barrier against his finding.
II. A man of teachable spirit is the only one who will ever find wisdom. The man of understanding knows its value, and therefore scorns neither it nor the means of attaining it. Therefore, to him “knowledge” becomes “easy.” A clever man and a dull one may be pupils of the same master, but if the clever one thinks that he needs no instruction and the dull one feels his need, what was above the comprehension of both at first will become easy to the teachable scholar, while it will still remain out of the reach of the self-sufficient one. Even a dull but willing pupil will learn faster than one who has intellectual ability, but lacks the docile spirit. A seeker of wisdom in any department of knowledge must become in relation to it as a child before his teacher; he must acknowledge his ignorance, and be willing to submit to the conditions of acquiring knowledge. The same spirit is indispensable for the attainment of moral wisdom. Those who would learn of Christ must take His yoke; those who would know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, must be willing to do His will (Matthew 11:29; John 7:17).
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
The Greeks sought after wisdom, but Christ crucified was foolishness to them. They were already too wise to admit of the preaching of the cross, and scorned a tent-maker who would inform them of new doctrines which had never entered into their own minds, and who would prove them by other methods than their favourite ones—eloquence and reasoning.—Lawson.
There are two descriptions of scorners. There are “scorners” of truth, from pride of intellect; and there are “scorners” of authority, from the pride of self-will. They are nearly allied, and they are frequently united. It is the former that is chiefly meant here, seeing the subject is knowledge rather than duty.—Wardlaw.
A page of Hebrew, what is it to a child? It is absolutely nothing. But the whole was easy to the Hebrew eye. “A scorner has sought wisdom.” Notice the past sense. Every scorner has done it. Take any impenitent man. We may be sure some day or other he has sought spiritual intelligence. But he has done it selfishly. Moreover, he has done it fitfully and feebly. He has groped. He has made a sort of blind man’s pass for knowledge, and has come back with the averment that there is no such thing. Light is simple, “easy;” literally, light as opposed to heavy; light is obvious; nothing can be more so; but then, as the inspired man advises us, it is only “easy” to the “discerning,” or “understanding,” man.—Miller.
It is not by a one-sided action of the thinking power, but only by undivided consecration of the whole nature to God, which therefore involves, above all other things, a right relation of the spiritual nature to Him, that true knowledge in Divine things can be attained. The wise man, however, who has found the true beginning of wisdom, in bowing his inmost will before the Divine, not as something to be mastered by the understanding, but as something to be simply sought as a grace by the renunciation of the very self; he can easily on this ground, which God’s own power makes productive, attain a rich development of the understanding.—Elster.
Wisdom estrangeth herself from the scorner, as a gentlewoman hideth herself from a suitor whom she fancieth not.… As a loving spouse, when he cometh to the door, whom she affecteth, will show herself to him and run to meet him, so the grace of God’s spirit offereth itself, and draweth near unto the humble and modest.—Muffet.
By knowledge we may understand, not the knowledge of the letter floating in the brain, and flowing even at the tongue’s end (which, indeed, is not worth the name of knowledge); but the true understanding of the word taught by the Spirit, which entereth into the heart, and worketh on the affections, frameth to obedience, and assureth of everlasting life. This, indeed, is healthful knowledge, which the scorners, though they seek, shall never obtain. And hereunto doth our Saviour give witness, when He saith: “Many shall seek to enter in, and cannot.”—Greenham.
The finding of wisdom is that which needeth help from others. More eyes than the eyes of one are requisite unto it. And, therefore, a scorner, who seeketh it with scorning of another’s help; yea, who scorneth not only the help of man, but of God also, how can he ever find it? If it be offered to him by another, he will not accept it, and if he seek it never so much in his own ways he shall not obtain it. It is, says Clemens Alexandrinus, to draw out threads and to spin nothing; and, therefore, whensoever he shall stand in need of it, he shall not find it, for wisdom and a scorner shall never meet. But to him that understandeth his own defects and infirmities, to him that understandeth how to make use of other men’s abilities, and that in the seeking of wisdom, the assistance of God is chiefly to be sought, to him it is a short course to come to it; to him it is an easy matter to obtain it.—Jermin.
It is the constant profession of those who read the Bible that they are seeking truth. Their likeness is taken here from life. They seek wisdom, but do not find it. They want the first qualification of a philosopher, a humble and teachable spirit. There is a race of men among us at the present day who scorn bitterly against faith’s meek submission to God’s revealed will. The divinity, they say, is in every man; which means that every man is a god unto himself. It is, in its essence, a reproduction of the oldest rebellion. A creature discontented with the place which his Maker has given him strives to make himself a god. If men really were independent beings, it would be right to assert and proclaim their independence; but as matters really stand, this desperate kicking against authority becomes the exposure of weakness, and the punishment of pride. We are not our own cause and our own end; we are not our own lords. We are in the hands of our Maker, and under the law of our Judge. Our only safety lies in submission to the rightful authority and obedience to the true law. The problem for man is, not to reject all masters, but to accept the rightful one.… In these days, when the pendulum is often seen swinging from scepticism over to superstition, and from superstition back to scepticism again, we would do well to remember that there is truth between these extremes, and that in truth alone lies safety for all the interests of men.… I see two men near each other prostrate on the ground and bleeding, while one man stands between them, with serenest aspect looking to the skies. Who and what are these? The two prostrate forms are superstition and unbelief. Superstition bowed down to worship his idol, and cut his flesh with stones to atone for his soul’s sin. Unbelief scorned to be confined, like an inferior creature, to the earth, and was ever leaping up in the hope of standing on the stars. Exhausted by his efforts he fell, and the fall bruised him, so that he lay as low as the neighbour whom he despised. He who stands between them neither bowed himself to the ground, nor attempted to scale the heavens. He neither degraded himself beneath a man’s place, nor attempted to raise himself above it. He abode on earth, but he stood erect there. He did not proudly profess to be, but meekly sought to find God. This man understands his place, and feels his need; to him, therefore, knowledge is easy. To him that hath shall be given. He has the beginning of wisdom, and he will reach in good time its glad consummation. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom.”—Arnot.
There are four things that particularly unfit a man for such a task (the finding of wisdom), viz., a very proud, or a very suspicious temper, false wit or sensuality. The two last generally belong to the man whom we call a scorner, the two first are essential to him and inseparable from him.… Pride makes a man seem sufficient in his own eyes for all manner of speculations and inquiries, and hence it comes that he, not being duly qualified for every search, is fain to take up with light and superficial accounts of things, and then, what he wants in true knowledge, to make up in downright assurance. By consequence it gives him just enough understanding to raise an objection, but not enough to lay it; which, as it is the most despicable, so it is also the most dangerous state of mind a man can be in. He that is but half a philosopher is in danger of being an atheist; a half physician is apt to turn empiric. In all matters of speculation or practice, he that knows but little of them, and is very confident of his own strength, is more out of the way of true knowledge than if he knew nothing at all. And in this character there is always a strange and unreasonable suspicion, by which he doubts everything he hears, and distrusts every man he converses with. He is so afraid of having his understanding imposed upon in matters of faith that he stands aloof from all propositions of that kind, whether true or false. Which is, as if a man should refuse to receive any money because there is a great deal of counterfeit; or resolve not to make friendship with any man, because many are not to be trusted. A third part of a scorner’s character is a false wit, a way of ridiculing arguments instead of confuting them, and a fourth is sensuality. That this, too, does for the most part accompany a contempt of religion, I appeal to the observation and experience of every man.—Bp. Atterbury.
He seeks it as a coward seeks his adversary, with a hope that he shall not find him; or as a man seeks his false coin, which he hath no joy to look upon. “What is truth?” said Pilate in a jeer to Christ, but stayed not the answer. “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” said the carnal Capernaites (John 6:52), and away they went—who, if they had stayed out the sermon, might have been satisfied on the point.… He that comes to the fountain to fill his pitcher must first wash it, and then put the mouth of it downwards to take up water. So he that would have heavenly knowledge must first quit his heart of corrupt affections and high conceits, and then humble himself at God’s feet, “everyone to receive His words” (Deuteronomy 33:3).—Trapp.